The Hunger Games, 2012

Director: Gary Ross


Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci








Each year, one boy and one girl are chosen by lottery from each of the 12 Districts to go to the Capitol and fight to the death in "The Hunger Games".  The games are filmed live and every person in each district is forced to watch them, a way for the Capitol to remind the Districts of who's in control.

When her younger sister is chosen to go, Katniss (Lawrence) steps in to take her place.  She and the boy chosen from her district, Peeta (Hutcherson), she heads to the Capitol to fight in the games.  But things don't always go according to the Capitol's plans.

I would highly recommend reading the book first.  And just know that the book and movie match up very well together!  I was impressed.  The entire time in the movie, I was on the edge of my seat, riveted by what was happening.  And the book was similar, of course.  I sometimes get into the popular novels that everyone is reading, and this is no exception.  But as I got into the 2nd and 3rd books, I found them to be very depressing.  Revolution is not the most fun topic.

North by Northwest, 1959

Director: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason






Have you ever seen this clip form the movies-- a man running down a road with a crop duster chasing him?  It's from Hitchcock's North by Northwest.

Advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Grant) is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies.  When he escapes from them, he goes to the police, who don't believe him, and then the government contacts him.  They want to use him because the spies already think they know who he is.  He works with another agent, (Saint), who is working with the foreigners under cover.  Anyway, it's a great story and very suspenseful.  It all ends with an exciting scene on Mount Rushmore!

CAMEO: Hitch appears right at the beginning, just as the credits ends and his name is shown, he is trying to get on a bus, which closes its doors just as he gets there.  It's one of my favorites!  :)

True Lies, 1994

THURSDAY MOVIE CONNECTION!!!

Arnold Schwarzenegger-- Bill Paxton

Director: James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar, The Terminator)

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton

Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) is a secret agent, whose cover as a salesman has his wife Helen (Curtis) bored with her life, and when someone contacts her pretending to be an agent, she goes along with him, wanting some excitement in her life. Harry uses his government surveillance abilities to spy on his wife and find out if she's cheating on him. He begins to take this a little too far, eventually interrogating her and then pretending to turn her into an agent. (She doesn't know who she's dealing with.)

In one part, Jamie Lee Curtis strips and dances for her husband, though she doesn't know it's her husband at the time because he's sitting in shadow and disguising his voice. I think he just does it for fun, so it's kind of amusing, but also awful! And awkward. I always fast forward.

And the other part of the story is some terrorists who are trying to kill everyone, of course, kidnap him, his wife, his daughter, and he has save everybody. It's funny, and action-packed (hello, it's Arnold!), but with too much sex and language for my taste.

Gaslight, 1944

Director: George Cukor (My Fair Lady, The Philadelphia Story, Adam's Rib)

Stars: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Angela Lansbury

When her aunt is murdered in London in the apartment they share, young Paula (Bergman) moves to Italy, and lives there for many years before she meets Gregory (Boyer) who sweeps her off her feet. After the wedding, he wants to move to London, and she finally feels ready after all these years to face the apartment, which was left to her, and all the feelings that go with the unsolved murder that happened there. As long as her husband is with her, how can she not be safe?

But in that house, she starts to hear things when her husband is gone for the night at work. And the gaslight in her room always goes down a little as if someone has turned on the gas in another part of the house, but no one has. She finds a letter addressed to her aunt, but later her husband tells her she had only imagined finding it. Is she losing her mind?

I thought it was excellent! I didn't know beforehand that Joseph Cotten was in it, and I am a fan, so that was a nice surprise. And then the rude chambermaid also surprised me: unmistakably Angela Lansbury! She's great!

The scene at the end that Paula shares with her husband is probably my favorite. Chilling!

Abduction, 2011

Director: John Shingleton

Stars: Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver

I know what you're thinking, and it wasn't that bad! Taylor Lautner, of Twilight fame, in a thriller, about being abducted. It felt like part thriller, part teen movie. And to be honest, that's what it was.

Nathan (Lautner) is assigned a project with a girl in school, Karen (Collins)- who also happens to live across the street and apparently they have a history, but I'm not 100% sure what it was. They need to do a research paper about missing persons. On the internet they find a website dedicated to missing children, and one of the photos grabs Nathan's attention--- because it's HIM!!!

They contact the website, but decide not to give the website their address (good idea, kids! Except they tracked you anyway!), and then just as Nathan confronts his mom ("No, I'm not really your mom, Nathan") and is about to get some truth out of her, 2 guys come in and kill his "parents" and blow up his house. Suddenly he and Karen are on the run.

I really like thrillers. Why is that? I like it when thrillers have a romantic edge to them, like the guy is protecting the girl and all that. It makes thrillers softer and sweet. Not that this was an amazing movie; it was silly. If the kids had been out of high school, I would have liked it more, I think. But they were kids!! He was just a kid, and he killed a guy! (It was totally self-defense, and I would have been trying to kill the guy too, but still! He was a kid!)

NOTE:In my opinion, the very BEST part of the entire film was in the beginning. Nathan goes to a wild high school party and gets completely hammered. His dad (Jason Isaacs- very handsome!) picks him up and the next thing they show is he and his dad fighting in the backyard. Nathan is whining about having to fight while he's hungover and his dad is telling him that's life, and you can't ever get so drunk that you can't defend himself. Obviously, they do this fighting, or training a lot, because they have gloves and everything, and they're good at it. Eventually, Nathan really hits him hard, and his dad gets up and then grins and says, "That was great- now we're getting somewhere." And they continue to fight. I thought it was a nice picture of a dad training his son.

I'm sure I'd feel differently if I were his mom. She eventually puts a stop to the fighting/training.

To Catch a Thief, 1955

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams

Retired jewel thief John Robie (Grant) is compelled to prove his innocence in a new string of robberies which bears a striking resemblance to his old M.O. He decides to anticipate the moves of his "copy-cat burglar" hoping to catch him in the act and hand him over to the police. Tipped off by an insurance agent (John Williams), he befriends the people he himself would target, the wealthy Mrs. Stevens (Landis) and her daughter Francie (Kelly).

This was filmed in Monaco and the French Riviera, and it's such a beautiful movie! To me, it is just perfect for summer.

Grace Kelly's wardrobe makes me want to go back in time!

This isn't like other Hitchcock films. This is more romance than suspense, so don't worry, those of you who don't like Hitch's style. Try this out- you're in for a treat!