I hadn't even heard of the book prior to the buzz about the movie, and only have a vague sense of the premise. So no strong feelings.
Battle Royale was a messed up (but also kind of awesome) movie.
I totally loved the book.
The casting of the movie bothers me. Some of the characters in the book are obviously white -- the blonde girl from District 2(?), Foxface, the Avox -- but I thought Collins was careful not to make most of the main characters white, or at least unambiguously so. Katniss and Gale have dark hair and olive skin. Rue and Thresh have dark brown skin and dark eyes. (Katniss' mother and sister are blonde and blue-eyed, but Katniss notes that their coloring is unusual in the Seam.)
But from the photos (I haven't seen any trailers) the actors all look super-white. Weirdly, I think they made Rue Asian. I suppose they didn't want to literally whiten everyone, so they went with lightening them all a shade. Blech.
I totally loved the book.
The casting of the movie bothers me. Some of the characters in the book are obviously white -- the blonde girl from District 2(?), Foxface, the Avox -- but I thought Collins was careful not to make most of the main characters white, or at least unambiguously so. Katniss and Gale have dark hair and olive skin. Rue and Thresh have dark brown skin and dark eyes. (Katniss' mother and sister are blonde and blue-eyed, but Katniss notes that their coloring is unusual in the Seam.)
But from the photos (I haven't seen any trailers) the actors all look super-white. Weirdly, I think they made Rue Asian. I suppose they didn't want to literally whiten everyone, so they went with lightening them all a shade. Blech.
I read all three and thought they were unusually good at showing how trauma affects all the characters. Too many of the YA dystopian heroines have one piece of sadness they dwell on but manage to get through their horrible lives without being warped by them at all, whereas the villains get corrupted beyond redemption. Not so much here.
I have no particular interest in seeing the movie, though.
Is that the blogger district? Oh, wait, it's textiles- is that a reference to all the knitting people are doing?
As with most trilogies, the first book was good, but by the third book it was pretty boring.
re: 2
Aye. It was on the telly this week; I hadn't seen it in years. I'd forgotten some of the odd touches, like the Takeshi painting of the dead kids near the end.
Well I linked to the Unemployed Negativity Marxian take, along with the embedded link to tiqqun's classic beautiful Theory of a Young Girl quite a while ago. I don't know if I have "strong feelings," but I am much much more interested in Hunger Games than either Twilight or Harry Potter or even Game of Thrones
The plot of the books eventually descend into the cliché of rebels becoming oppressors (pigs becoming farmers and all that) which is perhaps one of the central myths of our "anti-promethean" times. ...UE
Slate has also posted some decent articles. I have been reading anything I have come across about HG
So I hear this is very much a PG-13 movie? What's up with that, and more generally the trend for loads of movies that clearly should be at least R-rated to be PG-13? I don't know what Battle Royale was rated in the US, but over here it was an 18, as a film about kids killing each other in a gameshow should be.
I was waqtching Chronicle the other day and there are a couple of points where they really hamfistedly cut out some marijuana references, obviously to get a PG-13.
over here it was an 18, as a film about kids killing each other in a gameshow should be.
My sense is that the general rule in the US is that children can be exposed to large amounts of violence and death, but if so much as a nipple is exposed it will shatter their fragile young minds forever.
"Teens discover things can always get worse or sometimes better". "More news at eleven".
What's up with that
MPAA doesn't care much about violence, cares a lot about even a hint of sex?
To clarify, I'm not talking about the MPAA rating things PG-13 when they should be R (which is a whole different subject). I'm talking about film producers aiming for, or cutting to get, a PG-13 when the film clearly should be aiming for a higher rating. I get that they're trying to broaden the audience, but unlike in the UK, it's not like teenagers aren't allowed to watch R films at all, so I can't imagine it makes that much difference to box office.
They can be exposed to the concept of death but not the visuals- they had to remove a lot of blood spatters, but one character clearly killing 5 others, no problem as long as it isn't messy.
14- Oh, that's just about money. A lot more kids will go to the movies if they don't need a parent to go with them.
7,10: Slate on the "Mockinjay Problem"
That most people say the third book, which may be about the "betrayal of the revolution", is boring...interests me. See 9 about our "anti-promethean" times. We are really conflicted about Romanticism and heroism, aren't we?
I don't know if I care enough to read the books, I have heard bad things about the style, or see the movies, but I will be watching the reactions pretty closely.
9: why not watch the Japanese flick rather than the plagiarist?
11: I hate this dichotomy so much.
I jokingly said to a friend that I'd go watch Juno with her but there better not be any random head-chopping-off and there was!
14: Yeah, my understanding is that that 12-17 cohort is pretty critical to studio profits. Yes, sometimes they will buy tickets illegitimately for R-rated films, or convince a parent or guardian* to bring them in, but if there weren't a good chunk of PG and PG-13 movies every year, that vital segment of the market wouldn't be spending much money on Hollywood product.
*A 'guardian', what is this, a Dickens novel?
WATCH AN R-RATED MOVIE WITH YOUR PARENT OR GUARDIAN. GROSS lol
I haven't read or seen either iteration. As it is the topic of the day, I did begin wondering if there isn't some sort of link between the conceit of Hunger Games and professional (or otherwise) football? (e.g. quasi-fascist power structure that demands sacrifice of youth, advancing ideological propaganda) Too far, too soon?
14: Yeah, my understanding is that that 12-17 cohort is pretty critical to studio profits. Yes, sometimes they will buy tickets illegitimately for R-rated films, or convince a parent or guardian* to bring them in, but if there weren't a good chunk of PG and PG-13 movies every year, that vital segment of the market wouldn't be spending much money on Hollywood product.
Well, sure, I'm not saying there shouldn't be plenty of PG and PG-13 movies, but it seems to me something like this shouldn't be one of them. Battle Royale wasn't and was all the better for it. Time and again in the last couple of years I've seen American movies that have clearly been cut or twisted in development to get under the PG-13 bar, when they'd have been much better off as an R. It's made even worse by the MPAA's bizarre priorities, but it's the producers' fault.
I read and loved the books approximately a year ago, then moved on - and the hype surrounding the movies seemed weird. Then I caught an interview with Jennifer Lawrence, and got sucked into a Youtube vortex, and then re-read the first book in an afternoon.
It is a stunningly good book, in my opinion. It has so many layers - narration through a smart-but-not-perfect teenage girl, the complexities of politics viewed through the lens of someone who has a lot of power and yet not exactly in the ways she always expects or understands, ... Plus fantastic world-building.
I am curious about the movie. jms, based on interviews Rue is unambiguously black, not asian. Jennifer Lawrence should probably be more latina than white, and I am conflicted about it, but she also comes across in interviews as a pretty excellent casting choice for Katniss: she is pretty and disarmingly charming, which seems to mask deep cleverness. She makes hard things look simple. I am reserving judgment.
I'm definitely excited, and hoping to see it soon. Seriously though, if you haven't read the book you should.
9:I am not sure why, but haven't yet watched Battle Royale or whatever, Battles Without Honor or Humanity? I watch it, but really not all that into action or violence, at least that kind. Maybe I'm nastier, somewhere between Rachel Getting Married and Long Days Journey into Night or Scenes From a Marriage, as I said, I like family movies. Late Strindberg is good.
The depiction of archery in the movies is apparently top notch.
I gulped down the first book whole, and had the usual complaints about the third book.
I don't know if I'll go see the movie. We've talked before about how I don't visualize when I read. Movie visuals of the same thing I can read would definitely linger and probably really disturb me. That said, I've clicked on every article I've seen that had the words Hunger Games in the title this past week. (Rue is unambiguously black in the movie, as is Thresh.)
I hadn't even heard of the book prior to the buzz about the movie, and only have a vague sense of the premise. So no strong feelings.
Ditto. When I was at Barnes & Noble recently they had a whole little table set aside with copies of the trilogy, and I briefly glanced at them to get a sense of what the hype was about. That's pretty it for my exposure to the phenomenon.
I'm curious as to what this movie will do to Jennifer Lawrence's future acting options, since interviews I've read seem to indicate that she has a pretty strong image of herself as a serious actress (and she's not wrong! I just don't think she's going to be offered any more Winter's Bones).
24 gets it right. The first book really is surprisingly good and relatively smart. Still, I think Lawrence is a crap choice for Katniss, but I'll see it (when it makes its way to my TV) anyway.
Also, I think both LB and I have, before now, recommended the Gregor the Overlands series, which is also by Collins. As a series, it's far more consistently good than the Hunger Games books, though the latter has higher highs. Also good in the genre: the Eragon books.
Did anyone here ever see the movie Series 7: The Contenders? It was fantastic, for 2001, ie slightly before the explosion of reality TV. If it came out today, it would be a tired theme, so it probably wouldn't hold up well. But I thought it was an amazing movie.
That second also should really have been an also also.
Clicking around IMDB, I see that actress Brooke Smith was in labor for 78 hours, and refused an epidural, during the birth of her daughter. Holy fucking 78 hours!
And Overlands should have been Overlander. Award-winning comments from VW!
Seriously, Dutch, the Eragon books? Every review I've read of those has said "barely disguised Star Wars fan fic by a not-great writer".
30:It will make her very rich. And it will make some people around her well-off, and ambitious.
The relationship between salary demanded and askable, and what parts a young actor talent* gets offered is fascinatingly full of traps.
*See young director of John Carter
Also kids will buy tickets to a different PG13 movie and then go to the R movie instead. You really lose a lot of money having an R instead of PG13.
35: Yeah, I watched it on a whim and because it was on the Netflix streaming thing, expecting it to be bad, but ended up enjoying it. Oh and I guess I watched it partly because it has Brooke Smith from Vanya on 42nd Street, actually.
Oh and for some reason I don't have much interest in The Hunger Games. I guess I'd subject the book to the "am I sick of it by the end of the first page?" test if I had a free copy, but that's about where my commitment to it ends. A friend asked if I wanted to see the movie this weekend and I replied "not even a little!"
Oooh, can we start recommending YA series? I also liked Gregor the Overlander.
