The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy. It picks up one year after Katniss Everdeen has survived her ordeal in the last-man-standing battle royale of the first movie. Her willingness to sacrifice herself rather than give in to the rules of the game have given people hope that frightens President Snow. She has become too iconic for her own good, and must be eliminated.

What did you think of Catching Fire?

Nick:  Vast improvement over the original, and maybe the first movie that I enjoyed more than the book. The film gives a greater depth to the world outside the actual events of the Hunger Games, which is more terrifying to me than the games themselves. The Hunger Game in this film is more enjoyable as you don’t have a director who uses his technology to sap every motion out of every scene when the plot itself is daunting enough. When the character that reminds Katniss of her sister dies in the first film there’s this over-long scene of her freaking out while the score is blaring and the diegetic sound is muted. There are many instances of over-dramatic techniques applied by Gary Ross (The Hunger Games), a director I love compared to Francis Lawrence (Catching Fire), a director I abhor as he made my least favorite book adaptation of all time with I Am Legend.

Dustin: I liked the world of the movies as well. Both movies did a good job setting up the dystopian near future of America. This movie went more into that than the first did, and I really liked this movie up until the Hunger Games part, where they might as well have said, “Here we go again!” The tone leading up to the games this time around is a bit more depressing, but I didn’t like the “Been there, seen that,” feeling I got during the games. (Exacerbated by the feeling that I was seeing it for the third time, having seen Battle Royale long before.)

Nick: Battle Royale is a movie that’s so enjoyable it annoyed me when these books first came into the limelight. Suzanne Collins said she had never heard of the graphic novels nor the movie before she had crafted her stories.

Dustin: I find that very hard to believe. Just writing in the genre, she should have come across it. But the fact that they both take place in a dystopian near-future, feature kids participating in a televised fight to the death with rules to the game, plot points, overall structure and ending, I feel like The Hunger Games was blatantly plagiarized.

In Battle Royale there was a rule where certain sectors would become inhospitable at a certain hour. That rule was missing from the first movie, but comes in here. And by the time she wrote the second book, she should have been aware of Battle Royale, even if she supposedly hadn’t heard of it when she wrote the first one.

Nick: One thing about the series that is bothersome is the love triangle. In general, I’m not a fan, but depending on the story it can be utilized to great strengths. While in a story such as the Hunger Games it seems so trivial compared to what they face from the outside world. When so much screen time is taken to set up the romantic entanglements it takes me out of the story the creators are trying to craft.

Dustin: I agree the love triangle was an unnecessary element. So much is going on, it’s not needed. And it kind of gave me a Twilight vibe. Two hunky guys competing for the female protagonist, while coming off as puritanical and platonic.

Nick: It’s also so obvious in the sense that when Katniss volunteers and then Peeta is called why didn’t Gale just volunteer in his stead. It would make more sense if the man was chosen first, but that’s not the case, and the way Gale is crafted he could have volunteered, so in my eyes it’s his own fault when Katniss goes for Peeta. Totes Team Peeta! Just kidding, they should all die.

Dustin: This movie, up until the Hunger Games started back up, was a very good sequel and continuation of the first movie. A lot of little touches were appreciated. For example, in the first movie, Peeta tosses a loaf of bread to Katniss when she’s stuck out in the rain for some reason. The scene was shown several times to establish their relationship. At the beginning of this movie, Peeta is cutting bread and offers some to Katniss, but she refuses, which has a foreshadowing feel to it, but is subtle.

Nick: Is it foreshadowing or a reference to how she now has so much money and food that she doesn’t need handouts anymore? By the way, they never mention in either movie the winning district gets food if their Champion wins, which is why its called the “Hunger Games.”  

Dustin: There was a line in the first movie where Katniss tells her sister, “Don’t accept their food.” I thought maybe the more food rations you get, the more times your name is entered into the Hunger Games drawing and the better your chances of getting picked. But that was something I connected in my head. The movie shouldn’t make its audience work like that. I have a feeling the filmmakers took for granted how popular the books were and assumed the audience already understood certain things.

