A KENNEDYdate to Resistance.

The Hunger Games is technically organized homicide. So one cannot shake the feeling throughout or portions in the film that look, feel, and/or sound already as elaborate as it is improbable. Or so it's an unshared perception. While the story itself, of its stark story telling, a $307M (November 24th, 10:00am) hunger-satisfied box office cannot lie, again, maybe an unshared perception, Russovoir pinned the story to a metaphorical reality; the rich and poor pyramid of today.

We assume everyone figured out the subtle to the slow glaring to the nimble 'tradition' of The Capitol. Where the government has carte blanche by their own disillusioned set of laws to pose authority on which fear is what they feed on to stay atop the food chain. And everyone abides because, on the surface, who are we to question who sees, holds everything whereas each and every District knows only what they know, compounded by fear, compounded by nescience.

Now, the tributes.

"There's no one left that I love they can hurt."

Jennifer Lawrence was set aside for a while (picked up at the wedding gown scene) for this volatile vixen, Jena Malone as the District 7 tribute Johanna Mason (above). Axe-cellent casting. At first Russovoir thought hmm they picked someone comparatively shaded from fame and like lumber from which puts food on the tables of District 7, planted and unaffected by the mainstream, not too close to stagnate Lawrence's strong current of fame. But just like Johanna Mason's back story, who we recall appeared gullible and nonthreatening yet had won the killing spree, Malone killed the role and may seem moronic now, avenged the beloved character unwatered, until this film, in our heads.

"People are starving in 12 and, they make themselves sick here."

The concept of the trilogy, at least the two books, yet Russovoir is confident it's the entire trilogy because he has had read more than half of Mockingjay, is as remarkable as it is daunting how indicative and prevalent the oppression, oligarchy, despotism, and barely shown - yet - rebellion of the masses. The juxtaposition of the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the worldwide premiere of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire dates was no mere coincidence; he had been a mockingjay.

How To Use an Actor Intense Days.

It was surreal Matthew McConaughey (below right) not in his usual macho shape. Russovoir wanted to scold him straight to the movie screen. It's as if he took the role against his will; to redeem himself; to prove himself, to his fans, something. Russovoir doesn't understand, cannot fathom in what state of mind he was in to morbidly shrink to a size unsightly. Meanwhile you're impressed by this. So bizarre it evokes an emotion, until now, still has no name. 

Dallas Buyers Club has become a powerful drug that once seen on the shelf in a video store, a rent selection in RedBox, an overstock at an interstate gas station, a random or chosen scene filler in an entertainment infomercial, a poster draped alongside the vertically spines-up arranged DVDs at if not deserted, single-minded shoppers supermarket, one's world stops for a full five seconds, eyes fixates - all else are a blur, and whisper, "McConaughey." with beaming recognition as epiphanic as the apple that fell on Isaac Newton.

He was inarguably, eye-gaping, mouth-shut remarkable. Russovoir is afraid that if he says anything more he might not hit the right words and spoil the praise. So let's move on and talk about Jared Leto now. The guy expanded once, then he emaciated next. Nobody really talked about, as he was Mr. Nobody in 2009 too, his massive, sorely weight gain in (and for) Chapter 27 (2007). The film was either poorly marketed, distributed, or didn't appeal to the palette of influential movie critics that affected those which alluded. After which Leto vowed not to gain a lardful for a role. Gain not lose. So he's an HIV positive gay hooker (below left); he was disease-alarmingly befitting.

"I don't want to die."

 

In the world of acting as a profession, not simply and conveniently all ingratiating roles and intuitive improvs and good looks, although while they are prevalent and necessary, it's the harmony, if one wants to go far in the industry one must be aware, of both the external (script memorization, filming procedure and location, e.g.) and the most challenging factor, internal (drastic weight gain, loss, and sculpt, sexual orientation and behavior, e.g.) where some roles demand of an actor; many of which, though not always effective, are admirable, critical, and premeditated symptoms of an award-winning actor from if not Oscar-worthy, a critically-sealed, must-watch film.

The Re-MELLARK-able Joshua Ryan Hutcherson.

"I have this dream that one day, my kid's gonna come home from school and be like, "Dad, there's this girl that I like, and there's this guy I like, and I don't know which one I like more, and I don't know what to do." And it'd just be a non-issue, like, "Which one is a good person? Which one makes you laugh more?" - Josh Hutcherson.

