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Conditions: Pretty Nice

Computers Are Evil

Easter is a traditional time for religious leaders to make grand announcements, and this one is no different:

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict, leading the world's Catholics into Easter, said on Saturday technological progress, in the absence of awareness of God and moral values, posed a threat to the world.
[...]

"The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil," he said.

"The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general," he said.

Benedict, repeating one of the central themes of his pontificate, said man was too often in awe of technology instead of being in awe of God.

- indiatimes.com/

And that's a good point, and well made, but I'm not entirely sure that a shunning of technology is going to right the problems. After all, the crusades was all about embracing the awe of god and shunning technology, right? And that wasn't cool.



Film Review: The Hunger Games

They have compared it to a few different famous movies like Logan's Run or Twilight for example, but the main film I thought of during my screening was the old Schwarzenegger classic: The Running Man. Of course it has none of the bite or the grit of The Running Man, but the parallels are obvious. In a dystopian future, people are regularly selected by the wealthy and powerful to take part in a televised game where they are killed off until there is one winner. The real difference in the Hunger Games is that the participants are kids, and they have to hunt each other.

Our heroes are Katniss and Peeta, both from a coal-mining district, one of twelve districts that serve the all-powerful Capitol, as punishment for a civil war that took place long ago. Katniss volunteered herself in place of her little sister, and as she is already an experienced hunter, she has a chance of winning against the others. However the film focuses as much on the preparation of the participants as the game itself, so we see the focused and bashful Katniss have to learn to project herself to the audience, and become a character for people to identify with - as ratings are all important. Based on a series of famous teen-oriented books, the film is very deliberate about setting up the world the story takes place in. Once the actual game starts, about halfway through the film, the action is thick and fast with Katniss quickly learning how to survive and kill to get to the end of the game. Of course it's never that easy and a blossoming romance between her and Peeta ends up making her both more vulnerable and more fearsome.

While the subject matter is good, albeit well-traveled, I have to say the way the film has been directed was awful. Massive overuse of the shaky-cam, combined with a lot of shots that are just zoomed-in too much, make for an uncomfortable viewing experience. I realise that feeling may have been what the director was going for, but I don't think "annoyed" is what he wants the audience to be principally experiencing. Given the fact that we've got kids murdering other kids for a television show, I'm a bit confused as to how the film doesn't really horrify us as much as it should. Perhaps it's because that, since it's for kids, the violence has been turned down somewhat, and I note that a lot of the more violent scenes feature the camera shaking so much that it's plainly obvious that they are trying to obscure just enough to keep a kid-friendly rating. Furthermore, the franchise-friendly nature of the material is very obvious in the way the film ends, which is annoying, albeit to be expecting. The actors are spot-on, though, and Jennifer Lawrence really inhabits her character with a warmth and a shocked innocence. Not bad for a kids film. Three knives out of five.

- Peace out