The Hunger Games Was Almost Too Good

The Hunger Games was good; almost too good.

Let me explain.

Lionsgate's film adaptation of the Suzanne Collins book was spot on!  The producers should be congratulated for matching the novel's tone so well.  Every characters was portrayed exactly how I imagined them from reading the story.  Everything was perfect, which is the one problem with this movie.

Don't get me wrong, I loved it!!  The acting, cinematography, writing and directing were all fantastic! It's just that, if you had read the book, there were really no surprises.  I usually complain that filmmakers take too much liberty when converting something from the written page to celluloid, but in the case of The Hunger Games they could have done a little more. 

To us the old "it's not you, it's me" cliché; maybe I'm the problem.  It is possible that I need to stop reading books that eventually get made into movies.  Case in point; the last film I saw was John Carter.  Hardly knew anything of the story and enjoyed it immensely!   

Or, I need a book and movie buffer zone.  I did just finish The Hunger Games a couple weeks ago, so a bigger grace period between novel-reading and movie-going possibly needs to be implemented.

One final possibility is that I should start watching more bad movies, which almost never happens with me.  That way, when a "better" film like The Hunger Games comes around it really stands out.

Again, to be clear, this movie is just about perfect, except for, it's maybe too perfect? 

By the way, I really hope Jennifer Lawrence gets nominated for a ton of awards for playing such a strong female role in Katniss Everdeen.  And that Hollywood finally wakes up and realizes that moviegoers like to see heroic female characters such as this.

So, in conclusion; go see The Hunger Games!  It's exactly the movie you were expecting, if you've read the novel.  For those who haven't, you may like it even more.

Before You See 'John Carter'

I've been looking forward to seeing Disney's film adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story of John Carter for a long time!  As the release day got closer I kept on seeing stories about how the movie was tracking negatively and that it might be a complete failure.  But there were also positive signs, including  reviews about how good the film was.

Now, after finally seeing John Carter I'm happy to report that those in the later camp were right!  It was really a great movie but, before you see it, here's a few things to know.

Keep in mind that I've not read any of the Barsoom series of novels or knew much about the story going into the film. If you want to enjoy it as much as I did, do the following.

Suspend all disbelief.


Forget what you know about science or anything you've ever learned about Mars.  Accept the fact that there is life on the red planet (Barsoom,) and that humans have super strength and abilities more than he or she would on Mars, given the gravitational conditions.

Enjoy the ride.


Buckle up, make sure your hands are inside the vehicle at all times and don't forget to drink the magic water that allows you to understand the languages spoken on Mars.  What I did was accept everything that was presented to me as fact and just enjoy the ride.  The less analysis you do, the better off you'll be.

It's a fantasy.

The filmmakers were smart for not getting too bogged down in details or technobable.  I think if you were to try to explain every little thing it would ruin the magic. And that's why I'm not calling John Carter a science fiction.  It's a fantasy.

Reasons I like the movie.


Okay, now the specific things that I liked about John Carter...

- It was shot beautifully!  From real life sets to the computer generated kind everything just looked stunning.  I even liked the look of the 3D, which it was converted to.

- It was funny!  You wouldn't think it, judging from all of the "action" trailers of Taylor Kitsch fighting the baddies but there were a lot of humorous moments in John Carter.  And, not funny ha, ha either, or pratfalls but comedy that just felt natural.  The characters and actors seemed to have a really good chemistry.

One of my favorite parts in the movie was early on when the Union Colonel (played by Bryan Cranston), was trying to  get the former Confederate Captain Carter to work for the Army.  John kept on escaping, which was presented in a quick series of cut takes.

I was also very impressed with Taylor Kitsch too.  I've been a fan of his for a while from his time on Friday Night Lights and this role really cements him as an action star of the future.

And last but not least, the character of Dejah Thoris (Princess of Helium) played by Lynn Collins was a strong female protagonist who was not only beautiful but also smart (a scientist.)  She is a really good role model for young girls going to see this movie.

So take with you what I wrote here to John Carter!  You'll be glad that you did.

Retro Robots

So, I thought it would be a cool thing to do kind of a follow-up blog to my last entry about retro rockets but this time post some pictures of retro robots.

I think they are equally as cool love the nostalgic feel.  When the singularity finally comes, I for one will welcome our retro robot overlords.

Startling Comics #49 from 1948

Art by Brian Despain

From Robots.net

Retro Rockets and Stuff

One of my favorite things in the whole wide world is retro looking rockets and stuff.  Basically art created in the past depicting what they thought things in the future might look like, especially spaceships and robots.  This post is a collection a few images that I found online.

From vintagefuture.tumblr.com

From darkroastedblend.com

From blog.smithsonianmag.com

From darkroastedblend.com