"I would probably list myself as mostly straight - right now, I'm 100% straight.", Hutcherson breaks the ice as opposed to the heat he emanates already. So regardless, the ice between them, interviewer Shana Krochmal of Out Magazine, has to melt anyway. Talentless in napkin origami at a California cafe during a seeming hunger games of a lunch hour, he accepted defeat and set it aside. "But who knows? In a fucking year, I could meet a guy and be like, "Whoa, I'm attracted to this person.", he unfolded instead with austere yet polite hand gestures, with which the Japanese art of paper folding seems a torture in retrospect - the napkin on the other side of the table wipes a mouth taken aback, though not malicious, with this choking spill.

He's most associated and most profitable as Peeta Mellark, one of the pair of tributes from District 12, love interest with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) but complicates as the games and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) may undercook the chemistry. But the recurring, almost a boomerang when one decides to let go already memory of 2005 - admit it, every time you see him all grown up and chiseled, how baked are we now to trace this once tousled but ferociously smitten 13-year old tike in Little Manhattan (below) is the tantalizing mold we see today.

"Love is a pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies."

Now when you're 15, you tend to cling on to people who had made you happy, even remember and keep track (in moderation) of their lives with the suppressible, hopeful belief, like making a wish on a comet, that they'll do it again. Hence it was reasonable: Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), Firehouse Dog (2007), Fragments (2008), Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009), four-time Academy Award nominated The Kids Are All Right (2010), and the confusing Detention (2011), all checked. The Hunger Games trilogy, one could say, is now a pandemic, communal, kettle hissing glorification. That he so deserves.

"I'm ready for a fight."

Straights who support gay rights is like a wifi hotspot, it brings people together. Co-founder Avan Jogia (Nickelodeon's Victorious) of the non-profit organization Straight But Not Narrow (click it) allies with Hutcherson, among other young, famous personalities - tributes, shall we say - to educate and train, a polite euphemism, the toppling generation with gender equality. The NOH8 ad campaign (above) was Adam Bouska's plain yet powerful portfolio in 2008, and Hutcherson, with his fair amount of fame and influence, ennobled public hysteria.

"I would volunteer for my brother in a heartbeat."

The 21-year old $1.5M net worth American actor (The Hunger Games grossed $700M worldwide) has been raised justly, even where he was raised in isn't indicative of diversity nor adaptation. It only goes to underscore that Mewtwo (that's right, from Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back, 1998) is speaking gold (for a make believe children show):

"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."

Houston, We Have An Oscar.

For a place that shouldn't concern the majority, it now is. Spacephobia, a derivative of Agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces, the absence of 'visuospatial support', looms one feeling pressingly small around something endlessly expanding, nothing to see but uninviting, thick darkness. For an ignorant of space travel and its technicalities, accumulating more fear, Russovoir lived in the consolation that those who have died and might die, at least their loved ones can point to the sky where heaven is supposedly as well.

Gravity reawakens and reunites Russovoir's patronage for Sandra Bullock. Reportedly her biggest opening to date, Academy Award winner Best Actress of Blind Side (2009), and the worth mentioning recent, tear-jerking performance in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012), Bullock both possesses - deja vu, Russovoir thought about this before, what is an avid fan - while awarely opposing, hence immensely admirable, the empathy of strong and weak in a character; so consistent yet insatiably fulfilling to the fullest of how the film is to be felt. Absent of any object of emotion in space, director Alfonso Cuaron was unmistakable for a lead actress that sucks one in like a gaping black hole to the screen, to her troubled, shared role soul.

"Say that you can make it."

Russovoir must confess, he thought what story could be gleaned in outer space; it looked desolate and at the same time, infinite in material that, from its trailer, where and how it ends must be ridiculous, like co-existing in a parallel universe, or proving aliens. While George Clooney has had a fair share of films that interests, which fueled value, meanwhile, the biggest influence in 'lifting off' to 'explore' what madness it's teased is Bullock.

"Tell her Mommy is so proud of her."

It's not rocket science, Gravity was shot out of this world but is down-to-earth that it's not proving extra terrestrials - something more meaningful, emotional, something existential. There's nothing in space, and by 'in space' we mean what we currently have, not Star Trek nor Star Wars, that which to 'create from the unknown' is another thing, that holds a story together. Heck, things wander up there. Just like a satellite, Gravity echoed a frequency the human heart can hear.

Don Jon: A 50/50 directorial debut.

