Do You Know the Code?

Briane Pagel has a new book out. He says it's the best book he's ever written and, seeing that I have quite liked his other books (except for that pineapple thing), at least the ones I've read, I'm really hoping for good things from this one. I've already picked it up but, with the end of the school year and everything going on with my kids, I haven't had a chance to start reading it. I'll let you know what I think as soon as I do, though.

Until then, here's Briane to talk about Codes!

Wherein I Hate Stuff For No Reason (a guest post by Briane Pagel)

I know this is the space Andrew has lately been reserving for his discussion of how to handle, or not handle, a bad (or, as it was, not-really-so-bad) review, and I think that’s important work. Someone has to stand up to bullies, and Andrew has a good platform from which to do so. That’s why I am extra-appreciative of his willingness to lend me his Wednesday slot in order to let me provide some thinly-veiled marketing in the guise of a LISTICLE!

P.S. WHY does everything on the internet have such a stupid name? Years into it, I still cannot bring myself to say that I tweeted something. I tell people “Oh yeah I posted a link to that on Twitter.” “Blog,” “Tweet,” “listicle,” etc. etc. It’s so degrading. I feel stupid whenever I talk about anything I do on the internet. People will say Are you going to try to publicize your book and I have to say Yes, I plan to… *sigh*… blog… about it.

Where was I? Oh, right: Listicle. People love lists! That was one of the things mentioned in an article I read entitled, “These 5 Amazing Things People Love About The Internet Will Change Your Life.” (Other things included cats and lists about cats.) So I’ve been making the rounds, promoting my new book, Codes, and it just made sense. What better way to discuss a near-future book about a corporation trying to perfect the process of human cloning by implanting computer-programmed personalities into them and marketing the result than to create a superficial list designed to generate fake controversy?

Did that sentence make any sense? It’s been a long day and I got lost in some of the clauses there.

Knowing that Andrew usually uses this space to discuss people’s reactions to bad reviews, I decided that the theme for my latest list would at least tangentially relate to that topic, and so I came up with the idea of reviewing shows and books I’ve never even seen, and, of course, panning them.

If you’re like me (and I pray you’re not. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT) then there are LOTS and LOTS of things you HATE, almost-sight-unseen. I am a champion at hating stuff before I know anything about it. I can dislike something practically before I know it exists. It’s a talent. Books, movies, TV shows, songs, certain shades of green… doesn’t matter what it is, I can hate it right up front. And, more than just hate quietly, I can -- based on that completely uninformed opinion review the bejeebers out of that thing I hate. YES! FREE SPEECH! ‘MERICA! Let’s get to it!

1. The Walking Dead: I have never seen this show, or even a preview for it. That has not stopped me from hating it so much that I have started disliking other shows if a commercial for TWD airs during them. Can we NOT have any more allegories about our society told through the zombie format? This thing is all over! I can’t go onto a web page without seeing some picture of a sweaty guy or girl holding a machete and looking fierce next to a headline about how TWD is really going to amazeballs you with the storyline this week. LET ME GUESS: They nearly get overrun by zombies but then hack their way out! Also, where is everyone getting these machetes in the first place? I am 46 years old and I have never seen a machete in real life. Do the zombies bring them? Do they sell them at the True Value ™ Hardware Store? In real life, a zombie apocalypse would feature 100% fewer machetes and 100% more “Dads holding a bed lamp they grabbed off the table.”

2. The New Star Trek Movies: This automatic-dislike probably began when they cast Chris Pine as Captain Kirk in the first “new” Star Trek movie. Looking at Chris Pine gives me the same feeling I get when I grind my teeth, only less pleasant. That was bad enough. But then I heard that in one of these movies they had Kirk driving around in a hot rod on Earth. You know what space operas don’t need? Drag races on planet Earth. But to top it off, they remade “The Wrath Of Khan.” YOU CANNOT REMAKE THE WRATH OF KHAN. That is like remaking a rainbow. Like remaking a glorious, rage-filled, fist-shaking, Enterprise-attacking, earwig-monster-injecting, desert-planet-inhabiting, Fantasy-Island-operating rainbow.

3. The Hunger Games. OH. MY. GOD. From the moment I first heard of this series of books I thought they sounded like the dumbest thing ever. Here is my understanding of the plot: some government starves all its citizens, so that they will send a bunch of kids to shoot each other with arrows in order to get a little bit of extra food. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? How would that system work? It could never! But then after all the kids shoot each other or whatever, the two (?) winners (?) get elected to the government or something, like Charlie winning the chocolate factory only Jennifer Lawrence didn’t even have to give back the gobstopper? NO DO NOT BOTHER EXPLAINING WHERE I GOT IT WRONG. The plot doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to, because it’s a book for teenagers, and teenagers love it when things don’t make sense. It lets them be convinced that adults don’t ‘understand’ them. That’s why I loved The Cure when I was seventeen, and why kids nowadays love The Hunger Games and its sequels, New Moon and whatever the third one was with Percy Jackson.

