Page vs Picture

By Geeky Gem

Welcome to the first page vs picture of 2013, this year I am going to try to not send ages going over one series of books. In fact this marks a new start of page vs picture. So shall we kick off with the book that will become a trilogy maybe even become 4 movies you know what Hollywood is like with books as of late, The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins.

 How I came by this book was a very strange one, I was channel hopping one day and came across an interview with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and he was talking about his latest movie at the time Journey 2. He was telling the presenter that he had kept in touch with his young co-stars and read out a text he had just sent Josh Hutcherson congratulating him on getting a part in The Hunger Games. It was from the fact that I like Josh Hutcherson that I had to find out what this book was all about. So I read the synopsis on the library website and ordered it to read.

The book arrived and I read it in a few days I was gripped, the book is the story of Katniss Everdean a young girl of District 12 part of Panem,  once a year  The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, shows it power and dominance over the districts by forcing them to take part in the Hunger Games, which is an event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death.

The reason I liked this book was partly down to the fact that it had one foot in reality, many people watch reality television shows and this is what would happen if the extreme show wa made. Now the people of Panem are made to watch their children fight to the death or they themselves will be put to death. There are out of things in this book and indeed in the story that I see in other movie nd books. If you havent read and fancy a nice quick read then why not give it a go.  Now on to the movie.

The movie came out in 2012, and you may have read some blogs that I wrote about it last year if not you can find them here on the site. I couldn’t wait to see this movie and was so glad I got to see it the cinema. I think I saw it in IMAX which just makes everything better. Well in some cases it does. The director of the move was Gary Ross, and as some of you already know it starred Jeniffer Lawrence, Josh Huctherson, Liam Hemsworth and a whole host of other fantastic actor’s. This adaptation of the book was pretty close to mark and only missed out one of my favourite bits. But I wont tell you hat it is as if you havent seen the movie it gives a bit away.

Anyway the cast of this movie really bring to life and many of the key scenes are brilliant, gain as with many movie adaptation parts are missing but some you can see why they are cut out others you do wonder why they didn’t put it in. This is a really good movie and with Catching Fore due out later this year I for one cant wait to see ht happens to Katniss and Peter next, well of course I know ive read the books.

On to the question that I came here to answer is the book better than the movie, this one is really hard as I really liked both and the current score is Book – 4 and Movie – 3. So can movie pull it back to draw level at this point? No it can’t and this point goes to book again, come on movie pull your socks up. I have given the point to book on the basis that it just has some more of favourite parts in it. that makes the score Books – 5 Movie – 3.

Come back nd again and see wh ill win the next point in page vs picture epic battle.

March Movie Musings

By Hmsbeefnuts

With March coming to an end and April very much in full swing it is time for me to write a little something about the films I have seen theatrically this last month. All in all, a very good month I would say. A lot of good stuff going down. I had a great time at the movies this month, well, mostly.

First things first. John Carter, was the best film this month. I do believe that puts me ahead of Geeky Gem in my made up game. I won’t bang on about Mr Carter for long, I already covered how great this film is in numerous posts. It is very very good though, and you should defiantly go and see it. It is a shame that this will go down as one of the biggest flops in history, as it certainly deserves to be one of the top films this year. Such a pity. Anyway, lets not dwell on the negative shall we?

I enjoyed The Raven a hell of a lot too. Nice dark mystery thriller. A little bit like Saw mixed with From Hell mixed with a Morgan Freeman detective thriller, but with John Cusack. I liked it immensely. OK I worked out who the killer was before I was supposed too, but you can’t hold that against the film. Well acted, well shot and a really nice mystery thriller, recommended.

Continuing the Horror theme, we have The Devil Inside. Hmm. I’m having trouble with this one. I liked about 35% of the film. I liked the documentary aspect, the initial story was interesting, it’s just a shame it descended into sub Exorcism of Emily Rose rubbish. There are far better exorcism movies, Emily Rose, The Rite, The Last Exorcism, and of course, The Exorcist. The problem is, the sun genre has kind of done everything that it possibly can now, and The Devil Inside offers nothing new. During the exorcism scenes I must admit I was laughing pretty hard, much to the disappointment of my friend, sorry Leanne. I just think it’s hilarious when demons threaten to suck your cock or lick your aunties c-word. It’s stupid. The ending was terrible too. I enjoyed the film, but not in the way it was meant to be enjoyed and thus, I can not recommend it.

Speaking of laughing, Wanderlust and 21 Jump Street were both different comedies, but made me laugh my ass off. Both highly recommended. I went into Wanderlust expecting a romantic comedy with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, it was romantic but it was also very very funny. Rudd is at the top of his game, and Aniston gets better looking with age, she is beautiful. I almost lost control of myself during one scene clearly improvised by Rudd, the man is a comedy legend. 21 Jump Street has looked great from the get go. Jonah Hill is back to his best, and who knew Channing Tatum was such a great comedian? I have always liked Tatum, he reminds me of one of my best mates, but I never new he could keep up with someone as good as Jonah Hill in the comedy stakes. Jump Street may have the best cameo this year too, I will not spoil it, but it isn’t Ice Cube, and it is almost as good as a certain X-Men First Class cameo last year. Both films are more than worth your time.

