(no subject)

[shadowkat]

1. Watching Private Screenings with Liza Minelli on TCM - where she discusses her father, Vincent Minelli's directorial technique. Makes you appreciate the fine art of direction - which is 85% of film.It's a visual medium more than anything else. And you can tell a well-directed film vs. a poorly directed one. In one bit she discusses the classic film Home from the Hill starring Robert Mitchum, George Peppard and George Hamilton. The actors had completely different styles. With Mitchum, he knew all he had to do was give him the staging and let him go, with Peppard who was method - he had to work with him more - give him his motivation, and with George...he was a new-comer and had to give him line readings.

I love this line: When Gene Kelly danced - you knew it was a great number, when Fred Astair danced, you felt like he was making it up on the spot. - Liza Minelli.

It's an interesting way of distinguishing the two. For me? Kelley is raw emotion, while Astair is effortless grace. I'd say I prefer one over the other? But it depends. Kelley is amazing in An American in Paris and Singing in the Rain, smart-alek, yet raw, with a muscular grace, like Bugs Bunny, and Astair in Daddy Long Legs, Band Wagon (my favorite of the Astair flicks), and Funny Face - who had such effortless grace...he would fall into a waltz or a tap as if he were just deciding to walk across a room.

Liza repeats her mother's advice on acting and her fathers. Her mother says you have to figure out why that person is saying and if it is really that, and if she isn't really saying that, what else would she say - and she had me rehearse a line with her. Don't say what you're really thinking, say what you should say, and everything you are really thinking should come from the eyes. Her father says acting is hearing and saying it as if you are saying it for the very first time.

It's a craft and a difficult one, which the true pro's make look easy. Like pure magic. It's the magician who stands up in front of you and pulls that bunny out of the hat, effortlessly.

2. I'm enjoying Hunger Games more than expected. Katniss is actually quite interesting and I like her. I don't understand why people said she's not the most touchy feely or likable character at first? I like her much better than I did Buffy at first. She's tough. She loves her sister too pieces. Is a tom boy, and not that into the girly crap. Where's the problem? (bewildered).

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm admittedly reading this very slowly. Still on the first chapter. But I only read it in snatches - such as whenever I'm traveling or waiting for trains, so it's ten minutes here, and ten there, and twenty here, and twenty there. Did the same thing with Swords, which means it takes me forever...hee.

But I think I'll tear through this faster, since going on vacation soon - which means more time for reading.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Be forewarned. Book 2 ends on a cliffhanger. (Book one leaves threads to be picked up but it's not a full-blown cliffhanger like Book 2).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Should probably order all three on Kindle and be prepared. Am reading one now and it's definitely holding my attention - gripping in fact. Just wish I had the time to indulge.

The book feels like a dark political satire in places - reminding me a great deal of George Orwell and Shirley Jackson, who both did similar takes on the concept. There's also shades of Roger Cormier - The Chocolat War, and Ronald Dahl.

Rather impressed and I'm only 20-30 pages into it. The Kindle is giving me the large print version - which is very nice to my eyes, after reading the tiny print of Storm of Swords for three months.

[(Anonymous)]

he book feels like a dark political satire in places

Oh, it definitely is. This become increasingly apparent over the course of the series. There's a great deal about propoganda and the way it screws things up. There's the overlap of how death and war become reality TV. How the news has made it increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from propoganda (and at times out and out lies). How politics employ propoganda and TV coverage for political means. All of that pops up at some point. And the lines become so blurred that it's hard for the people in the story to distinguish what's actually real and what were roles played out for an audience to serve a certain end.

I also liked the way Haymitch and in book two the other Hunger Games vets show that that while the losers of the games lose their lives the 'winners' souls are damaged (in a variety of ways.) (::pets Johanna and Finnick::) (Though I didn't like the beginning of Book II. It got better as it went on though).

I was also interested by the fact that as we were introduced to the 'winners' that it seemed that more often than not brains must have bested pure brawn. There seemed to be at least as many female winners as male.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hey, watch the spoilers!!! I haven't read them yet! ;-)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I tried to keep it vague. (And that was me).
And I suspect if you love Katniss you'll also have affection for Johanna.