Week in Review: October 8 - 13

Birthdays: I kind of forgot to do birthdays this week, so I made up for it in the last couple days (I think).  This week we celebrated the births of Josh Hutcherson, Kate Walsh, and Sir Roger Moore, all who've had roles that I've reviewed in the last few months.

Movies - New movies of the week were Pitch Perfect and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  I loved them both, for completely different reasons, but I think I would say that I liked Perks a bit more.  Bonds were A View to Kill and The Living Daylights, the latter which showed me that Timothy Dalton is a preferable Bond to Roger Moore.

Books - Book of the week was Bernard Cornwell's latest instalment in The Saxon Stories, Death of Kings. For the most part I did enjoy this book, although I don't think it's entirely up to par with previous installments of the series.

TV - Another disappointment was this week's TV show, the second season of Franklin and Bash.  I could have been much more impressed by our favourite goofball lawyers and their colleagues.

Recommendations - A slew of recommendations this week, including Argo, Here Comes the Boom, Seven Psychopaths, and 1, 2, 3... Frankie Goes Boom.  Of the group, Frankie Goes Boom is a limited release, but you should be able to see the rest in theatres.

Next Week -Up next week we finish off Timothy Dalton and the eighties with Licence to Kill before entering the nineties and welcoming a new Bond, Pierce Brosnan, with GoldenEye.  I'm beginning to really see the end in sight with this series.  New movie of the week will be Argo.

Requests -What about you? Anything I should check out?  Let me know.

Birthday: Josh Hutcherson

Today is Josh Hutcherson's birthday!

Hutcherson's been around for awhile now, with either small roles in movies for adults or big roles in movies for a younger audience.  For a long time in my mind he's been the adorable kid from Bridge to Terabithia.  Now he's growing up and has started to appear in movies for a wider audience; most recently he was in The Hunger Games, which he'll be following up with next year's The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but first he'll next appear in the Red Dawn remake which I think could really help establish him as an adult actor.

That being said, today is his 20th birthday, for which I'm really glad.  I always feel like a bit of a dirty old perv when I find the teenage male leads in movies hot, especially when I associate them a lot with a role from when they were younger, like Terabithia.

That being said, happy birthday Josh!

The Hunger Games (2012)

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley
Director: Gary Ross
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating: A-

The film adaptation of the bestselling book, The Hunger Games brings us to a dystopian world where every year two tributes, one male and one female, are selected from each of the twelve districts of Panem to participate in the Hunger Games, essentially a televised fight to the death.  Think “The Lottery” meets Gladiator, with an element of Big Brother.  The film is set around the 74^th Hunger Games and follows District 12’s female tribute, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) as she struggles to overcome the odds and survive.  In order to be able to return home, she must be the only surviving tribute at the end of the games, including District 12’s male tribute, Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson).

The film does lose some of the novel’s story and doesn’t go into as much detail in regards to the political background of Panem.  I don’t actually feel that further detail is needed, though.  There was a war, it ended badly, and as a consequence the winners imposed a hugely cruel consequence – the Hunger Games.  What further background information is really needed?  The actual games aren’t as action packed as one might have expected – but the book itself isn’t that action filled either.  I really liked the way that they handled the action that they did show.  I also really like the way that they show the backstory and what’s going on outside of the Games; the book is very cerebral and only follows Katniss. The movie, however, avoids utilizing narration and instead shows you the things that book-Katniss only thinks about.  My one problem with the film is that I felt it cut too much of the relationship between Katniss and Peeta.  Some of my favourite parts of the book were the moments between the two of them, so I was disappointed to have that aspect of the film marginalized.  I did really like the film’s ending.  I really felt that it ended things on a happier note than in the book.