I went to see The Hunger Games early on a Saturday morning. My local theater sells tickets for $6 which allows us to see more movies for the cost of one evening ticket. We try to keep the concession expenses under wraps. I order coffee or water and I have a “rewards” card that upgrades you one level on popcorn and drinks for free. The review of the Hunger will be at the end of this post.
What is generating this post is the number of “commercials” (not just trailers but real ads) for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on DVD and Blu-ray. Ahem. I talked about that last week and I know that they want to push sales since it didn’t do that well at the box office, but the editing on the trailer is to tight that it’s hard to get a bead on the movie if you 1) haven’t read the book, 2) haven’t seen the original movie, 3) seen this Americanized version of the movie which is quite different from the Swedish version– or any combination of the three. The movie loses some of it’s power in the translation to the disc but it does make some of the violence more tolerable. I will again reiterate that the opening credits make no sense with the movie– it’s very James Bond-esque and bounces off Daniel Craig’s role as James Bond.
Another movie that they are pushing is Titanic in 3D. I get the deal– it’s just a re-release of a movie in 3-D (and one hopes it’s done well based on the ticket cost) to help bring in more $$$ for studios from films that are gathering dust in the vault.
I know it was a great film and you get to see Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet in the film that really kicked their careers into high-gear. The question is do you want to pay the upcharge to see this movie or do you want to see a Blu-ray version on a big screen TV?
Heading into new films hitting the theater:
Dark Shadows a Tim Burton and Johnny Depp feature film that gives this 60’s era daytime TV show a serious tweak and actually might be a great movie to see. It’s quite different thematically than the original TV show– Depp & Burton have done a lot to make this gothic vampire, witch & werewolf soap opera fun and interesting along a much larger cast by bringing this into an era where TV is part of the daily landscape.
This particular trailer seemed to get a lot of traction and attention from the audience who had been waiting for 30 minutes for Hunger Games.
The Avengers is mash-up of all the Marvel heroes who battle Loki (if you don’t know who that is, you need to see THOR the movie with Chris Helmsworth) The quick version of the plot is:
Nick Fury is director of S.H.I.E.L.D, an international peace keeping agency. The agency is a who’s who of Marvel Super Heroes, with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow.
However the Green Lantern isn’t part of this. Odd– don’t you think to leave out Ryan Reynolds out of this?
If you haven’t seen Thor, Iron Man 1 & 2 or Captain America (I have– some with better reactions than others), they are all available on DVD/Blu-ray and you can get yourself up to speed before you see this movie– because otherwise it won’t make sense (or maybe it doesn’t really matter. What’s another multi superhero movie?). Will I see this? Most likely— it’s a perfect popcorn movie to get me away from the computer and out of my head into a fantasy that’s all about action. The question is why are there not more female superheroes? The audience reaction– a lot of chatter resumed during this one because it’s more of the same that we have seen before in almost all these films. If you want to wait for it to hit DVD, you could probably save a lot of money and wait for another, better movie to see.
Snow White & The Huntsman is the big-budget movie featuring Charlize Theron, Chris Helmsworth and Kristin Stewart (as Snow White). I love the CGI and the change of the plot. The trick with the ‘dark forest’ and tranforming the character of Snow White into a self-empowered warrior is really smart and challenges the Disney-esque version we grew up with.
Tnis extended trailer gives you the greatest insight into this movie and is more than I saw in the theater. However it provides a better vehicle ror K-Stew and Chris Helmsworth than their other movies releasing this summer. The trailer in the theater got people to stop talking and definitely caught their attention
Tired yet of trailers? There are still 2 more before we got to The Hunger Games. (hmmm.. maybe the 20 minutes that is the supposed length of THG is actually the trailers.)
Breaking Dawn Part 2 featuring the complete cast of the Twilight Series features K-Stew finally as a vampire and how she is adapting. The trick with this movie is hoping that it delivered more than Breaking Dawn Part 1 which was a disappointing.
What makes me wonder about this film –unlike Harry Potter– is that this will be as disappointing as the Part 1 of this last book of the series. Will there be the depth in the growth of the characters– or is it just about the change in Bella and lots of CGI/effects & action that are to get us into the theater. However the female contingent of the audience ate this one up and it’s going to be big box office.
The one trailer that generated the most noise was Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. The trailer starts out with a voice-over about who Abraham Lincoln was and how he brought an end to a great war but not much is known about him. And this movie–with Tim Burton tied to it– is a real twist to show you more about who Abraham Lincoln (yes the president) really was as a young man before he went to the White House.
This is really a silly movie and why anyone would SEE this is inconceivable. Given that Tim Burton is producer on this one, people expect more. The noise from the audience -completely laughter. People were roaring at how funny, stupid and iane this was. Whoever thought this one up, needs to revist National Treasure and get with the program on how to use national historical icons in a movie. This ain’t it!
The Hunger Games was definitely a long movie. Jennifer Lawrence did a great job– and they didn’t photoshop the hell out of her complexion either. The movie is pretty true to the books according to those who have read them. (I haven’t yet). However I have to say as one who has watched all the hype, seen all the trailers, watched a slew of interviews with cast members, I wish there was more depth to this movie.
The guy left behind in District 12 — the relationship between Katniss and him needs more time. Woody Harrelson was awesome. Stanley Tucci was amazing. Donald Sutherland needs more time though he’s great and Wes Bentley was good but under-utilized. His role in creating the dynamic of this survivor type show which pitches these tributes against each other to survive and adds in extra sudden obstacles to be overcome isn’t entirely clear. However the CGI and the action sequences were pretty good. The thread of the alliances between the other tributes wasn’t clear either– and that Pete would join the others in that group was surprising. I loved the uprising in District 11 and how the crowd reacted to the loss of their tributes. It was more real and affecting than much of this action movie. None of the other districts were really shown in the same way. Overall it was a better than OK movie. Did I expect more? Yes!! Was I disappointed? Yes– just like I was with Breaking Dawn Part 1, this movie should have had more to it. I should have listened to Mr. Moviefone. He was right on the money on this one.
Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com
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