Catching Fire Review

I am a big fan of the Hunger Games trilogy, and I know the books quite well. The first book didn't catch me quite as much as the second -- it was after I read Catching Fire that I just couldn't put the things down. Spoilers, as always.

That said, the trilogy should have been a pentalogy. The first book was beautifully self-contained and had exactly the right length for the right material. The latter two (though in many ways superior) are each two books crammed into single volumes, in order to arbitrarily make a trilogy. Catching Fire is the story of Katniss learning about her world through the Victory Tour and the invasion of District Twelve by Thread, then it is the story of the second Quarter Quell. Mockingjay is the story of the build-up to the Revolution and the awful truth of Katniss's situation, and then it is the story of the war. There are even sensible break-points in both books -- the announcement of the Quarter Quell should have finished book 2, the end of CF was good for book 3, book 4 should have ended with -- well, to avoid spoilers, the return of Peeta, and then the remainder should have been book 5. Tell the truth and shame the devil: The pacing was off because of the decision to make it a trilogy.

The movies have wisely chosen to split Mockingjay. They should have done the same with Catching Fire.

I'm not saying I didn't fully enjoy it. As a reader, I could fill in the blanks of what was going on. The performances are much better the second time around (and they didn't start out shabby). There are some quite beautiful touches, and I would see it again in a heartbeat. It's just that the flaw of the novel is really amplified here.

So, review by elements:

Theme:
The theme of Catching Fire -- the cost of rebellion -- is decently addressed. Snow's threat to District Twelve, the riot in Eleven, the implied riots elsewhere... this is serious stuff. Snow's understanding of how Katniss functions, and the series-arc theme about the power of the media are caught very well. No complaints thematically. Nice work.

Plot:
As I mentioned in the intro, Catching Fire has two separate plots. The movie covers both of them. The first is Katniss's realization, in the course of the victory tour, that she has become a symbol of defiance, that she and Peeta are both trapped in the roles they created for themselves. This is in contrast with her relationship with Gale at home, which always served as a comfort for her. This part of the plot is kept, but its mirror plot, of her growing relationship with Peeta, gets something of a short shrift, probably because they figured he was the star of the second plot. The second plot is the Quarter Quell, in which the tributes are drawn from among existing victors, thereby sending both Katniss and Peeta back into the arena, where each one plans to die for the other. Problem? No time was really taken to establish why. More later.

Setting:
There are a lot of interesting points to the setting. You can certainly see where the extra money went (though it didn't go for night filters or decent night lighting -- the lighting in the scene at midnight is atrocious, people). Oahu made for a fine arena. The Capitol is great. The districts continued and expanded the take from the first movie. This isn't a complaint so much as just an apparently radically different reading of the setting between me and the set designers, but I don't understand the urban look of both D12 and D11. These are small town and rural areas, as I understand it. It wasn't a big platform in Eleven, but part of the Justice Building called "the Verandah." It's meant to evoke the old south, for obvious reasons. District Twelve is a small town, with a square that even Katniss describes in the books as "pleasant." Both were interpreted in the first film (and continued here) with a sort of industrial junkiness to them. Did the set designers maybe think that an audience couldn't put the pieces together that the place could be pleasant looking and still dirt poor and oppressed? Shrug. Minor quibble.

Character:
I'll get to the flaws in the "Style" section, but I have to take a minute to praise the performances here. Every actor hits dead on with the characters, whenever they're given a chance. (The only misstep was with Mrs. Everdeen being freaked out at injured Gale. She's a weak person, but she's supposed to find her strength when someone is hurt. This is not the fault of the actress, and it gave Willow Shields a chance to shine as Prim. But it was baffling, conceptually.) Woody Harrelson again knocks it out of the park as Haymitch. Granted, they should have dyed his hair because of the social situation in Twelve (blondes belong to the merchant class, rather than Haymitch's Seam background), but I'll forgive just about any random detail for the way he completely inhabits this character. If this weren't a big budget blockbuster, I'd think he was a shoo-in for an award. Alas, it is a big budget blockbuster (science fiction, no less), so he'll have to settle for the fat paycheck he amply earns with it. Only two actors (Gale and Prim) look like my mental versions, anyway. It's not an actor's job to look the role, but to play it. Jennifer Lawrence gets the confusion and fear in Katniss very nicely, while never compromising her strength as the protagonist. She doesn't show one second's doubt that she is the heroine of the piece. Josh Hutcherson seems more comfortable in Peeta's shoes this time. And Elizabeth Banks as Effie? Gold star for the team. She really manages to convey the duality of the character (an extremely nice woman who is the harbinger of extremely horrible things).

