Back during The Hunger Games, and even into Catching Fire, I didn’t really get it.

Thanks, Suzanne Collins, for making the last one more obvious for the dense ones like me. Now, I’m on board with everyone, regardless of age, reading this series if they are at all able to handle it.

Yep, I get it. And well done.

Structurally, Catching Fire is not as strong as The Hunger Games. But now, I care a lot more about the characters and this world. Consequently, there were a lot more tears.

Onto the third!

A story about an orphan boy, unappreciated talent, and the history of early film should have been right up my alley. I just thought Hugo veered around too much.

There are great action sequences in a non-action movie. There are lovely comedic, romantic, and dramatic moments but they sit as vignettes and do not blend together.

And the film seems to say that a loving family does not make a man work, meaning to function as a human being. He must have a purpose as well… unless his purpose is to find a loving family. Hmmm.

Don’t get me wrong. Hugo is definitely worth watching. The moments are all great. They just don’t stream into a whole for me.

If I Picked the Oscars 2012 (in order of my vote)

Best Picture:

• Hugo
• The Artist (have not seen)
• The Descendents (have not seen)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (have not seen)
• The Help (have not seen)
• Midnight in Paris (have not seen)
• Moneyball (have not seen)
• The Tree of Life (have not seen)
• War Horse (probably will not see)

Best Director:

• Martin Scorsese (Hugo)
• Michael Hazanavicius (The Artist), have not seen
• Alexander Payne (The Descendents), have not seen
• Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), have not seen
• Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), have not seen

And it is not even fair to put Bella up against Katniss.

The Hunger Games is not for everyone. The premise is pretty intense. In this alternate world, the geographic area of the United States has become some kind of survivalist, totalitarian regime. The people in control put on this sick reality game show where kids from the various regions must fight to the death.

I know. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s cup of tea, but based on its popularity with both younger readers and adults, it is connecting somehow.

It certainly connected with me. I went through it in one day. The read started in an airport, and I chose to chance my tendency towards motion sickness by continuing with it on the plane. Once I reached by work conference’s hotel, I stayed up to finish the book instead of getting a good night’s preparatory sleep like I had originally intended. It was definitely worth the trade off.

And I, someone who could find themes and allegories in almost anything, don’t have much to say here. I’m sure there are messages and ideas to explore, but I’m just not interested.

These rabbits are enough, just as they are.

A great change from the first book.

Lisbeth Salander, the unlikely cover girl from this series really comes into the fore here.

One of the great joys of this book is to see, from the bad guys’ perspectives, how massively they get screwed. In most crime mysteries, we follow along with the crime solver(s). The villian(s) remain(s) unknown until the end.

Here, we get to see them squirm. It’s very satisfying.

As a break from all this heavy stuff, I’m thinking that perhaps I should really watch the top twenty grossing movies in a particular year instead of the award darlings. But really, which is the worse punishment? That’s just going to be a lot of 15-word reviews.

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling play Cindy and Dean, a couple we see at two points in their relationship. The getting together and the coming apart cut back and forth throughout the movie.

From a technical standpoint, I felt that the interplay between the two time periods did not come off all the way. Because it is a slower movie dealing with such heavy emotions, it often took a while to get into a specific scene. Then, once I was into the moment, that moment was over and I had to adjust to the next, opposite one. It didn’t come off that smoothly but all the scenes were definitely done well.

After mentioning the non-indie style of Rabbit Hole, I must smile at this return to indie land, what with the shaky, grainy camera shots and the awkward angles. I felt that this did a service for Ryan Gosling and didn’t do as much for Michelle Williams. Her younger Cindy was very effective, coming off as internally mixed up and problematic as a teenage girl should be. Her older Cindy had those edges blunted, or maybe just dulled, and wasn’t as interesting. To be fair, Dean is a character that had to be more consistent throughout the film, while Cindy is the one that changed from cut to cut.

If I Picked the Oscars 2011 (in order of my vote)

Best Actress:

• Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
• Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
• Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
• Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
• Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart play a couple who are eight months removed from the accidental death of their son. You probably have a good idea what this means for the movie, and while it doesn’t really hit any radically different ground, the acting and the style of the movie manage to make it work.

The movie does well in widening the scope of this horrifying topic without losing sense of the center. We are all the stars of our own movies and the death of a child affects everyone, from the neighbors of the family to personal friends to every stranger who innocently asks, “Do you have kids?” The film puts forth their points of view in short, yet effective, bursts of screen time.

I’m typically not a Nicole Kidman fan, but she comes through here. She makes her character sympathetic, vulnerable, and understandable. Aaron Eckhart also shows a different side to his acting abilities. Instead of being a smarmy playboy, he is a warm, strong family man who is hurting and alone. The husband is not as well developed here as the female lead is, but he definitely has several powerful scenes. For me though, Dianne Wiest was the real stand out. Whenever she was in frame, I watched her.

I’m so used to seeing the indie-style applied, whether out of budgetary or artistic reasons, to movies like this. Rabbit Hole, however, looks like a movie with its rich lightening, lens choices, sets and environments. It made me remember that movies like this were once made like movies. The application felt new again.

If I Picked the Oscars 2011 (in order of my vote)

Best Actress:

• Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
• Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
• Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
• Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
• Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone)