The Hunger Games

EDIT: I apparently assumed y'all have read/seen the book/movie and that was lazy on my part so here comes the spoiler Alert synopsis of The Hunger Games so you can decipher what I wrote bellow. SPOILER ALERTS! (fer seriousness)

 TL;DR? The movie isn't 'great' but it's not awful. it's far to long for the content it covers but everyone in the film does their level best to turn in a watchable performance. If I were to give it a star rating I would give it some stars. which is more than none and less than some more stars and way less than ALL THE STARS!.

Katniss is this girl who live in future 'merka. where there are twelve districts all slaving away in service to the 'capitol'. Katniss lives in district twelve which is coal country, everything there is gray/black. She takes care of her sister, her sisters pain in the ass meat sack of a pet cat, and her mom who's basically tuned out sense her husband died. Katniss is a super good bow hunter but the only place she can hunt is in the woods beyond the very rarely turned on electric fence boundaries of district twelve. Her best buddy Gale is also a super good trap hunter and together they feed their families and try to make ends meet. Sounds pretty lower middle class except this world has a terrible yearly ritual of torture called The Hunger Games. Where each district offers up a boy and a girl to fight to the death on television and its against the law to NOT watch. Katniss' little sister gets called up and Katniss volunteers instead, then Peta is the boy and they get wisked away to the capitol on a super fast spacetrain and Haymitch (A past district 12 winner) is all "you guys suck...like a lot.) and Katniss stares at things cause well shes kinda in, shock I guess. Anywho they go to the capitol which is sorta like hot topic but fifty years from now when all the cool kids are old and tired. Haymitch tells Katniss and Peta to make people like them if they want to win the other kids range from shitty to awesome and we see freaky peoples of all colors and styles, then Lenny Kravitz has gold eye shadow and dresses Katniss in flammable material and they become friends and he's too cool for words. Then the kids ride chariots cause chariots are cool now! and Stanly Tucci is awesome and his hair is sorta blue and kind of creepy. And there's training and Peta throws a big rock type metal ball thing to intimidate the other kids and Rue is doing her Spiderman thing (Rue is from district 11, the 'grains' district) and finally the kids get rated for their lethality and potential to sell action figures and everyone is shocked because Katniss pulled a William Tell and that got her an 11 out of 12 so her action figure will have bow shooting action and accessories! Then the kids get flown to the Hunger Games site and put in their own special launching tubes which put them near the cornocopia and there's all kinds of supplies and kids start killing each other and Katniss runs away with a sack of slightly useful supplies and sleeps in trees, gets hunted by the cool kids, which include Peta (sadness) and they Rue's in another tree cause she's spiderman and points out these geneticly mutated bees called tracker jackers and Katniss drops them on the cool kids and some of them die and Katniss goes a bit wonky in the head cause she got stung and that's super poisonous and Rue takes care of her during her nightmare coma time and their friends now and have a tea party that includes blowing up the popular kids camp full of supplies and food, but Rue dies cause this kid spears her in the chest but Katniss is all "bitches aint making this death cheap! NO SIR!" so she sings and plants flowers around Rue's body and District 11 see's this on the TV and is all "YEAH WE'RE GONNA BURN THIS MUTHER DOWN! *&&^% YOUR COUCH!" and then the cyborgs from THX 1138 kill all of them :( So Katniss finds Peta who's apparently a T-1000 cause he's super good at morphing into other things (He painted himself to look like a flat river rock...it's only slightly unbelieveable.) And they have a moment in cave with the hugging and some kissing and they get a gift from the audience to keep Peta alive but its some soup which is pretty much a way for Haymitch to say "play it up you slut." and they have a conversation about their lives cause well there are fans watching, and then theres an announcement that there are special treats for everyone and Katniss goes to get the stuff to keep peta alive and the other kid from district 11 saves Katniss' life by killing knife girl. The last few kids get killed off and then there's dog things that chase Peta, Katniss and Kato back to the Cornocopia and Peta and Katniss think that they could both with cause dismebodied annoucner voice said they could both with, Kato gets eaten by the dogs but slowly and Katniss offs him with an arrow out of mercy and the disembodied voice is all "sike one of you must kill the other." so Katniss is like "*&^% this game and tells Peta they should both eat killerdeth berries and then the disembodied voice is all "double sike you both win #1 sexy victory dance time! They get picked up, theres post interviews and they get sent home, the guy who was in charge of the game controls is killed by the president of the central district and Peta and Katniss return home as heroes but Gale is all sad cause he saw them make kissy face on the TV....THE (TO BE CONTINUED) END.