3a.Bonus hatred: I cannot stand Jennifer Lawrence. Not even a little bit. She is somehow the female version of that guy in 8^th grade who thought smelling farts was funny. Associating her with a movie makes me that much less likely to see it. If “J-Law” showed up on my doorstep with a giant pizza and a bootleg director’s cut of the next Star Wars movie, I wouldn’t even answer the door.

Let’s do one more. This is fun! How about:

4. Anything by Isaac Asimov. To be honest, I am not sure where this one comes from because I do not know really anything about Asimov other than I dislike him and everything I imagine he stands for. I know as a scifi-ish writer myself I am supposed to apparently love Isaac Asimov and everyone’s always talking about how he predicted the future and his laws of robotics and etc blah blah blah, but I can’t be bothered. I’m not even sure what Asimov is supposed to have written. Foundation, I think? I’d go look it up but I’d rather my browser not have a history of searching for Asimov stuff. Even I am cooler than that. I think Asimov wrote that story that got made into I, Robot, starring Will Smith, and can we as a society really take an author seriously anymore if Will Smith likes his stuff? I’m also pretty sure that in reality there’d be no way robots could be programmed not to harm humans, which I think was a ‘law’ of robotics Asimov pulled out of thin air and made people believe was a thing. It’s so dumb: suppose I was being held hostage by Chris Pine and Jennifer Lawrence and the only way I’m getting out alive is if C-3PO (do NOT get me started on R2-D2!) snipes them both with a laser rifle from across the road. OH WAIT there’s a LAW that he can’t kill them, only if he DOESN’T, then he’s harming a human by letting me die, right? That is NOT how laws work, Isaac Asimov. You don’t see gravity only holding people down if it’s nonparadoxical.

In closing, you’ll note that the only people I picked on in here are people who are dead, or who don’t matter, or who are Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pine and so deserve it. I don’t have to worry about anyone overreacting or calling me crazy or taking me to task for these entirely unfounded and ill-informed, and yet still 100% correct, opinions. Don’t forget to mention in the comments how much you agree with me!

Something I don’t hate: My book, Codes: Robbie had an ordinary life, until she walked into Gravity Sling. Now he’s seeing coded messages everywhere, being chased by shadowy big-corporation goons, and questioning literally everything about the world as he knows it. Some questions need answers. This Phillip K. Dick style debut science fiction novel raises questions about how people use technology and each other.

Links:

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianePagel

My blog: Thinking The Lions: http://www.thinkingthelions.com

Buy Codes on

Golden Fleece Press’ site: http://goldenfleecepress.com/catalog/fiction/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Codes-Briane-Pagel/dp/1942195109

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/codes-briane-pagel/1121816078?ean=9781942195115

Mockingjay -- Part 1 (a movie review (without the book) post)

So here we are at the third movie, and I'm still not reading the books. Which is not to say that I'm not enjoying the movies, I am. (Well, not the first one so much, but these last two have been quite good.) However, from what I've heard about the books, the reason I like the movies is because the focus has shifted from the love story to the politics, and it's the politics that I find interesting. Honestly, I don't care much for Peeta (who is like a puppy in a perpetual rain storm, all big eyes and whimpers) or Gale (with his constant angst about how Katniss likes Peeta better (and I would like Peeta better, too, if I had to deal with that, right up until I had to deal with Peeta)) and would have a difficult time with a book that obsessed over how the character couldn't make a choice between the two of them. But that's not the movie, so let's move on...

First, let's touch on Philip Seymour Hoffman. I've been a fan of his for a long time, probably owing to The Talented Mr. Ripley, though I first really took note of him in Twister. He gave a great performance in what was an otherwise horrible movie. It was enough to make me watch for him in other films. He was an actor that you could always count on for, at least, a good performance (or a great one, as seen in Capote). I was saddened by his loss. At any rate, initially, it was stated by Lionsgate that he would be digitally recreated for the completion of Mockingjay but, as it turns out, they scrapped that idea. Probably a wise choice, but I didn't know that when I was watching the movie and sat there being amazed at what I thought they'd done. Last word, he was great, as can be expected.

Jennifer Lawrence gave a performance equal to the one she gave in Catching Fire, which is no small thing since the movie hinges on her and her ability to be outraged by the actions of the capitol. The horror that Katniss feels over things like the white roses allows the audience to be outraged along with her. She's a talented actor already; it will be interesting to see where she goes.