And then, there is the cast of thousands. Once we get to the Quarter Quell, we're introduced to the characters who will be vital for the rest of the series. Finnick, Johanna, and Beetee will continue on, and I like the performances just fine. Jena Malone manages to get Johanna across with very little screen time. Jeffrey Wright impressed me particularly in Beetee's interview scene, where he managed to respond to Stanley Tucci's Caesar with almost no dialogue and face acting that implies everything. Sam Claflin's initial introduction -- the famed "Sugar cube?" scene -- was a little flubbed in the direction, but Claflin brings it in the arena. (For those complaining that he just looks "too young" to be the most beautiful man in Panem... guys, the actor is five years older than the character, and the character is a great favorite of people who fawned over him at the age of fourteen, and did worse to him because of it later on. If he looked one second older, he'd have aged out of the part.)

There's not much to complain about in terms of the characters, except that we didn't get enough of any of them to really give a damn if we hadn't already read the book. Which brings us to...

Style:
Two words: SLOW DOWN.

Seriously, I know that a huge number of the people seeing the movie have read the book and can fill in, but even with that knowledge going for me, the whipsawing from one thing to another was too much. There wasn't time to care about anything!

I know I'm generally a canon purist -- to the point where film students who think it's their right... nay, responsibility... to "interpret" a book until it's unrecognizable think I need to be shouted down -- but come on. Even I admit that there are things you can do in narrative that you just can't do on film. One of those things is glossing over events.

In narrative, you can give the emotional reactions to people and situations as the character experiences them. You can take a second to flash back, or give outside information. In a movie, you are utterly dependent on scenes. These narrative breaks can also give a sense of time passing, of feelings growing. So the two halves of the book, already rushed in narrative, become breathless and herky-jerky on film. With no dramatic depiction, you have no idea why (or even that) Katniss cares enough about Peeta that the first thing she does when she comes to her senses is to go to Haymitch and say that Peeta has to be saved. One moment of her seeing that he's decent and kind in Eleven does not do the trick, especially since the last film short-shrifted the iconic Boy With the Bread scene. All you have is Haymitch saying, "Yup, he's a good guy and totally better than us." That doesn't work. It wasn't sacrificed in favor of Gale, either, since Gale gets about the same amount of time, ultimately. No one gets a lot of time because, even clocking in at two and a half hours, there is not time to get to know anyone.

There is also no time for world building. In film, you can take some shortcuts, because you don't have to pause to describe. But since D13 was glossed over in the first one, a brief mention of it by Snow isn't enough to build up the surprise at the end that they're heading for D13... by then, so much has happened that there's no way that made any kind of emotional impression. You needed that scene with the runaways from Eight, to establish that there is such a place, and that it might well still be there, and then you need Haymitch denying that it could be there. You need something. You have to have some hint that Snow hates Haymitch, and who Haymitch really is, for the end to come off believable, and, just as important, to give some historical depth to the created world.

And then, the cast of thousands. These people are critical to the remainder of the story, but the shorthand here doesn't make the grade. The actors do well with what they're given, but they're not given much. There's no breathing space. Jena Malone comes off best because Johanna is a character that doesn't waste any time with niceties, so she comes off as reasonably Johanna-like. She even gets a brief extra line (proving that world-building can be quick and efficient) about how there would even be rioting in the streets of the Capitol -- a fine look at some of what's coming. But even the main characters, the ones with all the screen time, are getting pushed from scene to scene. The scene of Katniss and Peeta's kiss on the beach, a hugely important scene in terms of the characters, is well played in it's half-length form, but because we haven't seen what's going on with Katniss, because we haven't seen the way they've grown genuinely close, it just rushes through like everything else. She needs him? Since when in the film's narrative? (Yes, those of us who've read the book can probably quote her inner monologue -- "I realize that if Peeta died, only one person would be damaged beyond repair -- me" -- but there's not even time to mentally fill it in.)

