The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is one of those movies that when I heard the first rumors of Hollywood wanting to take the book series and make movie versions, I was excited and felt like the books would make for a fun and entertaining trilogy of movies. Once the rumors of the movie actually coming to fruition I wanted to make sure I saw The Hunger Games as soon as possible once it came out. For those who have not read the books, The Hunger Games takes place in the future where Panem (The old USA) as penance for their uprising against the Capitol every year the twelve districts are required to offer a male and female tribute to compete to the death, with only one victor. For seeing this movie I went for a completely new experience as we went for the D-Box seats, which while I enjoyed it, it was really fun to have a new motion of the seats added to the movie watching experience. While it did make the movie a little more intense and exciting it was not something that I will be dying to do for every action movie that comes out. It was well worth having the D-Box experience.

Jennifer Lawrence in the role of Katniss Everdeen not only works perfectly, but she is actually how I pictured Katniss while I was reading the books. Lawrence plays the role with the right amount of fear, terror of being in the games, nervousness and a defiant quiet strength at the same time. The success of this movie lies mostly on Lawrence since she is not only the main character, but the fact that there is really only one or two scenes in the movie where she is not in the scene, so if we do not like her portrayal of our heroine or if she can not act how Katniss needs to act then the movie will truly suffer. Lawrence is able to knock it out of the park and really makes the movie a success in my book. For me I think she make the role work so well because she does not over think or try too hard to make the emotions Katniss is going through come out, instead it comes off very naturally. Josh Hutcherson in the role of Peeta ended up working for me and I enjoyed his portrayal in the end. Even though it did take some additional time for me to warm-up to him in the role. Initially, I felt him to not be strong enough as I had pictured him, but as he showed his strength I cam to realize that had he been stronger from the onset we would not have cared about his character, as well as the other tributes would have viewed him as too much of a threat so it was vital that he did not appear too strong. By not appearing too strong it allowed him to protect Katniss in his own way within the game. The chemistry between Lawrence and was spot on from the beginning as they had a distinct awkwardness around each other as they were both dealing with being the tributes from district 12 and then as the Hunger Games moved on they worked well with one another and the star crossed lovers truly came across.

The supporting cast was cast perfectly as well. While there were a character here and there that did not meet the picture in my head, but I will admit that Donald Sutherland in the role of President Snow was the best they could do, but there is not an actor out there that could have come close to the way I pictured President Snow in my head. Woody Harrelson on the other hand as Haymitch  was one of only two actors that could take the role as the mentor that is virtually an alcoholic because of what he had to do  to survive his Hunger Games, and play the role on such an edge and with such an intensity and yet still be very likable to the audience While the image of Haymitch was not exactly as I had pictured him while reading the book, the mannerisms and attitude is spot on and Harrelson truly committed to the role and it really worked.  Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz and the tributes do great jobs to help support Lawrence and Hutcherson. Of the supporting cast though Stanley Tucci steals the show in the role of Caesar Flickerman. He is so successful because he does a great job committing to the role. Tucci is truly a chameleon of an actor as he s able to take any role and make it his own. Yet, with the role of Flickerman he is able to keep the character true to the book, but still have his own flair.

The story for The Hunger Games is magnificent as the writers were able to adapt the book into the movie flawlessly. The Hunger Games is one of the best movies based on a book because they have been able to stay so true to the book. While books changed into movies they have to obviously take parts from the book out because unfortunately it is impossible to get everything that is in a book into a movie without making a movie four hours long. The writers were able to successfully manage what to take out and what to leave in.  Also, when taking a book and making it into a movie it is tough to compete on film with the world our imagination is able to build while reading the book. I think the writers, set designers and costume designers did such a great job with not only being over the top especially with all of the costuming for the Capitol , but I think this is the closest to my own vision a movie has come to how I pictured a world of a book to come to being.

