"Middle-aged white guy since 1981"

My roommate gave me “The Hunger Games” as a Christmas gift (German version here). Finished it, and it’s alright.

What we have here is a young adult novel that is following the wake of the Twilight novels, in the sense that it takes a fairly normal trope, a teenage girl torn between 2 boys, and transplants her into an unusual setting, a post-apocalyptic North America.

Katniss, our heroine, lives in a city called District 12, one of several towns that are governed by a central capital. There has been an uprising in the past, and the Districts revolted against the capital, only to lose and from that point on be ruled by terror from the decadent citizens of the capital. On of the humiliations dreamt up by the government are the hunger games, a gladiatorial spectacle in which 2 teenagers from each district, a boy and a girl each, are put in a huge arena. There they have to fight to the death, until a single child remains the sole victor. The children are chosen each year by a lottery system, and Katniss decides to volunteer when her much younger sister gets drawn. She leaves behind the boy that she already has conflicting feelings for and, how else could it be, the boy that gets send to the arena with her confesses his long lasting love for her.

The book is competently written, and as soon as the games and bloodshed actually start I started to enjoy the book more, too. The trouble with the prose is that the characters as well as all the scenery leading up to the arena is described very sketchily, you never get a good idea of the towns and Katniss’ problems are as easy and clear cut as you imagine a 17-year olds love life to be, yet they of course seem terribly complicated to her.

The book reminds me a lot of Battle Royale in its basic premise, and the end is inspired by the poster child romance by that English dude, but it’s a quick and entertaining read, that doesn’t really leave me craving for the sequels.

This thing is long. 2,5 hours. And I think you could describe the time you would spend watching it as a waste. Let me tell you why:

This is one of the blandest, most uninspired pieces of culture I ever witnessed. 2 hours in and I had no idea why I should care about any  of the characters or any of the tasks that they set out to accomplish. It is amazing how they managed to string together so many scenes and avoided all conflict. I never got a feeling of who Craig was chasing, but I never got a strong feeling of mystery either. I never cared, and the bad part about that is that the movie did not fail to make me care, I have the impression that it never actually tried. From what I have been told that might have been a problem with the material that the movie is based on.

This movie looks extremely bland, too. Teal and orange, if you know what I mean. If you really wanna watch this movie, see it in theaters. Not because it is worth it, because just about everything would distract you from it, if you are not alone with it in a dark room, no chance to switch the program, no chance to entertain yourself any other way. I caught myself looking off to the side, thinking about reorganizing my CD collection. It seriously is that bad.

A special mention needs to go to that Lisbet character. The movie goes over the top to make her different from the typical feminine lead, so far that makes her disgusting, in my opinion at least. But it can’t stay away of sexualizing her just like any other woman in every other stupid movie. Even when she is not getting raped she gets to satisfy male fantasies of lesbian sex and an insatiable slut, all while portraying the second most overused stereotype for tech nerds: asocial maniac, instead of awkward looser.

So yeah. Mind boggling boring while of average competence. Failure for lack of vision, not lack of skill. Most disappointing alternative.

Reznor’s soundtrack is alright, but his ambient stuff never blew me away. The “Immigrant Song” for the titles is good. Most visually interesting part of the movie, too. Turn it off afterwards.

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Started work on a new one. Nothing too special, should be a quick one once I have all the supplies together.

And yeah, I caught up to the 366 project with this one. By cheating. Haters gonna hate, I guess.

…and I say more power to them. It is a very compelling argument that the tactics to outlaw certain behaviors are a sign that the people that are advocating outdated media distribution methods are admitting defeat. If they thought they could compete, they would.

When a striker is fouled in the penalty area, he doesn’t stop as long as he still has control of the ball; it’s only when he’s beaten that he turns to appeal to the ref.

Apart from the fact that this is exactly why I always have and always will despise football players, there is no denying the truth of the matter and the aptness of the comparison.

Read that article, it is a nice application of “skating where the puck will be”, a principle championed by an athlete that I will forever respect more than all the moronic ball kickers combined.