Review: The Hunger Games

Although I'm only a fifth of the way through the book (which is a page turner), I saw The Hunger Games this morning. My 14-year-old really wanted to go, so I thought, why not, I could use the break. But the first showing was at 12:00 a.m.! What was I thinking? Especially since I came home at 3am to a wife who'd been up since we left the house taking care of one sick child and trying to get the toddler back to sleep, which meant that I then got to take over and essentially sacrifice most of what little of the morning was left for sleep.

However, the sacrifice of sleep was well worth it. This is just a very well done movie, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Entertaining, compelling, and filled with characters that make you care (just like the book).

One thing I appreciated about The Hunger Games the most is the innocence of what little romance there is in it. No one's jumping each other's bones, which, you know, I understand is a little hard to do when someone is hunting you. I get that. However, this is Hollywood we're talking here, and who would it past them? Would you? I didn't think so.

Also, yes, there is violence and people die, but it's not the now oh-so-typical "Let's give you a lesson in arterial spraying and and blood spatter on faces." Most of the violence and almost all the killing is done off camera. You have to imagine it, which was great because I got it. That is, I didn't have to imagine it if I didn't want to, and I didn't. I understood that this person is dead. Now, show me what else you have for us as your $9.50 + $1 service charge/ticket-paying audience.

If there was one draw back, it was the cinematography. Hated it. The film has lots of unusually tight, quick shots. My brain would be trying to focus in on this, that, or the other element, and I couldn't, because just as I had just about done it, vfffffft! Off to another angle we flew.

Right now, if the Oscars for this year were held today, I'd give it one for best script adaptation, another for set design, and a third for best lead actress (for the look of "I'm a caged animal" fear that is in her eyes as she's put into the arena if for nothing else, but there's a whole lot else there).

And if there was an Oscar for best cinematic depiction of what community, love, and the dignity of the human person are really all about, I'd give it one for that, too. In a more sane world, maybe we would have such an award. Hmmmm.

If the Razzies were held today ... Yep, cinematography. (But you got that already, didn't you?)

It's a great film worth seeing whenever or whereever you can (legally, mind you ... I'm not encouraging piracy, which is unjust and therefore wrong).

The HHS situation is frightening, but at least we're not in these people's shoes

Here is the latest Catholic World Report piece on the situation in North Korea, titled "Perfecting the Art of Totalitarianism." I can't imagine what a nightmare it must be for those folks.

God bless America, and may we turn once more to him.

Dignity wells up like a fountain from within

A recently discovered letter from a slave to his former master is not only a tiny masterpiece of American literature, but it shows the indominitable dignity of the human person.

It brings to mind what may be the best scene in the movie Braveheart. In it, Mel Gibson's character William Wallace is trying to rally the troops of the Scottish army. The soldiers are about to disband and flee in the face of their English enemy's overwhelmingly superior numbers.

WALLACE

I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyrany. You've come to fight as free men. And free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?

SOLDIER

Against that? (He nods toward the English army across the field). No. We will run. And we will live.

WALLACE

And you will live. Aye. Fight, and you may die. Run, and you will live. At least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance (!), to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they may never take our FREEDOM!

Men must be free. We were made for freedom. God gave us free will. It's why the Fall happened, right? He wanted to give our original parents the chance to freely love Him and to do so by following His commands. To follow those commands bespeaks trust in Him that He knows what He's doing, that He has our best interests at heart. That is how God asks us to freely love Him. For if love is coerced, it is not love. If loyalty is coerced, it is not loyalty. If conscience is coerced, likewise.

This former slave Jourdan had his freedom long before he left the confines of Col. Anderson's plantation. And now he was simply demanding the respect for his human dignity that the colonel had never fully shown him in Tennessee. He as much says (or at least strongly implies) he would rather die than return and have his or anyone else's dignity assaulted or not respected. Wallace showed his men that choosing to live under tyranny can be a slavery in and of itself, regardless of what a government does to the individual.

Incidentally, the back wages Jourdan is demanding, the $11,680? That would roughly equate to US$165,000 today. I like his style.

Anyway, read the letter, and let me know in the combox: Do you find it as inspiring as I do?