I always find dystopic books to be interesting to read (I have to thank my wife because she got me into the dystopic books), it was really interesting to see one of these dystopic books turned into a movie. The aspect of The Hunger Games that was fairly intriguing to me was the fact of seeing kids being forced into a gladiator style battle to the death was a little disturbing, but to me the more disturbing aspect is how the game makers do not always make it fair and could control the aspects of the arena to force a death if it has been too long and they need to keep the citizens of the Capitol entertained. I think dystopic books and these dystopic movies also serve as a warning to us to make sure we as a society never let the government take complete control. The action worked so well throughout the movie and it really helped with the pacing. The movie is 142 minutes long, but because they paced the story so well I did not find myself getting bored and wondering when the movie would get moving. The writers did a great job at making every scene that was in the movie to serve a purpose and so it did not feel like it was dragging or that it was rushing to keep the audience entertained.

The Hunger Games is a great dystopic book that is now a great dystopic movie. The performances by Lawrence and the rest of the cast worked together so well. The Hunger games is one of the best book to movies I have seen. I was completely surprised at the ability they had to bring this world of the future to being so close onscreen to what my imagination had painted while reading the book. I am giving The Hunger Games three and three fourth buckets of popcorn out of five. The Hunger Games is well worth the price of a ticket to see at the movie theater that way you can experience it on the big screen with an amazing sound system surrounding you. I am sure this is one that will end up in the movie collection when it comes to blu-ray.

-The Movie Man

Moneyball

Moneyball is one of those sports movies that I looked forward to seeing from the moment I saw the first trailer. While Miracle is the first based on a true story sports movie that I actually knew of the story before seeing the movie, but the overall story for Moneyball I actually knew more of the details going in. Being drawn to seeing sports movies, and they are typically ones that I love in the end, because of the competitive nature exemplified in these movies and this competitive nature is something I have always had myself. Unfortunately, I never got around to seeing this movie in the theaters and when I finally saw Moneyball I was very surprised at how while it is a sports movie, the sports aspect is a secondary component to the real story of the movie being Billy Beane's relationships as he turns player evaluations on its head.

Brad Pitt in the role of Billy Beane, is amazingly perfect for him and I think this is the best role I have ever seen him in. Any other year and I think Pitt would have walked away with the Best Actor Oscar, but this year was a tough competition year and a baseball movie is not as artsy so Pitt's performance is not seen as strong and perfect as others were viewed. Pitt brings a great humanity that he has struggles that everyone can relate to, so the audience wants his huge risk he takes to work for him in the end so that our own faith in overcoming our struggles can end up turning out for the better. Jonah Hill in the role of Peter Brand was completely shocking in the performance he gave. Everything I had seen Hill in before this had been comedy roles and while I find him to be completely hilarious, he was able to show he is more then just a comedian and that he can take on serious roles and actually be successful in those roles. Hill has not only the look, but the mannerisms and he acts the exact way I would expect an economics major to be in his first real job. Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Art Howe the A;s manager while a small role, really commands the scenes he is in. As the manager as he conflicts with Billy Beane we want to hate him and for him to trust in what Beane is trying to do because if the manager is not putting the players that Beane has brought in with his drastically different method and the team is losing, Beane is taking the heat even though his concept is not actually on the field. Hoffman has great heated interactions with Pitt that really make for a lot memorable moments.

The chemistry between Pitt and Hill is superb and it is there interactions that help not only the audience like their characters, but it is what makes the movie work and be successful. They work so well together that they end up truly learning from each other. Where Beane in his past has avoided the relationships with the players, he begins to eventually connect because not knowing the players does not make the decisions easier in the end. The relationship between Beane and Brand is truly one where they make up for each others weaknesses. With the story focusing on Beane's life and everything surrounding him it ends up working so great. Plus in professional sports it is truly a great thing when money does not end up being the end all be all. With when the story actually takes place it was truly cool for me to think that I actually got to see the first ever attempted new was to compete with the teams that have huge payrolls  as I saw the A's in spring training in 2002. As everything is happening Pitt has sucked everyone in that we feel every high and low he is goring through. With the baseball aspect being subsidiary I found that the scenes of baseball were used to help with the pacing, they ended up helping to move the story along.

