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Comment count is 27
Callamon - 2014-04-08

Looking at the footage this movie looks a lot more well made than The Hunger Games.

I found myself camping out in the desert for a month a couple of years ago and I had The Hunger Games loaded onto my phone. Those books are dark as fuck and the movies portray none of that.

This film actually seems to have a lot more character though. Probably gonna rent it.


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

To me the Hunger Games just sounds like the Richard Bachman novel 'The Running Man.' The movie captures some of that (it's a great movie, The Running Man, but it's another Arnold vehicle where he is obviously going to kick ass. I won't spoil the book or the movie but they're quite different.)

So I've been intrigued by Hunger Games; from what I can ascertain it plays off gender roles, like a frail young girl who isn't supposed to get anywhere rising to the top in a competition where the strongest man is supposed to win, which reminds me a lot more of Battle Royale than Running Man the movie.


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

..wait.. like anyone on poeTV hasn't seen The Running Man..


Callamon - 2014-04-08

Actually if you want to talk Steven King stories read The Long Walk.


Millard - 2014-04-08

I loved the irony of taking a series of books that are decently effective satires of American celebrity culture and conspicuous consumption and turning them into megabucks movies with Jennifer Lawrence walking the red carpet in dresses that cost more than a car.


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

Yeah it's from the same Bachman Books collection. I still have a US copy with 'Rage' in it.


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

for the record it's not something I'm proud of, owning that particular edition. It's like being proud of owning a snuff film and King was right to take it out completely. The other 3 books are great though.


Nominal - 2014-04-08

Never read the books, but the first movie was fuck awful. Katniss never really actually did anything or directly killed anyone. She drops a killer wasp nest on the ground, non-fatally shoots another contestant so that he falls into killer dogs, then...decides to kiss a boy. The end.

I was curious about the books so I did some digging and found this great article.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/11/hunger_games_catching_f ire_bad.html

Basically it sums how phoney two major aspects of the story are, that it's a liberating trend of proactive women characters, and the protagonist is a defiant agent of justice. The story is way more about her trying on all sorts of fancy dresses at formal events than it is about badass ruthless gladiatorial killing, WHICH SHE NEVER DOES. The story pussies out worse than Dexter when it comes to absolving the main character of any responsibility in the deaths. Katniss never does anything directly, just piggybacks on the actions of men charmed into helping her by her grace and beauty, the exact opposite of what everyone is hailing this series for. As far as her defiant morals, the bravest act of resistance would be to not play the games at all. Instead, she goes along with them, giving the regime the riveting TV drama it wants, but privately snubs and scowls at the president so she's a hero?

In that regard, it comes off as Twilight where there's a female protagonist passively sitting in the center of violence while being doted on by a hunky beefcake guy and wispy fay guy while everyone else does the heavy lifting on her behalf. I guess at least Hunger Games throws in some social satire, but the protagonist is the least praise-worthy thing about it.


oddeye - 2014-04-08

Lol @ you guys. Hunger Games is for children, just like this can of cockshit. "Dark as fuck" I think you mean "Shit as fuck".


Hooker - 2014-04-08

Why go camping if you're going to bring your phone?


oddeye - 2014-04-08

Speaking of which, how did you keep your phone charged for a month in the desert?


SteamPoweredKleenex - 2014-04-08

I've not seen the Hunger Games movies, but the books ARE dark as fuck. It's making poor kids from 4th-world areas of a post-apoc America into reality TV celebrities and then having them murder each other until there's one left. I haven't seen the films, but an 8-year-old girl dies on the end of a spear in the first novel. In fact, gruesome deaths seem just fine for YA books, but no sex. I guess they have the same standards as the CW network. Anyway, there's even some political commentary and a more satisfying ending than most of the teen-apocalypse genre, though it wasn't terribly detailed enough (in that it was another "kill the tyrant and solve every problem by magic" ending).

I've not read "Divergent," but its premise seems to be "make a Hunger Games cash-in by creating a Judge Dredd society based on cliques in high school." Meh.


Callamon - 2014-04-08

I had several oversized batteries that kept me good for a week at a time and we made trips into town.

Have you actually red the books oddeye? Spoiler Alert:







Everyone she loves dies or leaves her and she spends the rest of her days a PTSD wreck who feels like she has lived a lie.


oddeye - 2014-04-08

Maybe I should read the hunger games if it's so deep and dark and all. I'll admit I may have been too hasty and overreacted because of the market they are aimed at.

If I do find them not of my taste I can always read something aimed at an older audience like Dora the Explorer with it's dark social commentary or the deep and chilling Llama Llama series.


Nominal - 2014-04-09

I'm not claiming Hunger Games is riveting distopia fiction on par with Orwell or Yevgeny, but it's worth discussing its merits or lack thereof as a pop culture phenomenon. Is it a sign that mainstream entertainment is getting smarter with satire that doesn't pull punches, or is the public even dumber for embracing something with the illusion of being subversive? That's an interesting discussion worth having, but no there always has to be the boring nerd claiming he's better than other nerds in the laziest way possible. Jesus christ this site has gone down the toilet with that this past week.

Kleenex, the movie whitewashed everything. No deaths are shown. The opening of the games where half the kids are slaughtered trying to rush the supplies? Shakey cam obscuring everything to a point that the Jason Bourne movies would ask to tone it down. If I recall, the little girl dies off camera and they just find her body. The wasps kill people in a manner tamer than the CGI deaths of Indiana Jones 4. The final contestant is killed by Katniss shooting an arrow into his backpack or something so that he falls into a pack of wolves and is killed by them off camera.


Nominal - 2014-04-09

Sorry, Orwell and Zamyatin.


oswaldtheluckyrabbit - 2014-04-08

I just love that these books that flatter teenagers that their idiotic little cliques and dramas are the equivalent of dystopian apocalypse are becoming so popular


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

I don't really mind it; Infinite Jest (my username's based on a drink I made up at a place I bartended at and not necessarily the novel) is essentially that. I could see it turning into a really shitty movie with the gigantic hamsters playing a larger role, and Eschaton played out to its logical conclusion, not that I'd want to ever, ever see that.


Oscar Wildcat - 2014-04-08

We laugh at geocentrism, but doesn't every teenager believe they are the center of the universe?


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

goddamnit, now I'm thinking of some show like Copernicus: The High School Years. Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell is still the principal :(


infinite zest - 2014-04-08

The world revolves around Mr Belding and you know it, Coppy! DETENTION!


Nominal - 2014-04-08

Is that so different from Dangerous Liaisons?


Sexy Duck Cop - 2014-04-08

Let teenagers have their moment. One day they will be 22, and the ensuing ragnarok of the ego can only be survived if their sense of self has been artificially inflated beforehand.


ashtar. - 2014-04-08

Seriously, it's not that hard to know you're in a movie.
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=117132


oddeye - 2014-04-08

This is like that other movie Bowfinger where Eddie Murphy, played by Eddie Murphy, doesn't know he's in a movie that is being filmed around him.


Azmo23 - 2014-04-08

people will say this girl is some stunning paragon of beauty like they do with the exceptionally plain jennifer lawrence.
this movie looks awful, i went ahead and read the book (pamphlet? so short) and it is shockingly bad


oddeye - 2014-04-08

No it's not dude! It's another highbrow, grim and dark exposé into the trembling heart and cloudiness of the modern self.
Aimed at 12 year old girls.


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