The Hunger Games

"Welcome to the 74th annual...... Battle Royale!!!... er... Running Man!?! Um, no that's not right is it... oh yes: Hunger Games!!!"

Regular interim-ites will recognize (and forgive, I trust) the pathetic but all-too-regular urge that I feel to tap into the zeitgeist and get jiggy with it that recently led me to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (and watch the 2012 movie adaptation in fairly short order).

I actually quite enjoyed the book (which has the distinction of being my first fictional ebook read on the iPad) -- and I can imagine I would have enjoyed it all the more when I was a member of the "young adult" demographic which is its intended readership. Back then I probably would have eagerly gobbled up the remaining two volumes of the trilogy too, but in staid adulthood I find my curiosity sated by the first.

I found the film, on the other hand, to be a bit so-so and by-the-numbers. It was a reasonable effort, but it all seemed a bit rushed.

Of course, as you'll have noticed from my opening gambit, I drew the obvious parallels to the japanese gore flick Battle Royale -- which I watched just last year and rather enjoyed -- and the classic Arnie action movie The Running Man (1987), which was a childhood favourite of mine.

I decided to re-watch The Running Man and was pleasantly surprised to find that it still holds up quite well. The dialogue is pure cheese (it's Arnie in his heyday, after all) but it can be appreciated in a mildly tongue-in-cheek. The line "Hey, Christmas Tree!" is one of my all-time favourites, and he even manages to squeeze in an "I'll be back!". Also amusing to note that Mick Fleetwood and Dweezil Zappa have cameo roles as resistance freedom fighter types (what's up with that???).