Comments on: THE HUNGER GAMES: A Movie Discussion from Three POVs

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:01:11 +0000

Vietnam had no movie ratings system when I was living there (not sure about now), so going to the movies was a crapshoot. I was accidentally exposed to violent films as a kid that freaked me out, so as an adult, I stay away from gory, hard-R movies.

I never saw PULP FICTION until the sanitized version aired on TV and I couldn’t understand what was going on because so much of it was cut out. Didn’t know why Ving Rhames became so mad and Mr. PCN had to explain!

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:22:34 +0000

Thank you, Michael! I’ll have to remember to check that out.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:07:10 +0000

I Saw The Devil was the one I turned off, Michael. I can’t even really explain why. I don’t think it was much worse than Oldboy. I will check out Man From Nowhere, thanks!

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:58:49 +0000

For that movie trailer, it was the violent children angle that was pegging the creep meter for me-seriously, cover ears & cover eyes stuff. I remember feeling anxious during violence in Pulp Fiction, but the worst was the sadistic 17 yo, Gogo that really kicked it up.

That said, the only Japanese movies I can say I’ve ever watched were in the Godzilla genre when I was a kid on Sunday afternoon. 😉

By: le0pard13

le0pard13 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:49:27 +0000

Yes, some of the violence in the films of Japan and Korea of late can be very hard to take. I think the last one I screened, I Saw the Devil was a difficult one to watch no matter the prep. Still, I do recommend The Man From Nowhere by Korean director Jeong-beom Lee. Great action, violence, but with a story more uplifting that the devastating ones of late. Just a thought.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:43:01 +0000

Oooh, this makes me even more torn about whether to see this one. There are some movies from Japan and Korea (i.e., Oldboy) that are really really good, but man, even I can’t take the level of violence. The last Korean film I really wanted to see I had to stop about 20 minutes in. Which is strange for me, I’m usually ok with film violence/gore. Maybe it has something to do with getting older, but I find I’m more resistant/sensitive to those things these days.

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:15:32 +0000

Our local art house theater had 4 showings of BATTLE ROYALE recently. I considered going, but I watched the trailer the Belcourt’s website. Needless to say, I was sufficiently freaked out by just viewing that! And the fact that 2 were midnight showings and the other two at 9:15 put a nail in that viewing coffin. Maybe if there had been an 11 am showing so I’d have time to go out in the sunshine, hit the zoo and watch back-to-back Disney or Pixar flicks afterward. Maybe… *shudder*

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:11:04 +0000

So, finally saw the film yesterday. Brian and I both really liked it! (It’s so nice to leave a theater and not feel like you should have just waited for it to come to movie channel.) In fact, we went straight to B&N afterward so I could pick up the book. Brian had already read it, but he borrowed it on his Kindle. He’s since bought the other ebooks. Btw, Brian leaned over in the beginning to whisper how much he was hating that jostling camera work. AGREED! We had considered going to see the film on IMAX, but I think I would have seriously ill during those scenes! The only time I think it was really needed was the initial violence at the start of the games. Scenes where children are vicious are just so disturbing and hard to watch. I thought that it was interesting that I felt most anxious when they were getting ready and then arriving for the Reaping, even though I knew what was going to happen from the trailers. Scene with Rue..tears! I continue to be a Jennifer Lawrence fan. I wonder how big the up tic in archery classes will be because of this and BRAVE? I’ll admit I was considering it on the way out of the theater. 😉

By: Eddy

Eddy — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:00:37 +0000

Definitely not a point-by-point lift of the story. For instance, the announcement of the winner is a media event, but the whole competition wasn’t telecast. And, most of the combatants were classmates and knew each other. Also, despite the media coverage, at first the combatants didn’t seem to know what was happening to them.

One (non-spoiler) similarity was the announcing of the names the ones who died.

I have heard that the second one was pretty bad. The script wasn’t based on a book like the first movie was, and the director died just as filming began and his son (the screenwriter) finished the movie.

By: Pop Culture Nerd

Pop Culture Nerd — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:39:45 +0000

Mr. PCN received BATTLE ROYALE 2 from Netflix last week because there’s a long wait for the first BR. He said it was unwatchable and stopped after about 15 minutes.

I choose to believe Collins, too. There aren’t that many original ideas; similarities between books/movies will occur at times. Of course I’m saying this without having experienced BR at all, but I haven’t heard anyone say HG is a complete rip-off in that it follows BR’s story point by point.