“The Hunger Games” only leaves you hungrier – and that’s the point

“This is the time to show them everything. Make sure they remember you.” These words of advice given to Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) right before she’s introduced to the enthusiastic fans of the upcoming televised death match, might also have been whispered to director Gary Ross, he of Pleasantville and Seabiscuit. Taking on Suzanne Collins’ bestselling trilogy is certainly no small feat. Capturing the complex allegorical themes depicted in Collins’ book, portraying the anguish and ambivalence experienced by its heroine, doing justice to the impersonal elitism as well as the very personal violence and horror of this story: These would be enormous challenges for any director.

Review: The Hunger Games

I’m not going to dissect the similarities and differences between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, Koushun Takami’s 1999 Japanese pulp novel (adapted a year later into one of my favorite violent, equally pulpy moves of all time), which had a similar storyline about teens forced to battle to the death. Suffice it to say that yes, the general ideas and underlying themes of the two are similar, but while Battle Royale is good bloody dystopian fun, I think The Hunger Games has a better, more completely drawn story and interweaving of theme. And it has Katniss Everdeen, who’s a completely kick-ass female protagonist.

DVD Geek: World on a Wire

Way, way before The Matrix, before Blade Runner and before umpteen Japanese anime tales, Fassbinder not only understood the epistemological paradoxes of cyberworlds, he understood how to communicate those paradoxes to viewers in an entertaining and engrossing manner.

Wilmington on Movies: Silent House

It’s a contemporary variation on the “Old Dark House” lady-in-distress thriller, based on the Uruguayan suspense film La Casa Muda and it stars the very pretty and convincing Elizabeth Olsen as Sarah, a sensitive and troubled young lady whose somewhat obnoxious father John and somewhat enigmatic Uncle Peter have joined her at the family’s summer home, to clean it up and prepare it for sale.

Wilmington on Movies: John Carter

John Carter, the new live action Disney epic — based on the popular early 20th century pulp series of science fiction novels (“A Princess of Mars,“ etc.) by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs — reportedly cost all of that and more, and it still looks like as if it’s missing something. But maybe it’s missing something money can’t buy.

Review: John Carter

And then we have what’s perhaps the most interesting element of the story (or it is to me at least): the role of the Therns, messengers from “the Goddess” whose role seems to be to stir up trouble, violence, death and destruction while they whisper words of influence and sit back and watch the mayhem, apparently to alleviate the boredom of immortality (kind of like Q on ST:TNG, only without Q’s snarky sense of humor). If one of the evil Therns had revealed himself at the end to be John Carter’s long-lost father, it would have been practically perfect pulp.

Wilmington on Movies: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax

It isn’t as if this show were a bomb. It’s made by intelligent guys.

They know how to shoot. They think Seuss is a toot, They love trees and they love cracking wise.

Cinco Paul, and Ken Daurio, and Chris Renau-rio, the gang from Despicable Me

Well, maybe their flick is too big and too cheery-o: a Slightly Disposable Spree.

Wilmington on Movies: In Darkness

This picture is an extraordinary work, a glowing link to the past. You feel it in your heart and soul and senses. And the movie demonstrates something we sometimes forget: Agnieszka Holland, whose themes often involve moral struggle, can be one of the world’s finest filmmakers.