The Hunger Games – Movie Review

For legions of people, The Hunger Games is the most anticipated movie release of the year. And for a movie released so early in 2012, that’s saying something. Based on the book of the same title (read my review here), The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old girl living in a post-apocalyptic America where hunger and oppression ruled, where hunting for rodents was the way to keep your family alive and where every day represents a fight for your life.

This post-apocalyptic America is the country of Panem, governed by the Capitol which oversees twelve districts, making sure they are stripped down to the bare necessities. Those twelve districts had been thirteen that rebelled against the Capitol’s oppression. They lost the war and are still paying the price, the heaviest of which is the annual Hunger Games which require each district to send a young man and woman, for a total of 24, to battle each other to the death. There can only be one victor. “May the odds be ever in your favor” is the sentence the tributes keep hearing as if odds will help them on the brink of death.

When her sister is chosen, Katniss volunteers in her place and is taken along with the male tribute of District 12, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), to the Capitol where they are groomed like lambs for slaughter in an attempt to make an impression which can make it or break it for them once the games fall upon them. And fall they do, with devastating consequences.

To see the Katniss Everdeen of your imagination after reading The Hunger Games books be incarnated so perfectly on screen by Jennifer Lawrence is a joy to the eye. Lawrence struts through every scene as if she was Katniss and Katniss was her. She exuberates confidence, sentimentality, fragility, innocence, worry, love and pain. Widely known for her Oscar-nominated role in Winter’s Bone, Lawrence is still in the same vein in The Hunger Games. This time, however, she manages to polish the sides of her performance, nitpicking until she truly becomes flawless. In Katniss, Lawrence gives you a heroine you want to root for with all your heart. It doesn’t even feel forced, it’s simply natural to feel invested in the primal force that Lawrence conveys to Katniss. And it is then that you realize the brilliance of Lawrence’s Katniss. She has managed to make her character one that is driven by principle.

Director Gary Ross manages to not let the movie’s extended run at 140 minutes affect it negatively. The Hunger Games doesn’t let down. It keeps picking up, bring in gut-wrenching revelations and action sequences one after the other. Ross uses the action of the movie to serve the characters, not drown them. He keeps the suspense going throughout. His camerawork is also highly interesting, with lots of focus on his characters’ faces, giving them a more humane appearance and seeing the struggles in them easily. Co-writing the movie’s script with the book’s author, Suzanne Collins, he stays true to the book’s essence. Even though some sequences have been shortened and some have been omitted, the feeling of the book remains there, present for you throughout to sink your eyes into.

At the center of the deathly games is a growing love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), a friend of Katniss from District 12 who’s lucky enough not to have been chosen as tribute. Liam Hemsworth quickly establishes himself as a forceful character, with the limited screentime he gets. Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is highly relatable as the man secretly crushing over Katniss whose only memory of him is him helping her in a time of need. But the greatest triumph in this regard for The Hunger Games is focusing less on the love triangle than other movies targeting the same audience, making you really not care about either Team Peeta or Team Gale. At the end of the day, the only team you want to be on is the movie.

Other actors that appear in the movie are Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, a TV host that charmingly narrates the games as they unfold. Elizabeth Banks stars as Effie Trinket, a Capitol spokesperson who’s as obnoxious as she is caring. Donald Sutherland appears as the horrible President Snow, governing his country with a hand of steel. Woody Harrelson is the always drunk Haymitch who has to sober up in order to tip the balance in his tributes’ favor.

The Hunger Games is an unflinching adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book. In many ways, the book was more suited for a screen adaptation because it is that fertile for the imagination. The movie does not falter. It’s a more serious movie than many might think it could possibly be. It is gut-wrenching at times and heavily sincere at others. It takes you on a roller coaster ride that you never want to let go of. In fact, not wanting to let go is most evident when, after 140 minutes, the movie suddenly ends and you remain in your seat wanting more. Fans of the book, rejoice. The Hunger Games does not disappoint at all. It’s a haunting tale that, coupled with a chilling score by James Newton Howard that serves as a brilliant auditory backdrop the darkest of scenes, will leave you mesmerized by how real it feels and how good it turned out to be. May the odds be ever in favor of The Hunger Games.
10/10

Lebanese Muslim Students Request Prayer Room in Maronite Antonine University

We might be the only country in the world where such a request can spark a controversy. Popular Lebanese blogger Rita Kamel wrote about the issue yesterday. Muslim students had requested a prayer room in the Antonine University, an institution conformant to the Maronite order. After their request was refused, the students saw it fit to pray in the university’s courtyard as protest.

There’s nothing wrong with students praying. But provoking their university’s administration in such a way is totally unacceptable. Going to the Antonine university, those students were aware of its regulations and its rules. If that university had had a zero-tolerance policy as some people were inferring, it wouldn’t have accepted students from outside the sects it “prefers” to begin with.

When it comes to such an issue, we tend to tred sectarian lines lightly. Any wrong sentence and all hell would break loose. But let me ask one simple question. If I, a Christian, had decided to go to Al Nour University in Tripoli (I’m assuming one exists), fully knowing that it is a Muslim university with such leanings, is it my right to ask for a chapel? In simple terms – absolutely not.

A university is supposed to be an educational institution where you go for classes and for a new life experience. It shouldn’t be a place for anyone to flaunt their religious beliefs, which are surely respected by the Antonine University simply because it allowed people from all faiths to enroll without imposing on them religious courses.

The fact remains, however, that many Muslim students have found ways to pray on many campuses without making a big deal out of things. For instance, the Lebanese Southern Club at the American University of Beirut uses the club room for praying at specific hours. It doesn’t interfere with other students nor does it make a big deal out of it.

