What 'Hunger Games' Missed in the Movie

This is a really fascinating article from Entertainment Weekly about what the Hunger Games left out in the film adaptation. It's become clear throughout most of the critical arguments that although the Hunger Games represents a successful Hollywood franchise, there has been some concern among most of the critics that the film did not put enough emphasis on the cruelty of the system in which Katniss and most everyone else lives under.

In the movie, these scenes are a lot of fun, but they’re somewhat… empty. The “audience” of the Capitol is mostly faceless people applauding. Even worse, the decision to focus so strongly on President Snow has the effect of dampening the satire. The great Donald Sutherland plays Snow as a combination of the Emperor from Star Wars and a James Bond villain. What we’re seeing, really, is a dramatic oversimplification of Collins’ moral universe. In the book, Katniss is the hero, and everyone except for her family is the villain. In the movie, Katniss is the hero, and everyone else is misguided, and Snow is the villain.

'Smash' is Not Exactly a Smash Hit

Interesting article from EW's Ken Tucker as to why the Monday night NBC series may end up being a flop.

"The Hunger Games" Poster Puzzle

This article discusses an interesting strategy by Lionsgate to get people engaged in the coming film, The Hunger Games. For the full poster for the film, the studio has broken it up into 100 separate pieces and sent them to eight different websites, including Entertainment Weekly. The reasoning behind the 100 pieces is, from December 15th, it was 100 days to the release of the film.

To find the pieces, search the tag, "#HUNGERGAMES100," on Twitter. Once someone has finished the poster, they are encouraged to take a photo of it all together and post it to Facebook.

Contagion another 2011 Political Flick

Check out this article calling Contagion somewhat of a political film rather than just a sci-fi thriller.