MY MOVIE SHELF: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 50 Days to go: 36

Movie #390:  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

If you’d asked me when I first read Mockingjay whether it would require two movies to tell its story, I would’ve answered emphatically no. This is not Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a nearly 800-page book chock full of events critical to the end of the series. Mockingjay is half that size, and its narrator Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is holed up in the underground bunkers of District 13, away from most of the action, for the vast majority of it. If you take simply the first half, there’s even less going on and fewer events for Katniss to be involved in. It’s problematic, to say the least. Obviously I haven’t seen Mockingjay Part 2 yet — it doesn’t come out for six more months — but based on this first half I’ve turned my opinion around on splitting the final installment in two, not because of everything that’s in the book, but because of everything the film has added to it and enhanced.

First and foremost, Katniss is nearly insane in District 13. The terror of her two Games, the disorienting way she was removed from the last one, the haunting knowledge that Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is in the hands of the Capitol being tortured or worse, the multiple injuries she’s sustained, and the recent knowledge that all of District 12 has been leveled, all combine to make Katniss as raw as an exposed nerve. But when your character is astute enough to narrate her story and articulate her madness, it loses its effectiveness a bit. On film, however, that restrictive quality falls away and Lawrence is able to put every ounce of her award-winning talent behind all the fear, pain, madness, anger and desperation Katniss feels. It puts actual walls around her too, and seeing the tiny, hidden spaces Katniss seeks out for refuge brings her panic attacks and frenzied insecurities into sharp focus.

The addition of actual visuals also benefit the destruction wrought by the Capitol. The annihilation of District 12 is especially poignant. The book talks of buildings turned to rubble, and a mass grave in the Meadow, but the film shows us the charred skeletons of fleeing people, and combines it with the first-person account of Gale (Liam Hemsworth). It’s infinitely more powerful and more effective, as is Katniss’s performance of “The Hanging Tree.” (A book can tell you something is a song, but the melody in the film really brings it to life.)

Mockingjay Part 1 also really showcases the role of television and propaganda in the world of Panem in a way none of the movies have been able to do yet (and frankly better than the book does as well). Natalie Dormer makes everything better (seriously, if she and Anthony Mackie were in a movie together, it might bring about world peace and everlasting love and harmony), and that includes her role as director Cressida here, in which she honestly conveys not only the journalistic and entertainment instincts of the film she’s shooting, but an artistic eye and an interviewer’s questions. She’s savvy and smart, and while you sense she’s personally invested, it’s also clear she knows exactly what she’s doing and how to best send a message. (Philip Seymour Hoffman brings this same publicity-savvy sensibility as Plutarch, but in a more conceptual, less hands-on way.)

In general, the film simply brings so much more of the conflict to life, as it expands the world far beyond the reaches of just Katniss and her experience. There are powerful and jarring scenes in the districts themselves, with other citizens fighting the Peacekeepers. The scene of the rebels’ rescue of the captured tributes in the Capitol plays out with a heightened sense of tension because we watch Katniss breathlessly follow the action over security cameras, and it culminates in a foreboding interaction directly with President Snow (Donald Sutherland) that the book lacks. But the most improved aspect comes from the performance of Hutcherson, as we watch Peeta grow increasingly emaciated over the course of several television interviews with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), and then turn into a raging, psychotic madman once he and Katniss are reunited. It is shocking and disturbing and exactly what the film needed to convey just how terrifying a transformation he’s made, and how much of a threat he is to Katniss — a girl he’s only ever been loving and protective toward before now. It sets up the sequel beautifully, and I, for one, can’t wait to see it.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Hunger Games

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 52 Days to go: 36

Movie #388:  The Hunger Games

A Kindle is a wonderful thing to have when you’re nursing. You can hold it with one hand, change pages with a slight tap of your thumb, and not move for sometimes hours — especially if the baby in question likes to snooze while she eats. My daughter was born in the first quarter of 2012, and I used nursing time (and later, breast pump time) to do a LOT of reading.

One of the books I downloaded was The Hunger Games. The movie was releasing soon, and people were in a frenzy over it — over Jennifer Lawrence being cast as olive-skinned teenager Katniss, over the burning controversy of Team Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) or Team Gale (Liam Hemsworth), over its very existence — and I decided I should read the thing. That was an exceptionally good call on my part, I think. I would up reading the entire series (because The Hunger Games is really more the first volume for a story than the complete story) in a matter of days, and I’ve read it multiple times since. The whole thing, basically any time I get bored with whatever else I’m reading.

