For my birthday, the wife and I went to catch the new "Catching Fire" movie and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you've been living under a rock, you might not have heard of "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins ... for the rest of us, it's now a major motion picture starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark. The second title in the series is now in theaters ... ok, now we're caught up.
Anyway, I won't bore you with my review of the movie. It was good, well-acted, and I felt followed the book to a tee. The only problem I had with the movie was the ending.
SPOILER ALERT
At the very end, Katniss stares at the camera - breaking the ever present fourth wall. She is sad at first and then she gets mad. It's such a cliche maneuver on the part of the director. I feel sorry for Jennifer Lawrence who does her best to pull off this freshman acting trick. I can just picture the director, Francis Lawrence, telling her to look at the camera and "be mad". I recall early acting classes where the schlockmeister teacher would have the students stand on the dimly lit stage and show him "mad" or "sad" or "happy". I think a simple fade away would have sufficed rather than showing the audience that Katniss was "mad" that the President now had Peeta under his thumb. Lame.
Anyway, it was still a good movie and I really am just nit-picking but if you haven't seen it...go see it...and let me know how the "I'm mad" scene impacts you.