The other standout performance was from Elizabeth Banks. She's been superb as Effie Trinket all along, but she really surpassed herself in this one. Effie, having been pulled out of her world and thrust into one which she doesn't understand, is completely out of sorts, and Banks pulls it off flawlessly while still being true to Effie in the process. I'd probably go see these movies just for Banks' performance.

The only complaint I might have about the movie is splitting it into two parts. I've come to a place where I'd rather have one long movie than have it split up. It's not just about the fact that I feel like I'm being milked by Hollywood when they do this, but it's just jarring to have the story stop like that, mid-arc. It's like hitting pause on something and never coming back to finish it. Well, not until months later (or a year in this case). Oh, that and the quinjet that they used. I mean, those VTOL jets they use in the movie look almost identical to the quinjets. Maybe one of the Avengers left one lying around somewhere.

These are really good movies, not quite great but, still, really good. After the shaky start of the first one, they have settled into a visually appealing, solid look for the world, a look which is split between something in the probably far future and a throwback to the turn of the 20th century. Backed by solid acting, this has become a tale, really, of what it's like to live as part of the 99% supporting the 1% in what they justify as a "symbiotic" relationship. I wonder if all parasites see themselves that way.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (a movie review post)

There are times when a movie fails to work for me because it's an adaptation that fails to actually adapt the source material. However, the source material for this movie has become so broad that you can't accuse it of not being faithful to it because you just can't tell what it's trying to be faithful to in regards to said source material. That said, there is one image that will always be associated in my mind with the "Days of Future Past" story line:

And, yes, Wolverine actually dies in that issue but 1. It ended up being a future that was prevented. 2. It was before Wolverine had become "too big to fail" (too popular to die). You'll see none of that in this movie. No, my problem with the movie is that it fails to be faithful just to the Fox X-Men franchise and, really, there's not so much there that it's impossible to do.
But more on that in a minute.

Yes, there will be spoilers. Consider yourselves warned.

As a movie, X-Men: Days of Future Past is fine if somewhat (a lot) predictable. The opening fight against the sentinels is fantastic. Well, except for the part where Kitty Pryde can send people into the past. What the heck? The powers of Kitty have long been established, not just within the comics but within the Fox X-Men universe, so giving Kitty the ability to send people consciously back in time seems a bit gratuitous. If they wanted a mutant to do that, why not just put in a mutant to do that rather than give that power to someone who shouldn't have it? Or, you know, include Forge in the lineup, because he would have made a nice addition to the movie.

The other main issue I had with the movie was Xavier's struggle with what amounted to drug addiction. That whole thing felt easy and contrived and, while I get that they needed to present Wolverine with some obstacles to overcome to complete his mission, that one felt gratuitous. The idea that Xavier would sacrifice his mutant ability so that he could walk again and pretend to forget his pain was too far outside of the character we know to really be believable. At least, that's true coming at it from the standpoint of the comics. Maybe, it's plausible looking at it from just the movies, but I'm not feeling it that way, either.

But, really, the movie is fine. Well, except for the appearance of Quicksilver, which was completely out of context. We get Quicksilver but not the Scarlet Witch nor even any mention of her. Also, there was no acknowledgement that Quicksilver is Magneto's son and only even a very vague possibility of that even being true in the movie. So why use the character if you're not actually going to use the character? Just make that some other character that only exists in the movie universe. Honestly, it felt more like a jab at Disney and Marvel Studios who have Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch lined up for the next Avengers movie.

However, the scene where he saves everyone in the kitchen is fantastic.

But, really, the movie is fine. It is. It's enjoyable. The cast is great. Of course, Jackman carries the film. His performance of Wolverine continues to be flawless. And Jennifer Lawrence was so much better in this one than she was in First Class. I continue to like Shawn Ashmore as Bobby Drake, and I really wanted to see more of Bishop and Blink, and I don't mean more of them in combat. It would have been nice to see them as characters, too.

All of that said, the thing that disturbed my enjoyment the most was the feeling that the whole movie was an excuse for Bryan Singer to fix all the problems he caused when he dropped out of X-Men 3 to go off and make that horrible Superman movie. So let's look at that a moment:
Singer had a plan for X-Men at the time. No one really knows what that plan was because he didn't share much of it and I kind of doubt he even knows, now, what he was doing then. But, in the middle of pre-production for X-Men 3, not only does he go off to make Superman, but he convinces James Marsden (Cyclops) to go with him (and some of his writers from the previous X-Men movies). Understandably, Fox gets pissed at both of them and vows that neither will ever work with them again and, just to prove their point, kills Cyclops off during the opening sequence of The Last Stand.

