Tag Archives: YouTube

WWE’s Daniel Bryan Is a Good Dude

I’m not the type of person to normally gush over feel good stories, nor do I particularly like children, but occasionally some story comes along that will make my heart swell and remind me to stop being a hate filled shrew of a man, and remember that sometimes people can be pretty damn great. Case in point, WWE Tag Team Champion Daniel Bryan visited Connor, a 7 year old boy with cancer, whose wish was for Bryan to visit him and let him put Bryan into the No-Lock submission hold. After making a YouTube video asking Daniel Bryan to visit him, people on Facebook and other social media used their powers for good to bring attention to 7 year old Connor Michalek’s wish, and sure enough Daniel Bryan visited the kid. Daniel Bryan then met him, and dutifully let Connor put him into the No-Lock, and tapped out for him. Video here.

daniel-bryan-good-dude

I like stories like this. It makes me feel good that one of my favorite wrestlers is a damned good human being as well. I can imagine myself as a kid, and if I had gotten sick there would have been nothing I would have liked more than to meet Mick Foley and give him the Mandible Claw. Seeing Daniel Bryan showing up and being there for the kid is a good reminder that not everything and everyone in the world is a jaded, pompous jerk. On top of that, how cool is that kid that what he wanted to do was not just meet him, but make Daniel Bryan tap out? That fact alone makes me wish the kid can pull through his battle with his terrible disease. Cancer is the absolute worst, and along with the bevy of treatment and care people need to overcome or manage it, a healthy attitude and positive thinking certainly helps a lot along the way. The fact that this kid got to make Daniel Bryan tap out gives me hope that he’ll make it, and fills me with so much respect for Daniel Bryan.

daniel-bryan-good-dude-connor

The other that makes this story even better than it already is, is that Connor calls himself “Stonecrusher”, and his brother Jackson calls himself “Jack The Ripper” when they play wrestling video games. How cool is this kid that he’s already got a wrestling name and persona at 7? Hopefully he’ll overcome his disease, and he and his brother can grow up, join wrestling school, where Connor is still Stonecrusher and his brother is still Jack The Ripper, but together they’re The New Demolition.

Altogether though, what a great story, and what a great wish to make. All jokes about tag teams and wrestling aside, I really do hope Connor overcomes his cancer. Any kid that cool deserves to.

H+ Web Series: Google Hangout

Had you told me 20 years ago as I sat at a computer and played “Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego” that one day I would be able to talk to people face to face on that computer, I’d probably have laughed at you. The fact that I can video chat with one sister in Louisiana one minute and then video chat with my other sister in Israel moments later is just stunning. There are times I have to stop myself and think “holy shit, I can’t believe this is even possible”.

I get the same feeling when it comes to things like Google Hangout. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial with the chick showing her friends she got engaged or (I think) the one with the baby walking for the first time. Basically it is a group video chat and while that sounds so simple, it’s amazing at the same time. I’ve had the opportunity to use Google Hangouts quite often with friends of mine and it’s somewhat awe-inspiring when I sit back and think how cool it is that people from New York and Washington (state) and California and Georgia are all able to see and talk to each other at the same time. Not to mention, Google has actually built a rather good program here.

I’ve used Skype and Tango quite a bit in the last few years and don’t get me wrong, they are great, but somehow Google takes what they have done and makes it that much better. I’ve found that the picture is clearer and the sound quality is light years better. Long story short, if you aren’t using Google Hangouts, you should be.

What does all this have to do with H+, The Digital Series?

Well, they decided to hold a Google Hangout themselves.

They aren’t the first to do this, as the cast and crew of The Guild have done quite a few as have various other people and groups. It makes sense for a show like H+ to jump on board given their topic and premise of their series.

If you aren’t familiar with H+ The Digital Series, you can read this review from a couple of months ago to brush up. Quite a bit has happened since I wrote that initial review and I’m happy to say, it’s all been good. I’m not going to give any details because I really do hope people will go and watch the series.

As for the Hangout, it was moderated by Fraser Cain of universetoday.com and was attended by writer/creator’s John Cabrera & Cosimo de Tommaso, producers Jason Taylor and Bryan Singer (yes that Bryan Singer), and director Stewart Hendler.

