It’s all about the fights with Mike Russell tonight. It makes sense, considering today is the day The Hunger Games came out. But the generational bloodshed is not merely contained on the silver screen. Mike, Cort and Bobby come to the uncomfortable realization that they’re likely on the wrong side of a generational divide that will eventually lead not just to people texting in theaters, but people foregoing theaters all together for entertainments we can’t even fathom yet because we’re too stuck in rigidly defining the world between “Real Life” and “online,” definitions a lot of people are learning to rewrite on the fly. Speaking of flying – Bobby proves to be the raincloud that grounds Mike Russell’s flights of fancy regarding Netflix, Blood & Chrome, and the future of Firefly. Of course, there’s the usual sidetracks and digressions, too. Dig in.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I get really frustrated when it appears that *no one* realizes that Battle Royale was a book. Hunger Games may not be a ripoff of the movie version of Battle Royale but it borrows egregiously from the book.
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A lot of people are WAY more familiar w/ the movie than the book/manga, though. And Hunger Games isn’t a ripoff of either version, as the author has cited Survivor as her main inspiration.
But people should, if they’re curious about digging into either universe, check out the printed materials, definitely.
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In regards to the texting in movie theaters debate- does anyone have a problem with patrons rustling candy wrappers, loud eating, or any other aural distraction? I have a bigger problem with the sounds fellow audience members make by loudly eating milk duds next to me than the visual distractions. If movie theaters had headphone inputs in the arm rests like airlines do I would attend more movies and bring my own cans to the big screen. Out of ears, out of mind. Though the texting thing is annoying I get much more annoyed by noise interference. Or am I just crazy?
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I don’t think you’re crazy in the slightest – popcorn I’m fine with: the opening is HUGE, and the food itself is relatively quiet. But bags of candy/giant buckets of soda? HIGHLY annoying, especially when a movie is relying on mood/atmosphere, and some hungry bovine in the front starts pawing through their sack of M&M’s at JUST the wrong moment.
A bag of reese’s is JUST as disrupting as a cellphone.
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Fuckin’ Ditto. Nothing drives me through the roof more than human beings that make any sort of inappropriate noises during the movie. Last year at the Roseway, before Cort and Fats presented Dr. Strangelove they were showing From Here to Eternity, and all through the movie there was this piece of shit doing the one thing more annoying than laughing at it. He was fuckin’ snickering, like an asshole. Yes some of the lines it are considered corny now, but still, the only place I can assume that type of behavior is acceptable is in a beer-theater. It was even worse when I went to see Hobo With a Shotgun, assholes talking and laughing through the whole opening sequence and not laughing/ewwing at the dark funny parts, etc.
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Show-notes for Friday, March 23:
“According to a New Poll, Young Adults Want Texting to Be Allowed in Theaters”:
http://www.movies.com/movie-news/according-to-new-poll-young-adults-want-texting-to-be-allowed-theaters/7162
The “sizzle reel” for “Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome”
http://io9.com/5895080/totally-badass-trailer-for-battlestar-galacticas-cylon-war-prequel-blood-and-chrome
Info on the aborted Bryan Singer/Tom DeSanto attempt to create a sequel to the classic “Battlestar Galactica” TV series in 2001:
http://www.battlestargalactica.com/community/newfilms.htm
http://io9.com/5028917/911-killed-bryan-singers-battlestar-galactica
Concept art:
http://www.battlestarforum.com/showthread.php?t=809
http://www.nathanschroeder.net/gal06index.shtml
“Serenity Tales,” the “Firefly” fan-comics site I used to edit.
http://serenitytales.com
(Read Bill Mudron’s “The Black” for an idea of how good an animated “Firefly” series could look.)
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/serenitytales/st_the_black/series.php?view=archive&chapter=12474&mpe=1&step=1
The Boy Howdy Podcast, starring Bill Mudron and Anne Moloney:
http://boyhowdy.org/
Two good writeups of Geoff Dyer’s film-crit book “Zona,” one written by friend of the show Becky Ohlsen:
http://bookpage.com/review/zona/confronting-the-'stalker‘
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/the-detours-of-art-20120308
David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” at the Laurelhurst Theater:
http://www.laurelhursttheater.com/
Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” at the Hollywood Theatre, March 24-25:
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/lady-vanishes/
Fleur de Lethal’s “Mad Men” Season 5 premiere at the Hollywood Theatre, March 25:
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/watch-mad-men-week-fleur-de-lethal/
“TV Knows Best: Preachy Sitcom Episodes & PSAs from the Reagan Era” at the Hollywood — Monday, March 26:
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/rerun-theater-tv/
Fleur de Lethal presents “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” at the Hollywood: Saturday, March 24
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/fleur-de-lethal-hedwig-angry-inch/
A GreenCine Daily review of “Battle Royale”:
http://daily.greencine.com/archives/008227.html
A mixed-positive review of “The Hunger Games” by the Onions AV Club:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/
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Also, a solid NPR story on the history of “Battle Royale.”
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148991013/battle-games-cold-brutality-a-common-theme
For the record, I don’t think Suzanne Collins set out to rip off “Battle Royale,” BTW. There’s a long tradition of dystopian-forced-deathmatch stories that includes “The Running Man,” “Series 7″ and all manner of other stuff — and hell, throw Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and “Lord of the Flies” in there for good measure. “Battle Royale” was hardly first on the scene. It’s just one of the best, IMO.