First things first. I read the books, all three of them. Didn't hate the first two at all. But Suzanne Collins is a sadist. Pure and simple, her narrative practically sleeps through the first half until people start killing each other and all of a sudden her prose comes alive and you can practically tell that her word count per day went through the roof. Her story is about the kids killing each other, everything else was fluff her publishers demanded so they could sell this as "YA Sci-Fi".

So if the killing of children is what works in her books then why would they make a movie about it? Because the fluff garbage about the future society and districts actually sort of works, she accidentally built an interesting world with some depth, and I say accidentally because where she could have delved into the psychological effects of using death and destruction to shape a society through fear and totalitarian control over decades she doesn't really care about that because she wants to tell a story about kids killing each other for cash and prizes. She fails on almost every level to develop her world of perversion and sickness beyond the basic metaphors she needs to let everyone know that anyone who would enjoy kids killing each other for any reason is a soulless sadist. which is what her stories about so there is a HUGE amount of Irony in the books that we never really touch on or inspect. Which is great because we elevate that irony to near epic levels for the movie.

We all just watched a movie about kids killing each other for the benefit of some twisted future society, we're supposed to feel joy for the heroes and shame and anger for the corrupted society and those who enjoy its fruits, but here's the twist, WE JUST WATCHED IT ALL HAPPEN. The film makers realized this conundrum and in order to separate the audience from ever putting two and two together that they are by association part of the sickness we took a rated R story and brought it down to PG through the magic of really, really, REALLY shitty camera work. half the time I couldn't tell if the camera guys were bored or they tagged Michael J. Fox in to run the camera. See you can't feel revulsion for people who would willingly watch the forced murder of innocent children (which is you the viewer. You should be revolted by your own willingness to see this) if you cant see any god damn thing except for this tree, and some grass and look rocks and a river and a hey a pretty girl running away from fire, root for her!!!

Make no mistake, there are dark, horrible questions in the murky parts of Hunger Games, but this movie is about a half assed love triangle, and beating the odds, we won't ask why a society of so many would allow them selves to be tortured by so few. Or what kind of society lives for watching children kill each other on national television. No we will only focus on the Girl on fire, and Rue, poor poor Rue, and the evil Capitol district with their strange perversions of fashion and morals.

I have already mentioned the camera work being awful and it comes back again and again, they should be ashamed. The pacing is pretty awful too, and the horrible failure to pay attention to detail destroys almost every bit of hard work the cast did to develop what little character they were given to work with. Elizabeth Banks killed it, same with Stanly Tucci, and Woody Harrelson. Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence did a workable job with what little they were given to build on but every few minutes something happened that made me cringe. Katniss waits far to long to save her sister by volunteering for tribute, its supposed to make you fear for the little girl but Katniss needed to be right in there like a reflex action and it just drags on for what feels like forever, it hurts her character because they focus on the sister and not on Katniss' reaction to the event so you don't know where her head is at because you can't see her face, by the time she steps up you start to wonder if she gives a shit about her family at all. Not to mention that you loose all the thinking that she did in the book, and they don't ever once try and connect you with her emotionally other than showing her from these half assed quarter shots where she stares at random shit, this does NOTHING to relay her internal voice or emotional turmoil, for that we either need to see her wrestle with things in her eyes, her mind or with OTHER PEOPLE. Also seeing them approach the food like they are starving would have been nice. I believed the book being called the Hunger Games, the movie should have been called "Skipped Lunch" Games.

The fire on Katniss and Peta was nice but pretty lazy on the CG side, felt very slap dash quit your bitching we save quality FX for oscar contenders!!!

The books are just as guilty of making Katniss passive and boring but I honesty feel like of all the things they could have fixed for the movie making her more proactive or getting her out of her own damned head was something that NEEDED to happen, She has NO character arc, she makes plenty of decisions but the world just kind of happens around her nothing in her changes in this first book at all and the same thing happens for the movie, on every level Peta is a more interesting character, Rue is a more interesting character, Katniss is basically the first Hipster hero, she's too cool to every let any of this shit change her for either better or worse. I didn't care about her at all until WELL into the third book and by then I hated the turn of events the author had chosen because the whole story is about sadistically hurting the readers as much as possible. And the movie is so antiseptic compared to the book that its basically a different story, there's almost none of the inherent soullessness of the capitol in the game, the wolves lack the human faces, the violence is shakey cam'd away, we get more of Haymitch's politicking but other than that the capitol feels very much like a reject city from the Star Wars Prequels and I cannot for the life of me muster any hatred or like for it at all.