So, yes, stylistically speaking, this movie should have ended with the announcement of the Quarter Quell, with the Victory Tour and the drama of the building rebellion as the main theme, with the next movie picking up immediately and heading into the Quell itself. Then there would have been time to do it properly.

However, they chose what they chose. I don't mean to sound like they didn't do a fabulous job with the road they did decide to take. It's just that I wish they hadn't decided to take the ten lane, eighty-mile-an-hour freeway that breezes past most of the world.

Anyway, there's a fan film out there that does a good job with Haymitch's Quell. Let's just say this is it, and call it good.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I'm curious about Agents of SHIELD. I've been watching it. I like it all right. I want to like it more, but something just isn't clicking for me.

It's not that I don't like the MCU, and Joss Whedon's sense for dialogue is always great. The plots are solid. Whedon hasn't gone for the annoying and obvious choices (OMG, SHIELD is really bad guys! Even when he let his characters leave with that idea on their minds, he makes clear to the audience that it's not the case) Some nice, complicated questions. Good performances all around. Not so tied up in its arc that it's inaccessible to the non-fanatic.

So why am I not obsessed with this show? It's got almost everything that I like.

Some of it may fix itself as the writers become more accustomed to the characters. It happens.

I think for me, the problem is that they seem to be interested in the two characters -- Ward and Skye -- who hold ZERO interest for me. Everyone else, I sort of like. I adore Fitz-Simmons. Coulson's awesome. May is awesome (hey, she's freaking MULAN). But you have all of these pretty interesting folk, and attention ends up going to... Riley Finn and Kennedy, from Buffy. Except that I actually sort of liked Riley, in a secondary role and before they started messing with him so there was an excuse to take him off the show. Not that they're the same characters, though Ward obviously has some spiritual ancestry with the Initiative. Just... two characters that the producers are trying really hard to sell, and the sale is not going through. No matter how much fake implied drama there is, they're just huge energy-sucks every time they're on screen, and they tend to make the episodes lose momentum. It's not the actors, it's the characters.

Guys, you can do better. Ward's salvageable, if given someone else to interact with. Ditch Skye. You don't have to go full-on Riley with her and make her do things that are obnoxious and repugnant for an excuse. Just have her flunk out of training. Change her mind. Give a heroic sacrifice moment. Whatever. Introduce someone new. You're supposed to be on the lookout for people with superpowers. How about someone with such a lame superpower that it never makes a difference, except in minor creature comforts, but puts her on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar anyway? You could get some comedic traction with it. Or maybe bring back Akela. Or find someone interesting on an away mission. Or send in the daughter of one of those people Nick Fury answers to. (Or maybe one of them themselves is young enough to appeal to the planned demographic.)

Anyway, that's where I am with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It's workable. I like it whenever it's not paying attention to the energy-sucks. Please let them suck less.

Placemaking

I've been interested in placemaking for a while now -- pretty much since I read The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg back in the '90s. Something about the idea of a place where everyone belonged equally (hence my gratuitous Cheers music link) appealed to me as a shy girl who has trouble meeting anyone -- the thought that there was someplace where it's natural to just run into people... that seemed wonderful. The more I read, the more I liked it. Public spaces really are the backbone of a community, and I don't think it's possible to deny that. Modern architecture and design have often ignored people for the sake of intellectualism. (Case in point, the Johnson building of the BPL. Surrounded by forbidding plinths, windows barred up like prison cells... very bad connection to the McKim building, and a terrible, street-stopping face on Boylston... until you get to McKim, with its wide porch and wrap-around bench.)

You can see the way people straighten their shoulders and perk up in a good space, and the way bad spaces seem to weigh people down.

You can see where it becomes very difficult to know your neighbors when neighborhoods are mowed down in favor of some city planner's notion.

