Movie Review The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023) 

Directed by Francis Lawrence 

Written by Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt 

Starring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Viola  Davis, Jason Schwartzman

Release Date November 17th, 2023 

Published November 17th, 2023 

Is there a need for another Hunger Games movie? The original foursome of Hunger Games films felt vibrant and alive, a commentary on the cultural moment as the 1% became villains, and the populace approached a consensus about too much wealth. That moment died a death and we've receded back to a place where the rich get richer and the poor suffer to support the ungodly wealth at the top. Into this fray comes a new Hunger Games movie that still feels reflective of the moment in which it is being released but not in the exciting and invigorating way that the original Hunger Games did. 

This new Hunger Games movie seems to support the 1% and have contempt for the poor. The film asks us to sympathize with the personification of the 1% in the original Hunger Games movies, Coriolanis Snow (Tom Blyth). As played by Donald Sutherland originally, Snow is pure malevolence, a scheming villain of the classic, mustache twirling variety. There is no gray area between the good of Katniss Everdeen and the evil of President Snow. The prequel on the other hand, while charting Snow's heel turn, seems to admire Snow as a man of conviction forced into a place of malevolent pragmatism. 

In this telling, Snow isn't evil, he was simply a good person who was betrayed. He's a good guy who happens to have adapted to the cutthroat world around him. He's a poor kid just trying to protect his formerly prominent family from poverty. He's a successful student whose successfully hiding his family secret, gasp, they are no longer rich. Can you believe it? The scandal. It's okay, the Snow family won't be poor for much longer. Corio, as his friends call him, is on the brink of winning a major prize that guarantees financial security and a full ride college education. 

The prize is all but in his grasp until a deceptive Professor, an enemy of Snow's father, schemes to keep Corio from his prize. The prize is centered around the annual Hunger Games. The students in Snow's hoity toity capitol school are being assigned as mentors to the poor district living souls who must fight to the death in The Hunger Games for the entertainment of the capitol. In its 10 year, residents of the capitol are no longer excited for The Hunger Games. The games need something to get people interested again and the mentors are being encouraged to help turn their fighters into spectacles, celebrities that the TV watching elite can root for or against. 

When Snow is assigned a girl from District 12 named Lucy Gray Baird, he's concerned that she will be killed quickly and cost him a chance at the prize. However, Lucy has spirit, she's attractive, and she sings, all of which could make her marketable, if she can survive longer than a few hours in the arena. At the behest of his beloved sister, Tigris Snow (Hunter Schafer), Corio decides to get close to his charge, meeting her train as she arrives and doing his best to endear himself to her so that he can give her tips to survive longer in the arena. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Penelope

Penelope (2008) 

Directed by Mark Palansky 

Written by Leslie Caveny

Starring Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Catherine O'Hara, Peter Dinklage, Richard E. Grant, Reese Witherspoon

Release Date February 29th, 2008

Published June 25th, 2008

The Wilhern family has been cursed for generations ever since a great uncle impregnated and abandoned a commoner who subsequently killed herself. That girl's mother happened to be a local witch who placed a curse on the family. It would be visited on the first daughter born to a Wilhern woman. She would be born with the features of a pig.

Decades and generations passed with the lucky births of only male children until Penelope was born. Born to Catherine and Franklin Wilhern in 1970's London, Penelope immediately became an urban legend and journalists crawled through the walls in attempts to get a photo of the pig girl.

One of those reporters was Lemon (Peter Dinklage) who lost an eye to Catherine when he leapt from a kitchen bread basket attempting to get Penelope's photo. The family was forced to fake Penelope's death in order to give her a peaceful upbringing. Now, with word that the curse could be lifted if someone of similar lineage were to fall in love with Penelope, the girl with the pig nose is eager for love and marriage.

With the help of a matchmaker, Wanda (Ronnie Ancona), Penelope and her mother have vetted almost every blue blood in the country including a venal shipping heir, Edward Vanderman (Simon Woods) who was so frightened by her features that he leapt through a window. He was the first of her many suitors to escape without signing a confidentiality agreement. He immediately went to the police who threw him in jail for a night.

Eventually, Vanderman ends up with Lemon and the two conspire to expose Penelope. They hire a down and out member of the extended royal family, Max (James McAvoy) to seduce and photograph Penelope. The plan goes awry when Max actually falls for Penelope sight unseen and decides it best to leave her alone. Heartbroken, Penelope runs away from home and finds a whole new life. There is a good deal more to the story but I will leave to seee the movie yourself to find out. 