Moneyball is a movie that while it was not as much of a sports movie as I was expecting, it still ended up being a pretty great movie. I was really surprised at how great of a job Jonah Hill did in a serious role and how well he worked onscreen with Pitt. With the story being mostly all about the relationships Beane has with the various characters, Moneyball is one of the best sports genre movies I have seen in years. I am giving Moneyball three and a half buckets of popcorn out of five. Moneyball is a movie that is well worth renting , and it is definitely a movie that will be added to the movie collection in the near future.

-The Movie Man

The Vow

The Vow is one of those movies I knew from the trailer that I would end up seeing simply because Channing tatum is one of my wife's favorite actors that she always wants to see in whatever movie he is in. With it being a chick flick it is one of those movies I get to go to because I drag her to just as many of the guy type movies that are not always up her alley. The Vow was pitched to us in the trailers as being a movie where after a car accident Paige wakes up from the medically induced coma only to have memory loss in which the last four years of her life is all blank to her. Including the fact she no longer remembers her husband let alone even knowing him. So Leo the husband sets out to make her fall in love with him all over again. While this is what the trailer makes us feel what the movie is about, unfortunately the movie has a sad, depressing feel throughout and each time you think things are finally going to turn around and not feel so depressing you will be disappointed because it never happens.

Channing Tatum in the role of Leo, who is telling the story of how the moments in life are what can change everything in just an instant.Tatum shows a lot of potential and performs admirably as Leo with what he is given. In the end, while the audience feels sorry for him and everything he is put through because of this tragedy, we really get no depth to his character. Leo seems to end up being nothing more then a nice guy and not much else. Rachel McAdams in the role of Paige is given a lot more to work with and she definitely takes advantage of that. We are giveng a full range of emotion to see from her character and McAdams takes on the challenge well. McAdams gives us a performance that we really feel sorry for her as she is trying to make do with putting back together her life. The supporting cast for The Vow do a decent job and yet I really wish there were even more depth to the auxillary characters.

The story for The Vow just did not work for me. The overall premise of a wife losing her memory and not remembering her husband and him going to all the lengths he can to have her fall in love with him all over again. I think with this the screenplay could have gone all sorts of ways and I feel that they went one of the worst ways possible. The Vow ends up being a somber movie that you feel has plenty of moments throughout where the entire mood of the movie can change to giving the belief of true love can overcome the challenges, yet this never seems to come about. With a movie that comes out just before Valentine's Day and with it having the feel of being the ultimate true love movie you want to leave feeling like love conquered, but that never happens and it truly made the movie suffer. With the Vow being inspired by something similar that happened to a real life couple it was a good concept. I felt that rather on focusing on how the relationship could be rebuilt between Paige and Leo, instead the screenplay decided to focus more on a lot of family drama that in my summation really made the movie have no romantic chick flick feel to it.  I think that if they would have spent more to being a little closer to what actually happened to the real life couple this would have greatly helped the overall feel of the movie.

With the struggles that the story had it really hurst what would have been one of the stronger aspects is the chemistry between McAdams and Tatum. The chemistry is so strong between them when they are on screen together during the moments of their marriage before the accident. It is during these moments where we end up caring the most about Leo and Paige. During the rest of the movie the chemistry is awkward between them becuase they really do not know how to be on screen with each other an not have that spark that even shows up when Paige has no memory of Leo. This spark that still shows on screen to the audience and because of that it makes everything less believable because the audience sees the chemistry spark and want to see them back together. Rather then using this spark to build happy feelings with the audience and toward them getting back together they ignore the spark and give us this sad deptressing movie.

The Vow was a huge swing and a miss in the chck flick category. While McAdams was strong and controlled in her role, Tatum's characters was very superficial and we were not given very much from his character. Not only did the story have a lot of potential and the chemistry was there, it was the execution of the story that made the chemistry just not work. The Vow ended up being a depressing movie that left you going "Really?" that is why I am giving the Vow one and a half cukets of popcorn out of five. This is definitely a movie that I would avoid, but if you wanted to find a movie to watch with a significant other that can fall in that chick flick category I would definitely recommend checking out my review for Crazy, Stupid, Love and look to rent that one.

-The Movie Man