Nick: You thought the dystopia was well crafted in the original and yet you have this complaint. In the original, all the characters in the dystopia weren’t well explained beyond Seneca Crane. Effie Trinket and President Snow (Chancellor, Supreme Leader, Fuhrer) are much more fleshed out and given a chance to show their wonderful characters, as well as newcomers Jena Malone (Johanna), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Plutarch), Jeffrey Wright (Beetee) and Amanda Plummer (Wiress).

Dustin: I didn’t really question the Hunger Games title until you brought it up just now. I just thought I had it figured out and moved on with my life. I did think the dystopia was well done in both films. You had the clueless elites in the Capitol who binged and purged while people in the Districts were starving. They were wealthy enough to have the luxury of wasting their lives on celebrity worship. The commentators for the games were creepily similar to sports commentators before NFL games today, how they examine the minutiae of players’ performances, and it all looks so ridiculous juxtaposed to people slaving away in coal mines and eating squirrels and soggy bread.

Nick: But they never expand or grow. There are more people and more scenes explored in the Capitol in the new movie, and gives each character a voice. Even Stanley Tucci gets to have a negative reaction when the contestants all hold hands. That gives him more character because now we know he believes in the regime and is afraid of what Snow’s reaction to the gesture will be.

There were a few scenes of overdoing the drama. Like the very last shot when Katniss is told some dire news and she looks into the camera, or maybe one of the first scenes where she has an episode of PTSD when she kills an animal, even though she had been killing animals all day she freaked out because now it’s finally getting to her.

Dustin: I actually thought the PTSD was well done, having grown up with someone who had the occasional ‘Nam flashback, it rang true to me. I remember my dad opening a canister of Pillsbury biscuits, and when it popped, he threw the canister, jumped back five feet, screamed and covered his ears. It reminded him too much of a grenade.

There were some things set up in both movies that never payed off. What was with the cat hissing at Katniss in both movies? Probably something from the book that didn’t get fleshed out. Then in this movie, there was the creepy woman who had her teeth filed to sharp points, but she barely appeared after that. She was set up as a very scary villain, and then was quickly written off.

Nick: The woman with sharp teeth and the bald dude showed up at the end of the games and disappeared along with two of our heroes but will presumably be back for the last installment.

Dustin: While I thought The Hunger Games was uncomfortably similar to Battle Royale, and both, to a much lesser extent to The Most Dangerous Game, or John Leguizamo’s The Pest, the dystopian world and the character of Katniss as played by Jennifer Lawrence kept me engaged despite the plagiarized story.

Thor: The Dark World

Dustin: N/A (Didn’t catch it) Nick: 3 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

What follows is a text message exchange between Nick and Dustin re: Thor.

Nick: Are you able to review tomorrow? (Nov 16, 10:46 pm)

Dustin: lets skip thor. i have no interest. (Nov 17, 1:43 pm)

Nick: Thats a late revelation (Nov 17, 2:08 pm)

Dustin: Is it worth seeing? (Nov 17, 2:25 pm)

Nick: Better than the first but not really (Nov 17, 2:41 pm)

Dustin: How many stars you give it? (Nov 17, 2:47 pm)

Nick: 3 but its probably only that high because compared to the first it looks like citizen kane (Nov 17, 2:48 pm)

12 Years a Slave

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 4.5 of 5 stars Average: 4.25 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: 12 Years a Slave is a story “inspired by actual events” about a black man from upstate New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the deep south in the mid 19th century. It stars Nigerian-British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and is directed by Steve McQueen, “the King of Cool.”

Nick: Did the film grow on you between now and when we saw it?

Dustin: Not really. I did think about it a lot, but I still have the same problems with it as I had leaving the theater. The characters were two-dimensional. The whites in the movie, except for Parker and Brad Pitt (or "Burapi," as his Japanese fans call him), were all pure evil with no other sides to their personality. British actor Suchandsuch Sherlock Holmes/Wrath of Khan remake guy Cumberbund was more complex, but his was a minor role. The black characters were all innocent and faultless, with the minor exception of the slave who marries her master. Solomon and his owner (Michael Fassbender) never showed much depth, which grew more frustrating as the film went on. There were things set up in the movie that were never explained or fleshed out. In one of the opening scenes Solomon (Ejiofor) is seduced by a slave woman. I kept it in the back of my mind the whole film to watch for where the woman came from. She never appeared again. I’ll get into Burapi’s performance later.