We are now left with two major Blockbusters. One, I was very much looking forward to, but had some serious doubts about. The other a film I had very little knowledge of, and to be honest, looked like a girlie style action movie that was copying Running Man. But, I trust Geeky Gem, and she had been excited for The Hunger Games for quite a while, and so has Kirkie Chick. It was time then to man up, and take my Mum with me to see a huge blockbuster double bill, The Hunger Games, and Wrath of the Titans.

We started with The Hunger Games. I’ll be honest, I was mostly bored throughout the beginning of the film, until the contestants for said games were unveiled to the public in chariots. This was about 20 mins in, and from that moment on, with a few moments of ‘what the hell is happening’ I enjoyed the hell out of this film. At times it looked like it was being filmed during a Lady GaGa fan convention, but the story was strong and the action, although muted, was exciting. At times I thought there was a presumed audience knowledge on the part of the film makers, I won’t spoil which bits, but I felt things needed to be explained a little more clearly. Geeky Gem has since put me in the know and cleared up any confusion, a job the film-makers could have solved by putting a sequence of less than a minute in explaining how the arena works. Anyway, apart from that Jennifer Lawrence is pretty and great, the other roles are well acted and this could have been really good if the violence quota had been upped and some real carnage had been shown, but I guess kids being killed is a touchy subject. All in all well worth your time, but it is in no way as good as The Running Man, the king of future death sport films.

We now come to the last film I watched this month. Straight after Hunger Games, I high tailed it to another screen, I had bought both tickets before hand, and waited with baited breath for Wrath of the Titans to begin. I had hated the Clash of the Titans remake. The original was a vastly superior film, and Harryhausen is still the king of epic myth movies, but, you have to give these things a go. Oh dear. I hated this film with every ounce of my being. From an uninteresting start, some absolute shitty monsters and some very misplaced comedy moments, which were not funny, this film was an abomination. Oh and to make things even worse, Bill Nighy was in it, being his usual shitty self, but this time he was trying extra hard to piss me off. Bill plays Hephaestus, Metal Worker of the Gods, with a thick Yorkshire accent. FUCK YOU Bill. I’m serious, fuck you, stop accepting roles in films you can not play. It was like he was taunting me personally. Well it worked, you ruined and already shitty film, Bill Nighy makes things 20% worse.

Effects wise, at least everything looked a hell of a lot better than the bizarre and equally awful Immortals. That is, apart from the Cyclops. When will effects houses realise that if you are going to do humanoid faces and creatures, they have to look excellent, the uncanny valley is prominent in this movie, and the Cyclops looks like a giant mess of pixels.

It might be that I love Ancient History and Mythology too much, my degree is in Ancient Greek and Roman History, but this film was perhaps worse than the first. Andromeda is also a problem now. Played by a different actress to last time, Andromeda has been transformed into an Amazonian Warrior Princess. I hate that shit. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind women kicking men’s asses in films, but for the love of Zeus, make it slightly realistic. There is no way a woman would be in charge of a Greek army back then, no way. Especially a princess like Andromeda. I would have not even mentioned Andromeda, and just cast Rosamond Pike as an Amazon. You know like they had in Greek myth. Instantly my problem with her would be over. Amazons would frequently kill men and were better warriors than almost everyone else. Andromeda is better in the role of damsel in distress. Now I am also aware that there is no ‘back then’ these things didn’t exist and therefore if I can accept a Chimera, I should be able to accept a Princess leading men into battle. Well I can’t sorry. Even Liam Neeson can’t save this turkey, although, he is the best thing in it by far.

I hate this film, mostly because with a better script, better cast, well better everything it could have been so good. There is a place for old fashioned monster adventure movies, look at how well King Kong turned out, or Lord of The Rings, but you have to take the films seriously, and Titans, hasn’t been taken seriously since Harryhausen stopped making films. Sorry for the rant, but I wanted to love this movie, and I hated it, and I hate hating things that I want to love. Like an ex-friend who has betrayed you and revealed themselves to be a selfish twat, Wrath of the Titans is a film that deserves a verbal beating. Please don’t make any more of these films, unless you are willing to get a director who knows how to handle this shit seriously. I would like to put forward Peter Jackson, or Guillermo Del Toro.

Anyway, that’s it for last month. From the heights of Olympus with John Carter, to the lows of Hades with Wrath of the Titans. April is now upon us, an April filled with hope and renewed movie going vigour, if The Avengers lets me down, I will be most upset, but it shall not!!! It can not!!! I will be great, oh yes, it will be great, AVENGERS!!! ASSEMBLE!!!