Movie Review: The Hunger Games

We went to see The Hunger Games last night, and given that I talked about my concerns last week, I thought I'd write a post about the movie.

For the most part I really, really liked it. It was exciting and engrossing. It did a good job of maintaining the horror of The Hunger Games without turning into an action flick where you're simply rooting for Katniss to kill everyone. The poverty of District 12 contrasted nicely with the wealth of the Capital.

I really liked all the extra scenes we got between President Snow and Seneca Crane. They helped explain the politics around the Hunger Games, the way they use a thin shred of hope to help with the oppression of the outlying districts. I also liked seeing that Katniss' mourning of Rue sparked a riot in District 11 which is what caused the gamemakers to change the rules in an effort to bring focus back. It was neat to see how this all tied together.

My favorite extra detail was that the gamemakers set the fire on Katniss because she was getting too close to the edge of the arena. This ties in nicely to Haymitch's victory in his games, and also works well as something Katniss herself couldn't have known in the books.

Really, I liked all of the scenes that we got in the movie that weren't in the book. I think the movie benefited a lot from not keeping us inside Katniss' head and part of me wishes we could have gotten more of this. I wanted to see more of the other tributes. I wanted more scenes with Effie and Cinna. I wanted more of what Prim and Gale were going through back home. But I also thought the movie was almost too long as it was and I'm not sure how they could have fit all of that extra information in.

I think the movie was as good as I could have hoped for. I just hope that the DVD comes with loads of extra features. I want more background information on this world. I want all the behind the scenes stuff that Katniss couldn't know about. And I want more scenes with the secondary characters.

The Problem With Running

The problem with running is that it's nowhere near as fun as riding my bike.

The weather got warmer. Daylight Saving's Time added an hour of light to the end of my days. I stopped going to the gym and started riding my bike instead.

All thoughts of attempting to run a 5K have fled from my mind. They may come back eventually. It won't be too long before the weather warms up enough that I won't want to be outside anymore. At that point it will be back to the gym and probably back to running. But for now I'm enjoying getting out and exploring the neighborhood.

I've been having a lot of fun getting lost on the windy streets. I never quite know where I'm going to end up, although I'm sure that I'll know my way around soon enough. I like all the hills in Virginia. It takes a lot of work to get up them, but zooming back down is the closest to flying I'll probably ever come.

Since riding my bike is so fun, I've actually been getting out every day. I'm exercising more, but I still have more free time since I'm not spending twenty minutes getting to the gym and another twenty getting home. I can also run small errands on my bike, since Safeway and various other shops are only less than two miles away.

All of this has made me deeply nostalgic for Boulder. When I lived there I did almost everything on my bike. I got to work, went to the bank, went shopping. I could do this for most of the year, too, since summer never got too hot. It may have started snowing early in the year and continued well in to Spring, but there were still plenty of nice days when I could get out for a ride.

In Virginia I know I'll be lucky if I can still ride my bike in June. Especially with the way the weather has been shaping up this year. It's barely Spring and it already feels like what I expect from Summer. I'll just have to make the most of the weeks I do have.

Winter Is Coming

I've been on a bit of an epic fantasy kick lately. And I've begun to notice that nearly all of these books start in late Fall and reach their conclusion in early Spring. This probably has more than a little to do with the symbolism of these seasons. The ending of the year helps make the coming danger that much scarier. All of the really dire stuff happens in the dead of winter. Then Spring comes and with it, new hope.

George RR Martin draw this out in his series. Seasons can last for years in his world, which helps keep us on the bring of winter for five whole books. But many other authors are guilty of using this device to create maximum emotional impact in their stories. Here are the books I've read recently (or not so recently) that follow this pattern (so far, at least)

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
• The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
• Goodkind manages to do this two books in a row by manipulating certain facts. In the first book, the bad guy must be stopped by the first day of winter. In the second book (The Stone of Tears), the bad stuff is all going to happen on the Winter Solstice of the same year. Somehow there is a month or two between these two dates, which are traditionally the same day.
• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
• The framing story does this, not the flashbacks to Kvothe's life

Can anyone else think of other stories that follow this pattern? Now that I've noticed it, I'm having a hard time unseeing it.

Things

It's been so long since I've written anything. There hasn't been too much interesting going on, and I just haven't been in much mood to write.

I've gotten pretty good at going to the gym consistently and running. I managed to run two miles the other day and completed a whole 5K in slightly under 45 minutes. My main goal is to actually be able to run a 5K. But tonight I had a hard time even running a mile. This turned out to be because they updated the software on the treadmills. I ended up running uphill without realizing it. Once I finished and discovered that the treadmill was inclined more than I'd intended I was actually fairly proud of myself for completing a mile.

They're altering the bus routes and changing the roads near my house which has caused a bunch of headaches. A three-way stop turned into a 4-way stop causing me to nearly be t-boned a few times. People don't even look in one direction because they don't expect a car from there. And they got rid of a right turn lane. Now I get honked at when I don't turn right at the stop light by my house. So few people go straight through that light that no one expects me to, and they feel a burning need to alert me to the fact that I can go when I actually can't.

See how boring my life is? These are the things weighing on my mind right now.

I finished Cat's Cradle a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't come up with anything to say about it beyond "it's absurd and delightful". So that's what I'm leaving you with. I liked it. I'm definitely going to add some more Kurt Vonnegut to my library.

I swear I won't be this boring forever. I have lots of thoughts about The Name of the Wind, which I'm nearly done with. I'm tossing around an idea for a post about the prophecies in A Song of Ice and Fire, but I need to do more research for that one. Which is to say I need to look up the wording of the various prophecies, and that's incredibly difficult to do on a kindle. I kind of want to buy physical copies of those books.

