Happy belated Thanksgiving! Though we live in the States -- long-time Virginians -- we didn't celebrate today as hubby had to work. I do have a big-ass turkey thawing in the fridge, waiting for his next day off. :-)
Avocado green was a splendid choice for a 1970s kitchen. My parents, on the other hand,opted for tomato red.
And I watched several Thanksgiving-related movies. The kids and I watched Planes, Trains & Automobiles, which is one of our go-to family holiday movies. I am also about halfway through Ice Storm. So far, this movie is just okay for me, but it has some great moments. And it's awakened my growing-up-in-the-70s nostalgia. I suddenly want to paint everything in my house avocado green and buy a big-ass brown station wagon.
Gary Ross' fourth feature portrays young adult writer Suzanne Collins' vision of the future. But this future does not bring flying cars, super-advanced robots or time travel. Instead it brings "The Hunger Games," a horrific celebration of totalitarianism and fear where twenty-four boys and girls, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, from twelve districts are brought to a large arena to fight to the death.
Sounds an awful lot like Battle Royale, a 2000 Japanese film with a similar premise. However, The Hunger Games exceeds in acting, character development, and substance what was a somewhat underdeveloped bloodbath (albeit a creative one). Although this film pushes the PG-13 rating it has nowhere near the level of violence of Battle Royale and should be okay for kids over a certain age.
The heart of this story is Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who is forced to care for her beloved younger sister Primrose (talented newcomer Willow Shields) when her father gets blown up in a mining explosion and her mother falls into a deep depression. Her back-story bears some similarities to Lawrence's role in the rural thriller Winter's Bone back in 2000, but The Hunger Games is glossier, more action-packed, and goes in a completely different direction.
In this year's Hunger Games, Katniss knows that her sensitive twelve-year-old sister, due to her age, has been placed in the drawing only a few times and statistically has a smaller chance of getting picked. To her horror, however, Primrose is drawn, and Katniss, knowing her sister doesn't stand a chance, volunteers to fight in her place.
After leaving her potential love interest Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and placing Primrose in the questionable care of her mother, Katniss heads by train to the capital, where she is introduced briefly to a luxurious lifestyle before being offered up in the arena like a sheep for the slaughter. The other kid from her district, Peeta Mellark, has harbored a crush on her for many years, which makes the circumstances of the situation even harder.
Jennifer Lawrence is, at twenty-one, five years too old for the role, but her talent shines through, and her Katniss is a character to be appreciated. Her relationship with Peeta moved a little quicker than I would have liked, as after a crucial plot development they are hanging over each other like lovesick puppy dogs. Their friendship is more ambiguous and conflicted in the book.
The other actors are good, including Stanley Tucci, Amanda Stenberg, and Woody Harrelson as drunken former child contestant Haymitch Abernathy. Tucci, despite not having as juicy a role as he did in The Lovely Bones, is good, and his portrayal of gaudy, grinning talk-show host Caesar Flickerman is a disturbingly on-target depiction of the fakeness and pomp and circumstance of reality TV.
The Muttations were well done. One of my main concerns about the movie adaptation was that they wouldn't be able to translate them onto the screen without becoming corny, and although they were not as horrifying as they were in the book, functioning instead as vicious, kinda-cute mastiff-looking creatures, the special effects people pulled them off.
The Hunger Games is very much worth a ticket to the theater, although I would not recommend it to young or sensitive children. It is exciting, rousing science fiction with a message, and Katniss is a strong character worth rooting for.
The world of Zombieland is desolate and filthy, yet still amazingly funny. It caters to Black Comedy Rule Number #1- fill the movie with grime and gore, but keep it distanced from reality to keep the viewers from getting too uncomfortable. It's like Cillian-less 28 Days Later without the rape, if Danny Boyle had been going for funny instead of disturbing.
The characters in this film have given up on names, it appears, as they are known chiefly as their hometowns. The hero, Columbus, is played by Jesse Eisenberg, a young actor best known as the non-masturbating older brother in Noah Bambach's The Squid and the Whale.
Columbus opens the film with a deadpan narration, saying that his country can no longer be considered America, because "something needs living people to be a country, and everyone here is dead." This is seemingly literal, as the only other people we come into contact with in the first ten minutes are raging, brutal corpses.
There is a set of rules, Columbus says, for one to stay alive in the area, to avoid becoming a "human happy meal.". The viewer is shown bloody clips of potential survivors who broke these. Fasten your seat belt. Don't be fat and out-of-shape. Pay attention to where you are, and where the undead are. Finally, don't get close to anyone.
Having lived in isolation before the virus, he is to some extent used to being alone. He also seems a prime candidate for obsessive-compulsive disorder, having carefully stayed away from his fears before there was really anything to be afraid of. His encounters with the apocalypse begin in a flashback, when he allows an attractive girl who has been attacked to take refuge, and she tries to eat him.
In the present day, he decides to head to his home town looking for any surviving family. On the way, he is surprised to find another survivor. This is Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a macho guy who's made it his goal to kill every zombie he can get his hands on.
His other goal drives him to raid Hostess trucks by the side of the road, desperate for a Twinkie, a scrap of normalcy in a life that's gone off the deep end. They join up, though Tallahassee's on a revenge kick and Columbus would just as soon keep as far away from the undead as possible.
The rest of Zombieland's short duration revolves around the duo's cross-country trek to find an apparently safe haven when Columbus's family plan falls by the wayside. They are accompanied by two sisters who, while they seem innocent at first, have a knack for getting the best of any situation (Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone, who wears eye make-up incredibly unblemished by zombie attacks.)
Woody Harrelson fits comfortably into his subtly sensitive character, while Jesse Eisenberg plays his role as the droll, paranoid Columbus completely straight. The character's seriousness almost brings gravity into the ridiculous plot.
The best thing about Zombieland is that the director, with all his fervor in making the most disgusting zombies imaginable, doesn't forget to add an interesting feel to its living protagonists. In fact, Tallahasee -- and particularly Columbus -- are cleverly conceived, though it seems the female characters are skimmed over somewhat.
Along with the wit, though, is the very common tough girl and sensitive guy tension, which wasn't original in 28 Days Later, let alone in this one. It seems that people are still feeding the feminist issue and find aggression in girls almost endearing.
I suppose that I wasn't expecting Zombieland to be so short, but all the same, I found the ending somewhat abrupt. It's the kind of conclusion that seems awkwardly unfinished, and leaves you saying "is that all there is?" to a black screen.
All the same, I left the theater amused and happy, and appreciated an enjoyable movie that just seemed a little too clipped. It may not be the first zombie-themed comedy of late, but it deserves its place next to Shaun of the Dead as an entertaining, witty comedy in horror's clothing (Rated R.)
