I Pictured Her Otherwise!

Newsflash, people: not everyone is the same race! And when a literary character comes onto the silver screen of a color or origin you didn't expect, GET OVER IT. I recently read an article relaying that many Hunger Games fans were less than happy that Rue and Thresh were black. I personally find that ridiculous, not to mention that some selected tweets were downright offensive, i.e. the ones shown after the article - particularly "And for the record, im still pissed that rue is black. Like you think she would have mentioned that..? Is it just me, or...." I'd like to say it's just you, Lexie, but sadly many people think this way. I feel like characters are read as white unless otherwise specified. Why need Ms. Collins mention Rue's and Thresh's race? I rarely picture characters at all when reading, more just settings with mental blank faces. Am I the only one?

Still, I had no quarrel with them being black. I loved those books, and the movie as well. I am eagerly awaiting Catching Fire's appearance on the big screen! And now it's past four-thirty in the morning. On a school night.

Ta-ta!

Eulogy

"Death is only the beginning." - various sources, including Gandalf the White (I think)

I haven't posted in a while, and for that I apologize. But I have been rather preoccupied with school stuff. But since I don't think I've said this before, our cat, Zelda Phelan, had a rough couple of weeks. Today she was put down at the veterinary office. She had not been feeling well as of late, and we all knew this day was coming.

Am I sad? you may ask. A little. I'll miss Zelda and I feel bad that she went through the pains she did, but I also acknowledge that no creature can live forever. She was older than I am now (I'm seventeen, and she had a year or two on me). She was ready, I think.

She was a great animal, a great pet, and a great member of the family. She was loud and spoiled, and we loved her. She was either a human, or we are all weird-looking cats. Either way, she was one of us, and she will be missed. Even in death, I love that cat. She never had enough attention. But she loved us too, and would climb up onto one's lap and refuse to move. I love you, Z.

I was at school today when she passed, but I've been notified that her body was buried in my father's backyard, near that of her sister Lillian, who died on Friday, May ninth, 2008. We now own only one cat, Rainbow-Flower, or Rainow as we call her (Rainow, not Rainbow). But she'll keep us busy, for as I say, every cat is odd in its own unique way. I love cats.

I'm going to see The Hunger Games in half an hour or so, and I hear it's really good. Gods, did I love those books. I must reread!

Let the Games Begin! A Post About Upcoming Movies

Two months until the Hunger Games movie. Squee! They'd better not ruin it like Stefen Fangmeier and 20th Century Fox did with Eragon. Grrr. But it looks promising. I do like Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark) and Donald Sutherland (President Snow), and Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen) is supposed to be a good actress as well. I am also aware of the making of The Hobbit. I can't get the tune right for the dwarves' song in the trailer, yet neither can I stop attempting to sing it. Christopher Nolan is coming out with a new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, which I really want to see. Only there's one unforgivable fact:

I've never seen any Batman film or even read the comics. Shoot me. I am interested, I just never found the time - that and I can't sit still with rentals (Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton), and when the last Nolan one came out (The Dark Knight), I was thirteen and my parents thought I was "too young" even thought it was rated PG-13. THIRTEEN. Gahh.... Anyway, I'll try and get to it eventually. My parents didn't let me see Lord of the Rings in theaters, or Mr. Burton's version of Sweeney Todd. They think I'm younger than I am, apparently. I think I might just do a post of censorship. I've not done that one yet, have I? I don't recall one.

Battleship. What can I say? It's not so much that they're making a movie BASED ON A FREAKING STRATEGY GAME, but that it's from the makers of Transformers. Oh, lovely! I bet it's another film primarily based around special effects, no sense of plot coherence, stupid characters, and the charming message that women are sex objects - the last one being presented to a target young audience of males and females who may grow to believe this is true. The Three Stooges? Alvin and the Chipmunks AGAIN? Neither looked very appealing; Stooges just looked like a recycled excuse to remake something already existent, which looked unfunny enough (eye-pokes get old, and that looked like the whole joke of the entire movie). Alvin has been stretched so thin I won't see it (double meaning intended). Tintin looks excellent and I cannot wait to see it. I just saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows yesterday with a friend, and it was superb. And I hear Janet Evanovich's novel One for the Money is being adapted! Haven't read that one, but I did read her nonfiction book How I Write, which contained samples from her fiction. She's rather funny. Then there are the clueless-but-confident directors who can't stop making the same mistakes, particularly Roland Emmerich and Tyler Perry. I don't know or care what's next for them, but they can't seem to stop making film after painfully terrible film. Michael Bay...don't get me started. But Tim Burton and one of the other producers of Shane Acker's gem 9 are producing a movie based on a novel I have yet to read with a very odd title: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Yeah.... But I trust them. It sounds goofy, and might be, but I'm rooting for them to make it count. Two movies about Snow White are being made: Mirror, Mirror - which looks funny - and Snow White and the Huntsman, which looks more serious and deliciously dark. I want to see both. And there's a remake of Jack the Giant Killer, which looks cool, but I haven't actually seen the old one. The last few mentioned titles remind me of this really awesome miniseries I saw when I was nine or so called The Tenth Kingdom. I need to re-see it, but it was amazing, as I recall. That's enough for now.

Au revoir!

- Lewis

Thoughts on the Hunger Games Movie Rumors

So far as I know, they are truly making it now and it is due in March of 2012. Someone I know said that March is a bad sign for something of this magnitude (the books are huge nowadays, if you didn't know), and I asked why. He proceeded to explain to me that movies aimed at minors tend to come out in the summer or late spring, while adult movies intending to score with critics tend to come out from November to January. Other areas are left for movies which don't expect to do well, or at least not to be Oscar winners. This concerns me. I try not to go to a movie these days unless I think it will be good, though I do sometimes see a film more than once if it's that enjoyable.

I've read the Hunger Games books, and I have my expectations. I was quite disappointed in the Eragon movie, although some bits in it were OK. But they butchered Paolini's novel and demolished chances for a sequel by killing off the wrong characters too soon. I remember many people not liking the Golden Compass film, but it's been so long since I read or saw The Golden Compass. And I still haven't read The Amber Spyglass, or The Return of the King.... Need to stop starting these series and start finishing them. Olivia says that many series tend to worsen over time, and I could see that: Ranger's Apprentice is supposed to be an exception, and I know Harry Potter is. I also seem to remember liking the later Spiderwick books and all of the Hunger Games novels: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. But I'm not going to waste my time trying Robert Jordan, whose books appear to take forever to come to a close - and I've also heard as such.

So. The Hunger Games film. I like the burning mockingjay logo I saw on a website, and I hear Suzanne Collins (the books' author) will be writing the screenplay, but it doesn't seem too confident if they decide to put it out in March. Come on, Lionsgate, have some conviction! It has also come to my attention that there will possibly be four movies. There are three books. I understand with Harry Potter, what with the huge last installment, and the rumors of The Dark Tower movie in 2013 or so, hell, even Breaking Dawn - I'm not a Twilight fan, but with all fairness, the last book is big - but each Hunger Games volume is under 400 pages! They're great, great books, but they are not huge like the others mentioned. Three movies will do, say I. This could be just a rumor; I don't know.

I'm going to read a blog from a long-lost friend now, here, but maybe I'll post in a bit. We'll see.

Calins,

Lewis