Fletcher's Stoneheart trilogy was good.
I'm going to pretend that 40 is actually responding to 35.
But Smearcase, you get to see children die! Or is that Blandings who hates kids?
I'm going to see the movie this weekend, along with my girlfriend and another friend or two. It's kind of weird how interested my girlfriend is in it, since she still hasn't finished the book, nor anything else by the same author as far as I know, and she was just as interested long before she started reading the book. She saw the author give an interview a year or two ago and was just blown away, I guess. But not blown away enough to start reading the book until last week.
43: Yes, it's about the best misdirected comment ever.
It's so awesome - Oh and I guess I watched it partly because it has Brooke Smith from Vanya on 42nd Street, actually.
I guess I'd subject the book to the "am I sick of it by the end of the first page?" test
Amazon gave me that much, and I turned away. Too many "I"s, too many abrupt shifts in subject matter, too much intention to move really really fast (kids get bored), and a lot of modern authors just wave their hands at creating a sense of place, a context.
But I have a vanishingly low tolerance for fiction anymore.
Saw it last night, bitches!
Actually, saw it at 12:01 this morning, bitches!
Oh, I guess that's what everyone was lining up for at the movie theater yesterday at 5.
There has not been enough work done, and I mean like criminally negligent, on how we read bad fiction in the age of mass reproduction. I think we are doing much more of the work than they did in the 19th century.
"I walked into the mining town."
What do you see, what is your image? McCabe and Mrs Miller, Deadwood, How Green was Our Valley, Ride the High Country?
Doesn't matter, a year after you read, someone may ask you, and you might say "She described it in such great detail."
Graphic novels are using this too, I think.
New standard for actress crushes, "Would you watch her non-epidural 78-hour labor?"
Brooke Smithe Three-Day Baby Plotz
23: See, but, the kids are not stupid. They want to put their money where it will get them the maximum amount of sex and violence on screen.
33: We watched it in one of my film studies classes. I actually quite liked it, rather. Especially the video-within-a-video of the characters as goth teens. That was brilliant.
37: I don't know scifi/fantasy the way you do, so I wouldn't want to suggest that you'd enjoy the books. But for a young adult, they're pretty excellent, yes. The hero is deeply flawed (actually, all of the good guys, including the elves, are deeply flawed); he consistently grapples with genuine moral dilemmas; he fucks up even when he means well and then has to deal with the consequences of his actions; his relationship with his dragon isn't at all simple and features a lot of interesting enough stuff about identity formation; a healthy skepticism of authority suffuses all of the books; the author seems to be quite interested in animal rights and in teaching kids that humans are just another animal; and the writing isn't terrible. My biggest complaint is that, unlike Hunger Games, gender is treated with any care at all.
But from the photos (I haven't seen any trailers) the actors all look super-white.
No, Rue & Thresh are black in the movie. Rue is pretty light-skinned and Thresh is pretty dark-skinned. A few of the other tributes definitely aren't white, a few are ambiguous. Other than Cinna, the cast for the rest of the major characters are white.
Or is that Blandings who hates kids?
No, that'd be me. But hate is such a strong etc.
I am ignoring the part where I said I watched Brooke Smith in labor.
57: Hate 'em? I don't even like 'em!
I only go to movies to see race. This thread is full of spoilers.
I've been aware of the Hunger Games books in the sort of way I tend to be aware of any big YA SFF hit. They sounded mildly intriguing, but I hadn't gotten around to borrowing them.
Also surprised at the Eragon recommendation. That's the one written by a kid, right? I think I read the first one and thought, hmm. Reads like it was written by a kid.
Maybe they've gotten better.
Or is that Blandings who hates kids?
Doesn't Blandings have kids?
I guess that is a major cause of hating them.
I'm talking about film producers aiming for, or cutting to get, a PG-13 when the film clearly should be aiming for a higher rating. I get that they're trying to broaden the audience, but unlike in the UK, it's not like teenagers aren't allowed to watch R films at all, so I can't imagine it makes that much difference to box office.
Pwn'd, but, for in-theater movies, teenagers and kids pretty much are the box office. An R vs. a PG-13 makes a huge difference, and studios will kill you (OK, send somebody like me to sue you) if you try to fight hard to obtain an R rating for a tentpole picture.
It will make her very rich. And it will make some people around her well-off, and ambitious.
Some people?! Some of us lackeys and dregs of the entertainment industry have kids to feed, you know.
This movie's a big deal, it will help save Lionsgate and cement its gamble in buying Summit. Also, to the OP, if you want to know why fans are twitching, thank an incredibly awesome marketing campaign.
60: Von Wafer wiped out his 401k when Days of Thunder was at the dollar theater.
Overall, the movie is good as a visual retelling of the book. As a standalone movie, probably not so much. [Not really spoilers to come but...] The one place where it really fails is in conveying the level of political repression. There are also some pretty huge shortcuts in order to get to the game itself; Gale is practically non-existent as a character.
However, the visuals are pretty great and Stanley Tucci alone is worth the price of admission. Woody Harrelson was near perfect as Haymitch.
66: Marshall's broken wrist and Wisconsin's loss are really screwing up my bracket, dude. I blame you.
God, I've forgotten how to write. Anyhow, the point of the first paragraph was that for making money on a major picture through theatrical release, your audience pretty much is teenagers or kids and parents, full stop.* R vs. PG-13 makes a huge difference -- you can be losing something like $50-100 million. This particular movie would have been a surefire money loser as an R and the rating would have been a disaster.
*Like everything in life, there are exceptions, but basically for R rated movies you're hoping for profit, not volume -- smaller audiences and cheaper production for more profit. So, R rated comedies and prestige dramas, but a big budget movie with an R has a real problem.
Woody Harrelson was near perfect as Haymitch.
After staring at this sentence for a couple of minutes, I can confirm that it still makes no sense.
Eragon: not too shabby for a 15 year-old.
71: right. Again, it's well suited to its intended audience. Which is to say, I don't think snarkout should read it. Nor Megan, probably. But my then-seven-year-old loved it, and I enjoyed reading it after him, through his eyes.
66: Exxon (where my dad spent his whole career) was evidently a major sponsor of that (presumably) stupid movie. The company picnic that summer features lots of DoT swag. Shit was so ugly I wouldn't even wear it to cut the grass.
68: Everybody's bracket is a bloodbath. But all indications are that Marshall will probably be back on the court by Sunday; the cast is off and the doctors say there's no risk of further injury. Carolina should* be able to get past Ohio without him, just based on the size disparity.
*any given Sunday, etc.
And, re: the violence (this will be a much more interesting conversation once some of you have actually seen it), it wasn't nearly as horrifying as in the book, but they managed not to glamorize it, for which I was glad. It's certainly not more violent than plenty of other PG-13 movies and much less so than Battle Royale from what I've heard about it.
Did anyone here ever see the movie Series 7: The Contenders? It was fantastic, for 2001, ie slightly before the explosion of reality TV. If it came out today, it would be a tired theme, so it probably wouldn't hold up well. But I thought it was an amazing movie.
The one about the dudes training to become NASD-licensed broker dealers? That one was totally awesome!
77: I'm assuming you're right. And if UNC wins it all, as my bracket insists they will, I'll probably be okay. But even if they don't, Duke lost, so another angel has its wings. Still, I mourn the valiant Badgers' downfall at the hands of Boeheim's dead-end kids.
Once again, my bracket pool is being led by the pace car bracket that assumes no upsets. I got zero points yesterday. Zero!
73 - Fair enough! Joseph Campbell is what works, after all, and if you haven't seen Star Wars, why not get your Campbell somewhere else?
I had Wisconsin losing in the first round and Syracuse in the second. Last night's game was supposed to have been Vanderbilt taking out Kansas State. Even if Carolina wins it (as my bracket insists as well), I'm not likely to get much past the middle of the pool.
77: looking at my bracket, my final game is still possible, I guess, though I don't think it's very likely to come to pass.
Yeah, Eragon... sorry Von Wafer, I can't agree there.
I mean, the truly ghastly writing was not entirely to be unexpected, since Paolini was a kid when he began, but the adults who marketed it -- especially Knopf -- and allowed him to believe it was good writing (he later described his work thusly: "In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf") did him a huge disservice and should be severely chastised. Combine that with godawful Marty Stu-ism in the world's seven-billionth cribbing of the "farm boy makes good" fantasy plot, and a setting crudely stitched together from Tolkienesque D&D cliches and stolen conceits from the far superior Pern and Earthsea books... well, for me, I don't really care how pro-animal-rights its underlying ethos, good intentions can't rescue it from flaws like that.
It was a good effort for a kid, but it was essentially slightly-disguised fanfic, rewarded prematurely in a way that I suspect will have permanently stunted Paolini's ability to write or think about writing. That stuff like this or Twilight passes for a good book with anyone at all is more a testament to the power of marketing than the quality of the books, I think. Paolini is essentially the Rebecca Black of fantasy fiction... except that the aesthetic of fantasy fiction is so degraded and derivative by this point that he can actually be taken seriously. How depressing.
("No Upsets" is currently ranked in the 93rd percentile on ESPN's bracket website.)
I've got Kentucky losing to IU, which isn't going to happen. Sigh. And it doesn't look like Wisconsin is going to the Final Four. Double sigh. Not to mention, every time I root for one of Rick Pitino's teams, another shard of my shattered soul turns to dust. Triple sigh.
86 -- tell me about it, the dude who put in the autofill "No Upsets" bracket is now beating everyone in my pool and will likely take my money. I picked Ohio State to win it all on a whim, which I guess is still sort of possible. But on the other hand I vaguely dislike Ohio State.
Photos of Kraabniece #1 in her flame-painted jeans and flame cape added to the Flickr pool. (Why the hell else would I have been to see it the NIGHT IT OPENED OMG!!)
Everybody's bracket is a bloodbath.
At least you're sort of staying on topic.