If you watch the hangout yourself (which I would recommend because it’s rather interesting) you’ll see that they don’t really talk about the plot lines of the show that much which I found to be nice because I’m a few “episodes” behind and didn’t really want to be spoiled. They talk quite a bit about how the show came to be, the steps they took in taking it from concept to a television pitch to then ultimately a web series.

The parts that I found to be most interesting was when they talked about filming the series in its entirety in 29 days. There are going to be 48 episodes and they are all about 6-8  minutes long which ends up being about 5 hours of finished product. To get the amount of material to end up with 5 hours of finished product in only 29 days is remarkable. I don’t know about anyone else, but it makes me appreciate the series all the more. Also, I would have never guessed that they filmed solely in Santiago, Chile. That means they made Santiago look like California, Oregon, The Republic of Congo, Ireland, England, Finland, Italy, and India. That’s impressive.

It was quite cool to see a director/producer of Bryan Singer’s caliber just sitting in a living room chatting on the computer. He talked quite a bit about finding Steward Hendler as director of the series and how the project had originally been planned for TV. Really it seems like this is John Cabrera’s baby. When he talks about the show you can just see how much he cares for it and hopes for its success. He touched on something I had wondered watching the show, which were the subtitles. Given that it does take place in so many different places, there is quite a bit of subtitling. However, not everything is subtitled. While talking in the Hangout, Cabrera says that they did it on purpose. Their hope was that people who might speak that language would come to the aid of those who didn’t and it would just be one more way for the viewers to come together. That’s exactly what has happened. There’s been numerous times I’ve scrolled through YouTube comments and seen where someone has provided a translation.

Perhaps the best thing to come out of the conversation was the news that while WB had not yet ordered season/Chapter 2, the script is being worked on. With 6.6 million views on YouTube so far and 104K subscribers, I’m clearly not the only one wanting Chapter 2 to happen. If nothing else, it is exciting to be a part of a new medium come into its own. Here’s hoping that H+ The Digital Series is just another part of a massive wave of internet based content in the near future.

In the meantime, catch up on H+over on YouTube, and why not follow Grizzly Bomb on Google+ as well? [Ed.Note: I approve this shameful plug]

Bryan Singer’s Latest Project: “H+ The Digital Series:

Where were you on April 23rd, 2005? I don’t remember where I was. Hell, I don’t remember what I was doing yesterday, much less seven and a half years ago.

Thankfully we do know where this guy was.

Jawed Karim was uploading the first ever video on YouTube.

Since that day YouTube has become an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. According to Alexa, YouTube is the third most visited site on the internet. Not hard to see why, as not a single day passes where I don’t look something up on the site. It can range everywhere from the completely absurd, to the extremely useful. A good amount of the time it is for either a music video or web series. In the past year or so, YouTube has made a conscious move from being a bastion of baby crying videos to being a viable entertainment option. With everything from live streamed concerts to “web tv” style channels, they’ve started their march, and with big names coming to play, the future is looking bright.

One of those potential bright stars is a new offering from director/producer extraordinaire Bryan Singer and his production company, Bad Hat Harry.

Welcome to H+, The Digital Series. It is directed by Stewart Hendler of Sorority Row fame. Okay if Sorority Row doesn’t blow your skirt up, he is also the director of the upcoming Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

The premise? Well it’s simple- an implant is developed and released to the public that enables them to turn their brains into computers with a heads up display. The idea is based on the transhumanism ideology that man is in a constant move forward and that in the not too distant future, technology will play an even larger role in that evolutionary move. Played Deus Ex? It’s sort of like that, but not really.

So pretty much everyone has these implants and they can bring up their iTunes library while walking down the street, or watch a football game while driving, although this is dangerous and apparently illegal. Their vital organs are being constantly monitored which conceivably stave off preventable diseases such as diabetes.

Sounds great. It is great. It’s great until “The Event”.

And that’s all I’m telling you. Mainly because I don’t know much beyond that myself. The series debuted on August 8th and has put up an episode, each roughly 4-6 minutes long, every Wednesday since then. I sat and watched them in sequence and truthfully, was sort of frustrated because I so badly wanted to like it. Each episode was of a different time and different place, and different people. Then it jumps back to the original group/time. The disjointed storytelling just wasn’t doing it for me.

Then I watched this vlog from John Cabrerra, one of the creators and writers of the series (who also was on Gilmore Girls which I could not place for hours until it finally came to me as I ate a bowl of peas- and there’s a glimpse into my daily life, welcome) and after a few tweaks, I was really enjoying the series.

