May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor...

The wait is over!

Mixing it up, and trying something different, no review this post just wanted to let you all know, if you live under a rock....

Its finally here, this weekend is the opening of the long awaited second installment of The Hunger Games series, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It will open this Friday the 22nd and if its anything like its saga predecessors a la Harry Potter and Twilight, its going to be a big deal amongst its super fans.

I haven't read any of the books (I was more of what some might embarrassingly label a "Twihard")  but I have seen the first movie so I do plan on seeing the second hopefully sometime soon.

I am a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan, so I cant wait to see her reprise the role of Katniss Everdeen. If anyone gets a chance to see it over the weekend, let me know how it is!



Here's a little video to tide you over of the cast picking who they think is the "deadliest" character...

Insomnia

In my cinema class we just finished watching a "whydunnit" filmed called Insomnia.  This is one of Robin Williams' dramatic roles where he stars as a writer/killer in a chase from a sleep deprived detective. Also starring Al Pacino and Hilary Swank, this movie is about two LA based detectives sent to cover a case in a part of a Alaska where the sun never sets for six months.

During the film the constant light becomes an enemy to Pacino's character Detective Dormer, who never sleeps for the week he's there, having the sun light keeping him up. This leads him to lose his mind little by little running on no energy, and finding himself in more trouble than the suspect. No spoilers...

Williams' character is a crime writer in this small secluded town who finds himself in the middle of an investigation of a missing teenage girl. He and Dormer find themselves working closer together than they have liked trying to keep each others secrets under wraps.


What was interesting to find about the film was that it is actually a remake of a Norwegian original. The Norwegian screenplay happens to carry a little more darker/disturbing undertones, and happens to be a little more explicit. Also the ending was changed last minute, not from the original version, but just from the original American screenplay.

Another Fun Fact: Detective Will Dormer's name is derived from the Latin word "dormire" which means "to sleep"

About Time

Last weekend I saw the movie About Time.  I am personally not a fan of these type of romantic movies but something about the trailer pulled me in, with the element of time travel that I thought it looked good so I might give it a shot...

I wish I hadn't.

It was a movie that was pretty much all over the place.  The main character Tim finds out he has the ability to time travel, and his first step is that he wants to find a girlfriend, which seems silly. But anyway part of the whole reason I wanted to see this was that I thought the movie would be centered around the use of his time travelling and maybe getting, losing and getting the girl again, ya know typical love story. But the movie glossed over their relationship and halfway through transitioned into what felt like an entire different story dealing with the relationship with his father, and a little sub plot involving his sister.

It was unfortunate because after seeing the film I didn't get the experience that I anticipated from the trailer which basically shows in my opinion practically a different movie.

Also lead actress Rachel McAdams has starred in two extremely similar time travelling movies, the first being the wife of Eric Bana's character in The Time Travelers Wife and the fiancé of Owen Wilson's character in Midnight in Paris. Zooey Deschanel was also supposed to be originally cast as the lead role of Mary but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts, and McAdams was cast.