85: I'm afraid I'm not going to mount a spirited defense of the Eragon books. And, as I noted above, I'm certainly not going to suggest that grown-ups who are keen on scifi/fantasy will like them. But I think a comparison to the Twilight series is silly and leaves me wondering if you've actually read them (or, a la Whit Stillman, if you've just enjoyed the criticism). Again, the characters deal with actual moral dilemmas, those same characters are deeply flawed, things go very wrong for them, and there are some interesting themes to consider.
My Final Four is Kentucky, Missouri (ouch), Ohio State, and Carolina so I've still got three left. But something like 3/4 the pool has either Kentucky or UNC winning it and I'm in the bottom quartile at the moment.
My Final Four is Kentucky, Missouri (ouch), Ohio State, and Carolina
Me too!
Sir Kraab, her outfit looks incredible! (And speaking of outfits, I've heard that Katniss's fancy dress scene is very good in the movie, and that does intrigue me.)
I get the same feeling during March Madness that I do every Ash Wednesday.
Indiana, Louisville, UNC, Wisconsin. UNC winning it all. It could happen, I guess, but I'm not seeing it at the moment. My hatred of Kentucky stood in the way of making rational choices, economists be damned.
96: you wonder why people have smudgy stuff on their foreheads? Me too!
Wafer's smudge is from banging his head against the bracket on his desk.
95: Isn't it? Her friend made the cape and one for herself for some HG event at the public library. There were a few other people in costume, though we didn't see everyone as there were *14* theaters full of people.
Yes, the fancy flame dress is very good.
Brief foodie threadjack:
Anyone have an opinion about country hams? I think I'll do one this Easter, but I know very little about them. Cook's recommends Clifty Farms (TN), Johnston County (NC), Gwaltney (Smithfield VA) and Luter's (Smithfield, VA).
Shit's expensive, so I'd like not to regret my choice.
I know very little about them
You know they're super-salty, right?
92: The comparison to Twilight was mostly in terms of the quality of the prose. (Yes, I have inflicted certain quantities of both on myself; though I'm hardly masochistic enough to have run to entire books, I'm not judging them without having clapped eyes on them either.) In Eragon's case I'd say that you have to have convincing characters in the first place to have convincingly "flawed" ones, and conflicts worth caring about before "moral dilemmas" have any force.
I'm telling you this mainly so that you may better understand why people who care about good writing -- this is hardly limited to or even typical of just grown-up SF fans -- are not impressed by Paolini. Kids of course do not necessarily care that much about good writing, because they don't have reference points and don't know any better until somebody else educates them.
103: Yeah, which I'm a bit leery of. Cook's specifically says that the 2 non-VA ones are (much) less salty.
Iris adores prosciutto, so I figure I can slip some into her lunch every day until summer without complaints.
105: Excellent, thanks.
92, 104: They showed the trailer for the new Twilight movie last night and I'm happy to say that the audience response was groans and laughter.
93 (I'm making sure I've got the number right this time) just reminded me of this horrible little rap that went around sometime in junior high. All I can actually remember is "The Cats are goin' to the final four/That's all there is and there ain't much more."
I think my feelings about sports are basically all transferentially based on Kentucky Wildcats fans. I just got so fucking sick of hearing about them.
There are also some pretty huge shortcuts in order to get to the game itself; Gale is practically non-existent as a character.
Huh. That will pose major problems for the sequels, won't it?
Ah, here we go.
"The cats are going to the final four,
that's all there is and there ain't no more,
we're gonna' battle in Seattle for the number one place,
And if you get in our way we'll slam it in your face!"
Thanks for helping me relive that, internet.
96: you wonder why people have smudgy stuff on their foreheads? Me too!
There's always a minute on Schmutz Wednesday when it doesn't immediately register and I just think everyone has some schmutz on their forehead.
Castock is 100% right about Eragon, but of course it does remain quite an accomplishment for a 15 year-old.
There was an article about his life and his home recently in the NYT.
Delurking to recommend country ham from the A.B. Vannoy Company; site currently says they're nearly sold out but may have a few hams left to ship.
Any comments about the John Carter movie? I enjoyed the source material in a ironic-steam punk kind of way, but the reviews have been less than kind.
112 is awesome. He has "an actual dragon egg" and I'm cracking up!
Castock is 100% right about Eragon
I actually don't think I'd argue with anything, except for the part about Twilight, that he's said.
Edwards Virginia country hams (uncooked, bone-in) are very salty but "authentic" according to my Southside Virginia friends. I used a piece of a Prudens ham as fishbait once and caught a flounder.
My son really liked Eragon as an early teenager. He also liked the idea that a teenage guy was the author.
His chain mail is pretty mediocre quality. I made a whole shirt that interleaved 4:1 and 6:1 links. I think it's still in a subbasement room somewhere under MIT.
You know, I have to wonder whether Orson Scott Card wrote Ender's Game twenty years too early. I wonder if he'd be getting the Rowlings/Collins treatment and movies made after the book if it came out now.
you wonder why people have smudgy stuff on their foreheads?
This reminds me of the (I think) Gawker post where the writer wondered why the miniature headstones in, like, old-timey cemeteries, like, depicted "Cupids" and/or lambs.
They are filming an ender's game movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/'
120: I do think Christians are children, yes.
There was probably another way to read 120, wasn't there?
123: Authorial intent, you vixen, you! c'est une chimère.
An interesting side-thread could be: what really terrible books did you like as an early teenager?
I can remember reading and enjoying Dennis McKiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy (a breathtakingly brazen rip-off of LOTR), and the Shannara books (Terry Brooks' banal cash-in on the Tolkien craze). But probably my most embarrassing book purchase was Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams: epic good vs. evil quest fantasy... for cat-fanciers.
121: yeah, but JMS will hate it. They've got Mazer Rackham played by an Indian. And I don't think the kid playing Ender is a real Catholic either.
I think I read one of the Shannara books when I was but a lad and enjoyed it well enough, but the derision the poor man gets from SFF bien-pensants makes me sympathize with him a bit more than I otherwise would. Also, I believe he is a refugee from the learned profession of jurisprudentialconsultancy, so, you know, a fist bump of solidarity to Terry Brooks.
I can't help thinking that they will probably soften the central message from the book's pretty unambiguous "war turns everyone involved into monsters". Not very 2012, that.
I too read the Shannara books and many others of its kidney as a youth.
I'm going to start a tavern called "The Ilk and Kidney".
An interesting side-thread could be: what really terrible books did you like as an early teenager?
Oooh. . . .
I liked the Xanth books, but that was younger than "early teenager." I never got into the Shannara books but I did read all five of the Well Of Souls books by Jack Chaucer (I would still defend the first one as a decent SF book, but the later books were pretty bad).
I mostly liked the Weis/Hickman Dragonlance books.
Sadly, that seems like a mostly predictable list.
131: "My name's Jack Chaucer. I'm a detective. Also a pre-Renaissance critical textual analyst. My beat is any library with a few bucks for coffee and sandwiches. I carry a concordance."
Gosh there were a lot of Dragonlance books. I gave up after reading 5 of them, I think. But I now wonder if there are many RPG geeks who were 4-5 years younger than me who read the entire set.
132 is great.
Incidentally, that wasn't a typo. I had his name stuck in my head as Chaucer for some reason.
The Shannara books were so very, very bad. I read all of them, but only once and very young.
Xanth had an increasingly perplexing attitude towards its female characters.
Like so many girls before me, my twelve-year-old self got mildly aroused with the Dragon etc. of Pern books.
Dennis McKiernan and Jack Chaucer I haven't read.
Oh wow, I remember DragonLance. I even read the Raistlin Chronicles spin-off.
We can do this, sure, but I'd also be grateful if you all (and especially you, LS, you righteous defender of good prose, you) would tell me the titles of good* YA books. Now that I've allowed my son to blight his mind with the Eragon series, I'd like to redeem him somehow. He's nine, if that matters.
* Look away now, LS: or even, assuming that "good" is too high a bar to clear, just enjoyable ones.
I'm going to start a tavern called "The Ilk and Kidney".
Serving its signature dish of ilk and kidney pie.
I liked a few of those Pern books. I wonder if they hold up in this fallen age.
what really terrible books did you like as an early teenager?
The nuclear-war-happens-and-then-things-are-bad books were irresistable and also freaked me out. Alas Babylon, On the Beach, Fail Safe. There was another where the U.S. government converted a nuclear submarine into a huge atomic bomb and set it off in the Gulf of Finland to thwart the Soviets. Good times.
137: I can't say enough complimentary things about the Earthsea books, especially the first one.*
* One blushes to admit that one has been known to address the odd squirrel, chipmunk, hamster, etc., with "Hoeg! Hoeg, do you want to come with me?"
I wonder if they hold up in this fallen age.
Not terribly well. The first one is okay, but after that it gets silly fast.
I liked the Black Cauldron series by Lloyd Alexander and the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.
I liked the Black Cauldron series by Lloyd Alexander and the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.
These were, along with some L'Engle, my favorite books for a time.
Anyone read the Chronicles of Amber series?
I think I valued atmospherics more than storytelling, and I don't believe the same is true for most of today's kids, what with their whiz-bang approach to everything. It's a fallen age, I tell you, a fallen age.
I'm embarrassed to have found the "Legends" Dragonlance trilogy deeply moving, but I never read the Raistlin Chronicles.
"The Explosionist" is a pretty awesome alternate-history YA book--written by a comparative lit prof, no less. Very Mineshaft-appropriate.
I liked the Black Cauldron series by Lloyd Alexander and the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.
I loved the Black Cauldron series (and I remember being outraged(!) by the movie adaptation).
I read the Dark Is Rising, but I think I read it when I was a bit too young -- I remember liking it, but I don't remember much from it.
I remember liking The Wolves of Willoughby Chase when I read it, though wikipedia classifies it as a children's book rather than YA, for whatever that's worth.
I like both of the Celtic series JM mentions in 143. I have never read it, but I have heard good things about The Owl Service.
Otherwise, I'd recommend Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Norse Myths (despite not having so much as looked at this book in probably 15+ years I still remember its name and its authors name) or you could just jump straight to The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson. And what young adult's library could be complete without that most essential volume by JRR Tolkein, his translations of "Pearl", "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", and "Sir Orfeo"?
