Out & About

Thanks to The Next Picture Show Podcast, I watched this incredibly brutal story with a plot similar to the Hunger Games books written by Susan Collins.  It was a much more violent movie than I usually watch*, but I appreciated the realistic range of feelings expressed by the teenagers.  That said, I’m happy to have watched it, and don’t plan on watching it ever again.

*I needed a palate cleanser after finishing it, but alas it was past my bedtime.

Cost: $3.00 from Videorama
Where watched: at home.

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I found myself wondering, as I watched the final installment of the Hunger Games franchise, what else that cute Sam Claflin had been in.  This was my answer and it was a satisfying piece of predictable fluff.  It turns out I had attempted to read the book at some point, but had wandered off before I got very far.

Cost:  I’m embarrassed to say that I found this on some free internet site and watched it there. It involved folding two sheets of paper to block out the ads.
Where watched:  On my computer, while making the rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/love_rosie.html
(The first two posters listed are actually quite good in a cheeky poster sense.  But the above is how I’ve always seen it packaged.

This movie has vaulted to the top of my Incredible-You-Must-See-It movie list* as it contains a story that won’t stop–but never goes overboard–and incredible acting and also LIBRARIANS!**  I found the story to be upsetting in that way that means it happened in real life, and no one did anything.***  The “upsetting” means a bunch of people aren’t going to see it, but that’s a shame because this is the kind of movie that won’t leave you in the best way possible.

Cost: free due to birthday gift card from brother
Where watched:  Regal Fox Tower

*You know this list lives in my head, right?  It doesn’t really exist in written form.
**The librarians aren’t really part of the plot, but it’s really cool to see pre-digital newspaper research. It almost makes up for the sad feeling one gets when one thinks of what was to come for the newspapers.
***I mean really, the levels of complacency in this film are gasp-inducing.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/spotlight.html

If you’ve seen the first three, you might as well finish off the quadrilogy, right?  It provided everything one could ask for* and in a manner that keeps with the book.  I was not blown away, but did enjoy myself.**

Cost: $9.00
Where watched: McMenamin’s Baghdad Theater with Matt.

*I mean, within reason.  I could ask for Phillip Seymour Hoffman to not overdose, so he could do his final scene in this movie and not be replaced by Woody Harrelson reading a letter from him. But I know I’m not going to get that.
** I was also glad that we happened to have the last book sitting in the back of Matt’s car so that we could compare and contrast the book/movie ending.
(Also, I always pictured Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Haymitch, not Plutarch.)

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2015/hunger_games_mockingjay__part_two.html