When I started reading Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy about which my twin seventh graders raved, my daughter said she liked the first installment – The Hunger Games – the best and found the final book, Mockingjay, kind of depressing, albeit riveting. By contrast, her brother, who also preferred the first book, found Mockingjay's conclusion “realistic” and said he appreciated that it wasn’t all tied up neatly, with sunshine and rainbows and all that.
Upon completing the series myself this week, I have to agree with them that the first book was the superior of the three, when the freshness of the horrifying premise and the abject inhumane cruelty of the Games still shocked you. (Twenty-four children, ages 12-18, are selected and forced by the government to “play” a game where the last one living “wins” as the government forces them to compete to the death by intensifying the lethal conditions and broadcasting the entire competition on live TV.)
The second book, Catching Fire, was shocking anew in that the “winners” are forced by the government into more deadly competition, both as punishment for the populace for rebelling decades ago (to warn them about rebelling against the all-powerful, dictatorship) and for the purpose of entertaining those in the opulent, wasteful Capitol. Catching Fire had more of a political feel to it as it became clearer that certain participants in the Games were being manipulated by various groups for political purposes.
I read the final book, Mockingjay -- which was indeed the bleakest, my daughter was right -- as the Arab spring of revolt, which had grown somewhat quiet in recent weeks, roared back to life in Libya as rebels tried to take down the dictatorship that had been brutally savaging its own people. Seeing people rioting in the streets, hearing the automatic machine-gun fire during live newscasts, while TV journalists donned protective helmets and bulletproof vests as they beamed images around the globe provided the backdrop for my reading of Mockingjay, where the oppressed districts of the nation of Panem revolted against their violent, oppressive ruler, with the series’ heroine, Katniss Everdeen, serving as the living symbol of the revolution in the person of a 17-year-old girl.
The ending, which I won’t betray here, did as my son said, seem to fit in logically with the overall tone of the series: Dark and melancholy mixed with a dab of hopefulness that springs eternal even under the most precarious of circumstances. But, no matter how realistic it was in the context of the book, it was a downer.
After finishing Mockingjay – which I recommend for readers middle school and up – I've turned to something completely different, Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife, a fictionalized story about the life of a First Lady, based loosely on the real life of Laura Bush. Thus far I’m on page 248 (out of 555) and I’m a fan.
Have you read the Hunger Games series? If so, what did you think?
Crazy Stupid Love: I thoroughly loved seeing Crazy Stupid Love this weekend. It touched me and was emotionally affecting, so much more than an insipid, garden variety romantic comedy.
Steve Carell has again proven that he has acting chops beyond simply making us empathize with his characters’ awkward discomforts or laugh at the insane behavior that his fictional alter egos demonstrate in The Office or Anchorman. As the freshly-dumped and deeply wounded Cal Weaver, a dad of three whose wife of several decades has given him the boot, Carell was vulnerable and not in a ham-handed kind of way. His performance was like eating a big handful of those Sour Skittles you buy in the theater where the boxes are approximately the size of toaster: They’re tart at the beginning (like when Cal was publically moping around in the immediate aftermath of being dumped) and sweet in its core (like when Cal was clandestinely was tending to his backyard under cover of darkness or was recreating an old date with his estranged wife).
Ryan Gosling, who was the slick babe magnet with the uber-chic duds, was enjoyable to watch as well, which surprised me because I figured I’d loathe his character and judge him as smarmy and shallow, an over-cologned empty suit. But, turns out, he wasn’t. For her part, Julianne Moore was subtle and muted yet under-developed, while observing Emma Stone in action was like watching a glass of bubbly champagne come to life.
A grown-up love story that lived up to the critics’ raves, I echo their plaudits (Entertainment Weekly gave it an A) and recommend it to anyone who’s sick of romantic comedies that make you feel as though you have fewer brain cells upon leaving the theater than you did when you walked in.
The King’s Speech: I’ll admit it, I went into watching this Oscar winning film feeling as though I had to complete a homework assignment. Like being forced to read The Crucible.
However the movie turned out to be okay, in fact, better than okay. I was seriously tired when I sat down to watch The King’s Speech and completely expected I’d fall asleep, like I did when I watched The Queen after Helen Mirren won her Oscar for starring in that film. But I stayed awake through the whole thing. (And no, I didn’t use caffeine or other substances to do so.)