We can do this, sure, but I'd also be grateful if you all (and especially you, LS, you righteous defender of good prose, you) would tell me the titles of good* YA books.
Oooh, I know, have him start reading Daniel Manus Pinkwater.
The Snarkout Boys And The Avacado of Death is one of my absolute favorite books from childhood, but I'd recommend starting with something like Fat Men From Space (though I don't have a clear sense of how to place a nine year old's reading level.
Actually, Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham is good for a 9 year-old, if he's not yet ready for the LOTR motherlode.
Le Grand Meaulnes, aka The Wanderer, is pretty fantastic.
I wish I could remember the term for the position that the deities represented in myths are derived from historical personages. I believe Sturluson held such a position about the Norse gods, and I know I used to know the term and even used it in these here archives, but obviously that knowledge doesn't help me search for it.
I remember the Black Cauldron and the Dark Is Rising series too, but they're too far in the past for me to know if my fond memories are accurate or distortions. (I do remember that one of them contained a super-annoying jester character named Fflewdr Fflan, but I can't remember which.)
As for recommendations of good YA fiction for Von W: Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy is deservedly well-thought-of. Watership Down is a genuine classic of anthro-critter literature (in a way that my aforementioned cat-fancier epic fantasy certainly wasn't). Coraline by Neil Gaiman is quite good. For non-fantasy, I could recommend The Outsiders or (and especially) the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, but he may want to wait a couple years on those.
Farmer Giles of Ham is great.
I also like (or liked) Smith of Wootton Major.
a super-annoying jester character named Fflewdr Fflan
That was Lloyd Alexander, though the character was a musician not a jester. I don't remember if there was an actual jester in the Westmark series.
It might be too soon for the Iliad or the Odyssey, but the Argonautica is probably manageable.
(Oh, you know who else is good on Y-A shelves is Kenneth Oppel. His novel Airborn centers around high-flying piracy and airships, for instance. Not a super-literary writer, but it's very fun stuff.)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman is quite good terrifying.
I learned what sophistication was by reading stolen copies of High Times. Also those penthouse letters and Conan books, as well as the black-and-white large format Conan magazine/comic books that could show boobs. Creepy, Heavy Metal, all that stuff. Oh, and National Lampoon, so great.
I worked at a newsstand selling paper out front from when I was 11, paperbacks and magazines inside. Candy bars and Gyros from the diner across the street.
155: This is who I was thinking of. He was actually a king! Sort of. I'd forgotten about that.
I also went through a Robin McKinley phase as a young adult.
I think at that age I was basically reading endless amounts of sci-fi, either in the form of periodicals that got read repeatedly (Analog, mostly), or short-story anthologies from the 1960s and 1970s. I can't think of what was specifically YA-targeted. (Did that even exist as a marketing category? I feel like I hear much more about it now, and not usually about YA people reading it, either).
Pinkwater, definitely.
When I reread them as an adult, I thought The Dark Is Rising held up but Alexander's books didn't.
I am shocked, shocked that nobody has mentioned Diana Wynne Jones yet. Charmed Life is probably a good starting point, but just about everything she's written is fantastic.
Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books are also really good, if dated.
I like Pratchett's YA, but I came to it after reading Pratchett's non-YA so I may be biased. That said, my nine-years-younger sibling, who started with The Wee Free Men, also really liked it.
the Black Cauldron series
Ahem ahem ahem, that would be the Prydain Chronicles.
164.--Me too. McKilip has a couple of other good books. I recently reread Od Magic, a book which is remarkable in part for how uninsistent it is. Today that world-building and plot would be spun out over no few than 600 pages and three volumes, but McKilip was happy to keep it super-simple and evocative and SINGLE-VOLUME FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
I seem to recall thinking that Robin McKinley's entry in the girl-meets-vampire genre, "Sunshine," was far better than most.
A kids book, but fabulous (my 11-year old likes it a lot) is True Meaning of Smekday. Earth is invaded by powerful and inconsiderate aliens who rename the place and put humans on reservations. The main character is named Gratuity.
Anyone read the Chronicles of Amber series?
Loved it, but I didn't realise it was meant to be YA. Not sure Zelazny did either.
Diana Wynne Jones is wonderful. So are the Tiffany Aching books (though the third one is not as good as the others).
the Tiffany Aching books
(That would be the set of Terry Pratchett books beginning with Wee Free Men.)
Diana Wynne Jones might be younger than YA but they were very enjoyable. I read 1984 and Brave New World and loved them as a kid. And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I read all the Xanth and Pern books as a youngster (probably older than 12). No one else I knew admitted to reading sci-fi/fantasy or smutty books so I had to discover/enjoy them on my own.
though the third one is not as good as the others
It pains me to think there may be a reason for that.
It pains me to think there may be a reason for that.
I know. SAD.
167: ahem ahem ahem ahem, isn't it actually the Chronicles of Prydain?
Oh, wow, yeah, Diana Wynne Jones was great. I'm not really sure when I was reading what--but by the end of elementary school I was on to stuff like Stephen King (whose "Eyes of the Dragon" I recall being quite good, and basically fantasy-YA) and non-YA--not to say good--scifi/fantasy. YA stuff certainly existed in great quantities back in the 80s--Babysitter's Club, RL Stine, etc.--but I do wonder whether the category has grown precisely to feed the appetites of nostalgic, escape-seeking adults.
Diana Wynne Jones might be younger than YA but they were very enjoyable.
It depends on the book, I suppose. The Chrestomanci books are an obvious great starting point, but if there was some concern about hitting too young, maybe better to start with The Dark Lord of Derkholm?
167: ahem ahem ahem ahem, isn't it actually the Chronicles of Prydain?
Ahem! How right you are.
Hey apparently there's a movie of Le Grand Meaulnes; I wonder if it's any good.
165 was me. Also, this:
(Did that even exist as a marketing category? I feel like I hear much more about it now, and not usually about YA people reading it, either).
When are all these teenagers going to stop reading all the time?
Or, alternately, YA is the only outlet for authors who want to write interesting (to them) books without either getting sucked into impenetrable literary fiction or ghettoized genre fiction. YA is like the last general-purpose category for fiction writers.
Oh yeah, I looooved Eyes of the Dragon at around 11.
The Snarkout Boys And The Avacado of Death is one of my absolute favorite books from childhood
/me taps nose.
YA isn't a ghettoized genre? I would think that YA both has rather strict conventional constraints (can't have much sex) and has the property of adults feeling embarrassed about admitting they read it. Hence alternate covers for Harry Potter and so on.
There was some stuff about how people relate to each other that was miles over my head when I read it for the first time. Um, and now I can't remember how old I was so this story is kind of like the time I was 17 and about to go to the USSR and my mother asked me where Leningrad was in relationship to Moscow and I stuck a finger in the air as if a pin on a map and said "so Moscow is here, and I don't know where Leningrad is."
Eyes of the Dragon is totally good, really scary (I never read his actual horror), and features a deus ex macchina enabled by Keynesian economic policy. Seriously.
Oh! How about good old The Sword in the Stone? Smart and moving and funny and full of Merlin on the one hand and weird little asides and then-current cultural references that will go deliciously over his head on the other?
I feel as though New York Review Books publishes a lot of YA classix. Huh, their offerings for 8–14-year-olds. But just here there's a column marked "teen reading" that looks altogether more interesting. See, this looks promising, for instance.
How about The Westing Game? It's not really sci-fi, but I can't play along with sci-fi. But boy did I love that book.
I am very much a partisan of A Month in the Country. I have no idea how appropriate it is for "young" "adults" but if VW likes atmosphere he might like it, I don't know. It's really good. Actually I think it likely would be suitable for a "young" "adult".
The Westing Game is superb, and Raskin's less-well-known books are very good, too.
How nice of all of you to provide me with this thread when I am online and supposed to be -- but certainly am not about to be -- hard at work. This is doing wonders for my participation numbers.
I recently recommended William Sleator's Interstellar Pig to a friend with a kid about Von Von Wafer's age.
I preferred The Green Futures of Tycho for my entry-level Sleator, myself. None of his books are for the nightmare-prone, though. So good.
Also fun: John Bellairs' series Lewis Barnavelt series, which begins with The House with a Clock in Its Walls
196 to 194, 195.
John Bellairs came to my elementary school, that was rad. Jane Langton, too.
195: oh, wow, I've been vaguely frustrated by my inability to remember the author or title or, really, anything about those books (except that I loved them) for a decade or more. Hooray!
Not sci-fi but maybe stretching into fantasy - The Egypt Game (I thought the reference The Westing Game referred to this for a second and flashed back to my childhood but they're different books).
The Sword in the Stone was awesome!
How about Princess Bride?
179: I actually hadn't read the other recommendations for DWJ before I posted so it may be exactly the right age.
A couple more names to mention (both of which could be for kids younger than nine, but should appeal to a nine year old as well):
Fungus The Boogeyman by Raymond Briggs
Trouble in Bugland by William Kotzwinkle
Some days I just do not make any sense. "It" in previous comment is Fire and Hemlock.
I loved Battle Royale. Its politics are much less complex than Hunger Games -- it presents straight-up generational warfare.
My friend Sarah persuaded me to read Hunger Games, which I did in an entirely consuming three and a half out of eighteen hours, so we could talk about the problem of representing Katniss's struggle to perform for the cameras -- the novel is very much taken up with her figuring out that part of the game is looking like a hero, and it's not obvious how to act of film that.
Newbery Medal both created and ruined YA literature: Discuss
I liked Princess of Mars as a YA, but Hollywood has ruined that forever.
Hm, thinking about my middle-school library, besides the surprising subscription to the D&D magazine, and the shelf of occult/fringe-science materials, I did find a few things to read there that probably qualify as YA-ish. The Tripod books, for example.
Re: link in 202--someone in The Descendants is "say goodbye to these!"?!
