BEFORE: It's Day 3 of Jennifer Lawrence week and we're approaching the holiday season. Please, let me be the first to wish you and your family a Happy Hunger Games this year. (I'm hoping this will catch on, maybe a new line of greeting cards is in the works.).
Really, though, I'm starting on my holiday mix CD this week, too. Always a tricky thing, putting a mix CD together, trying to balance the songs I like against what I think my family and friends have come to expect from my annual CD, which I mail out with my Christmas cards. There's always a theme, this year I tried to put together another 80's mix, but it feels very boring to me - this might be because I've already used the best tracks from all my 80's artists, so unless I order some new CDs very quickly, I won't have much to draw from. On the other hand, I have these "style parodies" that I sometimes make mixes from, these are holiday songs that are done in the style of particular rock bands or notable songs, but I don't have enough to fill up a CD with. However, if I take the best tracks from both playlists and weave them together, maybe I can make a disc full of great Christmas songs that's also a little funny and irreverent, but is also peppy and moves along at a good clip, so as to feel lively and entertaining. There's so much to consider, but I usually end up working it out in time to get my cards in the mail. Here's hoping.
THE PLOT: Katniss Everdeen is in District 13 after she shattered the games forever. Under the leadership of President Coin and the advice of her trusted friends, she spreads her wings as she fights to save Peeta and a nation moved by her courage.
AFTER: Damn, I was really starting to enjoy the Hunger Games, and then this film comes along and throws the whole series into a form of chaos. The end of "Catching Fire" showed us the 75th annual Hunger Games, and it seems like there won't be a 76th edition. What a shame. You hate to see an entire sport get cancelled like that, just because the players all teamed up to stop it, so they don't get killed. But hey, NFL players, please take note - if you're worried about all the risks that come from excessive concussions, just get all of the players on every team to agree to stop. Problem solved, and you're welcome.
Last night I mentioned the amazing similarities between Panem's President Snow and our current President Pro Tem, Donald Trump - and the books were released between 2008 and 2010, years before the 2016 election. All of these films were released prior to the election too, making it all an incredible prediction, or an incredible coincidence. Tonight Katniss finds herself in the mysterious District 13, where there's another President in exile, and it's a woman with blond hair who seems to have a problem being warm and relatable in her speeches. Let me guess, did she win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College? Another astounding coincidence - she wears a fatigue-like jumpsuit for most of the film, and I'll restrain from thinking of that as a pantsuit, though.
So now begins the arduous task of uniting the 12 - sorry, 13 - despite the walls (literal and figurative) that separate them in order to take down the President and this system where the Capitol gets everything from the subjects and gives very little in return, except for imposing law and order. (Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans, are you watching this, too?) Katniss agrees to be the "Mockingjay" for the cause, but what exactly does that mean, for the benefit of those of us who didn't read the books? I guess it's just the symbol for the Rebellion against the Empire, or something like that.
But there's a big problem here, and that's the fact that the series is still called "The Hunger Games", but how can there be more Hunger Games if the whole system goes kaput? Bring back the Hunger Games, just maybe without all the killing and stuff, or else change the name of the movies! When you go to see a new "Star Wars" film, you kind of know what to expect, because "Wars" is right there in the tile. If they made a new "Star Wars" without all the fighting, then it just wouldn't seem like part of the franchise. There's plenty of fighting in "Mockingjay - Part 1", but a definite lack of Hunger Games...
Also starring Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stanley Tucci, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Willow Shields, Paula Malcomson, Stef Dawson, Erika Bierman (all also carrying over from "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Julianne Moore (last heard in "Eagle Eye"), Mahershala Ali (last seen in "Free State of Jones"), Natalie Dormer (last seen in "Rush"), Evan Ross, Elden Henson (last seen in "Jobs"), Wes Chatham, Sarita Choudhury (last seen in "A Perfect Murder"), Patina Miller, Robert Knepper (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters").
RATING: 6 out of 10 incendiary arrows
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