From there, a bunch of stuff happened in X3 and the other X-Men related movies that Singer wouldn't have done but, you know, he wasn't there. Fox and Singer make up; Singer returns to X-Men; Singer wants his characters back, those characters being Cyclops and Jean Grey. Basically, Days of Future Past is a story that creates a brand new X-Men world and allows Singer to ignore all previous X-Men continuity. He gets to bring back Cyclops and Jean and do whatever he wants from this point on. Until he decides to, again, abandon Fox's X-Men and leave someone else to try to figure out what he was doing. The whole thing lessens my enjoyment of Days of Future Past, which may not be fair to the actual movie, but Singer bothers me enough that I can't just ignore it.

In the final analysis, if you've liked the X-Men movies, there's no good reason that you won't like this one. Probably, it's one of the top three out of the, what?, seven movies. I think my count there is correct. As a series of movies, the X-Men movies still fail to approach what Marvel has been doing over at Disney but, as a single movie, this one is probably on par with the Iron Man sequels. It's good; it's just not awesome.

Are You Being Hustled?

Some of these things actually happened.

But probably not many of them. At least not in any way close to the presentation in American Hustle. 

That doesn't stop it from being an excellent movie, though.

It's one of the few movies I've seen where I had no idea about what was coming next. At its base, it's a con movie, so you're never quite sure who's conning whom and what anyone has up his sleeve. Or under her skirt, I suppose, since the women are perpetually dressed as they are in the poster. And, then, at least a couple of the characters are at least slightly unhinged, and you never quite know which direction the story is going.

Surprisingly, the movie opens with one of those flash-forward/flashback type things that I normally hate, but they really made it work in this one. For one thing, the movie doesn't start near the climax, just at the point of the first sting operation. It's the place where we meet all of the major players, so to speak. Once the deal falls apart, we flashback with Irving Rosenfeld for a first person narration (which I also usually hate) of what brought him to that point. But what makes it interesting is that when we get to the part where he crosses paths with Sydney Prosser, she picks up the narration and, then, they have this kind of dueling narration giving us the back story, and it really works. It helps that it's not a "36 hours earlier" kind of scenario. It's the characters telling us about who they are, you know, as people, and that's what makes it work.

As interesting as the story is, though, it's the acting that makes this movie. The performances, all of them, are incredible.

Christian Bale shows us once again just what he's willing to do physically to become his character, this time putting on a bit of a paunch (which he shows off in the movie in a very unflattering way) and shaving a bald spot onto his head (also unflattering). He's what can only be described as a sleazy character, a con man, but, by the time we get back to the point in the story where it started, we have total sympathy for him. I just want to point out that I am not a Bale fan. I have respect for what he's willing to go through for a role (like in The Machinist and Rescue Dawn), and I think he's a good actor, but I don't really like him that much. That I say he was impressive in this role is, then, saying something.

Amy Adams--cute, sweet Amy Adams--shows us she's anything but as an ex-stripper trying to reinvent herself. Her boobs should probably also have received some sort of credit. Not that they ever fully appear onscreen or anything, but it's hard not to be aware of them when she's onscreen. She's like some 70s porn star or something. Or like what I think a 70s porn star must have been like. I'm not really sure. At any rate, her performance is pretty amazing, and you're never quite sure what she's up to, just that she is up to... things. It's her performance that provides a lot of the tension in the movie, because you're never really sure whose side she's on. Well, other than her own, that is.

Bradley Cooper is amazing as a somewhat overzealous FBI agent. And I'd say more about him, but I don't think I can without spoilers. I'll just say that I think Cooper has a certain intensity about him that not many actors can equal. And, according to my wife, he and Adams deliver one of the sexiest scenes she's ever seen. The amazing thing about that is that nothing happens in that scene. Well, not nothing but, you know, nothing happens: there is no loss of clothing or anything like that. But it's intense, and most of that is from him.

Jennifer Lawrence continues to show that she's more than just a pretty face. I'm not quite sure she deserved her Oscar last year (not that her performance wasn't good; it was. I've just never been convinced it was "best actress" quality), but, if she gets a best supporting Oscar for this role, it will be deserved. The scene with her and the "science oven" is almost enough all by itself to earn her the Oscar.

And, then, there's Jeremy Renner. And his hair. Because if Amy Adams boobs almost deserved a screen credit, Renner's hair certainly did. I could not take my eyes off of it. It was amazing. And, in a movie where everyone's hair was pretty amazing, that's saying something. This is the first movie I've seen him in where he shows me he can do something besides play "taciturn hero" (and, no, I haven't yet seen The Hurt Locker, but, knowing what it's about (loosely), I'm guess he plays "taciturn hero" in that one, too). He's pretty great as a New Jersey mayor in this. He's pretty great in the sense that I did not actually know he was in the movie before I was seeing the movie, and, then, I kept wondering if I was wrong and maybe that wasn't really him, so that, I think, is a pretty good performance.