Why did the kids let Peta behind them while hunting Katniss? He could have taken out the back two before the front two knew what was up, the third girl dead before Kato can turn and Peta and Kato die together. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY SLEEP NEAR HIM, stupid idiot should have slit all their throats nice and quiet, these moments ruin Peta for me, I don't understand why they showed them sleeping or wandering around as a group with Peta, in the books you assume they don't trust him and the author NEVER gives you reason to doubt that, but Peta had NUMEROUS chances to kill these idiots of almost or completely scott free.

LOVED the district 11 response to Rue, which was the ONLY part of her death I gave a crap about at all in this, all the parts from the book were in the movie but they were disconnected and given no chance to breathe so there was no pain, no emotion to it, but the district 11 response was AWESOME. Although a dangerous choice as a film maker because I wanted to stay there and follow that story more thani wanted to go back to Katniss. This was building on a series of events and people were making active decisions based on a situation and that is interesting, also they aren't the main character so there are lives at stake and I VERY QUICKLY care about these people with out even knowing a single one of them or hearing ANY of them speak. But no back to the main storyline.

The Cornucopia looks like the EMP building got an erection, and that's not what I would call good design. The dogs are wasted, the whole sadistic horror of the end is just PG'd away. Did I miss something or did the black guy from 11 never get killed? Did they just sort of  'screw it no one really cares' a character away? YAY they win cause apparently a TV show about kids fighting to the death is only acceptable if someone lives through the whole mess, its just barbaric if EVERYONE dies!

Stanly Tucci thank you for making this somewhat watch able, you are quite the performer sir. And shove in one more pathetic attempt at that pointless love triangle before the credits and we're out!

Credit where credit is due

I just got back from Norwescon 36. Great event and I know because I helped put it together. Had some great discussions on film and narrative structure, race representations in the media, and gender relations as represented by fiction aimed at both children and adults. And there was one thing that I heard several times this weekend and that I have been hearing for years now, from both content producers and content consumers alike: if there is change to be made in how content is made/presented and blame to be laid for why we still produce the most racist, sexist, backwards ignorant media around the world, it lies squarely on the shoulders of the content consumer. I have always and will always have a massively huge problem with that concept. So let’s take a look at why it's a truly horrible idea to blame the consumers instead of, and before the creators.

1...”If people didn't buy it, then the creators wouldn't have a market and they would be forced to make something else." To illustrate the reason why this idea is backwards and horribly broken, I present a metaphor: Let’s say in an urban area there is a drug dealer, and EVERYONE knows where the dealer lives, what the dealer does and who the dealer sells too. The cops have enough evidence to arrest and charge the dealer but they figure that by arresting and charging the dealers client base the dealer will be forced out of business and have to rely on his accounting degree. You wouldn't accept that as a functional form of crime prevention, so why are you accepting it as a functional way of changing content creation? It's because you’re lazy and, yes. It’s insulting, but it’s also true. You might not even realize just how lazy you are and it’s because you've lived your whole life agreeing to a bargain you never knew you had a chance to turn down.

2. "If the Consumers would just pay more attention to independent cinema and projects on the internet then they would find content that the mainstream media would never have the balls to air." This is sort of like saying that if everyone just started their own gardens and raising their own cattle, then McDonalds would have no choice but to make healthier food to stay in business. We each have our own little lives and only so many hours in a day. I love media, and the internet is my often very diverse and very scary holy ground, but even I sometimes just want to come home, turn on How I Met Your Mother and zone out for a few hours. We live in a world that is built on an infrastructure that is, by today's standards, ancient; and while, yes there are some things that each of us can do to live healthier and more conscientious lives, that often takes more energy and more time away from things like our families, our bills, our homes, our jobs, and all the other little contracts that we have entered into that make our world go round. Yes, we as consumers need to be more aware of alternatives, but the alternatives also need to be more aware of consumers. It feels like a victory just to get finished work on the internet, but if you don't have twenty minutes of sneaker ads every hour chances are your parents make up half your audience. Yes, there are content producers on the web that break this mold, but you are talking about a hand full of people who got lucky on Kick starter and are awfully lonely out there in the great big world of studio productions. For an example of this we all know that Veronica Mars got Kick started, but how many people have heard of The Gamers or Project London? Spend all the time you want seeking out new creative life and new cinematic civilizations, but it will be YEARS before anything you discover has the kind of distribution and word of mouth to equal to the staying power of even a crappy network show.