See, H+ is not your normal web series in which you sit down and watch episode a through z and it all forms a nice, compact, linear story. Instead, this series is composed of “moments of time and space” that you can move around to however you desire. I set up a playlist for myself where it was linear and each location told it’s story at one time. However, no one is forcing you to make your own playlist- if you want to watch them as they air, have at it. Whatever floats your boat.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! You can head over to hplusdigitalseries.com and see pictures, short bios, and an interactive map which did clue me in that the locations we’ve already seen, are not all there are. Something to look forward to.

I know another thing I am looking forward to seeing is fellow St. Louis native, Sean Gunn,  (I’m not really a native but I did graduate from high school there, same as Mr. Gunn) also a Gilmore Girls alum. As far as I can tell so far, he plays some sort of technology hating man who has to rely on some sort of technology to get around. Yay conflict!

Check out the existing episodes on their YouTube page and tune in on Wednesdays for new episodes.
And let us know what you think- are the transhumanists right and we are headed for an inevitable takeover by technology in our day-to-day lives? Or is the iPhone5 about as far as we are going to get?

Either way, it’s an interesting conversation to have and an entertaining series to watch.

Female Gamers are People, Too.

I don’t know if you know this, but female gamers are kind of a big deal.

To be more precise, female gamers are a big deal because they have recently been the center of attention for many large news stories in the video game and popular culture industries. Why? Because they are being sexually bullied and harassed by people who apparently find fulfillment in such mean-spirited actions. Do you remember when you got pushed off the swing in elementary school, and then called names in high school, and then betrayed by your boy/girlfriend in college? The harassment against female gamers is like all of these situations rolled into one, except female gamers tend to never see their bullies face-to-face.

Gamer Jenny Haniver records and transcribes all sexually or otherwise demeaning discussions/messages that are hurled her way on Xbox Live. She blogs about them on her site, Not in the Kitchen Anymore, to try to shed light on the continually growing issue of online harassment against females. One glance through just the first page and you feel like you have to go wash your eyes and brain out with lye. Jenny’s experiences caught the attention of the BBC, and they featured her (along with Grace of Fat, Ugly, or Slutty) in a recent article titled “Sexual harassment in the world of video gaming.”

That same BBC article outlined another instance of very blatant sexual harassment that occurred in February at Capcom’s first fighting game reality show, Cross Assault. On day one of the tournament, Aris Bakhtanians, coach of the professional Tekken team, defended the inclusion and use of sexual harassment because it was simply “part of the community” of fight games; on day five, he implemented some of this sexual harassment towards female gamer Miranda Pakozdi, who became so upset by his insults that she forfeited the match entirely. Gamers around the world, outraged, took to the Internet to show their support for Pakozdi and to inquire after Capcom for not intervening in the situation already on day one when Bakhtanians said that “rape that bitch” was an acceptable insult because “(W)e’re in America… we can say what we want.”

Courtesy of gaurdian.co.uk

In a final example of harassment against female gamers, Anita Sarkeesian received a massive backlash of hatred and vandalism when she started a Kickstarter campaign to create a video series called “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.” Some people even went so far as to hack and put up an explicit picture on Sarkeesian’s Wikipedia page and change her biography to call her a cunt. Sarkeesian was interviewed by none other than Wired magazine about the situation. On her blog, she said, “I am certainly not the first woman to suffer this kind of harassment and sadly, I won’t be the last. But I’d just like to reiterate that this is not a trivial issue. It can not and should not be brushed off by saying, ‘oh well that’s YouTube for you,’ ‘trolls will be trolls,’ or ‘it’s to be expected on the internet.’ These are serious threats of violence, harassment and slander across many online platforms meant to intimidate and silence. And it’s not okay.” (Feminist Frequency)

Of course, female gamers themselves are nothing new; they have been around for quite a while, and they’re a strong community in the video game industry. There’s even a group of professional female gamers known as the Frag Dolls who have been around since 2004, thanks to Ubisoft; they aim not only to kick some serious butt in video games but also to promote the interests of female gamers everywhere.


However, it’s only been within the last few years that the majority of female gamers have voiced their complaints and concerns about the large presence of sexism and misogyny within the larger gaming community. Gaming news sites have fortunately paid close attention to these situations and so the female gamers’ cause has come out in the open. In fact, a video series called Extra Credits has started a campaign against Xbox Live’s online platform, and Microsoft has actually responded to the campaign, saying that they are going to work to improve the sexual harassment situation. Time will tell if the gaming giant will follow through on its word.