Louis C.K. also fit in nicely. I don't think there was any kind of stretch for him as an actor, but he worked well with everyone else. As did Elisabeth Rohm (from Angel); I didn't recognize her at all.

The end result is a lot of compelling performances and an interesting plot. Enough so that, as I sit here writing this up, it makes me want to watch it again. Especially Jeremy Renner's hair. I don't think I've been so captivated by anyone's hair since the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl back in '93 (I think) and someone (Emmitt Smith?) poured a cooler of water over Jimmy Johnson's head, and his hair didn't move. It was like he had on a plastic, hair-shaped helmet. It was fascinating.

Oh! And the cameo appearance by De Niro... the perfect touch.

Catching Fire, still unbiased

For the appropriate background, you should go back and read my review of The Hunger Games. In brief, I have not and do not plan to read the books, so this review is based solely on my viewing of the movie.

Where the first movie failed to build a solid foundation for the world of the Hunger Games to stand on, Catching Fire came in to make that foundation more solid. Some of that is, for lack of a better term, accidental. For instance, the fact that Katniss and Peeta are the picture of good health (along with Katniss' family) is now to be expected, so that no longer worked against the movie. District 12 and its inhabitants were more rundown and dilapidated, so the contrast between Katniss and her fellow citizens (other than Gale) was more distinct. All of that was good and gave a more realistic feel to the movie than the last one had.

We got a broader view of the world in general and of the Peacekeepers in action, which was way more disturbing than the first movie would have lead us to believe. The second movie made us believe all the things the first movie only told us to believe. It's actually the whole "show vs tell" thing. The first movie tells us the people are oppressed, but Catching Fire shows us.

• It shows us when Gale is taken and flogged and Katniss almost shot.
• It shows us when the old man in District 11 is pulled from the crowd and shot in the head.
• It shows when Katniss and Peeta are offered the puking beverage so that they can continue to participate in the party.
• And it shows us when Cinna is beaten (to death, I presume) right in front of Katniss after the tube closes on her and all she can do is watch. And scream.

The political intrigue, almost absent from The Hunger Games, also elevates Catching Fire. Plutarch Heavensbee is a great character, and I was never quite sure what was going on with him. There was what I thought was happening, but Philip Seymour Hoffman was so good, I spent a lot of time doubting myself. Of course, Hoffman is great, and I was delighted to see him in the movie. Plutarch wasn't the only one playing games, but he was the primary one, and I almost felt sorry for President Snow and his inability to adequately play politics. Snow seemed to know one tactic: "Smash!" Or threaten to smash. Or kill.

The acting in Fire was much better than in Games.

• Lawrence really stepped into the part and made us feel the horror and rage of the things she was going through. Also the lost-ness in parts. She was impressive this time rather than just existing in the role.
• Woody Harrelson continued to be great as Haymitch.
• Elizabeth Banks moved beyond her makeup, which was actually rather impressive considering that you couldn't really see her face. The emotion she was able to bring through in relation to how she felt about the injustices that were happening was incredible.
• Stanley Tucci continued to be awesome.
• As I already said, Philip Seymour Hoffman was tremendous.
• Sam Claflin was really good.
• But the big surprise was Jena Malone. She was great!

The greatest success of the movie, though, was that it made me want to read the books. Almost. I'm still not going to read them, because, based on many of the things I've read about it, the movie fixes many of the problems from the first movie and from the books. The focus on the politics seems to be a movie thing not a book thing, and that's the stuff I really liked. So, still, not reading the books, but I'm slightly less set against them now. That's an achievement.

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AVAILABLE TODAY!
"Shadow Spinner: Collection 3: The Garden (Parts 13 - 21)"

This collection has a short story by none other than Rusty Webb, who also draws pictures and has drawn all of mine. It's a great story based on the world from The House on the Corner, and it has... but that would be telling. Hopefully, there will be more to come from this story line, later. At any rate, pick up Collection 3, read my stuff, read his stuff. After you've done all of that, go back and leave a review!

The Hunger Games unbiased by the book

Just to make it clear, I have not read The Hunger Games and I don't intend to. I have my reasons. I have my reasons which I spend a considerable amount of time explaining, as the question of why I'm not going to read The Hunger Games is now the most frequent question I'm asked by people that know me in person. Also, let's just say, the movie only affirmed those reasons, so I'm even less likely to read the book now than I was before I saw it. But I'm sort of jumping ahead...