What are your thoughts?

Nick: This is a story from one man’s perspective. To me it was just a story of the injustice done to one man in a very fucked up time. Not many characters have a chance of being more than two-dimensional because Solomon doesn’t get to know anybody that well. Then the woman at the beginning is brought back for a second but just in order to explain how he got to the scene. That instance was supposed to be one that made you ask what’s going on instead of who is that woman? It made me think here are two slaves who’ve probably had nothing to be happy about and have had no (welcome) intimacy, so the woman was seeing if having an intimate moment of her choosing would do something, and I feel that the emotions the two show during and after answer the question. Of course this is up for debate.

Dustin: Well, this is all from Solomon’s point-of-view, which is why the characters he doesn’t know so well seem shallow. But did everything have to be so black and white? Wait, I get it now!

Nick: Since this seems to be a major point, what for you does Solomon lack in order to say that he lacks depth?

Dustin: I was waiting for him to show some character flaw that would make him more relatable. He starts out as a educated, talented musician. His only flaw is being too naive perhaps, but that’s more of a problem when other people take advantage of his trusting nature, and not really much of a character flaw. He makes a mistake at the beginning by being too trusting of the two crackers who end up selling him into slavery and the alcoholic overseer he thought could help him. But other than coming home a little bit wiser for his experience, he is just portrayed as a victim throughout the film and doesn’t ever grow.

Nick: Solomon does make mistakes, but to call them such in the circumstance he finds himself in is up to the viewer. When he runs, he runs into a posse hanging up some other runaways. Solomon fights and argues with some of his overseers, which the other slaves tell him is a mistake. He also (technically) commits adultery. What other possible mistakes could a man in his position make? Besides maybe killing some white folk, but Jamie Foxx did enough of that last year.

Dustin: I would like to see a Django-esque sequel to this movie.

Solomon makes some mistakes, but he doesn’t have any human flaws, just as the white characters don’t have any redeeming characteristics. Yeah, he technically cheats on his wife… after not seeing her for a decade and being seduced. Even then he only gets to third base off frame.

Nick: You have already stated that some white people did have redeeming characteristics but you also didn’t answer my question of what human flaws could he have committed in his situation? Also would you want them to change the real Solomon’s story just so it could fit the more entertaining aspects of film?

Dustin: He acts as a moral compass throughout the entire film. They could have had him acting like an asshole at times. Anything that would have made him more relatable.

Nick: So was he not an asshole when he told the black woman to stop crying about her children? Or when he wouldn’t mercifully kill a friend who pleaded for him to do so? I feel that anything he could do, whether good or bad, would not be seen as such because what bad thing could a slave possibly do that would make a free man more than a century later be able to feel more like him?

Dustin: He was helping the woman, telling her to be strong and survive. Same when he wouldn’t kill the woman who asked him to. He wouldn’t give in to defeatism. But you’re right, it is a lot to ask a white person 150 years later to identify with a slave. I couldn’t possibly know what it was like. The movie did a good job portraying what it must have been like to be a slave though, but I didn’t relate to this character, or any character, which made it hard for me to really care about this movie.

Nick: You’re right as well in the sense that he wouldn’t give in to defeatism and that worked for him but for those characters who were defeated I feel they didn’t have happy endings. So from their perspective he might have been being unkind, but it had as much to do with convincing himself to believe. You are also right in that these characters are not relatable, but it didn’t bother me because if someone asked me to relate myself to a slave or a white slave owner I would (hopefully) not find a thing to say.

Dustin: Personally, I would have liked it better if the slave owners were portrayed as more human. Why not have a slave owner who was basically a decent fellow, like Cumberbund was in his brief segment, but needed slaves to get the labor done on his plantation? Instead, the slave owners are about as deep as vaudeville villains, twirling their mustaches.

