Repainting the dining room and good and bad movies

Well I finished off the living room and straight way I had the erge to paint the dining room, the two rooms are joined by some nice windowed French doors so we normally keep them the same colour. This was a nice bonus since I still had half a tub of the warm beige colour and a full tub of the soft sand colour left.

I whizzed around this room, it only took me about 5 hours to finish the whole thing, minus the small patches I missed. The one annoying thing about the darker colour I chose, when it's wet it near identical to the existing colour on the wall so it makes it rather hard to see in lower light where I've missed until it dries.





Now for some film talk

First up the Hunger Games it's based on the book by of the same name by Suzanne Collins. I've only read the first book (although know my fair share of spoilers from the other two books). Before I begin I'll say where I stand on the book, I only read the book after I saw trailers for the film. I really enjoyed the book and got through it within a couple of nights, it was by no means perfect but I'm glad the book seemed to make a point of Katniss not lusting after the two male roles rather that she had strong opinions against it.

The film however I thought was poor, I can wrap up my views on the film by saying. You have to watch the film as a book companion not as a film adaptation.
(Spolier ahead. Highlight the colours blocks if you want to read them
I'm happy to accept the deaths have to softened due to age rating they where aiming for, and Haymitch's heavy drinking was toned down out for the same reason (although I kinda was hoping they would have left him falling off stage in but that proberly would have added too much humor to the serious part in the story.


Yep, things have to be changed to for the film or cut out completely. How close to dying Peeta is, where the pin came from ect.  


But to me there was two things the film just glossed over, and they aren't small issues, and I think not really delving into them hurts the film. 1) How awful life is in District 12, if Katniss and Gale don't go out hunting illegally, there is a very real chance of them and their families starving. That's the reason Gale's name has been put in 42 times, they are so desperate for food they will take the meagre rations the extra entries award even though the worst case scenario for that is so grim. 2) How brutal the Capitol is. Yeah the games itself are cruel, but you know only for those 24 unlucky ones. Not if caught with a weapon, found outside in the woods, hunting illegally, trading illegally, running away from the capitol the best you can hope for is a fast execution at worst, having your tongue cut out and becoming a slave for the rest of your days.

In the end I kept going back to the thought, I only know this because I read the book. And I'm sorry but that is not how it should be, I didn't need to read LoTR or Harry Potter to understand what was happening in the film, the film explains it.

The one thing I will happily admit I liked was the scenes involving the game master since in the book (written in first person) we never see what's going on with him and it did give me a real scene of how in control of the game arena the capitol really is (it seriously had a whole Truman show vibe going on with that)

Now for the good one.

It's been many years in the making, all the way back in 2005 when the idea for a host of superhero origin stories (Iron man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America) culminating in a movie that bought them all together was announced. Since then each of these films had hints, teasers as to what would follow.

I was hoping the film would be good, equalling the films that came before it.... It blew them away, it pushes the bar of the super hero genre up a good few notches. There is tons of action, personality clashes from the team, some ace one liners in there which has the whole audience laughing, interestingly enough even though it was the action that drew me and I thought would be the focus, its the parts which reflect they characters humanity which I enjoyed the most.

On a side note, even though the Hulk (not Bruce Banner) is semi reduced to comic relief, I think they got him so right this time around. Despite me sleeping though the last two hulk films, if they ever make another Hulk film with Mark Ruffalo in it and done in a similar way as they have done with this film I'll be getting a ticket.