Colin Firth definitely earned his Oscar for winning depiction of King George VI heroically working on controlling his speech impediment and rising to the occasion when his country needed him on the cusp of World War II. Firth was just the right combination of intelligent, angry, mortified and courageous. It was an inspiring tale that wasn’t at all a cinematic version of Ambien.
TV
To be honest, I haven’t watched a ton of TV outside of Red Sox games and episodes of Six Feet Under on DVD in preparation to write my contributions to Clique Clack TV’s Six Feet Under Week.
The one currently-airing show that I saw this week which resonated with me was Rescue Me, reviewed here. It was refreshing to see Tommy take charge of things and not screw up, not get drunk, not lose any kids. And nobody died. But the best of all was Sheila stepping up to the plate and saving the reputations of all the guys at her late husband’s firehouse and the members of her family from the nasty campaign of character assassination that was being waged by an ill-intentioned TV reporter trying to carve a career out of someone else’s hide. Sheila’s take-down was a satisfying thing to watch.
Books
While I continued to read the third installment of Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay, I finished Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner and Milkshake by Joanna Weiss, two books which tackled the controversial issues of surrogacy and breastfeeding. (I reviewed them both for ModernMom/Mommy Tracked.)
Both were swift, entertaining reads, although Weiss’ provided sarcastic laughter as it humorously satirized not only the extremists in the pro- and anti-breastfeeding crowds, but also political campaigns which expropriate issues about which they could care less about in an attempt to lure votes.
What did you read/watch this week that you loved or hated?
Hunger Games: Just got back from a week’s beach vacation with the family and, pop culture-wise, I spent most of my time, when not on the beach, gobbling up the first two books in the Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series (Hunger Games, Catching Fire). I would’ve continued on to read the finale, Mockingjay, only I didn’t bring that book with me. So once I finished Catching Fire, I moved on to Jennifer Weiner’s Then Came Youabout a surrogate pregnancy, which I read for a column I’m planning to write. (I’ll link to the column here later once it’s written.)
I was surprised by how much I was riveted by the Hunger Games, despite its sick and twisted premise: As retribution for rebelling against an evil, brutal, dictatorial centralized government, the demoralized residents who live in one of 12 “districts” in the “ruins of North America” now called Panem, are forced to give up a boy and a girl between the ages of 12-18 to participate in a fight-to-the-death games which are viciously manipulated by the dictators for the excitement of those watching as it unfolds on television.
Its political undercurrent – of a repressive government using the very symbol of the promise of the future, children, and forcing them to kill one another or be killed – along with the stark contrast of the opulence and fatted calfness of those living in the Capitol while those in the districts starve and are forced to live like prisoners inside their districts by electrified fences where their lives are controlled by the Capitol, was creepy and compelling at the same time.
As I eagerly move onto the third book – which my happy-ending obsessed daughter said she didn’t really like, while my darker elder son liked it – I’m intrigued by the political upheaval and the resistance in the world of Panem, given the real life protests popping up all over the Middle East and now in Europe. Not that I envision a fight-to-the-death reality show along the lines of Survivor or a twisted version of Lost any time soon, but still . . .
TV
Six Feet Under: In preparation for CliqueClack TV’s upcoming Six Feet Under week – to which I’ll be contributing two pieces – I’ve been revisiting the Fishers and their pitch black dramatic series that compelled viewers think about their lives, about the meaning of them and those people with whom they share it.
While watching these episodes, I remember anew why I was so drawn to it in the first place. It was thoughtful, edgy, risk-taking and challenged viewers’ sense of right and wrong. Plus Lauren Ambrose’s Claire Fisher and Peter Krause’s Nate Fisher were two of the best, full-fledged, well rounded and screwed up characters on TV.
Magazines
Entertainment Weekly: Once I got home and poured through the stack of mail that piled up during our week away, I found two copies of Entertainment Weeklywaiting for me, including a large article on The Help and a cool piece on the keys to making a truly resonant, honest romantic comedy that doesn’t insult the viewers’ intelligence, holding recent release Crazy Stupid Love as the new When Harry Met Sally.
Some of the reasons why EW writers Sara Vilkomerson and Anthony Breznican said most rom-coms turn out to be snoozers: 1. “Chemistry can’t be faked.” 2. “Men don’t want to star in romantic comedies – or go see them.” And 3. “Hollywood romances often struggle overseas, so studios can be skittish about investing in them.”