I had no real overriding desire to go see The Hunger Games, especially during opening weekend, but my daughter wanted to go see it (let's just call that a peer thing, since she, also, has not read the book). Because it was raining and thus there was no softball practice for my daughter, I figured I'd better take advantage of the unexpected (okay, it was expected, because we knew it was going to be raining, but the coach waited until nearly noon to concede defeat to the weather) available time and take her to see it.

So here's the spoiler warning, because I'm not going to be very careful about what I say since I expect that most of you that actually care have already seen the movie anyway (and nothing I say is going to change your opinion, but, still, maybe I can make a person or two stop and think). If you haven't already seen it, you probably don't care enough for it to matter.

We're supposed to believe that Katniss and the other members of District 12 are poor. But not just poor, dirt poor. As in they don't have enough to eat. They don't have good clothes to wear. That's what the film would like us to believe from the presentation. But it doesn't back it up. Everyone is too healthy, and they have nice, clean clothes (and, evidently, plenty of them). Not just Katniss. Everyone. Especially Katniss, though, with her round cheeks. No one here is deprived. They're also clean. All of them. Pristine clean. Even Peeta in the midst of throwing out scraps to the pigs in the mud during the rain is wearing pristine white clothes. Poor people don't live like this. My sense of reality is already at odds with the movie, and it's barely started.

The next major disconnect is "the reaping." It's a stupid name for what's going on as the whole thing is "random." That's not what reaping is at all. But my big issue here is the way that everyone just stands by while it's going on. Even the parents. It's totally unbelievable. Throughout history, we have seen parents go to all sorts of lengths to protect their children. Even up to death. So I can't buy into the fact that the parents just stand by and allow their children to be taken. Without protest. Of any kind. I don't care what kind of social conditioning you try to say is going on, there is nothing that can override the biological need of a parent to protect his/her child. At least, in the short story "The Lottery", the people don't know why the lottery is happening. It's origins have been lost, and they don't know what kind of badness will transpire if they fail to follow through every year. Superstition lends believability to the events. But they do know in Hunger Games, so that whole set up came off as contrived to me. And, of course, it is contrived, because that's what authors do, but it shouldn't feel contrived. That did. Even if Katniss' mother wasn't going to wail or protest, someone should have. Peeta's parents didn't. And there was no mention of it from any other district, either, so it just rang false.

Since we're on the subject, were we also supposed to believe that that was the entire District 12 there in that courtyard? That was it? There's few enough of them to fit all the names in that one little fish bowl? A couple of hundred kids in the whole District? Give me a break. And if that was it, if that's what we're supposed to buy into, then I can't buy into districts that are that small supporting a city the size of the capitol. Especially at the level of technology they have. It's also way beyond plausibility that they support all of that off of coal mining. Seriously? That's what we're expected to believe?

All of that to say that I was already busy shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the entire thing within 30 minutes. I don't know what the book is like, but the movie created a foundation built on sand. I think it was made out of sand, too. I mean, the whole set up is just so that they can make the point that it's all for the entertainment of the city folk. I get the point. I even appreciate the point. But you have to make it believable.

Other things I couldn't buy:

The flaming clothes of Katniss and Peeta: Not that I couldn't believe the possibility of  it, but I couldn't accept that Cinna was the only one to think of something extravagant. Again, give me a break. Not a single one of the other publicity people were creative enough to think of something cool to bring attention to their people?

Peeta: Shy boy from a backwater district suddenly becomes all cool and suave for television? No way... That coupled with his speech to Katniss about how he didn't want them to change him just about made me gag.

The game itself. And this will be my last point, but it's a big one.

The idea is that the 24 tributes will fight to the death for riches and glory, but only four of them, the representatives from Districts 1 and 2, are invested in that. The rest of them, mostly, just really want to live. Collins, in effect, put the characters into a situation where they have no motivation to make anything happen. After that first rush for supplies, it becomes enough that the tributes just figure out a way to live. Even Cato, in the end, just stakes his territory and sits around and waits. There is no motivation for anyone to do anything, and that's just bad writing. In order to move the story along, at this point, Collins (because she was involved in writing the script for the movie, too) has to introduce an external force to push the characters into what she wants to happen. Again, this whole sequence of events came off as very contrived. Because it was.

The dogs were stupid. I mean, that whole bit with them coming out of the ground was just dumb. And, then, Katniss and Peeta running to where they knew Cato was? Also dumb. Katniss had already shown great skill at climbing trees, so the fact that they ran off through the forest to get to the clearing was just beyond reasonable. Except that that is where Collins wanted them to be.

Also, the whole "there can be two winners" "oh, no, we lied" bit. Also dumb. And the wasps. Convenient. Especially since they managed to not sting anyone in the at least 12 hours the sitting right next to them.

