The Hunger Games

  I'll keep this short and snappy because it deserves as few words as possible:

The Hunger Games is a poorly written, sloppily directed piece of shit, a soulless enterprise with as much warmth as two Daleks fucking. The build-up to the game is endless and unnecessary, doing very little to color its world interesting.  That world, if you must know, is a blend of  The Running Man's worst aspects (and fashions) crossed with 'American Idol'. Add a dash of '1984', too, but remember to do it badly. Also: hint at satire, but fail to follow through on the issues that satire raises.

The picture's biggest flaw is the almost total lack of conflict in the first hour. Everything that comes before the game -- in this hour --  could have been compressed into a five minute montage. Instead, it plods through enough expositional sludge to occupy close to half its running time.

I haven't read the books, so I hope they're a major step-up from this underwhelming feast for the young and easily raped of their earthly possessions.

Yes, the idea of a contemporary, media-driven game is culled from Kenji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, which was thematically aided by Peter Watkins' grossly underseen masterpiece Punishment Park. Both films, not surprisingly, are a hundred times smarter, more entertaining, and more economical than this. Other even earlier influences, conscious or unconscious, are Robert Sheckley's novels The Seventh Victim ('53) and its sequel The Tenth Victim ('66), as well Stephen King's Richard Bachman novel The Long Walk ('79), filmed quite poorly as The Running Man.

In contrast to the beautifully directed and photographed scenes of conflict in Fukasaku's masterpiece of raw cinema, director Gary Ross scores an  "F" for  haphazard and chaotic jigsaws of blurred movement. The action is frequently impossible to follow, impatiently edited, and there are a surprising amount of out of focus shots for a big studio film.

Jennifer Lawrence, looking like an updated version of Juliet Lewis, acquits herself well considering the trash she has to work with, and is forced to contend with a character whose fate is determined by scriptwriters, not her inner being. If she suffers from uncertainty about her commitment to a game that may kill her, we're not privy to it. In one ludicrous example of scriptwriting schizophrenia, she explodes at another key character, only to behave as if she didn't explode at him in the following scene.

The distributor of this film has done a masterful job exploiting what is a truly awful, flat-footed movie. Cheers to them for their seamless trickery!

4/10 for me (and that's generous). Oh, and 1/10 for the silly haircuts and fashions.

Why are there so many bad haircuts and ridiculous fashions in pathetic 'Dystopian' films like this? And why do the rich always behave like wanna-be Bret Easton Ellis characters? It's an insult to Mr. Ellis.

I suggest you go and buy Battle Royale or Punishment Park  on BluRay instead , or shell out some bucks on the just-released The Raid, a sincere celebration of cinematic animalism. Just try to avoid contributing to this stinker's swelling coffers like I did. Hopefully, I'll be forgiven one day.

 

If you're only ten year's old, you'll be all over this poorly executed garbage and its groundbreaking "satire"

 

The excellent Series 7: The Contenders ('01) was sharp satire on reality TV; The Hunger Games, with its kiddie-friendly rating, is about as effectively satirical as 'Punky Brewster'.

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Afterword: On its second weekend of release, the film dropped 72%, a clear indicator that word of mouth amongst initial viewers has not been good enough to keep enthusiasm high.

Cinema As Punishment

 

     Unavailable on video for a long time, Cornel Wilde's No Blade of Grass finally goes public courtesy of Warner Archives. The film opens with a montage of environmental disasters that, apparently, caused the citizens of the world to riot and abandon civility. Although the logical steps towards such a catastrophe are vague here, you'd better go with it if you expect to survive the rest of the movie. We follow a small group of people who are heading out of strife-torn London to take refuge on a farm in the country. Along the way, some female members of the group get raped, the males shoot at each other, and a gang of outlaw bikers turn up to generate dramatic interest. Oh, yeah, and one bloke gets stuck with a wife who's more passionate about flashing her tits at the other cast members than surviving the disaster.

     I first read about No Blade of Grass in Philip Strick's Science Fiction Movies and remained curious about the often-published image of Viking-helmeted marauders on bikes.

     It took me until recently to conclude that the bikers in this movie are a bunch of idiots, and purely on board to break up the monotony. In the most pointless sequence, the bikers spot a group of armed civilians and decide to ride near them in a threatening manner. In fact, they ride in a circle so the civilians can shoot them off their bikes. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of genuinely silly behavior on the loose in this odd science fiction mash-up.

     The film has developed a reputation for its explicit violence, a reputation that's undeserved. Yes, lots of people get shot at, and there are a few decent motorcycle stunts, but this '70's effort is neither shocking nor particularly interesting. A terribly unhelpful editing decision here is to include what can only be described as flash-forwards. Now and then, we get tinted frames of red or green prior to more tinted shots of events we haven't seen yet. The colored frames are meant to be some sort of red alert, but they simply serve to undercut any dramatic surprises this film has in store. And it never had many in the first place.

     The film must have cost a pretty penny to make. The cast list is considerable, and there are dozens of remote rural settings in addition to impressive riot sequences in London. Unfortunately, the script is obvious and heavy-handed, with Wilde piling on shots of dead animals and chimneys spewing pollution to make his point a hundred times. Although Nigel Davenport acquits himself well as the group leader, even he is betrayed by dialog lacking subtlety.

    Also lacking subtlety is a 'No Blade of Grass' folk song that is placed over the opening and end titles. Unless you're a musical masochist, you'll give this charmless ditty a wide berth.

     I wouldn't advise against seeing this cinematic relic as it is a curiosity, but I would park your high expectations at the door.

     If you really want to see how the world will end, watch Punishment Park, Peter Watkin's masterpiece now on Blu-Ray.

 

     Speaking of punishment, this is it!   

     Although I'm no fan of contemporary, so-called "extreme" (read: cheesy) cinema (Machine Girl, etc.), I gave Hard Revenge Milly a look because someone recommended it. I shouldn't have bothered. A girl takes revenge on a bunch of guys and gals who've raped her, killed her husband, and burnt her newborn baby to a crisp. Sounds like exploitation heaven, doesn't it? It's not. The over-the-top acting cremates the drama; the gore, inspired by Ichii the Killer, is silly; and the villains are screaming buffoons. Three minutes in, I already knew this was shit. There is a sequel, but I don't care. Keep it away from me.