I felt prepared going in to the film, therefore. I felt well-versed in Katniss’s psyche, I had strong opinions on Peeta and Gale, and I’d cried huge sloppy tears when I read the part where Rue (Amandla Stenberg) died. I was ready. And for the most part, I was pleased with the final product. The Hunger Games is an adequate book-to-film adaptation. I wasn’t upset like those idiots crying foul at Rue and Thresh (Dayo Okeniyi) being black (I wouldn’t have been upset anyway, because why does it matter, but they are clearly not white in the book, so those people crying foul are even more ridiculous and awful than normal bigots) (I may be a cat bigot though, because I was seriously perturbed that Buttercup wasn’t remotely yellow — WHO WOULD NAME A BLACK AND WHITE CAT BUTTERCUP???), I thought Jennifer Lawrence did a great job, and for a narrative that takes place entirely in Katniss’s mind, the movie did fairly well bringing some of that out into dialogue and action. I wish Peeta had been taller, but honestly I bet Josh Hutcherson wishes that from time to time himself. (I wish Harry Potter was taller too. It’s just one of those things.) Mostly my complaints were small, though, and had to do with ways in which the story was conveyed on film that didn’t match the way they happened in the book, and that undermined specific emotional notes the story was trying to tell.

The one that struck me most pointedly was the point where Claudius (Toby Jones) announces that two victors will be crowned if the last two standing are from the same district. In the book, this gets a spontaneous shriek of Peeta’s name by Katniss, followed by the instantaneous and terrifying thought that she may have just given up her position. She’s being hunted, after all. But it perfectly expressed how much he’d been on her mind, and how much she cared for him (in her stilted, closed-off way) and was avoiding him for the sake of not having to fight him. In the movie, however, this moment comes as a calculated whisper. Katniss is not acting out of emotion but more out of the strategic advantage of having an ally, of putting on a good show, and it will lead her directly into the notion of pretending to love Peeta in order to get sponsorships. It’s a much more cold-hearted approach to Katniss, and one I don’t entirely approve of. Even if Katniss believes and tells herself that her affection for Peeta is all for show, it’s not entirely true in her heart, and in the book that’s quite clear. The somewhat flatter way movies have at their disposal to tell stories, however, makes it very difficult to convey those many layers of emotion and internal conflict, so you’re left with a somewhat unjustly characterized Katniss.

The other instance when this occurs is earlier in the film, when Peeta and Katniss are riding into the Capitol on their chariot for the Tributes Parade. In the scene, Katniss wrenches her hand away from Peeta when he grabs for it, and he convinces her that it would be a good publicity move. Once again, this undercuts the actual emotions of these two characters. In the book it is Katniss, not Peeta, who reaches for the other’s hand. And it’s not in order to look good to the masses, but out of fear and desperation. She needs something to hold onto. It’s indicative of real feelings of connection — even as confusing and muddled as they are for Katniss throughout the series — and vulnerability that are vital to the growth of both characters over the course of the franchise. Katniss reaches for Peeta for protection and security, and he will become a rock for her in many ways that Gale, with his thirst for action and retribution, is not. The moment also makes Peeta far more calculating than he’s ever portrayed in the books, almost as if he doesn’t truly love her but is encouraging her to play a part. Even with Peeta’s masterful strategic manipulation of certain parts of the Games (interviews with Caesar (Stanley Tucci) in particular, but also his early alliance with the Careers), his feelings for Katniss were always sincerely, truly felt, and it feels cheap to take away from it here.

That being said, most of the rest of the movie was a satisfying depiction of a book so many people loved. Elizabeth Banks plays beautifully against type as the uptight, persnickety, procedure-obsessed Effie, and Woody Harrelson is an excellent Haymitch, equal parts slobbering drunk and whip-smart survivor. And Catching Fire is one of the best adaptations of a book yet, so I kind of can’t wait to watch it again. On to the next!

MY MOVIE SHELF: Captain America: The First Avenger

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 77 Days to go: 52

Movie #363:  Captain America: The First Avenger

Of all the Avengers with their own individual movie franchises, Captain America (Chris Evans) is my absolute favorite, and the Captain America movies are as well. Unlike Tony Stark and Thor, Steve Rogers is an underdog, a weakling. He doesn’t win fights, he doesn’t win girls, and he’s not actual or even figurative royalty. He’s just a guy — an average, undersized guy with an oversized heart, an oversized will, and more courage than even the God of Thunder. In this way, Captain America is a uniquely American folk hero — a scrappy little underachiever who proves himself worthy of greatness and is rewarded, by way of a super secret scientific serum, with the body and strength to match his sense of duty and determination.

