#mockingjay p1

how do i explain my thoughts on it

i have mixed emotions with it really

reminds me of things in ferguson, mexico, hongkong

so theres that always at the back of my head while watching it

i think of how the movies themes would be better portrayed if katniss was cast as a poc like in the books native american or african american

i think of whether the cast is even aware of things like ferguson and how its the reality of the movie they just filmed/filming

i think of whether the casting director was aware of what would have been the implications if they hired a poc katniss

obviously theres still enough differences between all the protests happening around the world and the movie that they can deny having any opinion on the similarities

aside from the politicals i thought of the book and movie differences

the movie is fine theres some scenes i wished they kept that concerns finnick

its been awhile since i last read mockingjay but the scene i really wanted portrayed was finnick and katniss laughing in the cafeteria realizing theyre still actually in the games maybe it comes after?

i dont remember

spoilers for part 2:

I liked it. It’s a hard thing to judge on its own merits, because it really does not feel like it stands on its own—like you can’t forget at any point that this is the first of a two-parter, and that’s a weird experience to have when you’re in the movies. I don’t know what it would be like to see it without having read the book, because I think 90% of the experience of the film is the anticipation of knowing how much worse everything’s going to get. I don’t think it’s as good a movie as Catching Fire, but Catching Fire was inherently more cinematic in its content, and while Catching Fire also has that episodic feel to it because it starts mid-story and ends on a cliffhanger, but it felt more like it had its own arc to it. Part of what’s hard about doing the beginning of Mockingjay is that so much of it is establishing how broken Katniss is—like the first two movies were action movies, and Mockingjay Part 1 is a movie about the emotional fallout of those events with action set pieces. This is a movie about Katniss’s interior emotional processes instead of a battle in an arena, and that makes it sort of on a smaller scale than the previous two. I thought Jennifer Lawrence was great and that it was a very vanity-free performance—I don’t understand the criticism that Katniss was boring, because I thought she did a really lovely job showing how Katniss is really just clinging to calm with the tips of her fingers.

It’s been so long since I’ve read the books, so I can’t remember if I felt the same way about the books, but I don’t think the movies have done a great job articulating what it means to have everyone calling Katniss the Mockingjay? Like Catching Fire ends with “this is the revolution and you’re the Mockingjay,” and they didn’t really do a lot to explain the significance of that in a way that underscores what that means? Like why that symbol has weight and importance and how the people of the poorer districts have been made to survive. So everyone someone said, “you’re the Mockingjay” or “be the Mockingjay,” I was distracted by the fact that no one was questioning what that meant.

I loved: Jeffrey Wright, Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields, Mahershala Ali, Elden Henson (FULTON REEEEEED), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I absolutely loved how they balanced Heavensbee’s superficial shit with the actual military stuff, I thought that was great. I also really loved the huge disparity between the destruction of 12 and the beautiful green valleys they’re in towards the end of the film, I thought that was so well-done and so upsetting. I was surprised by Josh Hutcherson—I’ve always felt like Peeta was underwritten and that he specifically was a little underwhelming, but he was pretty heartbreaking as he got more and more broken down. 

I GOT ANOTHER KEY CHAIN FROM THE MOVIES TOO AND IT'S THE SAME AS THE CATCHING FIRE ONE I USE BUT WITH MOCKINGJAY ON THE FRONT OF THE TAG THINGY ATTACHED, AND THEN ON THE BACK OF THAT TAG IT HAS THE FIRST AND SECOND MOVIE AND THEY ALL HAVE DIFFERENT MOCKINGJAY SYMBOLS SIGH