Nick: I will start by saying I have always hated the Hollywood ideal of a bad white person from the 1800s having a mustache. It’s OK to have a beard and mustache or just a beard, but to have a mustache, you must be one evil son of a bitch! So there was a slave owner who was decent, and then there was a brief stint of another who let Solomon play music for crowds instead of working the fields (though this is hardly shown). I believe that all the “good” white people balance out Paul Dano, Fassbender, Sarah Paulson and the devious duo from the beginning.

Dustin: I guess it’s true in real life bad people have mustaches. Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Stalin. And good people always have long hair, like Jesus, Moses, Brad Pitt.

Nick: I think people just think of those first. Wyatt Earp? Doc Holiday? Wild Bill Hickok? I’m sure I could go on.

Dustin: That was actually supposed to be a segue to Brad Pitt in this movie. Burapi is featured prominently in the trailer, but he only appears long enough in the movie to deliver some ham-fisted dialogue on how slavery is bad, looking like he just came off the set of Che (see image 1, below) in a scene that should have ended up on the cutting-room floor. His performance here makes his character in World War Z seem tragically flawed and totally relatable by comparison.

Image 1. Benicio del Toro (left), Brad Pitt

Nick: I personally think he just came from the set of Witness (see image 2, below)! Though this is one area where we completely agree. His character is so short lived, yet so profound that it doesn’t fit into the storyline naturally. Brad Pitt is actually a producer on this film. He even brought it to Plan B to make, which is a subsidiary of Paramount, who were angry that Mr. Pitt didn’t give them the chance to make it, which he was legally supposed to do. The fact that I knew this going into the film made me even angrier that Pitt ended up as the white man with a heart of gold that the black man needs in order to get out of their bad situation. Although if that is what really happened, then I can’t knock the character, but they should have had his character around a little longer and find him out that way instead of an over the top speech that felt out of place and straight from the mouth of Lincoln.

Image 2. Brad Pitt (left) with Harrison Ford in Witness (1985)

Dustin: Lincoln was actually pretty racist in real life. He believed slavery was wrong, but he still had racist, condescending attitudes toward the blacks.

Nick: Lincoln in the film Lincoln is who I was referencing because his character was just as flawless. More like the image we’re fed of Lincoln than the real person, which is why I didn’t like that movie! HOLLYWOOD!!!!!!

Dustin: When Burapi told Michael Fassbender, “Imagine the laws were changed tomorrow and white people were made slaves,” do you think he was referencing Obama’s secret agenda to turn white people into slaves?

Nick: Is that what Bill O’Reilly’s saying?

Dustin: I reckon.

Now that I’ve run out of steam griping about this movie, what do you think it did well?

Nick: Everything (beyond Pitt’s character). One thing that I loved was the workload it showed of the slaves. So many times it was hard to tell whether they got done sweating, crying or a little of both. The camera angles during the whipping scenes were phenomenal, as well as the scene of Solomon struggling in a noose while people were just going on about their day, noticing him but not reacting as if its just another day. Also Chiwetel Ejiofor has been my favorite actor for the longest time. He’s phenomenal in Dirty Pretty Things and Redbelt. All of his other roles as smaller characters are solid, like in Love Actually, Inside Man and Serenity.

Dustin: The casting was superb. Although all the celebrities in minor roles was kind of distracting, as it took away from the realism. When I’m thinking, “Isn’t that Taran Killam from Saturday Night Live?” it takes me out of the scene. But for the most part, the major roles are filled by unrecognizable actors. The faces of the actors were all wonderful, just like in Captain Phillips a few weeks ago.

Nick: Which I complained for having the major face as the main character and referenced this film for doing the opposite, but I completely agree about Taran and then, also, when Pitt showed his darling face.

Dustin: The movie also did a great job depicting what the realities of slavery must have been like--forcing someone into servitude, ripping apart families, trying to break the human spirit. This all seemed brutally honest.

I found it ironic the plantation owner would whip slaves for picking less than 200 pounds of cotton in a day, but then they would have to use 300 pounds of cotton to wipe the blood off the backs of the whipped slaves. Not only was he a bad slave owner, he was a bad businessman.

Nick: You get a sense in the film that Edwin Epps (Fassbender) ran by his emotions and often lacked composure and a sense of reality. Epps pretty much gets outsmarted by every character he runs in to. When he realizes he’s being outsmarted he loses that composure.

