Author Archives: dangerdorge

The Hunger Games – pt 1

Emily,

The Hunger Games film comes out this week.  Will it live up to the hype??  Is it the new Twilight???  People need to know!

Hunger Games

Fondly,

Dorigen

Dorigen,

Oh, “The Hunger Games” films will be fantastically terrible, just awful. 

They will be successful by my standards if they are watchable, as in the case with the very bad “Twilight” movies, and I have admittedly cried at each one (even after multiple viewings).  I expect to also cry at “The Hunger Games,” because those mediocre books really tugged at my heartstrings. 

To break it down in trilogy style, here is why the “The Hunger Games” will decadently fail…

Part 1

The books have been so popular, that the filmmakers will do everything in their power to stay true to the text, fearing earnest death threats from loyal preteens.  I am very open to altering content to adapt to a new medium.  The one exception being the altered ending of the final Harry Potter film; it ruined the whole film for me, and there is a danger that any change will do the same to legions of viewers of “The Hunger Games.”  But a point-by-point adaptation does not a good movie make. 

Part 2

The magnitude of the violence in the books will not be present in the films, as to retain a PG-13 rating.  This MAY be a good thing, if they keep the moments, but only through implication – i.e. the use of clever filming and sound.  For example, the scene in “Fanny and Alexander,” when Alexander is given a beating, we only hear it and see the extent of it’s violence in the expressions of the witnesses.  Still, these directorial tactics can be much more effective and therefore greatly terrify the young viewers.  Instead scenes will be cut or tempered.

Part 3

Josh Hutcherson is 4’2”. 

He plays a major role: Peeta (not a typo), who is (*spoiler*) a love interest of the main character, Katniss (also not a typo).  By unfair comparison, the other love interest, Gale (yes, it’s a boy’s name in this world) played by Miley Cyrus’s boyfriend (therefore, no real name necessary), is somewhere around 8’11’’.  Really any character will need to be filmed twenty paces behind him and on a down slope to make it look like they are walking side by side.  I can’t image the cost of making all of those moats for Katniss to stand in so she only has to only slightly lean down to kiss him.  Ok, so supposedly, Hutcherson is really 5’7”, but, come on, it’s a small 5’7”.

Epiloguely speaking, “The Hunger Games” will make gazillions of dollars and will certainly find their spot in my DVD collection, where they will not collect dust, but they will collect shame.

Love you,

Emily 

Welcome to my Home

Dear Emily,

I have moved into the Money Pit.  A wall is falling down, there’s a hole in the kitchen floor, and none of the outlets have more than two prongs.  I was genuinely curious why the rent was so cheap.  Now I know.

My life has become a family comedy.  But it’s not funny.  Then again, neither was this:

Which leads me to my question.  Do you remember the late 1980s?  What happened between then and now that turned Ice Cube from Gangsta:

To loveable pudgy everyman starring in family films?

Just curious.

Dorigen

Dorigen,

Yes, “what DID happen to Ice Cube?!”  …and to Ice T for that matter.  This man made the term “cop killer” popular, and then promptly played one on TV, “Law and Order: SVU,” or should I say, SUV (the family vehicle, *snap*). 

OR, should I say “SWV” (Sisters with Voices, and very long finger nails), because according to this, they are making a come back this year with a song entitled “I Missed Us.”  Me too girls, me too.

But, I’m clearly just stalling in answering your very valid question about Ice Cube.  The easy answer would be for me to say that he “sold out,” but really what I think happened here was that he just “grew up.”  The man has five children, and perhaps tried to do right by them. 

Now, one could argue that you can “keep it real,” even with a large brood, like Ol’Dirty Bastard.  But, then again, he was once filmed taking his THIRTEEN children to the welfare office.  That crazy, beautiful man has had so many children and such a nonsense art style that I feel I should have taken a blood test a long time ago. 

daddy?

I stand by my answer of Ice Cube just growing up; like Stuart Smalley, he metaphorically decided to wear a new sweater one day, albeit a really lame sweater. 

To put this into a personal perspective… If I’d stayed true to my goth high school days, my distain for the world would be much less upbeat, and a hundred times less cute.

Change is a good thing, so long as it makes you happy and/or a lot of money.    

Emily 

P.S. We will work on the new place when I visit next weekend!  Sisters!