This is the America people like to believe in, the America of lore, and particularly the stars-and-stripes gung-ho America of the 1940s in which Captain America: The First Avenger is set. I’m certain this America only exists in stories, in nostalgic memories of people who may not have even been alive at the time, of the so-called Greatest Generation. I have no doubt of the greatness of some of the people at that time, of course, but I also know that people are people, and humans are humans, and just because stories of dissent and apathy and disillusionment aren’t told, it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. That being said, however, the image of 1940s America is firmly entrenched in our collective minds at this point as a time of noble sacrifice and patriotic empowerment. It’s a feel-good story that endures. And it perfectly embodies the image that Captain America himself — the concept of Captain America, that is — aims to fulfill. Luckily, it all comes together perfectly in the film to create not only a rousing superhero picture, but a decidedly bolstering one.

But Captain America doesn’t serve to just reinforce the idealized Allied soldiers of WWII, it seeks to augment them. Steve Rogers is himself a super soldier, thanks to the efforts of super scientists Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) and Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), but what he received through science, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) already possessed in her DNA. Carter is herself a super soldier — not through artificial means but through sheer force of fearlessness and skill. Whether she’s cold-cocking an insubordinate soldier bent on sexual harassment or staring now a madman in a car headed straight for her, Peggy Carter is no one to be messed with. She’s every bit a match to Roger’s own vim and vigor, and more compelling than their blossoming attraction is simply how impressed they are with each other’s courage and abilities. When Peggy interrupts a sexy Natalie Dormer coming on to Steve, she wastes no time expressing her frustration with him — by shooting directly at his new shield. She knows what she wants, that one, and she doesn’t have to be coy to get it. She’s AMAZING.

Of course, a super soldier needs a super villain to contend with, and that’s where Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) AKA Red Skull comes in. Harnessing the power of the mythical yet all too real Tesseract, Red Skull has not only Captain America’s same super strength, but also super weapons to vaporize his enemies and the enemies of Hydra — a force even deadlier than Nazi Germany that costs a lot of lives — including Dr. Erskine’s — and costs Steve his best friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan). Schmidt and Hydra are formidable foes, not only for this film, but for other Marvel films as well, tying the whole universe together in a satisfyingly neat little bow — making the entire Marvel universe both easier to follow and to be invested in.

The true achievement of Captain America, however, is unlike any other superhero film to date: It makes me cry. When Steve sacrifices himself for the good of the people, as he was always destined to do, and he and Peggy share a painful goodbye disguised as a “see you later,” there are legitimate tears in my eyes. When Cap wakes up in modern New York City after seventy years asleep, I’m inconsolable. I want nothing more than a life in which Steve and Peggy get to share those 70+ years blissfully married to one another, saving the world and sexing it up. Think what a great world THAT would be.

Captain America is an origin story, a war story and a chaste romance all rolled into a comic book superhero film. And Steve Rogers is a fearless, flawless, idealized hero — the greatest of the Greatest Generation — never aging, never slowing, never backing down. I love him. And I love this film. He’s the star-spangled man with the plan!

MY MOVIE SHELF: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 168  Days to go: 168

Movie #209:  Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

This is not my movie. It belongs to my son, but he brought it out of his room and included it on my shelf because he wanted me to write about it. He’s really very sweet.

And because he’s so sweet and I love him so much, I’m going to give Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s a bit out of my depth of mythology knowledge. I mean, I’ve heard of Poseidon and the Golden Fleece and I’ve watched Clash of the Titans more times than I can count, but I’m not aware of famous cyclops or anything like that and it’s hard to tell how much of these Percy Jackson stories are pulled directly from mythology and how much is fiction from the novels. And honestly I don’t care enough to ever read the novels, so my knowledge is going to remain forever limited. Sue me.

The thing is, though, if I were a teenage girl again, I would be all over these things. I mean, I might not have come to the books first (mythology is a fascination, but maybe not enough of one to get me into the fantasy section of a bookstore), but the movies would’ve fed the crushes of my youth. And then I would’ve found my way around to the books at that point. It’s a process.

