The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 – Everywhere
I’ve read all of the Hunger Games books, and thought the first was great, the second was basically the first but longer, and the third was almost unreadable. Of the movies, I thought the first was almost unwatchable, because of its incessant use of shaky-cam, and the second was a lot better than the first, simply because it was better directed.
So now we have the third. (Well, half of the third.) That final book was boring, and yet, they’ve decided to make it into two movies. But, who knows, maybe they’ll improve it, and tell the political intrigue part of the saga a lot better than the original author, Suzanne Collins, was able to.
Steve Carrell wears a fake nose, talks like Alfred Hitchcock, and plays a real life person, so, start placing those Oscar bets now. (Channing Tatum dons some weird face prosthetics in it too, but he and Mark Ruffalo spend a lot of the movie wearing wrestling onesies, so I’d stick to Golden Globe noms for them.) A rich weirdo, wrestling, and murder – sounds like it would make a great podcast!
The Better Angels – Opera Plaza
The story of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood, and how he chopped down that cherry tree…
Oh, whoops. Wrong president! Lincoln didn’t chop down any cherry trees as a child–that we know of–but he did live in the Indiana wilderness, did lose his mother at a young age, and did have a stepmother who influenced him greatly. In black and white, and produced by Terrence Malick.