There was definitely a "young adult" category when I was a kid, because I remember well that they were shelved in the adult section, and that you weren't allowed to check out anything from that section on a kid's (or "juvenile") library card. You qualified for an adult card at 13, at which point I promptly went and got the Kinsey Report.
I can't for the life of me figure out what 206 means.
My family are somewhat obsessed by THG. I haven't read them. The older girls saw the film after school today, and C and kid C are going in the morning. The kids got C Cinna and Thresh cufflinks for his birthday. The film is cut from the US release apparently, in order to get a 12A certificate.
Kid A's English teacher is a son of Diana Wynne Jones. Which makes it feel extra complimentary when he writes stuff like 'this story was genuinely enjoyable'.
My daughter, not really a reader, liked The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. An orphaned Robin Hood as accidental folk hero with Marian as the most competent and accomplished of the outlaws. Both kids liked Three Clams and an Oyster by Randy Powell - captain of hitherto all-male flag football team faces recruiting a (gulp) girl onto the team.
I loved Ursula Leguin's non-sci-fi/fantasy Very Far Away from Anywhere Else. I should re-read it.
Haven't read it yet, but I hear Shadow & Bone is awesome.
I liked Leguin's Extremely Quiet and Incredibly Far Away.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman is quite good terrifying.
I enjoyed Coraline and the Graveyard. The audio book is excellent too.
181 the 1967 movie, Le grand Meaulnes/The Wanderer, is wonderful. I believe the later one's less good.
so we could talk about the problem of representing Katniss's struggle to perform for the cameras -- the novel is very much taken up with her figuring out that part of the game is looking like a hero, and it's not obvious how to act of film that.
Creditably addressed but too easily resolved. The main reason to see it is really is to have discussions like these. So hurry up and see it!
Not at all SFF (and probably all over the map in terms of target age), but Paul Zindel's* Pigman books, My Side of the Mountain, Bertrand Brinley's Mad Scientist's Club, Henry Reed (3 or 4 books), The Chocolate War, The Enormous Egg.
*Was reminded of him the other day when via some genealogical research my daughter discovered he is buried in the same cemetery as several of my wife's relatives.
165: I was basically reading endless amounts of sci-fi, either in the form of periodicals that got read repeatedly (Analog, mostly), or short-story anthologies from the 1960s and 1970s
Oh, so you spent most of your adolescence on the third floor of my parents' house too, huh?
Re: Bad YA literature: I read several numbers of both The Survivalist series, and the Casca series (by Barry Sadler!). Also Simon Hawke's Timewars series, although compared to the other two, those were practically Chaucer.
I think I've given my YA recommendations about 8 billion times already, and most of them are mentioned above anyhow. So a question instead: A friend's precocious 2nd-grader just picked up Tom Sawyer and found it just a little bit too challenging. Thoughts on what classic literature she should try instead? I'm thinking it was probably the dialect stuff that put her off, as I remember the same issue cropping up for me around that age.
I've given my YA recommendations about 8 billion times already
I'm bookmarking this thread as part of my highly hypothetical project of someday making an Unfogged-endorsed reading list.
Sifu: Yeah, I am definitely not making any sense today.
205: I did find a few things to read there that probably qualify as YA-ish shockingly homoerotic. The Tripod books, for example.
Seriously. I know some of you don't believe me on this, but The City of Gold and Lead is nothing but smut. Admittedly, it's not as bad as the (regrettably forgotten as to title) YA novel in my HS library, which had apparently been acquired because it was set in Duluth, in which an underage girl ran away from home and got shanghaied by white-slavers in the sleazy early 1980s. Even given the extent to which it appealed to prurient interests, it was too creepy for me to keep reading past the first chapter. "Heh, heh. And then what happened to her?" I pictured the author leering, as he rubbed his hands* together.
*Assuming it was not typed one-handed, which may be too broad an assumption to make.
221: You could search for "Diana Wynne Jones" for the YA stuff. All I remember from that time we recommended books to ogged was someone mentioning Mythologies.
I'm bookmarking this thread as part of my highly hypothetical project of someday making an Unfogged-endorsed reading list.
Then I'll mention another book from my childhood: the Italo Calvino collection of Italian Folktales.
There was a long stretch where that was the source of bed-time stories. I don't remember how old I was at that time (I think that came after my dad read me the LotR as bedtime stories but it could have been earlier) but they are very good.
Also, re: DWJ, I was converted to recommending Dogsbody over many other favorite titles last year. I think it may very well be her best stand-alone, although The Homeward Bounders is awfully good too.
I should be able to come up with more, but I'm wiped out right now. Generally YA is for teens and there's sort of a war gooing on among librarians and the like about how much sex is okay and how much cussin' and so on, "problem" novels. VW's kid probably wants juvenile books.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned for a 9-year-old is the Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson, which surely count as fantasy since none of the creatures exist, although I wish they did! I started reading Sleator at 9 and the books were terrifying but compelling. Alan Garner's Owl Service was a great one I want to reread.
Natilo, I'm thinking about your question too. It's not exactly classics, but the Betsy-Tacy books have great period feel. The book about Cousin Kate from Budapest had really cool parts. A Little Princess is way better than The Secret Garden, but both could fit the bill.
I'm persisting in trying to remember because I'm somehow convinced I'm not remembering the best ones. And a good one that just seeped into my consciousness, Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford.
I ripped through the Xanth books at a rate of one every two or three days in fourth grade, which my teacher refused to believe. I can't believe actual adults read those books. I think I heard somewhere that PA is a wingnut but now I'm unable to find evidence to confirm that perception.
Whether or not PA is a wingnut, he's clearly a man with some issues. Ever read Firefly?
And a friend from Richmond recommends Felts hams, from Ivor, Virginia. He's a vegan but has strong opinions based on a carnivorous past. Oh! Hams were about 120 comments ago.
A third grader in the neighborhood did a diorama of Treasure Island and apparently was plowing through the book. I remember it as confusing.
Oh, hey, I have a seven-year-old AMC gift card that still has value on it. Maybe I'll see this movie after all. Though I feel like it's a slight betrayal of Brad the Lurker ...
229, 230: He's not a wingnut, that I know of, but he is just a hilariously dirty and perverted old man. Enjoy his blog!
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News bulletin: US Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano has declared Temporary Protected Status for Syrians living in the US.
This is mostly a victory for Syrian-American communities which have been lobbying hard for the TPS designation.
It won't apply to people still in Syria, as it is only for people who are already in the US.
The major impact will be that Syrians here on temporary visas (students, travelers, etc) and those who do not have documented status will be eligible to apply for TPS, and thus obtain legal work authorization. This is important in allowing them to work and support themselves, as well as send money to support family affected by the fighting back in Syria.
Not really a strong foreign policy signal -- that is, it doesn't have a whole lot to do with what the US government thinks the ultimate outcome of the Syrian uprising will be.
Still, important.
Carry on.
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Or, alternately, YA is the only outlet for authors who want to write interesting (to them) books without either getting sucked into impenetrable literary fiction or ghettoized genre fiction. YA is like the last general-purpose category for fiction writers.
This is so wrong. YA is super super formalised as a genre, way more than adult fiction. (Or at least, YA as is written now. Things we call YA but weren't written as such, like pretty much everything written before 1970, are different.)
This is somewhat off-topic by now; I've only skimmed the thread.
I don't know a thing about The Hunger Games (not having read the books or seen the movie), but there was an odd moment in NPR's interview with the lead actress this morning, in which she said that she took the role in part because the story/film provided a powerful message for young people these days, having to do with the power of the individual in the face of "manipulation, by reality television, or the news, or the President."
That seemed to me at the time to be a slightly odd concatenation of evil-doers -- she didn't say advertising, or corporations. Is The Hunger Games conservative/libertarian/right-wing leaning?
she didn't say advertising, or corporations
Not by name, but they are sort of behind the things she did say.
Also, her choice of examples may have been guided by the specifics of the book/movie; isn't it about some sort of totalitarian government manipulating people via the media it controls?
It's antifascist and anticonsumerist and suggests strong links between the two.
Is The Hunger Games conservative/libertarian/right-wing leaning?
I haven't read it, but I'm sure there's some tiresome conservative or libertarian moron arguing that it is, and some other tiresome conservative or libertarian moron complaining about how it indoctrinates socialism.
More crack research (google "Hunger Games" and socialism) provides evidence of right wing moron type two. Good Christ these guys are predictable.
For a nine year old; Alan Garner's easier stuff. the Weirdstone of Brisingamen would be perfect, and Elidor should also work. IMO the sequel to WoB, The Moon of Gomrath, would work better for someone at least around around puberty (no direct adultish stuff but more the irrational Old Magic thing) and The Owl Service should only be read by teenagers or older. (adult emotions in that case.)
Also look out for Pat O'Shea's The Hounds of the Morrigan.
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Within ten seconds of the topic of having sex with a car coming up (as in any casual conversation it is bound to eventually), I was able to relocate the car sex faq. My research skills remain undimmed!
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Hmmm, the link in 244 might be a parody site, but I'm having a hard time telling. Here's a sample passage:
Essentially, these books, and the upcoming film, are like a grittier My Little Pony, glorifying nonconformity, socialism and rebellion in a society deemed unfavorable. The competitions, which are broadcasted throughout America, via television, are treated as if they are some sort of monstrous being coming to destroy the land. How is this at all in favor of the American spirit? By their own admission, the liberals love Darwin, who admitted that we are based upon survival of the fittest. These people are so far left that they consider Darwin to be too politically incorrect. Life is survival of the fittest. The current presidential election. Work. The American dream. The Hunger Games hates the American mentality, and probably wishes that we all lived in commie communes and rode rainbows to work while Lady GaGa and Skrillex emit Satanic prayer music from their lady holes while Barack Hussein Obama's image is permanently etched into the stars. This is the message being sent to our children. The Hunger Games has been recruiting youth into its cult, and seems to be on some sort of intense mission to destroy all that is good in America. When this film is released in theaters, I implore you to avoid it at all costs. When you go to your local Barnes and Noble to pick up the latest Glenn Beck book or the Christwire handbook, I suggest you take every copy of a Hunger Games book and flush them down the toilets in the store. The Hunger Games is extremely dangerous and must be stopped.
