The Hunger Games

I actually didn't know about these books until I saw The Hunger Games on the cover of Entertainment Weekly a few weeks ago and decided to look it up because I hadn't heard of it. I used to read a lot more than I do now because of all the free time I used to have, but I've had to slack off a bit since starting Ringling.

After reading the first book of the trilogy, I could see the fan base being put in the same category as Harry Potter and Twilight. Although in my mind Harry Potter rules all and there's no competition.


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Binary List
- tributes
- Katniss and Peeta
   - Katniss
   - Peeta is more of a sidekick, author uses him to enhance her character (gives her more depth)

- Katniss and Gale
- brother and sister
- the woods and the arena
- capitol and the arena (districts)
- mentor and the mean lady
- winning and choosing
- Katniss and Rue
- Foxface and Thresh
- dangers: fireballs and tractor jackers
- dead people and mutants
- Peeta (peace-keeper)
- Peeta's father and Katniss' mom (allagorical themes)
- "huckleberry fin" woods to "futuristic" city
- height: tree people and grounded people
- came down to wits versus strength
- Kaido? and the "joker" girl
- berries?
- strength and weakness (in general)
- gamemakers introduce stuff to arena, hover crafts take people away
- gamemakers control whole game, but trying to beat game while eating
- Katniss' nerves vs. Peeta calm/peace ("milking the audience")
- games and violence (entertainment) - throughout history
- Mockingjays vs. Tractor Jacker
  - Mockingjays
  - both used to hold power over the districts for The Captol

Contradictions
- savage vs. futuristic
  - creates a more savage feel to the events in the book that having futuristic weapons, etc. would bring to the book
- survival vs. style
- districts vs. The Capitol
  - body image differences between the two (exist in the same universe -
  - districts kept in the dark about outside their own boarders
  - immediately puts the reader on Katniss' side
  - almost makes the reader shun their own society, look at it from an outsider's viewpoint looking in
- district people covered in soot vs. Capitol people dye themselves

 TV/Movies
- American Reality TV
  - American Idol
  - Survivor
- Death Race
- The Running Man
- Hard Target
- Predator
- Predators
- Black Hawk Down
- Gladiator
- Gamer
- The Most Dangerous Game
- Metropolis
- 1984
- Monster's Inc
- The Borrowers
- Apocolypo (man hunting, very "savage")
- The Village
- Cowboys and Aliens
- Stand By Me (identity - becoming an adult)
- The Outsiders
- Harry Potter
- LOTR
- Eagle Eye

Expectations
- Katniss and Peeta romance
- Peeta to show more masculinity (he did save her life thought)
- epic showdown (climax, death, exciting)
  - although characters are fighting the entire book and it would be exhausting
- characters find some sort of loophole to escape the arena (like in Gamer)
- what's going on with the rest of the world? what do they think of what's going on in Panem? (or is it like WWII when the globe didn't realize at first?)
- more interesting to watch Gamer where there are convicts instead of children
  - opposite: children more impactful, same as as target audience


Suggested Movie
- Gamer (2009)
  - convicts volunteer to play in the "games" (competition between life and death - the main goal is survival)
  - Tilman, the main character, is this hard, cold person who appeals to the audience and producers of the games (in reality he's trying to save his family)
  - the games are broadcasted on Pay-Per-View for entertainment like reality TV
  - mind control technology threatens to take away independence and identity
  - Ken Castle owns the corrupt company that runs the games (lots of money)
  - Also a game called "Society" where you either pay to control someone or get payed to be controlled (so either you're a "have" or a "have not")

The Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz


I've been a fan of The Wizard of Oz forever, and I've recently watched a special on TV about the 1939 film. Here are some of the facts I learned that I thought were pretty cool:

- Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch was so frightening at the time that most of her scenes had to be edited
- Some of the actors playing Winged Monkeys got injured when the piano strings that were holding them up snapped
- Munchkins earned $50/week while Toto earned $125/week
- The colored horse in the Emerald City was made by smearing Jell-O crystals over the horses used, and they had to shoot the scene fast before the horses licked them off
- Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion costume weighed 90 pounds
- The head of the Winged Monkey is Nikko, who is named after the Japanese town where the shrine of the Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil monkeys originated
- Baum came up with the name "OZ" when look at filing cabinets - they were labeled A-N and O-Z
- Four slipper sets were used in the film - one of which was stolen from a MN museum in 2005 (insured for $1 million)
- Margaret Hamilton was hospitalized with burns from a botched explosion of smoke. Then she got back and refused to do a scene where she flies off on a smoke-billowing broomstick, which the stand-in actor actually got injured doing the scene

Ponyo

I'm really surprised that I haven't watched Ponyo before because I'm a fan of Hayao Miyazaki's animated films. I was a little disappointed in this one though, it definitely wasn't his best work. The whole time I was watching it I kept thinking about how Disney's The Little Mermaid did a better job with this type of story. Something that really threw me off was all of the American actors that did the voices like Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, and especially Liam Neeson (his voice just did not fit his character and I couldn't take him seriously). But the visuals are just fantastic, and I'm extremely jealous of his imagination, I just want to take a vacation in his head and literally drown in it.

I think Howl's Moving Castle might be a better choice to watch with The Wizard of Oz, but I don't think that's available on Netflix. Whenever I watch it, although it also isn't one of my favorites of Miyazaki's, I always think of The Wizard of Oz meets The Brothers Grimm.