At the end of the day, when a student applies to any university with religious leanings in Lebanon, they are more than aware of what they’re going into. If a Christian student is bugged by an Islamic-leaning university, he/she can always transfer. The same applies to Muslim students. And in case students don’t feel like attending any religious institutions, there are always a multitude of secular universities for them to go to. It’s just the way things are. No, it doesn’t reflect on our sectarian system in Lebanon negatively because universities with religious leanings are present all around the world and have administrations which would have behaved in the same way in such circumstances.

The only difference is that we, as Lebanese, tend to see any negativity surrounding our religion as a personal threat. We tend to forget that our relationship with God is not one which needs to be shown for any passerby. We tend to forget that praying is a personal matter that shouldn’t be made into national headlines. The students have a right to ask for a prayer room. The administration has the right to say no. There should be no hard feelings and there should definitely not be talks about sectarianism on the rise in Lebanon because of such an incident.

Marching For Beirut’s Hippodrome and Phoenician Port

In case you didn’t know, current Ministry of Culture has allowed for construction to take place at the location of the Roman Hippodrome in Beirut. For full details, check out this link.

Before Beirut’s hippodrome made news, however, another heritage site of ours was in danger. A Phoenician Port, over 2500 years old, in the Minet el Hosn region in Downtown Beirut, just behind Monroe Hotel. Venus Real Estate intends to build three towers instead of the port. The location, protected by former Minister of Culture Salim Warde, was compromised when Venus Real Estate used the transitory period between governments and convinced current Minister of Culture Gaby Layoun that the port was dispensable.

Details aside, Association for the Protection of Lebanese Heritage (APHL)  is marching for these monuments this Saturday, March 24th. Check out this Facebook event for the details.

I’m glad to see Lebanese people becoming proactive when it comes to things like these. Will you be marching with them?

Cheers to Our Mothers

“Do you remember when you and your brothers were kids?” My mom asked me today as she was cooking meghle. “You used to hover around me, waiting for me to finish pouring it so you can eat whatever remained in the pot. It was so much nicer when you were kids…”

Behold my mom's meghle. There's also 3adas b7amod in the background.

Mothers have this thing to them. They can nag your head off and they can worry until you start worrying about yourself. Some people are said to be motherly. Some see that as a pejorative connotation. Perhaps they are right. But the way I see it, being motherly is what this world might just be lacking for us to have more compassion towards each other.

When it comes to moms, we all think ours is the best. And the truth is ours is the best. Somehow superlative comparisons between mothers fall short of truly grasping the magnitude these creatures have on your life. Their care  towards you as a baby can change the wiring of your brain. Their love makes you who you are as a person. Even the most “unfit” of mothers, as we tend to judge them, try with all their power to care for their offspring – even above their own health and sanity sometimes.

Their nagging and worrying becomes obsolete. They are doing this because it is unnatural for them not to be caring about their sons and daughters. It is unnatural for them not to feel protective. It may be debilitating sometimes but think where you would have been if they hadn’t stayed up nights and worked through days to care for you? Have you ever thought where you would be if you hadn’t deposited your fears, hurts and worries all your life in your mother?

If you’re waiting for Mother’s Day to let your mother know you love her, then you’re doing it wrong. If you’re waiting for Mother’s Day to call you mom and give her a sentimental talk, which you’ve been putting off for a long time, then you’re doing it wrong. If you’re waiting for Mother’s Day to bring your mom a gift and make her feel special, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re waiting on annual nudge for you to remember your mom, then you are doing it wrong too.

The greatest gift any mother can get is you being around, be it physically or spiritually. The greatest gift any mother would want on Mother’s Day is not an extravagant object which will make them happy for an hour or two. The most simplistic of approaches is, perhaps, the one mothers cherish most. Sometimes telling them the words “I love you” along with a hug to show them truly how much you appreciate them can be the cure they need to get through any day, making every day for them Mother’s Day.

And when I think that such ideas are, well, overly sentimental, I stop and ask my mom: “what do you want for Mother’s Day?” She looks at me, smiles warmly, then says: “Nothing. You being here is just enough.” And you know she’s being perfectly truthful.

The greatest things mothers have done are the ones even you don’t know. You owe them all that you are and hope to be. But they will never collect. They are kind, they are smart, they are beautiful, they are the most important. And even though my mother might probably never read this, I cannot but tell her on her day that I unconditionally and irrevocably love her – the kindest, most heart-warming and sincere person I’ve ever known.

“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” – William Makepeace Thackeray

Cheers to our mothers.

Lebanese Screenwriter Finalist in the European Independent Film Festival

Grace Shalhoub Yazbek, a Lebanese screenwriter originally from the village of Douma in the Batroun caza, has qualified as a finalist for the European Independent Film Festival in the Feature Film Scripts category for her screenplay titled “Gibran.”

As the title implies, the movie is about famous Lebanese author Gibran Khalil Gibran. The approach adopted to the issue, however, was not to retell his story like many other books and movies have done but to add a more flavor to it, spanning from his birth and childhood in Becharreh, to his travels and studies in Boston – all to the backdrop of him maturing as an artist and human being, culminating in the writing of The Prophet.

Grace’s sister, Nicole, spoke to me about the possibility of her sister’s inspiration being the fact that both them and Gibran are Lebanese American heritage who were raised in Boston and as such the figure of Gibran was always an influence in their lives as well as an inspiration. In a way the Lebanon-Boston connection that the writer shared with the author on whom she’s writing gave rise to the nominated screenplay.

I wish Grace the best of luck and hope her screenplay ends up winning the big prize. Lebanese talent is sure finding its way to success lately.