And, since I haven't read the books, and I don't really know what's going on with it, I won't say a thing about the "love" story. Maybe my initial thoughts about it will be proven incorrect, so I'll reserve judgment.

Not be completely negative, though, Woody Harrelson was great as Haymitch. I've seen a lot of criticism about that character from people that read the books, but I thought Harrelson was great. Actually, I think Harrelson is a generally underrated actor.

The only person better? Stanley Tucci. He was amazing. Tucci is another actor that rarely gets the credit he deserves.

I'd like to say I was impressed with Elizabeth Banks, but I think her makeup did most of her acting for her.

And I'd really like to say that I was impressed with Lawrence, but, really, I don't think she stood out at all in the role. There was nothing that she did to make the role hers. Nothing that made it distinct. Nothing that would keep a dozen other actors from stepping in and doing the job just as well. Or, maybe, better.

>sigh<

And just to put it all in perspective:

My daughter said it was not better than John Carter. Not that she liked John Carter more, but she put them on, basically, equal footing.

My younger son did like John Carter better. A lot better.

My older son said about Hunger Games, "It was good." But, when I asked him what made it good or what he liked about it, he couldn't think of anything. Then, once he started talking about the movie, he actually had nothing positive to say about it. And none of it was prompting from me, because I was trying to get my kids' opinions about the movie without diluting it with my own, so I didn't say anything about the way I felt about it until after I heard from them. I will say, though, that my older son went to see Hunger with his girlfriend, who has read the books, and she loved it, so I think his initial assessment of "it's good" was because he saw it with her. Once I got him talking about it, all he could think of were things he thought were wrong with it. In the end, the only thing he could come up with that he liked was the idea of an apocalyptic war and the idea of yearly tributes for the game.

I suppose this is one of those that I'm glad I went to see just so I can know what's going on with it, because it's all anyone talks about, but I was distinctly unimpressed. I was even more umimpressed by the teenager behind me that announced after the movie was over, "That was the best the movie EVER!" That actually made my younger son burst out laughing. I had to nudge him to make him stop. All I can say to that nameless teenager, "You need to get out more."

Pop Culture Class featuring the X-Men!

Yes, it's that time again. Time for another lesson in pop culture, so put on your pop culture hats and let's get started. Oh, and remember; it always stays crunchy in milk!
Before we get into the movie itself, let's talk about some trailers. I'm a big fan of trailers. My wife frequently gets upset with me for wanting to watch them on DVDs. She wants to just go straight to the movie, but I like to watch the trailers. Today, two trailers I hadn't seen before.

First up is the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Now, I've been seeing blurbs for this  one for a while, but I've been ignoring them. I still remember the disaster that was Tim Burton's attempt to revive the Apes franchise, and I couldn't keep the bad taste out of my mouth whenever I saw anything about this new one. I haven't been interested in checking out the trailer for it, so it took having it shoved in front of a movie that I was watching for me to pay attention to it. The first hook was James Franco. I can't help it; I like the guy. I'm not saying he's the best actor ever, but, my gosh, he's impressive. He took over 60 hours of class in one semester (and I thought I was impressive when I did 24 hours one semester). The next hook is that this isn't simply another ape movie. It's a morality tale about what we're doing to our world and the irresponsibility with which we use technology. I went from having less than zero interest in this film to really wanting to see it.

I have only thing to say about the other trailer: Hugh Jackman. Okay, well, Real Steel, surprisingly, looks like it may prove to be a decent film even without Mr. Jackman. However, Hugh being in it almost makes it a must see for me. Which, actually, is surprising, since, when I first heard they were making a movie based on Rock'em Sock'em Robots, I was aghast with disbelief. I mean, what's next Operation: The Movie? Or, maybe, Monopoly? Wait, I know! Battleship! The producers have, wisely, done away with any ties to the toy, at this point, and, what's left, is what looks like a genuinely good movie.

At this point, have you forgotten what movie we're here to see?

X-Men: First Class gets the opening exactly right. It returns to the same scene that opened the first X-Men movie, so we see, again, young Erik Lehnsherr being dragged away from his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. We get slightly more of what happens to Erik, this time, though, and we also get to meet Sebastian Shaw, played expertly by Kevin Bacon.

However, from there, the movie bounces around and forward through time and feels a little rushed. Like there was more they should have been showing but had to cut it all out. That's always difficult when they're trying to provide enough back story and introduce several characters all at the same time, and they almost pulled it off smoothly, but not quite. Things (mostly) smooth out when we get to the present day of 1962. Oliver Platt gets a role, and, I have to say, I love Oliver Platt, so it was a joy to see him in  the movie. Rose Byrne, of Bridesmaids, is in as Moira MacTaggert, and she is also quite good.

