Posted on 03/24/2012 4:50:45 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network
It seems a box office phenomenon is happening right now.
"The Hunger Games", from previews, seems to be setting all sorts of records this weekend.
Very captivating camera work, and a sort of 'blade runner' sort of theme it would seem.
“let me guess, women good men bad, women strong men weak... does that about cover it??? “
No. The strength of the women lies in skill (like bow hunting, survival aptitude, endurance, innovation). They aren’t numchuking dudes in hand to hand combat.
The strength of the men various from brute strength the strength of character.
There are strong men and weak men; strong women and weak women. Also, a refreshing combination of races that seems to neither pander nor indulge.
Good movie.
And Hollywood parodies itself throughout. The Hollywood elite types come across as the most ridiculously shallow buffoons you’ve ever seen.
“Woody Harrelson is one of the producers. “
Woody Harrelson is. . .AWESOME. . . in his pivotal role.
I could not believe how good he was.
Hate his politics. But it is a great movie.
Agreed. The movie is pro-individual liberty, anti-government control. That’s a good thing. If the lefty creators meant to infuse some more complicated message like right-wing government is bad but liberal government is good, they failed. The story is not that deep.
Plus the heroine is a hunter.
The leftist fear of government is the fear of concentrated power in the hands of somebody else. (As in, "It's not fascism when WE do it!")
The conservative fear of government is the fear of the corrupting effect of concentrated power in anybody's hands.
If I ever see the movie, I'll have to watch to see which of these it might be expressing.
I haven't seen the movie and have only just started the first book. It is interesting how many have mentioned that the book has been assigned as reading in schools, and some schools are making field trips for kids to see the movie.
With all the leftist propaganda that seems to be in schools now, I wonder what message school administrators think kids will get from the books and movie?
And since this is so popular among teens, what message are the teen readers getting from the books and movie? Can anyone provide comments they've heard from young people who've read the books and/or seen the movie?
Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!
Amazon has it on Amazon Prime - like Netflix.
bttt
I haven’t seen the movie yet (and I refuse to pay a ridiculous price for it ... matinee here I come), but I’m looking forward to it.
My son’s girlfriend lent me the books (after she had her Mom - a gradeschool teacher - read them). The books are young-adult - not recommended for kids younger than 13.
I’m surprised Hollywood stayed true (mostly) to the story.
It IS about overwhelming government power and an annual reminder that they control everyone. One person (Katniss) steps up to protect her younger sister by offering to substitute her in the games. Katniss has been breaking the “law” for years by hunting to keep her family fed.
In short - it’s about us.
I haven’t seen the movie yet (and I refuse to pay a ridiculous price for it ... matinee here I come), but I’m looking forward to it.
My son’s girlfriend lent me the books (after she had her Mom - a gradeschool teacher - read them). The books are young-adult - not recommended for kids younger than 13.
I’m surprised Hollywood stayed true (mostly) to the story.
It IS about overwhelming government power and an annual reminder that they control everyone. One person (Katniss) steps up to protect her younger sister by offering to substitute her in the games. Katniss has been breaking the “law” for years by hunting to keep her family fed.
In short - it’s about us.
Both are actors on the film, neither of them are producers for the film. The producer's list at imdb.com:
Produced by
Robin Bissell .... executive producer
Suzanne Collins .... executive producer
Chantal Feghali .... co-executive producer
Nina Jacobson .... producer
Jon Kilik .... producer
Aldric La’auli Porter .... co-producer
Louise Rosner .... executive producer
Bryan Unkeless .... co-producer
You’re right. I misread a credits list earlier. Harrelson and Kravitz are actors in it, not producers.
BTW, here is a review by the socialists over at Socialist Worker magazine:
http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/26/hope-and-the-hunger-games
Naturally they love it.
My husband and I went today with three boys, 15 and two 13-year-olds. All of us, except my husband, have read the series. Even my normally negative 15-year-old thought the movie was really good.
The books are about a tyrannical central government (called “The Capitol”) and the 12 (at one time 13) Districts that live under its thumb. It is about the struggle to survive under government oppression, and then the desire to live in freedom, and finally the courage to rise against this power. The series was riveting, though very disturbing and very graphic. I had to stop reading a couple times because it just became too much for me. The overall concept of pitting children against each other to fight to the death as punishment for a long-ago uprising was very upsetting to me, not just as a mother, but as a human. There was no sex and no profanity in the books. In fact, there was no mention of God, not a single utterance of His name. The movie strayed from that. There are a couple of “ohmygod”s, and there are a couple of hells and damns. That’s it.
Before I allowed my kids to see this movie, and also because I am a huge wimp when it comes to gore and yuck, I read a detailed review of the movie on unpluggedonline.com, and based on that review, we went today. And I am glad we did. Except for a couple of instances, the movie stayed pretty true to the first book, without wallowing in the grotesque.
As for anyone seeing this as some sort of Occupier fantasy, I just don’t see it. And if the subsequent movies don’t stray from the rest of the series, there will be talk of a Representative Republic as “there was before the Dark Days” as the ideal government. That doesn’t sound very lefty to me. My fear is that the bigguns in Hollywood are bristling at all the conservative buzz about this movie and will do everything they can to tweak the next movie to support their distorted worldview. And that will destroy it.
Oh, and for tenderhearts like me, I got blurry-eyed twice: At the reaping, and at *the scene* with Rue.
Yet Collins always paints a picture of a collective struggle--whether it's describing the way in which the districts can cut off the supply of their industry to the Capitol in order to really take a stance; or whether it's a collective symbol--a song, a mockingjay or a fire--that galvanizes the entire country against the 1 percent.Even as the trilogy nears its end, Katniss struggles with the question of what type of alternative is there. This isn't a book about a workers' revolution, but it is about revolution and class struggle. And Katniss is a sometimes conscious, yet often unconscious, revolutionary.
Hollywood is predictable as clockwork in its leftist ways. This movie should be called Occupy the Hunger Games.
*eyeroll*
"Im sure its meant as an allegory for war as well as class exploitation, but its both ridiculous and grotesque. Given that The Hunger Games provides us nothing about almost all of the other 22 children in the games, it feels like they get treated by the film much the same way they get treated by the ruling class as cannon fodder for their own purposes."
So a smart conservative commentator is seeing the same themes that are making the moonbats at Socialist Worker so giddy. This film is about war (i.e. it's anti war) and class exploitation. In other words, it is leftist to the hilt. Any conservatives who imagine this film is teaching a conservative message have been suckered.
Isn't one of the film's heroes a guy who designs the heroine's gowns? Doesn't he style them so they contain subversive political messages? And doesn't he get tortured to death by the one percenters for daring to oppose them?
So, yeah, you might be onto something there.
Yes, the fact that schools are assigning the book and bussing kids to see the film should be an immediate red flag. It seems clear to me that the anti-war, class struggle, and 99%/1% themes explain its popularity with the educrats.
Pretty anti government and more of a girl power movie. I liked it. The lines around the block and the full theaters are all I need to see to realize this will be bigger than most of the mega hits
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.