Welcome to the Weekly Movie Thread, your place on the Avocado to discuss films with your fellow commenters. Want to make a recommendation? Looking for recommendations? Want to share your opinions of movies, both new and classic?
Well, the studios listened. You said you were hungry for more Hunger Games! This week your appetite is filled with The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbird and Snakes. The movie stars Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as young Snow.
The role of Snow was first originated by Donald Sutherland in the original Hunger Games trilogy tetralogy where Jennifer Lawrence stole our hearts and then put an arrow through it. The movies were quite influential. According to one report, youth participation in archery went up 75% the year the first movie debuted. The movie also immediately drew comparisons to another film where young people were killed for sport: Japan’s Battle Royale. For the longest time, Battle Royale was a notoriously banned film, not being available in the US to watch until 10 years after its release.
If you want to get down to it, though, the entire tradition goes back to that very first story where humans are hunted for sport: the much adapted Richard Connell story The Most Dangerous Game. Wikipedia lists 21 adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game. Among those are John Woo’s Hard Target, The Pest, and Ready Or Not, which stars Samara Weaving as a bride being hunted by a family.
Today’s bonus prompt: what is you favorite film where people hunt humans, the greatest game of all?