You can see the way fast-running roads cut people off... look at Albuquerque, with six lane freeways running at around 45 mph (official 40 mph) passing for city streets, nothing in walking distance, no little grocery stores, just supermarkets. There aren't even a lot of cheap bodegas in some neighborhoods. Going out means planning it -- driving, parking, figuring out what to do with your vehicle should you join other friends somewhere else. And if you're planning to have a drink or two, arranging for a driver. There are parks with nothing particular to do in them. Usually, there's a play area, but it's carefully noted as for children only, and there's nothing for adults -- no fountains, no food carts, no little knick-knack booths (I got some cute things for my hair at Boston Common, down by Park Street station, and some jewelry, too.) No one is ever there giving a random soapbox sermon to comment on, or a fun street performance. Walking down the street, except in very select neighborhoods, you're not likely to spot something and think, on the spur of the moment, "That sounds fun. I'll do that." There don't need to be "no loitering" signs -- it's implicit.

Only, we need places to loiter. It's important to have places to loiter, to meet with people, to enjoy a spontaneous moment. Somehow, this was forgotten in the midst of a lot of very bad top-down urban planning in the 60s and 70s.

So, I became interested in placemaking.

Today, I linked from the Project for Public Spaces website to a white paper from MIT, which says, "As the cases in this paper demonstrate, today’s placemaking addresses challenges such as rising obesity rates, shrinking cities, and climate change, to name a few."

It took me a while to figure out why this was bothering me so much. I've even thought some of these things. (My personal opinion is that supermarkets are more responsible for our bad diet than McDonalds -- when you go to a place that isn't worth going into if you're shopping for less than a week at a time, you're going to get things that are stuffed with preservatives, so it doesn't go bad on you.) But it finally dawned on me.

This new placemaking is a warmed-over version of the top-down urban planning that got us into trouble in the first place. It's not meant to ease something that people already want and are missing (someplace where everybody knows their name). It's designed to MAKE PEOPLE THINK AND BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY. It's starting with the premise of changing the people in a community.

I don't necessarily think any of the goals is a bad thing. Some, I think are very good things. But they are not things you can impose. It's one thing to add a bike path because you have a lot of people in the city who want to bike a lot. It's another to add a bike path in order to make more people want to bike a lot. It's a great goal, but it's not the business of... well, anyone... to decide, "This is the way the people here should think, so we'll keep at them until they think that way." Look, I like advertising. I really do -- it's kind of the psy-ops department of the commercial and government world -- but be honest when you're advertising something. Make commercials. Make PSAs. (The Australian government managed to make one that went viral... it's not a lost cause, and I'll never be a "dumb ways to die" statistic!) Don't say, "I'm making a better world, and the first thing I need to overhaul are those stupid people I live with."

For one thing, it most likely won't work. A few people may pick it up. Others will move out, leaving it for new people who like it to come in... but if you have an entirely new population, you haven't actually fixed the place. You've kind of killed it. For another, come on... it's a little bit morally questionable to try and force everyone onto the same hobby horse, isn't it? It doesn't even matter what the hobby horse is. I don't care if you start with the premise of "Everyone should bike more" or "Everyone should go out hunting more." Look at the people you've got RIGHT NOW, and look at them as they are in reality. Start there. If the community shifts on its own, the places will shift with it. But don't use placemaking to force a shift.

Give them better spaces, by all means. And you may well find that when a city is more navigable, more people will get on bikes, and want bike paths. OR NOT. In which case, hey, it's a free country, go someplace with a community you like.

Well, if all the placemaking hasn't gentrified it out of your price range.

That's the other thing. In the brag about how much good the Bryant Park turnaround has done, they mention that rents have skyrocketed in that neighborhood, even faster than the rest of New York.

Lovely. Glad to hear the wealthy folk have a nice place to hang out. Too bad about people who can no longer afford to live there, and have to move out to the next place that will be gentrified.

We need to find a way to fix places where everyone lives. People who aren't well-to-do also live in places and use places. They shouldn't be dispossessed in the effort to make their homes better. (This is what's bothering me about some of what I'm hearing out of Buffalo. It sounds like it's really improving for the white collar yuppie crowd... and the blue collar ex-steel workers are getting the shaft again.)

I don't have a good theory about this. The more you improve a place, the more people want to live in it, and the more the market will bear. But it's very unfortunate. We need a mixed group.