Chokers

Emily,

I am too busy at work to have complete thoughts today so have gone to the comments for this one.  Thanks P/O.
“Chokers: soon to be back in style?”

God, I hope not,

Dorigen

Dorigen and P/O,

May I first just point out that I 100% have Shannen Doherty’s hair from the above picture right now.  I was also recently told that I look like Daria, but that I “probably get that comment a lot.”

*Ahem*, I DO NOT get that comment a lot, and I hope to never get it again by NEVER being seen with my arms crossed and in a surly disposition.  Wait, I’m sort of surly right now and crossing my arms over this keyboard.  Still, thank you, my dear sister, for pointing out that at least I wasn’t told I look like Velma.

Zoinks!  I guess you’re right.  Anywho, I concur with my sister’s concern about chokers.  This happened recently

…and it is a sign of the Apocalypse.  An Apocalypse caused by us all choking ourselves to decadently bejeweled death.  Let the neck breath!  What?  A high neckline isn’t demure enough and you have to cover up the inches between it and your chin?  Show us a small patch of skin, so we know you’re still alive.

Confession time: I remember that in the 1990’s (high school) I used to perma-wear a black ribbon knotted around my neck.  It would rot off after a couple of months, and then I’d replace it with another.

Now I see fit to judge others, and I thank you to stare.

Emily

Dowager Countess

Emily,

Is there some way I can grow up to be like the Dowager Countess of Grantham?  I need to start working on my one-liners.

Dorigen

Dorigen,

Let me first admit that despite frequent recommendations, I have yet to watch Masterpiece Theatre: Downton Abbey.  Your question is foreign to me.  It’s like me asking you how I can be more like my girl Raja from RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 3 (a season, I know you have not yet seen). 

The answer, of course, is to get down to my birth weight and to slightly cross one eye; however, I think the answer to your question about Dowager Countess is more complex, even for an avid viewer.  Still, I’m always up for a challenge and for making some shit up based on very little information (i.e. just the provided video), so here goes…

First off, Maggie Smith is excessively old (damn near 80).  She’s at an age where a status website may soon be posted, a la Abe Vigoda.

Being the oldest person in the room allows for certain advantages, like saying whatever you want, using a vocabulary developed over many years of reading dense literature and the occasional scandalous romance novel.  Oscar Wilde is great homework for one liners.  Developing a distain for all things “modern” seems also necessary for Countess emulation.  Perhaps wear more hats, larger for more superiority. 

One day we will both be so seasoned.

Emily

 

P.S. I am now half way through season 2 of Downton, and am loving it.  I stand by my previous notions about the Countess.

Coachella

Emily,

Does the fact that I’m middle-aged and going to a music festival with my husband mean that I’ve become what I’ve once dreaded: The Aging Hipster?

Dorigen

Dorigen,

You are not an aging hipster.  You are not a Janeane Garofalo.  An aging hipster is a matter of 1) time/place and 2) whatnot.  Allow me to explain:

TIME/PLACE

Long ago, as a senior college student at a small town Midwestern liberal arts college, I attended the first party of the year and found in attendance a guy who had graduated just a few months prior.  He was cool when he attended school and was the same person as before, but he was universally mocked for not immediately moving on with the times.  “What’s HE doing here?  Didn’t he graduate?”

Sometimes the social need to move on has a very tight window.  However, this is not the case in New York City.  You live in a wonderland of adult freedom, where you can do whatever the hell you want for as long as you damn well please, and everyone does so with style.  In New York “aging hipster” is a misnomer for “fashionable sophisticate.”      

image from: The Sartorialist

WHATNOT

Janeane Garofalo is an example of: the “whatnot” that she wears = aging hipster.  There’s even a website defining her as such.

image from: Wake Up Black America

She is stuck in 90’s attire – thick black leather snap bracelets, white wife beater tanks, ill fitting sag jeans, and combat boots.  IF you wear anything truly 90’s (not to be confused with the off-center 90’s redo of Urban Outfitters) to Coachella, then you WILL be an aging hipster.  To clarify, this also includes a white baby T with a full length, floral print, spaghetti strap dress and a frail, synthetic fabric cardigan tied around your waist. 

Just keep it cute, and you’re fine.

Emily