Dustin: Anything else you want to add?

Nick: Steve McQueen (III)--as is his moniker so no one confuses him for THAT McQueen--has made three very solid films in a short span of time. His other ones being Hunger and Shame.  Both star Fassbender and both are fantastic.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Fall is Oscar season, and riding the wave of Oscar-worthy movies coming out this month is Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Makeup artists convert stuntman-turned-thespian Johnny Knoxville into an old-looking man as Knoxville demonstrates his acting chops, playing against type in a series of comical misadventures.

Your go, Nick.

Nick:  Even when Johnny Knoxville is in bad movies he still ends up being entertaining and this film is pretty good.

Dustin: I knew nothing about this film going in. I knew Johnny Knoxville played an old man, and that was it. If I took the time to indicate the movies I’m not interested in on Rotten Tomatoes, this probably would have been one of them. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Bad Grandpa.

For those of you who don’t know, Bad Grandpa was shot mostly with hidden cameras with a loose script involving a grandpa driving cross country to deliver his daughter’s son to the boy’s father. This was really just a premise to set up the jokes. I was immediately reminded of Borat. This is easily the best hidden camera movie since Sacha Baron Cohen’s sleeper hit.

Nick: How many hidden camera movies are there for that to seem like a positive statement?

Dustin: Bruno and the other Jackass movies, to name them all.

Nick: Although this film is funny it does a poor job of creating different setups for their characters to overcome. It felt as if in every setup Knoxville does something crude, people act, then he reacts and then Knoxville and the kid drive to another place for the exact same situation to come about. It bored me at times.

Dustin: I mostly didn’t care about the story, recognizing it for what it was. I said as we left the theater I mainly judge a comedy based on how much I laugh. You said comedy was subjective.

Nick: Creating laughter is the most important part, but an interesting story helps make a better film. We all find different comedians funny such as Will Ferrell, who I will never tire of, but I know a lot of people who were sick of him long ago.

Dustin: People might have different tastes, but I have been thinking of that subject today while I was at work, and I think one could make an argument that comedy is not subjective. Just some people have bad tastes. If you wanted to be boring, you could deconstruct what makes a joke funny, and why some jokes fall flat.

For example, recent Adam Sandler movies don’t have any jokes. He presents a strange character and you’re supposed to laugh because they’re strange. It’s the lowest form of comedy. If you laugh at that, you’re a moron. That’s not subjective.

Bad Grandpa relies mostly on irony. The viewer knows they're watching Johnny Knoxville set up a real person to be in an uncomfortable situation. We know something they don’t, so their reaction is funny to us. That’s science.

Nick: I still think your argument agrees that it’s subjective. If one thinks anything Sandler does is funny, including silly voices and poop jokes, then that means that style of humor is meant for them. Comedy definitely has high and low forms, but just because you enjoy the low doesn’t mean its not subjective, but may possibly mean “you might be a redneck.”

Dustin: Humor is also cultural, but that is beyond the scope of this review. I’ll just say when I lived in Japan, I found their sense of humor juvenile, and was frustrated they didn’t understand my deadpan humor. When I read the funny pages in the Spanish-language newspaper, I’m shocked at how flat-out misogynistic the jokes placed next to children’s puzzles are.

What worked for you in this movie?

Nick: The relationship between Johnny Knoxville and the little kid, Billy (Jackson Nicoll), was a highlight but also Nicoll telling random men that he “loves them” and wants them to be his “new daddy.”

Dustin: The kid was quite talented. There was definitely a dynamic between him and Knoxville. At times, when they were ad libbing, he seemed to make Knoxville laugh for real.

Nick: Nicoll has acted in The Fighter, Arthur, and Fun Size. I’ve seen the first two and didn’t recognize him, and those were some large scale films.

Dustin: It’s a bit pointless to describe the jokes in a comedy as they never come across as funny on paper, and it also makes for spoilers. But is there anything else you’d like to add about this movie?

Nick: The last 15 minutes of the film might have been the least funny, but they at least had a somewhat heartwarming ending.

Did you feel it?

Dustin: I hoped you didn’t notice me wiping a tear from my eye.