All directors have a signature style: J.J. Abrams plays with sheer streak of lights, Quentin Tarantino flinches with gut-wrenching blood feud, Zac Snyder suspends suspense with stop-motion, to name a few. It's been discovered fledgling director Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a signature style through scene transition technique called, at least for Russovoir, he doesn't know the proper nomenclature, layering.

Layering tends to progress consciously fast, yet unconsciously, it's sorely just a bunch of rushing snippets that as they increase in number in this particular film, present mostly throughout, especially when it's flatly excessive of nothing but inserted pornographic clips from various porn sites, rapport breaches. Don Jon had a good start, scenes felt necessary and well-timed, then sympathetically, Russovoir lost interest for a good while; it relegated to empty and inflated machismo and unaccustomed chauvinism. Altogether, disconnected.

"Cum, baby, cum."

Russovoir was picking up the pace with the consolation Scarlett Johannson has kept the plot intact, then suddenly, Julianne Moore's role threw him off again. Just when he already found a comforting ground with the story to focus on, here comes a character, apparently broken and sex-deprived made it hard to stay hard. Shallow, superfluous, and towards the end, Johannson now out of the picture - even if she has hadn't, it still seemed compromised of what Russovoir could only assume is incompatible debauchery. Granted that we should see Joseph playing an older role, however, intermissions of his elementary and frivolous affection to porn and it didn't help that, even while he bulked up for the role, his smile, those dimples carved in chivalry and gentleness, it's difficult to accept a role of a New Jerseyan hustler; anyone unknown with suitable good looks could've do. He would've been still revered for writing and directing the film.

That's the first half of 50. This is the second: 

Gordon-Levitt boldly exposes the biggest, longest kept secret (might as well be a controversy too) of every man: porn is better than real sex. Unsure of its reliability speaking rashly on behalf of every man, it does hold truth to an extent: what makes porn incomparably arousing is its one-sided perspective; that while men can't induce the porn star in a woman, and good for him if he does succeed, they resort to an outlet where their wildest fantasexies can be visually attended.

"Women like her always get what they want."

Contrary to what most thought, including Russovoir himself, Don Jon is a film for the ladies. It will open their eyes to what the male population has gotten their balls blue and in a knot. And if you're lucky, only if you're lucky, they will reassess their effucktiveness.

THINK and TWITCH.

Written like Insidious (2011) already has had a sequel patiently in safe keeping, Insidious: Chapter 2 is an original screenplay with suspense and culmination not going further from its maker's style, and yet going further with the invention of the far-fetched and far cry. 

Confessedly confusing and dragging as it sends us deeper and deeper into the story, while in a surprising dissent with its scattered plot, only with alert retrospection and uninterrupted comprehension the story is true to its perfect title - insidious of genius; and when Russovoir put the pieces together, Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 in his head playing simultaneously, all happening long after the movie ended, he understood, it was not strongly 'to scare', considering who wrote the script and what he does best, but 'to think' as well.

"When I look into his eyes, he's not there."

It has easily become one of the smartest horror stories. Smart in a way that it dealt with elements improbable but in that particular story, and with mind open that it can be possible, even just until the film duration, in which two worlds can coexist, one of which devoid of time, the nothingness creates augmented realities of and through the supernatural, hairs will stand not only because the film is suspenseful but also, a haunting cohesion until, suppressed (again). 

To Temple We WHORE-ship.

Give Amanda Seyfried Lovelace (2013), maybe not even credit the relatively small role of Juno Temple (below right) there. That's quite alright, Temple has a number of memorable, laudable roles under her G-string. One of the melange is independent film Afternoon Delight.

"It's a Barely Legal thing. It gets men excited."

Nothing but boner fide admiration for Juno Temple, step aside Jennifer Lawrence (don't go too far now, Russovoir will miss you). Maybe it's the frizzy beehive locks, maybe the doll-contoured face; and maybe the cheekiness of the role, its perfected characterization, her unfazed and unrealized, invoking  speechless fascination, maturity bursting forth the screen, Temple stripped off any shred of anonymity in the industry of, while situationally reasonable, baring all for show.

"She knows; I'm a whore."

Afternoon Delight has a subtle, slightly piercing turn of events; it gives a profound perspective glimpse, a humbling comparison of what you have and what others don't get to have, human compassion, and most of all, the tendencies of marriage, many of which need constant work. The film is explicit because it needs to be - how else can you represent a prostitute? After one has marveled the 24-year old's Renaissance painting of a body, one eventually finds the heart of the story, as if Juno's breasts distracts to those otherwise looking past.