My point is that, from what I’ve seen of these Percy Jackson flicks, they’re basically about putting beautiful young people on display. Logan Lerman (as Percy), Alexandra Daddario (as Annabeth), Leven Rambin (as Clarisse), Brandon Jackson (as Grover), Jake Abel (as Luke) … all beautiful. All crushworthy. Not entirely sure who they all are supposed to be or what their collective deal is, but I honestly believe character motivation is entirely beside the point.

There is some cute comedy as Stanley Tucci plays Dionysus, god of wine whose gorgeous vintages keep getting turned into water because Zeus has a grudge. And then Giles from Buffy (Anthony Head) is still doling out sage advice to teens, this time as Chiron the centaur. Plus Yvette Nicole Brown and comedy giant Missi Pyle are two of the three “Gray sisters,” who are sort of like the Stygian Witches of cab drivers, I guess. And who doesn’t appreciate a little Nathan Fillion in their lives, particularly when he’s playing Hermes, proprietor of an Olympian UPS Store? No one, that’s who.

I admit to not remembering a whole lot about the first Percy Jackson movie, but I feel like this one kind of takes off in another direction from that one. Like, Sea of Monsters is all about this girl who dies and grows into a tree that forms a force field around the demigod camp? I just don’t remember that being a part of the first one, and I certainly don’t know why Percy would think about her so often, as he claims to do in his opening voice over, given that in the first movie he didn’t even know he was a demigod until he was older, so he wouldn’t have been there as a kid when she died. But, like I said, the plot strikes me as entirely secondary in these films, so whatever.

As far as a fun, exciting, teen crush movie goes, you could do a lot worse than Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. It’s bright and it’s clean and it’s quasi-educational, maybe, so good for them. It might not be my cup of tea anymore, but I give it my full, motherly love endorsement. For my sweet, sweet boy who likes my movie shelf project.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Easy A

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 282  Days to go: 274

Movie #95: Easy A

If someone is ambitious enough to sift through my Twitter archives, they’ll eventually come across the time I watched Easy A something like six times in a weekend. It’s kind of addictingly great.

Mostly I focused on how Penn Badgley sounds like the name of a Muppet instead of some super charming, adorably hot guy playing Woodchuck Todd (wait, maybe he is a Muppet), but then it was pointed out to me that all the actors from Gossip Girl have ridiculously cartoonish names. Leighton Meester? Are we sure that’s not a genus of ferrets?

Anyway, Woodchuck Todd sort of hangs around the edges of the movie until the end. The real star is, of course, Emma Stone as Olive Penderghast. Olive is a funny, quick-witted and hyper-literate girl who is stuck in the bowels of Ojai Northern High School (home of the former Blue Devils, now Woodchucks, because we wouldn’t want to cheer for Satan) where no one notices her at all until a series of deceptions (some intentional, some less so) leaves her with a very bad reputation. (True story: When I started this one up tonight, my son asked me what it was about. I said it’s about a girl in high school with a bad reputation, which made me realize Olive Penderghast is like the modern Cha-Cha DiGregorio of Ojai Northern High School, with less dancing.)

Aside from misusing the term “ironically” and saying “could care less” instead of “couldn’t,” Olive is whip-smart and all of us should aspire to be her. So sayeth Buzzfeed. Actually, I would like to go back in time to be her when I was in high school, particularly if it meant I could have Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as my parents because they are fantastic.

The whole cast is actually tops, from the aforementioned Clarkson and Tucci being the best parents anyone could ever ask for in life (really, I want them to get married just so some children would benefit from that pairing), to a nicely matured Thomas Haden Church as super cool English teacher Mr. Griffith, to a pre-crazy Amanda Bynes as an uber-Christian Mean Girl. (Honorable mentions also go out to my beloved Cougar Town‘s Dan Byrd as Brandon, Lisa Kudrow as Mrs. Griffith, Malcolm McDowell as the scariest principal in a non-horror movie, plus literally everyone else because the whole cast is great.)

Olive’s bad reputation leads to some extensive Scarlet Letter cosplay, which is a hell of a lot of fun, but, after a sexy musical number for no reason, she sets the record straight on a live webcast, as of course every kid would do. She also has excellent taste in the ’80s movies she wants her life to imitate (Say Anything, Can’t Buy Me Love, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — I can only assume this is the excellent parenting of Clarkson and Tucci at work), and Brandon gets to do a little Huckleberry Finn cosplay of his own. (“My apologies to Mark Twain.”)