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I love both Battle Royale & The Hunger Games and getting pretty tired of the rip-off accusations. There was a film with Kelly Hu and Robert Carlyle called The Tournament which was basically Battle Royale with professional killers – fun flick, I think Mike talked about it once, super-gory, total action film that doesn’t try to be anything but, and it also had a woman at the center of the action, and funnily enough, her helping out a guy who can’t do half the shit she can! Of course, The Tournament was kind of like a classed up good B-flick but still, nobody cried about them taking the “death match” idea. Of course, this was adults signing up, not forced to do it, but still, the basic premise was there.
I don’t know, I’m just so over this conversation. Oh, and Mike bringing up war metaphors reminded me of Collins saying the idea came from channel-flicking – images of Iraq war on one channel, Survivor on in the other.
Bobby, fans are not doing a disservice to Katniss by shipping her. The books are YA and while really good, dystopic examples of the genre, they also have some genre-specific things, where you go “oh I’d like this even more if I was a teenage girl” and one of those things is the pairing aspect of it (another one is the description of fashion/make up). It needs to be said that the books encourage this kind of discussions around it by having Katniss be largely undecided. She doesn’t want either of the guys, but she does have feelings, and even though 99% of the time her #1 priority is survival of her family and #2 priority is her own survival, you also get to see how she cares for both of these guys, and how much it wrecks her that there’s a choice to be made.
What I’m saying is, that it’s a love triangle that’s highly believable and true to character, and therefore it’s highly believable that some people would want her to be with one or the other. It doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing, but it is a thing in the books. She regards both (eventually) as close friends, they both represent different sides of her. Therefore, I don’t think you need to shit on fans for liking that aspect of the books. This is not Twilight Team whatever bullshit – this is fans liking different pairings for different reasons. Fans all over like pairings, and fans can be dicks about it – but that doesn’t mean shipping something is actively disrespecting a character or the text itself.
I don’t even have a favourite in this discussion – though I like who Katniss ends up with in the books. I’m just mildly drunk and frankly run into too many occasions of people dismissing an aspect of fandom they don’t personally engage in.
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“I don’t know, I’m just so over this conversation.” Same here.
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“This is not Twilight Team whatever bullshit”
Yes, it is. Or at least, that’s specifically what I was talking about: Using “Shipping” as a means to reduce the more complicated aspects of Katniss’ character to quantify her in the same way people quantify Bella from Twilight. The fact the terminology “Team (blank)” is being used is pretty much EXACTLY what I’m railing against in that particular discussion.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t have an opinion on who she ends up with. They should. Like you pointed out, the writing practically DEMANDS you make a choice. I’m criticizing fans using Twilight mentality/vocabulary to sum up a character that is WAY more than that.
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Love you.
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Haven’t made a comment since you guys had the Meebo textbox thing. A few things.
1. Good show as always.
2. Nice job name dropping Giantbomb. I have been a fan of theirs since the moment I heard Jeff Gerstmann got fired for a bullshit reason from Gamespot and decided to start that site. (Ironically, Giantbomb is now under the same corporate umbrella as Gamespot as of last week)
3. The review of Hunger Games was spot on. I have never read the books. Never even heard of it till earlier today when my 12 year old asked if we could see it. I too felt like I was maybe missing some emotions or some further explanation of concepts that the book may have had. I now have a strong desire to read the book. Regardless, I liked the movie and much praise needs to be awarded to the main female lead. A WORD TO THE WISE ABOUT SEEING THIS IN A THEATER… there are a few moments where the movie requires your undivided attention and emotion in order for the scene to be successful. If by some chance there happens to be people in the audience who chuckle at these said moments, it will piss you off. Alot. For example, a character who are rooting for dies dramatically and some senile-older-than-dirt fuckwad in the back of the theater laughs, I can almost guarantee you will lose your cool. I never usually get bothered by that sort of thing, but alas it happened. At any rate go see it.
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Here’s a link to a Slant Magazine review that is down on Battle Royale, which makes some good points about the plot’s coherence:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/battle-royale/2256
Slant is one of the harshest reviewers of movies, for the most part, and is often a bracing blast of fresh air amid the fanboy “rocks-sucks” cavalcade.
When I came out of Hunger Games I heard a guy complaining about Katniss never running out of arrows. Apparently this viewer spent his whole time counting the contents of the quiver. It’s not just inappropriate laughter or comments that is infuriating, but this form of nitpicking. There is a certain kind of reviewer – referring back to last week’s show – who flops into a seat and says to the screen, “Impress me.” But it is impossible to impress them because A), they are there not to be impressed, and B) they have no aesthetic, not philosophy of film, no values or standards. They just like what they like when they like it. So if their bagel is too mushy in the morning that puts them in a foul mood and they take it out on the movie, because their approach to “criticism” is impressionism, and what they spew back on their blogs or in their newspapers (which are finally dying out) are not opinions but moody “reactions” with no consistency (or pleasing inconsistency).
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I love – SO MUCH – that D.K. Holm has joined the comments section.
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Early on in the show, Mike mentioned how cell phones are an extension of the younger generations concious’s (sp?). Is this anything like how jedi’s lightsabers are extensions of the jedi’s force?
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Conscience’s*
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/whine So are you guys on vacation or something? Because I was just about to head out on my morning walk and the podcast for Monday isn’t up yet. /endwhine
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Something happened at Fatty’s house & there won’t be a Monday show or an episode this coming Friday, according to their Facebooks.
Cort’s busy knife-sharpening.
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Thanks for the info. Does anyone have a link to the show’s facebook page? I can’t seem to find it.
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Survivor yes but did she site Americas next top model because we got at least 20min of golden eye liner, interviews and beauty prep in addition to the games.. I had no idea that was coming and was kinda wishing we were in the game longer. That’s where series 7 shined with a direct drop into action…battle royale only had school outfits to wear. It makes me think the hunger games government was run by Tyra banks and ru Paul.
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