Cross posted with Thorn; not intending to contradict her, just I was thinking that The Owl Service would have
gone over my precocious 9 year old head in lots of ways.
Its like you are all my soulmates, unfolded commenters! So many of these books rocked my childhood--Alexander, mckillip, McKinley, cooper, l,engle, pink water, bellairs, westing game. They were all awesome. I also loved the xanth books, which make me cringe a little now, as well as the high Deryni books and the Thomas covenant books. However my most embarrassing moments came from reading more adult books that I didn't understand, I.e.brideshead revisited when I was 13 and not only didn't figure out the homosexual love affair, I didn't even get his religious conversion at the end. Fortunately, my obtuseness meant I also read atlas shrugged at the same time and just thought it was about being raped by an architect--all of rands philosophy went over my head.
Its like you are all my soulmates, unfolded commenters! So many of these books rocked my childhood--Alexander, mckillip, McKinley, cooper, l,engle, pink water, bellairs, westing game. They were all awesome. I also loved the xanth books, which make me cringe a little now, as well as the high Deryni books and the Thomas covenant books. However my most embarrassing moments came from reading more adult books that I didn't understand, I.e.brideshead revisited when I was 13 and not only didn't figure out the homosexual love affair, I didn't even get his religious conversion at the end. Fortunately, my obtuseness meant I also read atlas shrugged at the same time and just thought it was about being raped by an architect--all of rands philosophy went over my head.
my obtuseness meant I also read atlas shrugged at the same time and just thought it was about being raped by an architect
I think that one was Fountainhead, actually; but that just strengthens your point.
In general I think for clever children any good book will be enjoyable on one level or another --- I can't remember a time in my life when I hadn't read the Odyssey & I read Dante at the end of primary school, which obviously parts of went way over my head, but then again parts didn't and I got a lot out of.
Most adult sf is actually at a YA level anyway.
Most adult sf is actually at a YA level anyway.
Good thing Farber doesn't come around much anymore.
Yeah, I know, sweeping generalisations and all. But really, you can't tell me that a Catherine Asaro (frex) novel is any more adult than the run of the mill YA novel.
I'm pretty sure that I first heard about The Hunger Games in comments here and that I confused it at first with A Hunger Artist, which I first learned about in the comments here. I haven't read any of them.
the Thomas covenant books
Is it embarrassing to have liked them? I read them later, maybe in my early 20s. I heard that I should not like them, but hey: guy overcomes vertigo.
Most adult sf is actually at a YA level anyway.
Oh dear.
247: I had no idea that My Little Pony was about destroying the American mentality.
This movie's a big deal, it will help save Lionsgate and cement its gamble in buying Summit. Also, to the OP, if you want to know why fans are twitching, thank an incredibly awesome marketing campaign.
Via GFarber, the tale of the (book-side) marketing. Which, yeah, wasn't what Halford was talking about, but whatever.
I was a big Piers Anthony fan as a kid. This year, I picked up one of his books (from the "Adept" series) and was horrified to find out that the whole thing was a horribly obvious extended Mary Sue. And terribly written.
Synopsis: really short dude is awesome at some game because he's smart enough to outwit everyone. Oh, and he has magical powers and gets to sleep with superhot normal women all the time because of the force of his personality and because he's the most important person in the world. Oh, and women are crazy, amirite?
Oh, 12-year-old me, what were you thinking? Wait, don't answer that.
Huh. I hadn't seen 65. Not that it's surprising or anything, but boy, people (the lead actress) sure do mislead themselves about what they're doing.
The nerds I hung out with in Jr. High were all into Piers Anthony. That was when I was reading the fascists-killing-people series though, so I can't really look down my nose at them too much. That said, holy shit was that stuff awful!
Sort of on-topic, now that Dreamhaven sucks, I trade at Uncle Hugo's/Uncle Edgar's. I began my forays into those musty stacks back in 1987 or so. At that time there was a comix rack that held a few issues of Anarchy Comix, some old R. Crumb stuff, and a whole bunch of Omaha the Cat Dancers. I bought the Anarchy Comix; someone else apparently snagged the Crumb, and the Omaha issues -- that is, the exact same comic books that were there in 1987, now yellowed and crumbling -- are still there. It's like some horrible squick singularity. Frowner can see them too, so I know it is not just a hallucination.
Not that it's surprising or anything, but boy, people (the lead actress) sure do mislead themselves about what they're doing.
Eh, I'm sure she was aware that there was money involved in some way.
265: Judging from the rest of the interview, she was indeed. Her remark about having been moved to take the role due to its powerful message to young people these days, however, renders her not a serious person.
266: I'm not sure I buy that, but I'm pretty sure it's not worth engaging with you on this.
Was none of us ever cool? he typed, despairingly.
In general I think for clever children any good book will be enjoyable on one level or another
For example, Ulysses, Crime and Punishment, The Trial, and Sexing the Cherry.
247: I think it's a (badly done) parody site. For example: http://christwire.org/category/science/tech-review/
Ah. Here: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/christwire.html
Now that I've caught up, I can say that I loved Bellairs' novels. I probably read every one that had been published by the time I went to high school.
As for terrible stuff I read as an early teen, I put almost all of the Stephen King I read, which was a lot of it, in that category. I don't know if I'd put Eyes of the Dragon* there too, but I don't hold the Gunslinger novels I've read (up to whichever one has the monorail(?)) in particularly high regard anymore. This may be due to snobbishness more than anything else, as I haven't reread any King novels as an adult, though I did page through a couple before putting them in a "to donate/give away" box a few years ago. I think my dislike of King began when I picked up the new and less edited version of The Stand, which I was all excited about until I read a few pages and thought, "Not worth it."
*It's definitely different from most of his other work, with the possible exception of the Gunslinger stuff. Although it does have his trademark villain with the initials R.F.
267: Well, then, I won't engage with you on it either!
Seriously, though, I'm indulging in a little eye-rolling.
Has christwire.org been discussed here before?
Was none of us ever cool? he typed, despairingly.
Do you really have to ask?
shockingly homoerotic. The Tripod books, for example. Seriously. I know some of you don't believe me on this, but The City of Gold and Lead is nothing but smut.
It's been a few decades, but this is entirely believable. It was serialized (in graphic-novel form) in the official magazine of the Boy Scouts, after all. I do recall a lot of shirtless, sweaty young men inside those hot domes, basically being poolboys to Jabba-the-Hutt equivalents.
Also, I've never even heard of most of the stuff people have mentioned reading as a kid.
The local branch of my public library near where my family moved to while I was in 8th grade had a children's section, a smallish YA room - kind of an alcove, but with doorways on two sides, and a general collection area. The YA room was packed with series-type stuff. I can't remember checking stuff out from there very often.
Once again, I'm feeling like I'm way below the Mineshaft median in terms of science fiction and fantasy reading. But I did love the Dark is Rising and Prydain books when I was a kid.
I've never even heard of most of the stuff people have mentioned reading as a kid.
Me neither. I guess I've never really been a particularly voracious reader.
269: "We've secretly replaced Maria's copy of The Hunger Games with Hunger. Let's see if she notices!"
Or Breaking Dawn/Journey to the End of the Night. Or possibly American Girl/American Psycho. I can't come up with one for Trainspotting, though.
For example, Ulysses, Crime and Punishment, The Trial, and Sexing the Cherry.
Pretty much; Crime and Punishment, after all, is also a very detailed and built up picture of exotic and far-away places, which I certainly enjoyed parts of when I read it quite young.
281: The Railway Children?
I read The Trial, The Castle, and several of Kafka's short stories when I was in my early teens. I liked them a lot.
FINE FINE. If either of you loved Sexing the Cherry at nine, though, I would be surprised.
I've never even heard of Sexing the Cherry. It sounds erotic.
Speaking of games, the absolutely awful quality of play in the NCAA tournament continues. If the game is actually close,* the last minute will be full of mistakes. Is this finally the result of so many talented players leaving early or just a fluke. I suppose the favorites advancing will increase the chances of quality games later on.
*I was worried that the overtime game might break the trend, but the overtime itself was never in doubt after the first minute or two.
College basketball play has always been horrible. It's only exciting when you root for a team (or underdog) or have money riding on it, but otherwise it's a slopfest.
On first reading the name "Sexing the Cherry", I thought, but cherries don't have sexes.
268: To be fair, it's an incredibly tiny minority of people who are ever genuinely cool in junior high. (And an even tinier minority of those who remain cool past the senior year of high school.)
I can remember reading some preposterously over-advanced stuff in high school. My attempt to make sense out of William T. Vollman's Whores for Gloria at 15 was a waste of everyone's time: mine; the fraction of a second it took for the librarian to check it out to me; potentially even Vollman's through some sort of karmic bicycle chain. Perhaps I'm just flattering myself about being clever.
I guess I've never heard of "Sexing the Cherry" either. Or its author. I assum ed it was by Terry Southern.
290: This really seems to be a new level. I don't know how the regular season was, as it's basically impossible to follow from here, plus I spend less time watching than I used to, but this tournament has had very few game winning shots, but lots of poor shots/plays, people stepping out of bounds, etc. in the few end of game situations where those mistakes actually mattered.
Carolina is a complete mess without Kendall Marshall running the point.
I suppose so, but I remember having the same thought watching the 2004 Final Four. I'd love to blame the high turnover from players leaving early for the draft, but I don't really believe it.
2004 was a while ago. I completely believe that the quality of college games is always not so great, with some years worse than others, and this year is one of the down years. I think the more unusual thing is the lack of truly close games, well-played or not.
The lack of close games I'll give you. Tonight was the first overtime game of the tournament and the rest of the games have been strangely dull.
On the one hand -- as NRO's resident demography bore has been tirelessly pointing out -- the Western world is facing an unparalleled demographic crisis brought on by a feminist-inspired modern twist on Lysistrata (showering sex but withholding children), while at the same time, the West's vaunted "safety net" is collapsing because the system has been turned upside-down and a bevy of great-grandparents now coos over a single child.