In the meantime, every one of us gamers can do our own part to stop harassment and bullying against female players. If you’re one of those who bashes on the women whom you run across on Xbox Live, or if you’re one of those women who dishes it right back, the only way to make the gaming community a safe, enjoyable group for all of us is to avoid participating in and voicing such overzealous, hateful tirades even if we feel like it. Hopefully, in time, the encouraging, just-out-to-have-fun voices will start to overcome the hateful ones and fill the audiowaves of headsets around the world.

For more articles related to this story, check out these links:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/its-a-mans-virtual-world-20120627-211du.html
http://www.destructoid.com/sexual-harassment-and-fightin-drama-together-at-last–222877.phtml
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/sexual-harassment-as-ethical-imperative-the-ugly-side-of-fighting-games
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/mar/06/are-gamers-really-sexist
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/04/28/team-evil-geniuses-manager-anna-prosser-believes-more-female-gamers-will-turn-pro/
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/722118/just-one-of-the-boys-female-gamers-in-multiplayer-games/

Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Announced! Where My Nazi Zombies at?

November 13th, 2012 – You will probably not see Dr. Kronner and I for a week after that date. Via Gamespot, the announcement that came to the surprise of exactly no one was released and it is that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is announced to come out in November, just in the usual CoD launch window that Activision always delivers on to make sure their Q4 numbers are spiked.

So what can we expect from this game? Probably more of the same. Let’s be honest, Call of Duty is becoming the Madden of first person shooters. The differences are pretty miniscule between each individual series. By that, I mean the Modern Warfare series and the Black Ops/World at War series. Both are developed by Infinity Ward and Treyarch respectively, and I honestly prefer the single player of the MW series over Black Ops. However, I will say the multiplayer of Black Ops and the Treyarch team is superior. That and it has nazi zombies which is simply the best party game amongst our group of friends since Goldeneye and WCW/NWO Revenge or Smash Bros or Mario Kart. So with this game, what I’m looking forward to is seeing what improvements they have done to multiplayer, new modes, guns, all that jazz. Of course the maps. As long as I don’t get more maps like Cracked or Hanoi, I will be a happy dude. I almost said happy camper, but that would just make me be a dick.

Anyways, on CallofDuty.com, the reveal shows that it will be tonight on TNT for the NBA Playoffs so I’m sure I’ll update this article tonight once the trailers hit YouTube and the such. Activision in the UK actually jumped the gun before taking down the splash page for the new game by apparently showing the Los Angeles in ruin, not unlike NYC in the last MW game. Other places like China, Japan, and Afghanistan were shown too so like always, this will be a global affair. Again, we await more details to come out so stay tuned to this post once we get more info.

So it’s basically Terminator and Skynet. That’s cool. Maybe some Cowboys and Aliens. Maybe not that cool. Am I playing it? Child please.

A Look at Teen Culture and Our Thoughts on THE HUNGER GAMES

Being a high schooler in 2012 is possibly one of the most tiring things a human being can do. And when I say tiring, I don’t mean because of the work, because the homework is never as difficult as they say. It’s tiring because every damn week there’s a new trend that everyone is pressured into keeping up with. As the months proceed, I feel more and more behind the times because I can’t get into things until they’re not popular anymore. Call me what you want, but I seriously have no desire to flock to a line at 5 PM and wait for 7 hours to see a movie that I may or may not like.

