Catch Up Post: Tahoe and Easter | Thoughts on The Hunger Games Film

Apr 16, 2012 03:10

Last week was filled with lots of work-related meetings and a frenzy of spring cleaning. Now that I have some free time this week, I can finally breathe and catch up with my LJ posting and reading.

Regarding this Tahoe trip...it was a mad whirl of activities with the weekend just zooming by so fast. Unfortunately, there was no new snow so we nixed the skiing. :/ I did a lot of hiking and shopping, and I saw two movies, one of which was the highly anticipated The Hunger Games. I will be writing my review of that at the end of this post. It was a fun weekend and I'm glad we decided to go.

The Easter Sunday barbecue was a lot of work, but the guest enjoyed themselves. I'm so thankful that it didn't rain because I was able to utilize the large yard to hide all the goodies and my dad and I didn't have a hard time grilling the food. Although it was sunny, it was extremely cold and windy; we had to set up the outdoor heaters for the activities and have everyone eat inside. The hat contest is something new for me and I was very happy to see that many of the guests came to my parents' house wearing their outlandish headgear. The modeling contest was hilarious with everyone doing their best to make their hat stand out.

Menu

Appetizers: spinach and artichoke dip and shrimp cocktail. Main course: grilled chicken, steak, and assorted vegetables, Honey Baked Ham, bacon wrapped asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes. Dessert: build your own sundae bar and strawberries with whipped cream.
I've seen The Hunger Games three times since it opened. While I have a few issues with the film, I enjoyed it for the most part, and I think it is a satisfying adaptation of the book. Here are my thoughts:

[Spoilers for the film and book versions of The Hunger Games...]Spoilers for the film and book versions of The Hunger Games...

• The book version was so much more intense to me. I remember being spellbound by the heartbreaking emotional scenes, rich descriptions of the food, and the riveting arena action twists, but this rarely happened in the film. I felt sort of disengaged.

• *sigh* Speaking of food, it's called The Hunger Games for a specific reason. People in the districts are starving and the Capitol controls them with food. Food is a huge part of the book, but it seemed to be a mere footnote in the film. The film characters were not starving. They could have done more with make up to project the abject despair and raging hunger of desperate people. The characters looked too healthy.

• I was so disappointed with Rue's death scene, which I thought was one of the most pivotal and poignant moments in the book. It is one of my favorite book scenes and I felt the film makers didn't spend enough time with it. Rue and Katniss formed a strong emotional connection and bond in the short time they were allies in the arena. As book!Katniss mentioned, being with Rue gave her a sense of home and family. The movie scene failed to capture the intensity and they changed a lot of it. Despite all off this, both actresses did an amazing job with the material they were given. I loved both of them and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson)

• The Katniss/Peeta scene with the berries was also pretty disappointing. It lacked emotional impact and the film makers changed several key components. I absolutely hated that they let Katniss trust Peeta wholeheartedly because book!Katniss really struggled really hard to trust anyone. They should have shown her questioning Peeta's motives and they should have shown her poised to shoot him when he reached for his knife (to drop it, but she didn't know that). I don't know how they are going to spin the Catching Fire sequel, but in the book, Katniss struggles with the love story. The star crossed lovers survived, but now they have to continue the saga when they go home. Peeta genuinely loves Katniss; she is pretending because it keeps them alive. In the film, it looks like she is in love with Peeta.

• Did the extras rehearse, or were they given adequate direction? I saw several annoying errors. The one with District 12's reaping and the girl in the front who couldn't figure out how to give a proper salute (the kiss and wave) was particularly distracting. She first kissed one hand, paused because she made a mistake with which hand to use, and then tried to fix it quickly by kissing the fingers on the other hand. It didn't work.

• Effie and Haymitch were awesome and had a few scene stealing moments, and I think Prim was great. I love her expressive her face; you have a real sense of her pain and sorrow.

• I loathed the jerky camera movements. I realize that this was done for artistic and cinematic reasons, but it was annoying as hell.

• When all is said and done, I love the book and I love the movie as well. Kudos to the cast and film makers.

family, rl 12, books, vacation 12, movie musings, celebrations 12, movies, trips 12

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