Surely, this is the ultimate expression of the suicide cult that is the modern Left, a subset of libertine takers that so loathes itself that it will dragoon the makers into underwriting the chalices of tasty hemlock it's so eager for everybody to quaff in order to put itself out of its misery. If, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, it feels good, do it! Alas, it does hurt somebody -- it hurts society, by robbing it of its future and burdening those lucky kids who make it through the contraceptive/abortifacient gauntlet with an unpayable debt to the very people who tried to get rid of them.
Let me just note that this excerpt was introduced with "Let's get right down to the cognitive dysfunction:" I guess I can't say I wasn't warned.
So anti-contraceptive, anti-abortion politics has now become the unifying point of: anti-liberal culture war politics; oh noes it's race suicide all over again demographic politics; anti-safety net politics; and the deficit must be stopped but wars are free and rain freedom politics?
I should go back to Jeanette Winterson. I never did get to "Sexing the Cherry" and I see that she's written a dozen books since she was last on my radar. I loved "The Passion."
302: Not sure I see the connection to the third strain there, but otherwise, yeah.
In the context of the current election, it's like the Republicans realized they were limiting their appeal by being seen mainly as the party that hates gays and Mexicans, so they decided to emphasize that they also hate women.
Tangentially, when did the evangelicals start becoming OK with the Papists? Does it all stem from opposition to contraception and abortion?
Tangentially, when did the evangelicals start becoming OK with the Papists?
When a new threat arose in the form of people who were neither.
Does it all stem from opposition to contraception and abortion?
Just abortion.
301: seriously. The defenders of culture at NRO should know better than to use "gauntlet" in place of "gantlet".
304: The third one is that it apparently provides another vehicle for attacking social security and health care via the deficit and how are we going to pay for these things if no one will please think of the children?
I thought godless communism also contribute to greater religious unity.
The third one is that it apparently provides another vehicle for attacking social security and health care via the deficit and how are we going to pay for these things if no one will please think of the children?
I thought that was the second one.
Unless by the second one you just meant racism, which is plausible.
306: They're not really okay with Papists, any more than they are with Jews or Mormons. The conservative "big tent" has always been about suppressing proximate resentments in order to attack even larger resentments.
Watching them double down on the War on Women is really something, though.
I knew I should have made a numbered list.
1. culture war
2. race suicide (immigration and birth rates)
3. the social classes don't owe each other shit, or at least the rich don't
4. you can't spend your way out of anything, unless you're spending on subsidies for private business and war war war
315: Ah, I missed the subtlety.
307, 308: Do you have a sense of when it -- being willing to support the other's candidate -- began? I'm not surprised when they're working together but I expected more evangelical reluctance to support Gingrich & Santorum, at least more than I've seen reported or in poll results.
Do you have a sense of when it -- being willing to support the other's candidate -- began?
1960.
I'm not surprised when they're working together but I expected more evangelical reluctance to support Gingrich & Santorum, at least more than I've seen reported or in poll results.
Well, what's their alternative? Romney? Paul?
Moving to Canada for the Harper administration.
Except that the Harper administration is far behind the curve of normalizing what they want. Hell, they're rank amateurs at the kind of ratfucking that Jesus would do.
I expected more evangelical reluctance to support Gingrich & Santorum
Their only other choices are the Mormon and the guy who wants to legalize drugs and make peace with the Muslims.
Now that was a long delayed pwn. I should refresh the screen when I wander away.
One can almost hear the hamster-wheels of Ron Paul's vote-triangulation team squealing. What to do? Do they side with the gun nuts? Their white supremacist base? Their Tea Party base? The Radley Balko-and-the-youths libertarian base? Take a bog-standard Santorum-style "we're against Big Government let the locals handle it" line? I think the real victim in all this is Ron Paul.
All this Hunger Games stuff made me decide to read the third book, which I'd never gotten around to. I actually liked it a lot more than I remember liking the 2nd, probably because of how grim the last third gets. It's still too "and they got better, more or less" for my taste, but I like the willingness to humanize seriously traumatized folks in a way that doesn't entail diminishing that trauma. (This was also what I liked most about Grossman's "To the End of the Land," an otherwise not very similar book.)
a subset of libertine takers that so loathes itself that it will dragoon the makers into underwriting the chalices of tasty hemlock it's so eager for everybody to quaff in order to put itself out of its misery.
They kind of have me dead-to-rights here, though. Well, a stopped clock, &c.
I typically hate the expression "the War on..." but I do love that the War on Women has been revealed.
I totally disagree with apo. It isn't just abortion. It is against contraception as well. They march against sex without consequences. You hussies need to feel the consequences when you have sex outside of marriage.
I think I hear Loretta Lynn playing The Pill in the background.
328: Don't be hard on yourself, you're right more than that.
Speaking of absolutist right-wing rhetoric, here's* the penultimate paragraph of a review of James Imhofe's book in Townhall (via Atrios):
An international carbon tax program is one of the most hideous ideas forged in the minds of men. Since all known life forms are carbon-based, it is a proposal to control all life. This point is not lost on Inhofe, and he makes it clearly.*I debated incurring teo's premature threadjackalization wrath and putting in the Stanley's-a-thought-sell-out-thread, but it seemed more in the vein of 300 than libertarians begging for money.
I should try to give my impressions of the first three pages of Hunger Games that I spent a whole 5 minutes on and then used as a reason to forgo reading. Recognizing that the beginning of a novel is not necessarily the best part by which to judge.
1) Collin's style will work much better on film (which was her background, tv) than in text precisely because she is not "visual" and descriptive. Where she had to give paltry nods to her surroundings and appearances will be covered by the camera, and the excessive attention to internal states and monologue and stream-of-consciousness will be diminished and carried by Lawrence. Will the movie use voice-overs?
2) Collins was trying to do way too much at the start, way too fast. Establish a character (s), a 1st person voice (the 1st two should not be identical), a little originating environment, some evocative behavior, and a little infodump about the general mise-en-scene, the oppressive social structure and its relation to the locality. She was trying to do it in the way good SF does since Heinlein, weave the built world into the narrative without infodumps, But trying to do everything at once made me feel like a ping-pong ball slammed at full speed between styles and voices.
3) But I am told this is true of the entire series, a lack of description, a breakneck speed, and a focus on internal states and feelings accompanying action words.
That is close to a description of a not-great movie script, folks, not literature. "Show, don't tell" and that includes feelings and character, because "action is character"
Good directors and movie crews can do that without thinking. The trailer impressed me in about ten ways with the shot of Katniss shooting the apple from the pig's mouth at the banquet. I didn't need to be told about Katniss' feelings then, I could see them.
How would you write that? "Katniss was frustrated and contemptuous...etc blah blah" This is why I am watching movies instead of reading.
And I could do another long comment of just that one shot, of Katniss and the apple.
Katniss and her target are in the relative dark, the banqueters are in light. Quiet and noise, stillness and busyness, strength poise grace vs effete lanquid, concentration vs situational unawareness. Clothes. Solitude. Arrow and apple? Hmmmm...
Entire fucking thematic in ten seconds.
Now that was a trailer.
Seriously bob, you should start a film blog. You'd find an audience.
premature threadjackalization
Just gonna leave "premature threadjackulation" hanging there? Come on.
335: Clearly that was what I intended, and misspelled/misthought it.
337: I was clearly embarrassed into true anonymity.
Normally it's only when then the bigger commenters are done picking over the meatier parts of a post that the threadjackals come out.
Well, what's their alternative? Romney? Paul?
I'm not surprised that evangelical voters *are* supporting them, just that I haven't heard a peep about this being a notable development. It seems the NY Times understands what I'm asking:
It is worth remembering how viciously evangelical Protestants opposed Catholics early in the 20th century on issues like immigration and Prohibition.
***
"In the last 30 years, you've had a lot of breaking down of denominational lines within the evangelical community. . . You had the growth of megachurches that don't emphasize denomination or doctrine the way evangelicals once did. Catholics benefit from that. . . ."
The plate tectonics of social mobility also figure into the Santorum surprise. . . . In the post-World War II years, many Catholics moved out of insular urban neighborhoods while many evangelicals left their rural and small-town homes for the suburbs and exurbs. In subdivisions, in office parks, in colleges, the young people of the two religions began to encounter one another as benign acquaintances rather than alien enemies.
You had the growth of megachurches that don't emphasize denomination or doctrine the way evangelicals once did.
A shortage of "doctrine" is not quite evangelicals' problem.
So I finally saw John Carter. There was this point where I thought "Christ, this movie is stupid," but then I remembered Halford's advice about your inner 9-year old boy. I'm not surprised that it bombed in that the first half wasn't that good, but I am surprised that it bombed in that the second half was pretty good.
It looks like the hunger games is likely to be the highest grossing film of the year. Any guesses as to the last time a film with a woman as the top billed actor was the highest grossing film of the year?
Hrm, forgot about "Dark Night Rising." That's going to be pretty hard to beat.
Er, Knight.
265: Judging from the rest of the interview, she was indeed. Her remark about having been moved to take the role due to its powerful message to young people these days, however, renders her not a serious person.
I can't tell if this is saying that she'd be unserious just for saying that no matter what the role was, or that she's wrong that this particular role sends a powerful message to young people.
Wait, the first Hobbit movie comes out this year? I thought those were a few years off.
343, according to this it was "The Exorcist" (Ellen Burstyn).
By global gross I can't quite believe it, but Wikipedia says "Ghost" was #1 in its year. I also can't quite believe that Demi Moore wasn't top-billed in that.
Yeah, "The Exorcist" in 1973. Unless you count "Beauty and the Beast." Not only was Demi Moore not topped billed in "Ghost," Vivien Leigh is not top-billed in (the all-time top grossing movie) "Gone with the Wind." Julie Andrews dominates the live-action high-grossing woman-starring category with 3rd and 25th all time.
But between the Hobbit and The Dark Knight Rises, I take back my guess that Hunger games will win this year. But it does look like it would win in an ordinary year. It's headed for around 500 million.
(500 million domestic, that is.)