Planking, coning, memes, Harry Potter, Glee, The Hunger Games, hipsters, auto-correct fails, Tumblr, Twitter, StumbleUpon, rage face, GIFs, Temple Run, StarKid, One Direction, remakes, 80s revival, skinny jeans, Urban Outfitters, frameless sunglasses, wayfarers, iPads, suspenders, bowties, Skype, screenshots, cats and cocaine in the same picture, dubstep, owling, swag, Odd Future, parkour, genre bending, cute Asian babies, being a liberal, tea, independent coffee shops, mustaches, general facial hair, European lifestyles, being a fake vegan, Words with Friends, Google, trolling, Ryan Gosling, Spotify, being clever, being sarcastic, being an asshole, messy hair, high waisted pants, desert boots, headbands, rain, rainbows, photobombing, henna, links, black people, Kony, hand jewelry, henna tattoos, coconut water, being first, Lana Del Rey, Adele, Dev, small venues, “Tosh.O”, homelessness, irony, sleeve tattoos, hair, vintage anything, thrifting, Goodwill, sweaters, Jason Segel, braids, bikes, lipstick, pixie cuts, Neil Patrick Harris, “How I Met Your Mother”, “New Girl”, “Portlandia”, “Game of Thrones”, puns, bad jokes, anti-jokes, dimples, being cute, puppies, kitties, “Tosh.O”, “Awkward”, “Workaholics”, Paul Rudd, “Key and Peele”, Netflix, Hulu, anything but YouTube, viral videos, CGI, 3D, velvet, skirts, leggings, jeggings,  and yes, even Pokemon, are a few of the many, many things that the kids are doing these days. In fact, by the time I post this, a few of these things might even be irrelevant.

See, I’m not necessarily opposed to all of these popular things, because to be honest I’m a fan of most of these things. I just fear the children of our generation and how easily they can flee from one item of popular culture. I remember just two years ago when “die-hard” Twilight fans would literally get into fist fights about Jacob vs. Edward. Now, they couldn’t care less about what the hell Taylor Lautner is up to. But for aspiring actors and artists and musicians, isn’t that terrifying? Aren’t you scared that unless you’re able to stay as relevant as the youth is demanding, you’ll be cast away in the sea of other former Grammy winners and franchise stars? I mean for God’s sake, anytime I mention Justin Bieber to somebody, they say, “Justin Bieber? You’re joking right? It’s about One Direction, now.” I remember a time when anytime I said something remotely negative about the Biebs, I would get smacked in the freaking face.

As a teenager, I respect the fact that teens are looking for a new piece of entertainment to hold on to. We get bored quickly, I get it. But as an aspiring filmmaker and musician, I’m terrified that if I ever create something remotely popular, a mere three months after I’ll be referred to as “the guy who made that one good song” or “the guy who made that one good movie”. And I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything like that, but if you’re a teenager and reading this, think about it. Do you still love Twilight like you may have when it first came out?

I blame this on the rapidly shrinking attention spans of teens. When I was around 5, I remember patiently waiting twenty minutes for a video or a computer game to load, and I got super excited when it was finally loaded. Now, unless a webpage loads in like 12 seconds, I start freaking out about how slow the internet is. So yes, I admit that I have adopted the impatience as the rest of my generation, but what can be expected of a world where things as enticing as text messages, instant messages, micro blogging, and video sharing are just a click and scroll away!

Even my parents have become completely consumed with all the new technological appliances surrounding them. I’m the only person left in my family who doesn’t have an iPhone, and whether for work purposes or not, the thing I hear most in my house now is “Hey, Joey, can I use your iPad?” I find myself sending more texts and emails for them while they’re driving than I do for myself. Not a complaint, just an observation. Sorry to put you on the spot, mom.

All I’m saying is, I think we need to slow down just a little bit. We’re ingesting all this information, and we don’t know what to do with all of it. It’s a reality that becomes truer and more prevalent with every iOS update. My advice? If you’re going to fry your mind staring at a computer screen for eight to ten hours a day, at least do what I do and go outside while you’re doing it. Because if you don’t, you’ll probably just end up overusing technology and your life will become eerily similar to that of the characters in Up. Or, they could go the exact opposite way, and we could have a second holocaust, much like what happens in The Hunger Games. It’s really up for debate at this point.

The Hunger Games, based on the bestselling series by Suzanne Collins, follows Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a skilled hunter and matriarchal figure to her younger sister, Primrose (Willow Shields). In this futuristic dystopia, food is given to those who enter their name into a contest called “The Hunger Games”. Every year, there’s a Reaping Day where two names, one boy and one girl, from each of the twelve districts is handpicked by Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), one of the faces of the Hunger Games. The twelve districts are named as such due to class, and district twelve, the poorest of them all, is home to the Everdeen family.

During the Reaping, against all odds, Primrose is selected, despite her name only being in the bowl once. Out of fear, Katniss volunteers herself as tribute, or, as a contestant in the games. Both delighted and surprised, Trinket proceeds to pick a boy, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a farmer boy who’s had a crush on Katniss for years. The two are then taken to the Capitol, who now controls the twelve districts after they waged war about a century earlier.

