movie reviews: "The Hunger Games" and "Avengers."
Okay, not reviews so much as random, not-very-deep thoughts on the movies. I watched them both over a week ago, and have probably forgotten things I actually wanted to talk about.
I went and saw "The Hunger Games" movie, and I want to have thoughts on the movie? But, um, it's basically a study in why movies are my LEAST favorite medium, and why any time someone asks me if I have seen some movie, the answer is usually, "Not unless I was forced to."
But, all things being equal, I would rather read a book, read comics, play a video game, watch a tv show, etc, all over watching a movie of the same thing. Because movies, in general, just do NOT have enough time to explore all the bits of characterization that I like to see explored. And I get almost nothing about of fiction unless and until I feel connected to the characters.
I generally dislike pilots of any tv show because there's this need to get the characters across quickly and what we get is what i like to refer to as the Pilot Characterization phenomemnon, where one aspect of the character is picked and HAMMERED into our minds so the character stands out (and likely gets reduced to a streotype). Movies do that, but without time to go back and add LAYERS.
So, basically, all of that happened. I went in knowing that the most important aspect of the book for me will be lost. Which is the meta level of the first person narrative POV (and wow, we don't even get Katniss voiceovers/narrative voice, which MAY have taken care of some of my issues with being taken out of her viewpoint), but also, the POV is what makes it clear to me how much of what Katniss does is a conscious PERFORMANCE on her part.
HI, I have a huge thing for modernism and feminist modern/post-modern literature. One of my favorite things in the whole universe are works that explore the idea of traditional perception of femininity and romance as an active performance on the women's part. And so that got lost, as did most of Katniss' survivalist manipulations and her general calculating nature. Sigh. I still like her, but I don't know if I would EVER feel the intense love that I do for her if the movies had been my only exposure to her.
I do feel like the movie made an effort to make her more 'likable' and took away the PERFORMANCE bit of Katniss/Peeta (which is what makes me love it) out almost entirely. So the deconstruction of those aspects in the books got completely lost, and as always, I loved the deconstructive bits the best.
*clings to books* I should also write down my thoughts on the deconstructive elements of the books before I get distracted by something shinier.
I also saw "Avengers," which was fun. But I really have no deep thoughts on it because it wasn't exactly a deep movie. It is possible my feelings towards Joss are getting in the way? I have no idea. I really enjoyed it, loved Black Widow, predictably. Iron Man and Pepper Potts made me happy, I was bored by Captain America, and the logic fail of the Hulk arc was kind of...annoying. But I have since then been told that it apparently made sense if I had bothered to remember the Hulk movie. Which, admittedly, I don't remember.
Mostly, this has renewed my vague interest in reading the Avenger comics. I am still primarily interested in the Wanda and Pietro era, because well, SUBTEXT.
And I need to hunt down some Black Widow comics. I had started reading Marvel Max's "Black Widow" comics forever ago, and have no idea why I stopped because they were pretty damn awesome.
I did want to say that I *loved* Black Widow using the appearance of vulnerablity as a weapon, and her switching from that was awesome EVERY SINGLE TIME. HI, I have a thing for heroines who use people's flawed perception of femininity as a weapon against them. And heroines who are aware of PERFORMING a role and do it delibrately for their own ends. <3
Feel free to rec Black Widow comics in the comments. You guys, it's been so long that I have forgotten how I used to make lists of comics to read after discovering a shiny new heroine. This is sort of sad.
I went and saw "The Hunger Games" movie, and I want to have thoughts on the movie? But, um, it's basically a study in why movies are my LEAST favorite medium, and why any time someone asks me if I have seen some movie, the answer is usually, "Not unless I was forced to."
But, all things being equal, I would rather read a book, read comics, play a video game, watch a tv show, etc, all over watching a movie of the same thing. Because movies, in general, just do NOT have enough time to explore all the bits of characterization that I like to see explored. And I get almost nothing about of fiction unless and until I feel connected to the characters.
I generally dislike pilots of any tv show because there's this need to get the characters across quickly and what we get is what i like to refer to as the Pilot Characterization phenomemnon, where one aspect of the character is picked and HAMMERED into our minds so the character stands out (and likely gets reduced to a streotype). Movies do that, but without time to go back and add LAYERS.
So, basically, all of that happened. I went in knowing that the most important aspect of the book for me will be lost. Which is the meta level of the first person narrative POV (and wow, we don't even get Katniss voiceovers/narrative voice, which MAY have taken care of some of my issues with being taken out of her viewpoint), but also, the POV is what makes it clear to me how much of what Katniss does is a conscious PERFORMANCE on her part.
HI, I have a huge thing for modernism and feminist modern/post-modern literature. One of my favorite things in the whole universe are works that explore the idea of traditional perception of femininity and romance as an active performance on the women's part. And so that got lost, as did most of Katniss' survivalist manipulations and her general calculating nature. Sigh. I still like her, but I don't know if I would EVER feel the intense love that I do for her if the movies had been my only exposure to her.
I do feel like the movie made an effort to make her more 'likable' and took away the PERFORMANCE bit of Katniss/Peeta (which is what makes me love it) out almost entirely. So the deconstruction of those aspects in the books got completely lost, and as always, I loved the deconstructive bits the best.
*clings to books* I should also write down my thoughts on the deconstructive elements of the books before I get distracted by something shinier.
I also saw "Avengers," which was fun. But I really have no deep thoughts on it because it wasn't exactly a deep movie. It is possible my feelings towards Joss are getting in the way? I have no idea. I really enjoyed it, loved Black Widow, predictably. Iron Man and Pepper Potts made me happy, I was bored by Captain America, and the logic fail of the Hulk arc was kind of...annoying. But I have since then been told that it apparently made sense if I had bothered to remember the Hulk movie. Which, admittedly, I don't remember.
Mostly, this has renewed my vague interest in reading the Avenger comics. I am still primarily interested in the Wanda and Pietro era, because well, SUBTEXT.
And I need to hunt down some Black Widow comics. I had started reading Marvel Max's "Black Widow" comics forever ago, and have no idea why I stopped because they were pretty damn awesome.
I did want to say that I *loved* Black Widow using the appearance of vulnerablity as a weapon, and her switching from that was awesome EVERY SINGLE TIME. HI, I have a thing for heroines who use people's flawed perception of femininity as a weapon against them. And heroines who are aware of PERFORMING a role and do it delibrately for their own ends. <3
Feel free to rec Black Widow comics in the comments. You guys, it's been so long that I have forgotten how I used to make lists of comics to read after discovering a shiny new heroine. This is sort of sad.