What are you watching these days?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:00 pm

The Hunger Games may be the only series I'll never finish because of what can only be described as the worst camerawork I've ever experienced.

You can't tell what the fuck is going on in any action scene and several non-action scenes are apparently, as the cracked (technically the editing room) article said, filmed while the cameraman is going down a waterslide backwards.

I'm pretty sure that's all the director's fault, and they should be fired for completely butchering so many scenes. You have to be functionally retarded to think "I'm going to shake the camera so hard you can't see fucking ANYTHING. I'm even going to do this at times where a camera being held by an epileptic crack-addict who just got into speed isn't even appropriate. Audiences love this shit."

But yeah, they avoid showing pretty much any "blood and guts" sort of deaths. Just look at the entire first section of the games where everyone is getting murdered, you can't tell what's going on at all except for swordy sounds and people running in every direction. I understand that it's chaotic, but for fuck's sake stop doing somersaults with the camera.

Edit: Just to be an asshole, Battle Royale was better for straight up children ruining each others' shit. The plot was...less of a focus, but it gave me exactly what I came to see. It also helps that the characters were less douchey in general. The Hunger Games antagonists are some of the most one-dimensional characters I've ever seen, and I've seen Transformers 2. The racist stereotype robots have more personality than the murder-fest children.

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:33 pm

I dunno. Sounds like they be crazy. I got to watch The Hunger Games last weekend. Plenty of death and gore to be seen. True, many deaths take place off screen, but that's part of the really creepy ambiance.

[edit: hrm, my cohorts at the movie complained about the shaky camera work, but it didn't bother me. I guess maybe my mind filled in the details for the death and gore.]

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:40 pm

name_here wrote:So, I watched The Hunger Games a while back, and the Cracked parody article reminded me of a question I have about fan reaction: A lot of people say that the movie carefully avoids showing any actual death or gore. What the hell are they even talking about? People go down with sprays of blood, the archer girl gets an extremely nasty death via tracker jackets and a tight zoom on her corpse, etc.

I don't know what you think a spray is, but it's not that.

Every time someone gets shot with an arrow they leave the screen immediately. The lance does fuck all nothing about spraying blood, or even creating a visible wound, Cato dies off screen, and you don't even get to see the first arrow hit him in the face, because that would be too bloody. Everyone who dies during the initial stage dies without you seeing the wound or even what happened to them most of the time.

And of course, the super shacky camera makes it actually impossible to know what is going on ever. Like, you seriously can't see a goddam thing ever.

If your definition of blood and gore is that one time this one girl died without blood or gore from wasp stings, then sure. But... It's a movie about 23 people being murdered, and one of those 23 they actually showed a real genuine death, and even that one had no blood in it.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:47 pm

The camera goes beyond shaky. You literally can not tell what is going on during the first part of the games and during several other scenes.

The main benefit of a movie is you get to show what's happening, this movie failed to show you what the fuck was happening. I'm sure the start of the games in the book was not written as "and then little Jeffy fell down and the protagonist went running in a different direction and Timmy grabbing a machete and Curtis dove behind a box and Sibyl picking up a knife and all you could hear was SWISH SWISH SWISH and the protagonist was running and then look at this Asain kid who fell down, here's right fucked and that big evil dude got a sword and HOLY SHIT A KNIFE and hey, look at these clouds they're all weird and stuff. Now we're in the forest."

You could have shown that scene almost any other way and it would have been objectively better than it was. I almost got motion sickness during that shit.

It's a pretty serious flaw in a movie when you can't possibly have a clue of what's going on. Cloverfield has a more stable camera than The Hunger Games and it had an actual reason to be shaky.

I am curious as to what death and gore is shown. The big bad dies essentially offscreen (entire body is covered by super-puppies), protagonist gets a nasty burn (not really gore...), romantic interest is bleeding (trickle of blood!), a kid's neck gets broken (no gore at all), somebody gets impaled (but no gore because she's so young), the haxxor bees kill somebody (no gore, unless swelling is gore), somebody gets arrow'd (no gore), somebody gets poisoned and a bunch of people die in a scene where you can't really see anything (there's blood, but for all we know somebody stabbed a ketchup bottle and it sprayed everywhere).

What gory deaths are you talking about?

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:26 pm

Gore = blood. Right?

People have blood on them and you see exposed wounds. That's gore. Certainly enough that I didn't feel that things were clean and pretty.

There's plenty of dead bodies to be seen as well. And multiple neck breaks.

What the fuck is the gore problem? We need to see more kiddie blood? People clearly died and people clearly were wounded. Do all deaths need to be from gushing arteries? Do we need the camera to keep on someone after they are dealt a mortal blow so that we get to see some blood pool? I don't understand the gore beef.

If you want to take up a beef with the camera work, that's legit. It was shaky enough that I heard many people complain. It's really difficult for me to get motion sickness so maybe that's why I wasn't as bothered by the shaky camera.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:10 pm

Gore consists of blood and such, yes. It involves showing people actually getting hurt instead of implying it. Blood on a previous wound isn't considered gory, it's just blood.