The boyfriend and I are in the process of adopting a dog. Which is to stay we've submitted an application, but haven't done more than that. So expect more news on the front at some point, too.

I just haven't been the most exciting person lately. Perhaps that will change with the weather?

Am I Turning Into a Runner?

Over the course of my life, I have managed to destroy my left ankle. I've sprained it more times than I can count and in some truly ridiculous situations. The damage I've done appears to be long-lasting, if not permanent. It's incredibly easy to re-twist or re-sprain my ankle these days. And even though I haven't hurt it in several years, the old injury is rearing it's head and affecting my ability to run.

The interesting thing is that it only seems to be affecting the number of steps I can take. The faster I run, the farther I run too. So I've been improving steadily according to both of these measures. Eventually I'm sure I'll hit that scary point where I'm having trouble drawing breath again. But for now it looks to be all smooth sailing.

Today I was able to run a mile and a quarter. Then, after a brief break to walk, I ran another half mile. I ran the first mile at a pace of 5.2 mph (11:30 minute mile). For the second half mile I increased my pace to 5.3 mph. All told I was able to travel 2.25 miles in the thirty minutes I had my treadmill set to run. And my ankle only started bugging me near the end of both miles.

I think I can keep increasing in this way. The break to walk in the middle of my running segments is crucial to keeping my ankle healthy. Unfortunately, it also means that I'm not keeping my heart rate up for quite as long. So I'm not sure how much good this sort of workout is actually doing. But it's better than nothing. And I do think that as I improve my ankle will get stronger and I'll figure out how to step so that it doesn't hurt as much. I have started to notice a correlation between the stabbing pain and my gait getting slightly off balance towards the end of my run. All of this should get better with more practice.

I have a 5K in my sights that I think I'll actually be able to participate in. And, as the weather gets nicer, I'm considering going for a run outdoors. The prospect of getting stuck somewhere and not being able to get home is still scary, but it's getting less scary all the time.

Phantom Menace Revisited

I was thirteen when The Phantom Menace originally hit theaters. I had been raised with the Star Wars movies and was incredibly excited to see the newest installment. I couldn't wait to revisit the galaxy far, far away and see what Anakin Skywalker was like before he became Darth Vader.

I actually have incredibly vivid memories of all the build up to the movies. It's the first time I can remember anticipating a movie that much. My dad, my brother and I were on a road trip to Toronto the week the movie premiered and the whole trip is tinged with Star Wars. We stopped for lunch at a KFC one day and got cups decorated like R2D2. The lids even had legs. I kept that cup for years.

On the way home, dad promised we could stop and see The Phantom Menace in theaters, so my brother and I prepared by watching marathoning the original trilogy while my dad drove across Kansas. I have to tell you that this is the best way to drive across Kansas.

We stopped in a theater not long after crossing the border into Colorado. But I don't really remember most of the movie. It was disappointing, which was only to be expected.

Still, we bought the DVD and proceeded to see the next two movies in theaters. I think I even went to a midnight showing of the last movie. But after that I didn't pay much more attention. I still watched the original trilogy over and over. But if one of the newer movies came on TV, I'd change the channel. Life without these movies wasn't really lacking much.

But I'm dating someone who loves Star Wars. He can quote along with the movies even if he's asleep. I've seen him do it. And he insisted on going to the 3D release of The Phantom Menace. So I agreed to go (though I refused to attend a midnight showing).

It was more or less what I expected. Jar Jar Binks was, incredibly, even more annoying than I remembered him being. How can a single character ruin every scene he's in? It's almost impressive. And the kid who played Anakin really wasn't very good. Still, the pod racing and the climatic battle were both really cool. It was almost worth the cost just to see those scenes on the big screen again.

Unfortunately the cinematography doesn't quite mesh with the 3D viewing experience. George Lucas is a fan of slow pans, which get all fuzzy when you add the third dimension to them. It was like I'd taken my contacts out. This was something I hadn't been expecting at all and it was sad.

I think this movie was worth the cost of the 3D tickets. Mostly because my boyfriend paid for them. It was definitely worth the time spent sitting in the theater. I'm really hoping he decides that Attack of the Clones won't be worth it, though.

Furnished House

Back in July, I said I'd post pictures of the house once we were moved in. Well it turns out that unpacking is a lengthy process. And then furnishing the house takes a while, too. And keeping it clean is just an endless job. But the house is finally in a state I'm proud of, mostly because I spent all afternoon cleaning so I could get some decent pictures. Anyway, this is what our house looks like now that we're actually living in it.

I got my desk set up in my office and bought a new bookcase that's waiting to be filled.

The other side of my office is my library.

Our bedroom actually has a bed, and we've got nightstands. I even added some color to the wall.

But on the other side of the room, you can see that there are still a few things I need to hang. This moving in is a long process

Downstairs we have a kitchen that actually looks like someone uses it. You can tell by all the counter space we've managed to convert into storage space.

But we still have plenty of room to work on the other counter

Our main living room is split so Kevin can use half of it as his office. We've flipped this recently, so no one's actually seen this layout yet. We also bought a cabinet to display our various chotchkies, though we need to organize it a bit better.

The reason for the flip is that we've actually begun to furnish the other side of the room. It's still a bit lacking, but I have a designated place to read now.

And in the dining room, we bought a cabinet for all our glassware. We have a ridiculous amount of glassware.

The layout downstairs has also changed a bit since we had any visitors. Mostly because we moved that green couch upstairs.

And once more, we're left with part of a room that still needs to be furnished. I'm thinking of getting a card table so I have a place to do puzzles.

It's actually starting to look like a real home. Now I just need to finish hanging pictures. In the meantime, I'm hoping I can keep this place clean.