7 x 7 – My Favorite Posts

Paula’s Cinema Club tagged me with a 7 x 7 Link award. I have a hard time getting myself organized for these posts, but I was able to find some time to get this done. Similar to the Liebster Award, it’s aim is to help folks “get to know” your blog.

The 7 x 7 Award highlights a blogger’s favorite pieces of work and is passed on to others so that they too can do the same as a way to promote posts and/or blogs.

Unlike the Liebster, the questions do not vary, but like the Liebster, some are more difficult than others. So here we go.

1.Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.
I was a painfully shy kid. I avoided having contact or conversations at all costs. I would go so far as to walk a block out of my way so I wouldn’t have to say hello or speak to someone. That’s obviously changed. Now it’s hard to shut me up!

2. Link to one of the posts that I think best fits the following categories:
a. Most beautiful piece: Beautiful is a lofty word for a blog post, but one of my best posts was for the Ida Lupino blogathon, “Ida Lupino: A Lasting Legacy in Hollywood.” A big fan of Lupino’s, it gave me a reason to write the post. I was very happy with the results and the response from readers.

b. Most helpful piece: I think my most helpful piece is from a series of post I started called “Classic Films in Context.” I examine a classic film in the context of when it was released, how it was received, and what makes it significant today. The first film I featured was the 1931 version of Cimarron starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne. Dunne was nominated for Best Actress (first of a total of five nominations) and it’s the film that made her a superstar. Within a year, she totally eclipsed the top-billed Dix, going on to successes in musicals, dramas, and comedies.

c. Most popular piece: By far, my most popular piece is “Becoming Grace Kelly,” a post I wrote in April 2010. It’s had over 6,300 reads, which is mind-boggling to me. The irony is I’m not the biggest Kelly fan—although I am one—in the world. I just thought a lot of people would be interested in a post on the movie star who became a princess, but I never imagined it would be this successful. I timed it to release with the exhibit of her clothes and accessories at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that year. Almost every month, it’s in the top-five of my most read posts.

d. Most controversial piece: I don’t think I have many controversial posts, but my post on The Hunger Games for the Future Classic Movies blogathon got some interesting conversations going when it was picked up by Movie Fanfare, the blog hosted by Movies Unlimited. Folks were talking big theological issues, which was an area I never touched on, nor did I really consider when writing the post.

e. Surprisingly successful piece: Besides the Kelly post already mentioned, my post on the science fiction classic This Island Earth is another one that ends up in the top-five posts for the week, every once in a while since first posted June 2011.

f. Most underrated piece: “The Truth About “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” a screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery hasn’t gotten a lot of love, so to speak. I’m a big fan of Lombard and this comedy, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, of all people. It can stand next to the screwball comedies directed by Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, and Gregory LaCava any day, in my opinion.

g. Most pride-worthy piece: “Val Lewton: The genius nobody knows” is a post I’m very proud of. Lewton is someone who deserves more recognition. His movies influenced just about every filmmaker working today, including Martin Scorsese who produced a documentary on Lewton several years ago. Honorable mention: “Mitchell Leisen: The Best Director Nobody Knows.” This was my first post to be picked up by Movie Fanfare.

3. Pass this award on to seven other blogs/bloggers:


Another Old Movie Blog
They Don’t Make ’Em Like They Used To
Speakeasy
Once Upon a Screen
The Shades of Black and White
What Happened to Hollywood
Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings

More blogs/bloggers worthy of the award:

Bobby Rivers TV
Carl Rollyson

bettiwettiwoo 

Cinema_Fanatic
Immortal Ephemera

If you’ve already gotten a 7 x 7, please feel free to pass it along to the deserving blogger of your choice.

Future Classic Movies: “The Hunger Games”

Note: This post is part of the Future Classic Movies Blogathon monitored by Paula Guthat who writes and manages Paula’s Cinema Club blog.


The Hunger Games was one of the most anticipated film releases of 2012. Based on the young adult novel by Suzanne Collins, it is the story of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a 16-year-old girl coming to grips with life, love, and survival in the country of Panem, a post-apocalyptic world that once comprised the countries of North America. The Hunger Games is a modern film in almost every sense of the word, except one. Rather than focus wholly on action and special effects—and it has both aplenty—the film is rather old-fashioned in it’s narrative style and in its character development.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

Character is king (or queen)
The film spends time acquainting us with Katniss. She lives in District 12, one of a dozen districts that surround the Capitol of Panem.We discover that her father died in an accident in the district and that her mother never fully recovered from that event. Katniss is, in many respects, the head of the family, caring for her mother and younger sister, “Prim” Primrose. A sharpshooter with a bow and arrow, Katniss hunts game with childhood friend and fellow district 12 resident, Gale (Liam Hemswoth). Director Gary Ross, uses flashbacks—a classic Hollywood device—to show us that Katniss is motivated by a strong sense of love and responsibility. She is very tender with sister Prim, comforting her in the days leading up to the reaping and tough with her mother when Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place in the Hunger Games.

Realistic romance
There is romance in The Hunger Games, but it isn’t sappy or trite. Collins’s heroine is a complex one and the film explores Katniss’s desire for a relationship mixed with her fear of what that means in Panem. Can she really experience love and happiness in a country that sacrifices it’s children for sport and subjugation? Are her feelings for best friend Gale romantic love or something else? Can she give herself to Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a boy she thinks is morally superior and too good for her? All the above dilemmas are typical in literally hundreds of movies, but The Hunger Games treats them seriously, refusing to dissolve into sentimentality. The violence, although realistic and graphic, isn’t gratuitous. It doesn’t detract from the overall narrative, but instead helps advance it. The film has some razzle-dazzle special effects, but again they support rather than overwhelm the story.

Golden Age storytelling

Strong roles for women were common during
 the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The Hunger Games benefits from all the technological wonders of 21st-century filmmaking, but what makes it hold up is it’s emphasis on the story. It has a beginning, a middle, and end and has more in common with classical cinema from Hollywood’s Golden Age—how about a strong female heroine for one—than it’s contemporaries. Many of today’s films rely on quick-edits, graphic violence, and special effects, passing them off as good storytelling. To be fair, The Hunger Games uses all of the above techniques, but as already stated, they advance the narrative instead of obscurring it.

Stronger heroine
The Hunger Games is a 21st-century film, no doubt about it. What makes it a modern classic in my eyes is its focus on story and characterization over special effects and showy techniques. Featuring a heroine that is strong and multifaceted, the film reminds us of a time when great roles for women were the norm, not the exception.

Whether or not The Hunger Games stands as a classic 20-30 years from now is anyone’s guess, but I’m casting my ballot today. The Hunger Games deserves to be called a classic.