First time helmer Mark Palansky has a talent for good natured whimsy. With a top notch cast he creates a group of pleasant characters who are easy to like and root for. Christina Ricci is particularly winning in the lead role while Reese Witherspoon shines in her brief role as Penelope's first real friend. Ricci has a remarkable talent for playing lovable oddballs or dyspeptic, disaffected ingenues and her vast range is great help to Penelope.

That said, the whimsy of Penelope belies an all too light approach in the end. Yes, the movie is a modern fairy tale but even fairy tales have a lesson to impart or something that makes them memorable beyond being good natured. Penelope is so gentle and pleasant that it becomes cloying. The light hearted sweetness overflows what little good there is in Penelope. It's a shame because Christina Ricci could have done much more with this role if the film had been more ambitious. 

Movie Review: Underdog

Underdog (2007) 

Directed by Frederik Du Chau

Written by Adam Rifkin

Starring Jason Lee, Jim Belushi, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Warburton, John Slattery, Taylor Momsen

Release Date August 3rd, 2007

Published August 3rd, 2007

Was there any need to make the 60's cartoon Underdog into a big budget live action movie? I've heard no clamor or call. No one outside the official Underdog fan club has even thought of Underdog in the near 20 years since the last reruns were exorcised from TV screens. And yet, here we are with Disney dusting off this forgotten pop culture relic with visions of the family dollar dancing in the heads of Disney accountants.

I hope they got their money's worth because we, the movie-going public, certainly do not. This 88 minute cash grab is one of the most dreary projects to come out of the Disney company since the bastardized sequels of their Pixar and other animated properties. Underdog is a deeply misguided, mercenary effort where profit trumps good taste, and stock prices are calculating on box office returns. 

Jason Lee stars as the voice of Underdog a former K9 cop turned lab rat who, after getting zapped by some chemicals, develops super powers. Escaping the lab of the evil doctor Simon Barr Sinister (slumming Station Agent star Peter Dinklage), Underdog ends taken in by a security guard (Jim Belushi) and his troubled son (Alex Neuberg). Nicknamed shoeshine for his proclivity for licking shoes, Underdog slowly learns that he has powers before the boy helps him become a superhero.

No points for for guessing that the troubled boy is healed by his new best friend and that father and son are brought closer together as they are forced to team up against Barr Sinister and his henchman Cad (Patrick Warburton). You could guess how this plot plays out without having to sit through this mind-numbing cliché of family movie drivel.

The key to such a predictable plot is trying to reinvent, or at the very least dress up, your familiar elements with jokes, action or effects. Underdog fails in all three of those attempts. The jokes of Underdog are limited to eye rolling dog puns about what dogs like to eat, where they like to poop and how they interact i.e the butt sniffing joke you can anticipate well before it comes.

The action is even more lame than the jokes. Mirroring the equally painful family dog picture Firehouse Dog, Underdog is just a series of bad CGI talking dogs against ugly fake green screened environments. The action and the effects of Underdog are inextricably linked thus if the action is lame, the effects must be as bad or even worse.

Looking at the cast of Underdog you can't be surprised to see the name of Jim Belushi on the cast list. What is shocking and sad is the career destruction of Jason Lee. Yes, it's only his voice in the role of Underdog but nevertheless, you have to dock him a bunch of cool points for his willingness to utter such lame jokes. Worse yet, Lee will follow Underdog by starring as Dave in a live action Alvin & The Chipmunks. Ugh.

I've already heard from one former Jason Lee fan who has completely written him off now that he seems to be taking the Eddie Murphy path to the easy family movie paycheck. Even more desperate than Lee is Peter Dinklage who truly lowers himself to play the villain in Underdog. The man who became an actor to watch after his terrific performance in The Station Agent, is now flailing and gesticulating desperately as he tries to cover up this failure with wild gesturing.

I'm sure that someone thought that making a live action version of Underdog would be fun but most of the people behind this lame adaptation likely only saw dollar signs. There was no call for a live action update of Underdog. No large contingent of fans lying in wait for Disney to wake up and realize the property they held was so valuable. Like the brutal Rocky & Bullwinkle movie from a few years back, Underdog is not a cartoon that cried out for live action adaptation. Rather,Underdog is a 60's relic barely notable enough to require a DVD collection.

Even a straight to video launch would have been too much for this waste of screen space.