The really excellent thing about Easy A, though, on top of all the other excellent things about Easy A, is that for all the gossip and ostracizing and mistreatment done on behalf of Olive’s unearned bad reputation, the actuality of her eventually having sex is never treated like a bad thing — not by her, not by her parents, not even by her favorite teacher. It’s something that society puts standards and expectations around but which Olive’s inner circle (with the exception of BFF Rhiannon (Aly Michalka), who buys into the hype) never once treats with anything but the utmost maturity and understanding. I really, really like that, and I wish more movies sent that message to girls, that sexuality is normal and healthy and perfectly okay, even if you struggle with different aspects of it from time to time.

Whenever, however, and with whomever it eventually happens, it’s “nobody’s goddamn business.” Never forget that, folks.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Big Trouble

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #31: Big Trouble

Big Trouble is the absolute funniest movie no one has ever seen.

Originally slated for release on September 21, 2001, the movie (which features hitmen smuggling rifles in golf bags onto cross-country flights, comically lax airport security, and two idiotic thugs who buy their way onto a plane travelling to the Bahamas carrying no identification, a veritable cannon of a handgun, two hostages and a nuclear weapon in a suitcase) was understandably delayed after the 9/11 attacks and came out to absolutely no fanfare on April 5 of the following year. You can’t begrudge the studio, really. There was no other option at the time. But the film is unbelievably hilarious, and I really wish more people had seen it.

Based on the novel by humorist Dave Barry, it centers around an unlikable man named Arthur Herk and the seven or so pairs of people who converge at and around his Miami house over the course of a couple days. The plot is tight and seamless, wasting no time whatsoever (it clocks in at 85 minutes) in telling its very silly story. Not wanting to just recite the plot, however, or give away the many great jokes, I’ll instead focus on the numerous relevant characters.

Tim Allen plays Eliot Arnold, the Dave Barry stand-in. He’s a former humorist at the Miami Herald, recently divorced and trying to make it as an independent ad man. He lives in a crappy apartment, drives a Geo, and his son Matt thinks he’s a loser.  He’s also the protagonist, narrator and hero. He finds himself thrown together with Herk’s wife Anna on several occasions as Matt tries to tag Anna’s daughter Jenny with a squirt gun for a school game.

Rene Russo is Anna Herk. Formerly divorced herself, she stays with Arthur out of fear of losing the financial security he provides. The first time she meets Matt, she’s jumping onto his back to protect Jenny from his (squirt) gun attack. She finds Eliot incredibly handsome and charming.

Ben Foster and Zooey Deschanel are Matt and Jenny. Ben is the perfect snot-nosed teen and Zooey, especially, is tops as a dry witty girl with that signature sarcastic monotone. They frequently interact with Matt’s friend Andrew, played by DJ Qualls, who is mostly inconsequential but who has some great lines and who I mention because I love DJ Qualls.

Stanley Tucci is Arthur Herk. He works for a mob-run construction company, has stolen money from them, and has a hit put out on him because of it. He’s abrasive and rude, tries to intimidate his maid into having an affair of sorts with him, and he’s got a crazy foot fetish. He’s also fixated with television and Martha Stewart.

Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler play hitmen Henry and Leonard. They’re from New York, where hitmen know how to be hitmen, and they hate Miami. They have no use or patience for muggers, Gator fans or cigar-smoking assholes.

Janeane Garofalo and Patrick Warburton are Miami police officers Romero and Kramitz. Romero is no-nonsense. Kramitz is a little-nonsense.

Tom Sizemore and Johnny Knoxville are greasy, dirty, idiot petty criminals Snake and Eddie. They are beyond stupid, and Snake is a bit mean. Slighted early on in the movie, they return to bring about all the events leading directly to the climax.

Jason Lee and Sofia Vergara are Puggy and Nina. Puggy is a homeless drifter who looks like Jesus. He has a gentle soul and is insanely strong. He loves Fritos and Nina. Nina is the Herks’ maid. She is loyal and kind to Anna and Jenny, but she’s constantly fleeing Arthur and his foot fetish. Nina loves Puggy at first sight (when she briefly mistakes him for Jesus).

Heavy D and Omar Epps are FBI agents after the bomb in the suitcase. (It looks like a garbage disposal.) They act almost exclusively under Executive Order 768-4, which apparently gives them the freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

Andy Richter plays twins who both work as security guards, one at the Bayside mall and one at the airport. He maybe abuses his power a little.

And that about does it. If that ensemble doesn’t tickle your funny bone with the promise of comedy that is both intelligent and absurd, then nothing will. It’s a very funny movie, and it is definitely worth your time.