They did make it seem very clean, look at the person who gets speared (Was there any blood at all?) and the person who gets arrowed (definitely no blood). Any on-screen deaths are very PG (except the wasp thing, which was actually creepy and a good way to be scary without blood), which is totally cool if that's what you're going for.

I don't like overly gory movies (battle royale actually stretches that...a lot) but I'd appreciate it if they actually showed that people were getting killed. For a story that is, at the root of it, about children killing each other and how horrible it is, it makes no sense not to show the actual results of it.

I mean, what the fuck are they doing with the message "Making people (especially young ones, I WONDER IF THE KIDS REPRESENT SOLDIERS) kill each other is bad and terrible and look at how awful this all is" if they're afraid to show people killing each other and how horrifying it is. If the movie's message was "crack is bad for you" I'd fully expect to see people doing crack and the horrible results of it and be upset if they failed to deliver. The movie failed to deliver.

Also, the cameraman needed to stop filming it on a sex swing that's being used as a tetherball on a tilt-a-whirl. I generally don't get motion-sickness (again, Cloverfield was fine), but this movie had so many scenes that were just unbelievably bad in that respect.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:23 pm

erik wrote:People clearly died and people clearly were wounded.

People clearly died and people were clearly wounded.

If I see a dead body, that person clearly died. What I never once saw, was someone actually get wounded or die. (Okay, neck break, wasp attack, and watching someone slowly die from a spear wound that I didn't see occur and didn't see any evidence of.)

That's the point. I'm fine with movies implying death instead of showing it... when that is appropriate. But if you showed me Saving Private Ryan with the same level of cut aways and implied damage, it would be a worse movie for it, because Saving Private Ryan is supposed to show how terrible the war was for the people in it. And ostensibly, the arena death match is supposed to have the same message as Battle Royal, IE, making these people fight each other is a terrible bad thing. But the message is heavily undermined by the fact that you actually don't ever see the bad things happen, you just see an arrow loosed, and then a quick cutaway followed by a corpse. Or some not particularly good scream acting being silenced. Or all the other bullshit.

The violence in Saving Private Ryan and Battle Royal felt real, and by extension, bad. The violence in Hunger Games feels like it's not really happening, and therefore doesn't contribute to shit all in my feelings.

I am legitimately upset about the economic disparities in Hunger Games, and I hate the mean bad people who create and perpetuate it. But I don't hate the actual children death match or the people who perpetuate that, because it doesn't even feel real enough for me to get upset about it.

Post by **fbmf** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 6:30 pm

Haven't seen the film. Read the book. Was only slightly impressed.

Re: the ersatz death scenes: Was it obviously done to make it PG-ish so the target audience could see it with less hassle?

Game On,
fbmf

EDIT: "Slightly impressed" is perhaps to harsh. I liked the book, but the "cliffhanger ending" didn't pull me in as much as it was hyped that it would.

Also, I am dreading a Peeta-Katniss-Gale Love Triangle.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:20 pm

Seems like it, although the big opening fight camera that everyone complains about did seem to make a point of focusing on people as they died. But apparently that doesn't count with reviewers, so it might not have counted with the rating board.

Frankly, I think the tracker jacket death was much more disturbing and unsettling than any of the other deaths (with the exception of Cato's) would have been if they were given equal focus and screentime. It might just be me, though.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:43 pm

Cato is the dude who gets eaten by dogs, right? Man, I can't even remember the characters' names because they were all so fucking boring. If that's who it is then his death is easily the least disturbing, as it goes on for WAY TOO LONG. Fuck, if you got mauled by those jacked dogs you'd be dead in a heartbeat, just like, say, the first guy who gets mauled by those dogs. Instead he's screaming for an entire minute while reaching out with his hand (and not, as you'd think, flailing wildly at the dogs). That was high comedy.

Do you remember any of the minor characters in the games at all? I certainly don't, they didn't have personalities beyond "is a sociopath" or "is adorable." At least Battle Royale characterized most everyone to a point, even if they were going to get killed in the first 10 minutes.

The reason the first fight scene is bad is that, while it did try to give fleeting glimpses of people getting killed, it did a fucking terrible job of it due to how quickly the camera moves and how shaky the whole thing is. Show me a helpless 12-year-old trying to escape that jacked 17-year-old with a sword if you want me to feel bad, don't cut to a kid's face, another kid with a machete, the machete moving then to a completely different thing all in the same 3 seconds. It all blends together into an unwatchable and completely emotionless mess, which is what it was.

What am I supposed to feel during the first part of the games? I can't fucking tell you because all I saw was faceless kids getting killed just off screen while a football team was running plays using the camera as a ball.

Edit: As a fun fact, the tracker jacket scene is probably the only scene in the movie that is done extremely well. If the character they were killing wasn't so one-dimensionally evil you'd feel bad. Unfortunately such a death can only happen to the most evil being in existence, so you feel nothing but catharsis.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:24 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Any on-screen deaths are very PG (except the wasp thing, which was actually creepy and a good way to be scary without blood), which is totally cool if that's what you're going for.