Their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) guides them as they train for the games, while they are dolled up for national television on a program hosted by Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), who looks strangely like the evil Inspector Gadget from the Matthew Broderick version. All of this is in preparation for the big day. For the Hunger Games.

When I first saw the trailers for The Hunger Games, I groaned in displeasure as I saw what looked to be the next Twilight. After seeing the film, a part of me is right, and another part of me is wrong. On a scale of Eragon to Harry PotterThe Hunger Games places a little bit above The Twilight Saga: Eclipse but lower than Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In human being language, that basically means that it’s pretty good, but not great. With a great performance by Woody Harrelson, and a decent one by Jennifer Lawrence, as well as some fantastic set pieces that don’t suffer from too much CGI, The Hunger Games definitely isn’t the worst movie you could see this weekend.

In fact, it’s definitely the most exciting, but a lot more could have been done to create quality entertainment. For one, hire a new director for God’s sake. Not since Catherine Hardwicke’s clunky directing in the first Twilight film have I seen such unnecessarily shaky and displeasing camerawork. I swear, watching Katniss walk through a forest was the equivalent of a three year old child who happened to get hold of a camcorder. It truly was awful, and in attempt to be edgy, it just ends up looking stupid. I hoped and prayed that once the action started, that crap would stop. But no, it didn’t, it got worse. Even my friend who I saw the movie with said to me, “Dude is your head starting hurt from all the shakiness or is it just me?”

Another thing that might have enhanced the whole movie was to appeal to people who aren’t familiar with the source material. As a big budget blockbuster, you have to appeal to mass audiences, emphasis on the mass. Not everyone who’s going to see this movie has read the original books, so it’s important that as a filmmaker you introduce these new terms and characters and plot points at a comfortable pace for everybody. It’s the same thing that my teachers always say, “Pretend like you’re writing this essay for somebody who has no idea what you’re writing about.” It just gives the audience more of a reason to care about what’s going on in the movie.

My final complaint is the PG-13 rating. I get it, you wanted to make a lot of money. You wanted to start a franchise. You wanted everyone to go and see this movie. But with the shaky cam, and the beautifully designed sets, why not just slash the budget in half, cut the caterers, and take the R-Rating. It would have enhanced the film’s second half, and it probably would have made everything even more intense. Not that the action doesn’t already push the envelope, because it really does, but I came to this movie to see people getting cut up and sliced open. And if I don’t get that, what stops me and thousands of other people from just going and re-watching Battle Royale, since it’s essentially the exact same premise.

As far as the positives, there are plenty as well. Once the games actually start, the intensity level rises to a million and it doesn’t let go for the entire 90 minutes that we’re following the characters through the games. At 144 minutes, The Hunger Games sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. What it does feel like, though, is a prelude to something bigger. Something even more exciting and even more dramatic than this first installment in what is sure to be the biggest franchise since the Boy Who Lived hit the silver screen.

I know, I know, I’m being a little tough on this movie. But that’s only because I want this franchise to be successful. I really do. There were a lot of redeeming qualities that I wished had been used to their fullest extent. Instead, I feel like we’re only getting a half-assed product. With that being said, half assing something this epic is still better than all the crappy horror flicks released this year combined. The Hunger Games is really just a film meant to be seen with a group, in IMAX, in a big theater, with your friends. It’s an experience that really only takes full effect with a giant screen and two of your funniest friends cracking jokes at all the unintentional hilarity that occurs. And while this is all fun and dandy now, when it comes time to look back on this franchise, will it be seen as one that really changed the way we look at films, and the way we look at big budget flicks? Probably not.

If you ask me, the whole movie is just a metaphor for the holocaust. The way they line them up, make them dress up in plainclothes, the way they glamorize everything, the propaganda. It all makes sense if you look at it from a historical perspective. The thing that really got me going on that was the scene in the very beginning where they show a short PSA from the Capitol on how important the Hunger Games were to the survival of the economy and their people. Basically, spewing all this crap in a failed attempt to get people to not panic so much. But author Suzanne Collins says the whole thing is based on Greek Mythology, so I guess I’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Still, go see the movie. Love it, enjoy it, revel in all of its glory. I admit that there’s a little kid in me that got excited when things got tense, but as a critic I have a duty to tell you what the film really boils down to. A series of missed opportunities that still amounts to a halfway decent action flick. So, have a happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

3/5 Bears