America is a consumer based society. We spend all our time and all our money on wanting and having things, from esoteric and ethereal things like love and college degrees, to simple comforts like porn and shoes. We are consumers born and bred, and to then turn around and blame us for doing what we have been taught to do since birth is dishonest and insulting to people who work hard, and try to live decent lives and just want to get lost in a story for a little while. And when you consider the same issue from the point of view of a creator, it is just as insulting to assume that the only way a creator can learn to create something new and different is by having people ignore them or dismiss the work that they already have done. This is not only heart breaking to a class of people who work hard, but doesn't say much for our national intelligence level. When people ask “Why is our content so sexist, racist, classist, and ignorant?" I tell them that we, as Americans, will pay attention and money to an entertainment provider as long as they say things that make us feel better about who we are, why we are here, where we have been, and where we are going.

Which leads me to the points I always consider when thinking about this topic, and recently, about media in general.

1: There are things that consumers CAN do to make slow changes to the library of content offered up for them to consume. THINK about what you are seeing. Not endlessly and deeply, but at least a little. Ask yourself if Full House would have been as popular if the family was black (Family Matters), or if Lost would have been such a huge hit if the characters actually looked like normal people do when they don't shower for months on end and wear rags and live on a deserted island. Would you still watch How I Met Your Mother if Ted was gay? Would Breaking Bad be as big a hit if the main character were a man of Middle Eastern descent? You can learn a lot about yourself, your culture and your content if you just THINK about what you're seeing and why.

2: Create. Not all the time, and it doesn't need to be the center of your life, but make something of your own. It can be short stories, or paintings, or bird houses, or knitting, or whatever strikes your interest. We grew up being told by the media that only an infinitely small fraction of our country and planet are lucky/talented enough to create. And that is WRONG. What would the world be like if only the best birds sang? I'm not saying live your passion every day loud and proud. What I am saying is that, if you ever get the inkling to try something outside your normal set of skills/life experiences, TRY IT. Be creative. There are four hundred million plus people in the United States, and most of them think Wipeout and Jersey Shore are the height of American culture; but I guarantee you that we are ALL the silent majority, wondering when something we love will come along and capture our hearts and minds. And nothing ever will, at least not on the level that popular media needs it to happen to be considered a "financial success." There is no single story, no single TV show or movie, no single book or hobby that will interest all the people all the time. We, as a consumer base, MUST REALIZE THIS, because it’s the job of the financiers to make as much money as possible as often as possible, and it’s the job of the creators to create and the consumers to consume, and for a really, really long time the money guys have been looking for the biggest bang for their buck, the largest body count for the lowest cost, and it’s time for them to unleash the creators to make as much content as humanly possible. There never has been, and never will be, the show/book/movie/song/play/idea that captures the whole nation; but what there are is an infinite number or stories that will move SOMEONE and, once moved, they want to be moved again. Creativity is not supposed to be an atomic blast. It's a series of carpet bombs that blanket our hearts and minds, and anyone can make something that touches someone else in a meaningful way. All they have to do is follow through on the impulse to create.

There is a quote: "90 percent of everything is Crap." That quote has made my skin crawl, both as a creator and as a consumer, for most of my adult life because it’s a selfish, egocentric way of seeing someone else's hard work. I prefer "90 percent of everything is NOT FOR ME." These things do not happen magically. The movies that are made for the love of making movies are just as hard to make as the ones made for a paycheck, and someone out there was motivated enough to make them. Yes, the 'mainstream" is close-minded, sexist, racist, classist, and often completely soulless, but we as consumers are not at fault for decisions made by the corporate masses. Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of things out there to read, see, and listen to, but we as consumers are not at fault for not searching hard enough. We cannot stop consuming media, just like we can't hurt the oil companies by refusing to buy gas for twenty four hours. What we can do is add to the conversation, increase the noise level, counter program, distort the feed, question the system, and raise the level of discourse. Just because we are consumers does not mean we cannot create, and just because we create does not mean we must never consume. And most of all, just because we want to make a living from our work does not mean that we must first sell our souls. We are always, and will always be better than that.