Saturday, 19 March 2011

Children In Movies

I am enraged now, time to blog.
We all know the popular saying, never work with children or animals. Well, in part it is true, it is wether the child or animal is trained for the work, and whether it completely ruins the outcome. I am going to, of course concentrate on children in movies, because they do well, it is just the setting. Home Alone was a great film, Matilda, an iconic film, and the first Harry Potter, and what ties these films together is the content, they are family films, to snuggle up with and laugh or be captured in the ensuing plot, with the children being witty. Whereas, in horror films or thrillers, such as Pirannah, or Pitch Black, or other films with children related to the main character in some way, the child seems to be THE most important thing in the universe, nothing else matters, if the child needs to rest, we all rest even if there are a ton of aliens threatening to kill everyone, or the child completely messes up, and gets 3 characters killed, and then they get told not to do it again. A mosre recent example of this stupidity is the film Battle:Los Angeles, I saw the trailer and was innediately turned off the idea, becauce I heard the words "We have 2 civillians and 3 children", now in any horror with kids in, it is rare that they die, because people sacrifice themselves for the child, 3 will just mean slaughter. I love kids, I really do, but they are so frequent in Hollywood Blockbusters that they are annoying, it makes you want to stop having kids, so that they can't appear in any more, getting in trouble and, oops, killing nearly all the minority groups in the film in one go. So I propose, we make films where either, children die every time they mess up and get people killed, to teach the modern generation of children as well, that karma will get you sooner or later, or that there are films with just children as the leads, and at least one of them has to die, just so it keeps the little crazy person in my head happy.

Sunday, 6 March 2011

The Hunger Games Trilogy Review

Right, now I have appreciated my Laptop more after it broke, I am bucking my ideas up, starting with this really.

I stumbled upon The Hunger Games really, and I have my laptop breaking to thank for that, it was only becuase I needed to use the internet that I went there, and I had a look round the teenage section and saw the first book, sitting on top of a pile of books, there was something about the cover that brought me to it, the look of the title, what the story was about or the girl in the centre. I read the synopsis on the back, and checked it out immediately.

That night I read, and couldn't stop, I found it would be insulting to stop reading, becuase I would be letting the main character, Katniss, down somehow, as I had read about the living conditions in a Post War Earth, where the Capitol rules over the 13 Districts, well, 12 now, as generations before, there was a rebellion, and 13 was destroyed to be made an example of. And since then, to ensure power never slipped, the Hunger Games were formed, where each year, all the boys and girls from each District, between 12 and 16 years old would be put in a raffle, a boy and a girl would be chosen from each District to compete against the others in the Hunger Games. However, to win, they had to be the last standing, the last alive, they are pitted against each other to fight to the death in perilous conditions.

Of course, no-one would go in voluntarily, but when Katniss' sister Prim is called forth to take part, she has to, to protect her little sister, even though going in is near suicide. The story telling captures something, the sparks you don't see in normal things, but makes them coma alive as you read, from Katniss' descriptions of her home District where they mine, and barely make enough to get by, to the descriptions of the Capitol, technicolour, and strange, I find it hard to argue why they are not planning on making the first book at least into a film, because you can already see it will be spectacular, it  is just sitting back and waiting to be made.

Most of the action, does not happen in the Games, but in the Events leading up to, it sounds and doesn't feel, initially enough action, but it is, it is perfect really, you follow everything that happens with Katniss, she is telling you as though you are stood next to you the whole time. I think the story flaws slightly in being, like the Capitol in a way, over thought, and over explained, and then, some of the heart, being lost in the process, but you could argue that that is what Katniss is really like, lacking a little heart, which she tells you from a very early point.

I do not want to give away too much in terms of plot, as it all is intricately tied into itself, in the way the Harry Potter books have, this will never be Harry Potter, I stress that, but it did to me in 3 weeks of reading, nearly what I fet after 3 years of Harry, it made me feel for the characters as they were real, could walk through the doors any second. All three of the books are my top 3 for the year, I cannot see anything beating them for character, life and rebellion.

9 out of 10.

Just To Vent

You think you can stop me,
When you can't even stop yourselves.
Stop seeing me, moving me,
Whne you can't even see yourself and
Don't know where you're going.

I'm the best, you're just jealous.
You want to be like me,
So you pick on my highlights.
Voice, Hair, Face, Posture, Personality.
Big up your worst parts,
Voice, Hair, Face, Posture, Personality.

You can't hear me yell, I don't want you to.
It's just to vent, like you vent on me.