The main failing of the movie may just be a failing in me, although I'm not convinced. It might be one caused by the studio, in  this case Fox, not Marvel, not really knowing what audience they want to target. Marvel seems to have worked this out, for the most part, in  their own movies, but the X-Men franchise seems to be struggling with it. The conflict lies in how to deal with fans of the actual comic books. If you stray too far from the comics, the fans get into an uproar, but, sometimes, if you stay too close to the comic, the broader audience won't go see the movie at all (I could be wrong, but I think Warner Brothers is about to have this problem with Green Lantern (which is not to say that the movie's not going to have a big opening, but I think that may be where it ends)). When movies adapted from comics first started getting popular, that's how the studios approached it, balancing fans against people that never read comics, people who only knew of the characters peripherally. I'm finding my issue lies in a third area, that group of people that at one time followed comics but has been away from them for an extended length of time. This is the audience, the nostalgia audience, that Fox keeps messing up with. And it's a much larger audience than the audience of current fans. These are the people with the kids who, if the movie is good, will take their kids back to the same movie over and over again.
All of that to say that one particular character in the movie really bothered me. Bothered me to the extent that it was distracting to me. For someone currently following the X-Men comics, this character shouldn't be an issue, but, as I watched the movie, not having even looked inside an X-Men comic published in the last decade, I couldn't see Azazel as more than a cheap Nightcrawler rip off. That character, in particular, decreased my enjoyment of the movie, because Nightcrawler has always been one of my favorite X-Men.

Of course, I came home and did my background research before I started this post and discovered Azazel is a character that's been introduced since my sojourn in the comic book world ended. And he's such a Nightcrawler rip off because he's, yes, Nightcrawler's father. I won't go into my issues with that, since they have nothing to do with the movie. Most people, though, aren't going to go home after the movie and look up the character and find out there's a (unspoken) reason he's in the film. Again, maybe my reaction is just mine, but I would be surprised.

The only real failing of the movie is that it succumbs to that long held movie tradition of the crash course training event whereby a completely untrained individual or group becomes expert at what they're doing in a matter of moments. In this case, the training of the X-Men lasts an entire week, and they actually comment on it during the movie, "Look at what we've accomplished in just a week..." For a movie that spans 18 years, you'd think they'd have worked out a better way than to cram all the training into that last week of the storyline, but no... It's unfortunate.

Other than that, it's a good movie. Fox seems to have learned from its mistakes with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, although they may have also created some continuity issues between the two movies. Maybe they'll work those out at some point, but I doubt it. Now that I know Azazel is a real character, I'd actually go see it again. There's a lot to absorb in a movie like this, and it would just be nice to watch it without getting prickly every time Azazel pops onto the screen.

As for the cast and characters, as I already implied, Kevin Bacon made an excellent villain. He's undervalued as an actor, so it's good to see him in a high profile role, again.

January Jones is perfectly cast as Emma Frost, the white queen of the Hellfire Club. She goes from the role of the ice queen Betty Draper (Mad Men) to embodying that image literally. She doesn't show a lot of range, but, then, she doesn't need to.

James McAvoy is a pleasure as Professor X, or, really, just Charles. There are glimmers of the character as performed by Patrick Stewart in McAvoy's performance, and, really, what more can you ask for than that? The only issues with the character come from the writing and not the acting. The issue stems from the desire to create a more basic conflict between Charles and Eric than one just of method. They play Xavier not just as wanting peaceful co-existence between mutant and human but as wanting the humanizing of mutants. Not that he wants them to not be mutants, but he wants them to be indistinguishable from humans. He sort of comes off as a bigot in this respect.

The purist is, of course, Magneto. He believes in embracing mutantness, and, well, if you've seen the other X-Men movies, you know where this goes. Michael Fassbender does an admirable job in the role. Once he dons the helmet, he even rather looks like Ian McKellen.

It was nice to see Banshee included. He's another of those X-Men that I really like that's often overlooked. He's an interesting character that they're really never delved into enough, so it was cool to see him in the mix. Caleb Jones did an adequate job in the role, but, honestly, I just kept seeing Rupert Grint superimposed in the role.

Which brings us to Jennifer Lawrence. I'm sure all of you fans of The Hunger Games have been wondering when I'd get to her. Unfortunately, I don't have anything really positive to say about her. No raving about her performance. There's also nothing bad to say about her performance; it just wasn't anything that stood out. Possibly, the role didn't require anything of her other than to stand around and be herself, look pretty, but Mystique never really came into focus. There was a lack of emotional intensity that should have been present.

Oh, and there's an awesome Wolverine cameo. That alone is almost worth the movie even if it had been horrible. Since it wasn't horrible, the Wolverine cameo really is icing on the cake. Not awesome cake, but good cake. With awesome icing.