It's a kids' book.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:06 pm

Actually, the book itself gets pretty gruesome. The wasp bit in the book was even nastier. But movie ratings are more strictly enforced.

Cato's death in the books took way the hell longer, actually. He'd gotten some sort of woven nanotube or other fancy armor in his bag at the granting of desperately needed things, hence the arrow bouncing off earlier. But it doesn't cover his face because the Capitol people thought him getting shot in the eye would play better with their audience.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 11:48 pm

Maj wrote:
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Any on-screen deaths are very PG (except the wasp thing, which was actually creepy and a good way to be scary without blood), which is totally cool if that's what you're going for.
It's a kids' book.

It's a young adult book, which is slightly different. My kids both read pretty damn good for their ages (roughly 8/10, but they both read at around a 6th grade level), but I would not let them read The Hunger Games. There's some pretty messed up shit in there, and I want to make sure they're mature enough to process and deal with it.

fbmf wrote:I liked the book, but the "cliffhanger ending" didn't pull me in as much as it was hyped that it would.

*shrug* I will admit, it doesn't read as well as a standalone...it's part of a trilogy, and clearly so.

Also, I am dreading a Peeta-Katniss-Gale Love Triangle.

You are right to be dreading. That said, it's...moderately well done, as far as love triangles go. Personally, I feel the logical answer to any love triangle is "threesome", but not everybody takes that tack. The fact that all 3 members (2 in particular) are pretty emotionally fucked up (for good reason) makes it more complicated, but also more realistic in some ways.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:42 am

Generally you can get away with Shaky Cam or quick cuts without confusing people or calling attention to the process instead of the scene but you can't do both at the same time without losing someone's interest. For example, look at the Omaha Beach segment in Saving Private Ryan: the camera is shaky as hell but otherwise Spielberg's crew keeps the average scene length relatively long for an action sequence and it really helps keep things grounded. That whole bit would have been a 23 minute long clusterfuck if it was filmed like The Hunger Games.

Anyway, it's a shame too, given that the books are apparently wedded to a first person narrative (I have only read excerpts while talking about the quality of YA fiction in general) and thus have some really fuck ugly writing in spots due to the author not leaving herself a good out when Katniss is no longer in a position to communicate what is going on very intelligibly. Films aren't saddled with that problem, obviously, so they genuinely had a chance to really outdo the books for once but instead you often just get left with a hot mess.

Disclaimer: I'm part of that weird cult who believe that the action sequences in Gladiator were actually pretty shitty if you quit ogling the CGI and costume designs long enough to pay attention to the actual fights, so you might want to take my opinion with more than a grain of salt.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:14 am

PoliteNewb wrote:It's a young adult book, which is slightly different.

Sorry... I know that in a library it's classified as YA, but I was trying to point out that high levels of gore equal a movie rating above the age group intended as the audience of the series.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 2:19 am

Studios want movies to come in at PG-13 regardless. You just plain make more money that way.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 5:47 am

If there's one thing this movie isn't having a hard time with, it's making money.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 10:29 am

What's with the cartoonish adults?

I can't watch most classic Soviet movies because Soviet cinema mostly never grew up out of a "televised play" concept. There wasn't (and still isn't) a distinction between movie and theater actors, with the result that characters in movies act REALLY FUCKING RETARDED. Seriously, they are vastly more obnoxious than the worst caricatures of gay men homophobes have to offer.

Seriously, wtf? If this is a grim speculative fiction in the vein of Handmaid's Tale, why the cartoonish obnoxiousness? I mean, I like lighthearted movies - but I want songs and dance in musical comedies and epic fantasyish solemnity veering into self-parody in fairytales. This movie is horrible, horrible, horrible.

Also: why the kids aren't kids and why aren't they hungry? If Hollywood can put ripping muscles on elderly "sex symbols", surely they can aftereffect some malnourished kids? And this is the *first* movie, surely they can find actors who are the same age as the characters?

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 3:05 pm

Cato has superarmor? That least scene is so dark, was he wearing it the whole time or just for the last scene? That shit is never explained in the movie, why does it even get shown when it doesn't affect anything at all?

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 9:57 pm

I do not think he has armor in the movie.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:48 pm

I distinctly recall Katniss shooting him in the chest and it bouncing off in the movie.

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:04 pm

Oldboy was really fucked up. But it was crazy good.

(Aside from the "lol hypnotism" bit. I wasn't a fan of that.)

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:54 pm

Just watched the first episode of the new Avatar series.

Tech sure came along fast in 70 years.

And pro bending? Really.

Despite my dislike of 'pro bending', I'm reserving judgment. We'll see if the showmakers can have lightning strike twice.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:21 pm

I was insanely happy with the Legend of Korra. Pro Bending is one of the first "fantasy sports" that I could understand how it could be played, watched, and officiated. Penalties are in the form of forced zone movements, the field is made out of metal because none of the benders can do anything to it, and the addition of clay coins and water reserves are rationed in order to roughly equalize the different magics. It's very well thought out, and I totally believe people would make such a sport and watch it. Compare to bullshit like Quiddich and Blernsball.

-Username17

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:42 pm

What's wrong with Blernsball?