346: A variant on the latter.
Roughly: she was saying that the powerful message to young people is that they should be on guard against manipulation by the media, and she took the role in the (very heavily media-driven) movie in order to send this message. The medium is contrary to the message.
I feel like I've been doing little but being bitchy these days around here, so I don't want to carry on, but: the young lady (lead actress) went on to talk about her consideration of how this role would affect her career, whether or not she'd be type-cast in future should she to want to play in, say, a period piece, whether a sequel to The Hunger Games was in the cards (answer: yes) ....
In short, no, she took the role because it would make her career in a way that was necessarily highly advertising and marketing saturated*; babbling about wanting to promote a message that demonizes those very things is what makes her not a serious person.
* not that there's anything wrong with that; just don't pretend that's not what's going on.
Let's not get confused and start thinking that people are going because of Lawrence, anymore than people go to Twilight because Stewart is in it, or Harry Potter because they are Radcliffe fans. Lawrence is not the draw in this tentpole, although she will become an essential part of the franchise for the next two.
OTOH, Julia Roberts in large part for a while could "open movies", her name alone would create box office.
Stewart may be approaching the status of opener, or whatever you call it, with Runaways and On the Road being helped by her name.
There's a stereotype that boys won't see movies (or read books) with a female main character. That's not exactly the same issue as whether an actress's star power can sell a movie.
Let's not get confused and start thinking that people are going because of Lawrence, anymore than people go to Twilight because Stewart is in it, or Harry Potter because they are Radcliffe fans. Lawrence is not the draw in this tentpole, although she will become an essential part of the franchise for the next two.
The conventional wisdom is that stars matter more for Worldwide than domestic; i.e. that top billing matters more for opening movies overseas. I don't actually know how true this is empirically, or whether it holds true in this particular instance (I'd suspect so, because I doubt HG is an international publishing sensation) but that's the conventional wisdom.
* not that there's anything wrong with that; just don't pretend that's not what's going on.
Have you seen Bull Durahm? It strikes me that what she is saying (not having read the interview yet) if close to being the actor equivalent of sports cliches (similar to how in DVD commentary tracks everybody always says that their co-stars were so generous, and always interested in making everybody else look good).
My default position is that I'll give credit to actors or actresses who make unusually perceptive or clever comments, but I don't count it against somebody who just says the standard banalities (unless I notice that they are either particular vacuous).
Halford of course knows more than I do. I just find it interesting and am old enough to follow the careers, opportunities, choices etc of young actresses and which ones do what.
Stewart seems to be playing the game well so far.
Roberts is still getting decent opener money, 10 mil for Eat Pray Love. Like they should, she worked for scale a while back. According to what I've heard, if you accept 2 mill for some movie you want to do, when you are at the top, not only will you not get offered ten mil next time, you may not even get offered the parts.
Not that I actually care much or feel sorry for the losers. It is a little like sports for me. Kirsten Dunst 8 million for Elizabethton? It don't break my heart for careers to die or move to tv. Unimaginable money.
I thought Camilla Belle would go farther, last longer.
but I don't count it against somebody who just says the standard banalities
You're right, and that's what makes my kvetching a little bitchy. Lawrence was/is performing -- in this case, performing post-movie interview. I recognize that. It just grated in this instance, since the powerful message she's on about is actually one I'm interested in, and I don't like to see it stripped of meaning. (I was also a tad perturbed at her specific mention of "the news, the President" as bad guys -- though I take it that may be a reference to the Hunger Games' particular themes.)
I have seen Bull Durham, but don't remember why it's relevant.
357: The president in Hunger Games is essentially utterly evil; I think she was mixing the world of the films/books with the world we live in. And the books do have a pretty powerful social message, and it's not just about fearing the media. She's in a typical quick interview, and giving a perhaps not super well thought out answer to a question. But I'd say that wanting to be in the Hunger Games because of its message is not exactly crazy talk, whereas if Kristin Stewart had given that as a reason for being in Twilight I'd be rolling my eyes.
Lawrence has chosen other movies that tackle social issues and been great in them; you should check out her other films before you dismiss her as 'not serious.' (Though as Halford (I think) points out above, being in the Hunger Games might well preclude her being in the same sort of films.)
355.2: in general, I think it's both a bit unfair and a recipe for being disappointed if one expects artists to be adept when working in media that they haven't mastered. Which is to say, it's pretty rare for musicians to speak eloquently about music (not to mention politics), and so on. I would no more expect Jennifer Lawrence to have smart things to say about consumer culture than I would Marshall McLuhan to give a stirring performance of Hamlet. (Note: I know this is pretty much exactly what you said.)
358: Okay. I'm not dismissing her personally, as an actor. She just repeated the line about the powerful message re: manipulation a couple of times. I envisioned all the teen movie fans hearing that one should not trust the news or the President (they're probably manipulating you), and I cringed slightly. I'm all in favor of critical thinking, obviously, but not so much down with teaching kneejerk distrust regardless of the messenger.
...being in the Hunger Games might well preclude her being in the same sort of films.
For a while, but careers can be short.
Portman only got 2 million for Black Swan, and I doubt she got much more for Thor, and likely will never approach 10 million, but she and Gordon-Levitt accepted that indie/tentpole alternation.
Talent, charisma, luck, who knows who becomes an opener.
Searching for Debra Winger by R Arquette is pretty good, but I couldn't care enough. Yes, Kelly Lynch didn't get parts after a while, but she had a good run for a decade+ that thousands of women would kill for. I love Lynch's movies. (sister Patricia's worries are funny in retrospect, she is a zillionaire now)
There should be more character parts for older women, and there should be more twenty million dollar movies. Okay.
Not that I watch any of these movies, like I'm going to watch 10000 BC or the Arquette tv show or whatever. I just follow box office and careers.
I think it's both a bit unfair and a recipe for being disappointed if one expects artists to be adept when working in media that they haven't mastered
A corollary to that is that it's a challenge for actors to play performers in other fields. I remember watching Velvet Goldmine and thinking that, while an actor might be better at portraying (or representing "genius scientist" than an actual scientist would they aren't going to be better at portraying "brilliant musical performer" than David Bowie or Iggy Pop were. It creates a problem for a film when the actors are less charismatic than the people that they're playing (I haven't seen that many music bio-pics. I'm sure it can work, but it is a challenge).
I have seen Bull Durham, but don't remember why it's relevant.
There are several scenes where Kevin Costner is teaching Tim Robbins the appropriate cliches to use for the media.
See also Ali, Muhammad.
362 is a good point. Maybe this is just a banal observation, but I think it's because much of the charisma of a music star depends on the belief that the performance is authentic -- Bowie is great but part of what's great about him is that he's actually singing the songs for reals. Same is true, but even more so, for sports.
Maybe this is just a banal observation, but I think it's because much of the charisma of a music star depends on the belief that the performance is authentic
That's actually the opposite of the point I was making (though it's also true). My point was that Bowie and Iggy and Ali are just incredibly charismatic people. And while the typical actor is more charismatic than 99.9% of the population they aren't more charismatic than those people.
I think it stands out because actors can get away with playing people who are experts in their fields, when it isn't a performance field.
There should be some politician examples as well. How do you stand up to Bill Clinton charisma-wise.
There is a lot of charisma out there.
Rhys Meyers is better than MacGregor in VG, and the RM got to play a king, and I think did it fairly well, better say than Burton and as well as Shaw. O'Toole did it best.
IOW, i suspect charisma is at least in part a learnable skill. I'm think of actors who play authority figures, Brian Cox, J T Walsh, Cate Blanchett, Helen Mirren. A lot of Shakespeare might help.
I have seen film of Bowie in the late 60s, and he isn't that impressive. Same with Iggy, but he was impressive in a kinda sorta way that was different for post-70s iggy.
The tricky thing for actors doing media interviews is that they are, presumably, supposed to be playing themselves. They are not supposed to be acting another role, that of actor being interviewed about a role. The latter is what they frequently do, of course, perhaps in part because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves (in an interview) otherwise; or perhaps just because that's what the interviewers expect and invite. Perhaps because it's part of their movie contract to do these kinds of interviews.
There's a terrific TV series called "Inside the Actor's Studio" -- an hour long with a single actor -- that manages to brush all that aside.
Iggy pop in his acting roles is very often unimpressive, but then you see him "natural" in an interview and he is terrific attractive. One of these is acting.
Bowie is either always on, or just a giant.
An interview from a couple of years back where JL did not just mouth banalities:
On cutting open a squirrel for Winter's Bone: "I should say it wasn't real, for PETA. But screw PETA."
On the poverty she saw in the Ozarks: "I never felt sorry for the people. Those are their homes and their families. They probably feel sorry for us because we don't have dinner with our family every night. And yes, there are men in our movie who say things like, 'I told you to shut up once, with my mouth.' But there are men in this city who say, 'I'll be spending the night at the office,' and they'll be sleeping with their secretaries. It's different, but it's the same."
Rhys Meyers is better than MacGregor in VG
I've been thinking about MacGregor recently, and trying to decide what I think of him because I watched Beginners recently. Seeing a couple episodes of The Long Way Round made me appreciate how handsome and charming he is in a way which I hadn't from his movies.
I think he's a good actor (and clearly hard-working) but possibly overly cautious and restrained. Which may be a trait which is more charming in "real life" than as a performer.
For me its a quality I call bluecollarness, uh uh, better word.
No one would have guessed that Terence Stamp would be playing CEO's forty years later, or Donald Sutherland either.
OTOH, Michael Caine, however smart wise tough hard mean just has never gotten the charisma to play a King. Makes a great butler. Sean Connery has tried.
Pacino = king (or devil)
De Niro = nope. (Although he played the head of a studio, nobody believed him)
Maybe it's Shakespeare, that you have to stand on a stage with six better actors, and make them grovel to learn that charisma.
I really love The Long Way Round. I can't really justify that aesthetically or in any other way, but it's a great balm if you're sick or depressed and want to watch a few hours of TV. They just get on their bikes and ride on a road through Asia. Ahhhhhh.