03-24-2014, 12:16 PM
Most people our age have moved on to reading their AARP newsletters. 
hock:
I should correct my earlier post - 'teen lit' is a dated term. It's YA lit now.
As for the film, Divergent comes off as derivative in entirely new ways that I didn't see in the book. Wait, was that a scene from The Birds? And that...that was straight outta Titanic. The ending surprised me as in my old age, I totally forgot how the book ended. "Are they going into book 2 now?" dm whispers to his daughter. "No, they just messed up the story," she whispers back. Shailene was really good, strangely like Jen Lawrence in that she has a fairly plain face for a starlet, but there's an uncommon undeniable charisma about her. T thinks she'll be excellent in her next YA lit2flick, The Fault in our Stars, which she has read as well. Kate, Maggie and Ashley are all good. The prez from Scandal is in it too - he's not that good. Nor is the lead hunk, who has one expression, which is that sort of smouldering look typical of YAlit2flick hunks. The dystopian feel of the film is about the same as always. There's a huge hallucinogenic factor, which is delivered rather tepidly but y'all know how picky I am about hallucination scenes. For most, the film will be dark in the shadow of Hunger Games, and upon exiting the theater, I was skeptical that it would escape that and be doomed to a one-off YAlit2flick like City of Ember or Golden Compass, but at T predicted, the massive YA following boosted the BO to a $56 mill take, so the next installment looks like a go.
T was still deciding whether she liked it or not. She was at odds with the book, which is funnier. The movie lost almost all the sense of humor that is in the book, save one precious retort to the old standby line "You're not going to shoot me." No swordfights. And the fight scenes were mediocre on the whole - the en guard position for Dauntless H2H was silly. You know what would be really cool? A film which climaxed with a sword fight between Shailene and Jennifer Lawrence....in 3D no less.
hock: I should correct my earlier post - 'teen lit' is a dated term. It's YA lit now.
As for the film, Divergent comes off as derivative in entirely new ways that I didn't see in the book. Wait, was that a scene from The Birds? And that...that was straight outta Titanic. The ending surprised me as in my old age, I totally forgot how the book ended. "Are they going into book 2 now?" dm whispers to his daughter. "No, they just messed up the story," she whispers back. Shailene was really good, strangely like Jen Lawrence in that she has a fairly plain face for a starlet, but there's an uncommon undeniable charisma about her. T thinks she'll be excellent in her next YA lit2flick, The Fault in our Stars, which she has read as well. Kate, Maggie and Ashley are all good. The prez from Scandal is in it too - he's not that good. Nor is the lead hunk, who has one expression, which is that sort of smouldering look typical of YAlit2flick hunks. The dystopian feel of the film is about the same as always. There's a huge hallucinogenic factor, which is delivered rather tepidly but y'all know how picky I am about hallucination scenes. For most, the film will be dark in the shadow of Hunger Games, and upon exiting the theater, I was skeptical that it would escape that and be doomed to a one-off YAlit2flick like City of Ember or Golden Compass, but at T predicted, the massive YA following boosted the BO to a $56 mill take, so the next installment looks like a go.
T was still deciding whether she liked it or not. She was at odds with the book, which is funnier. The movie lost almost all the sense of humor that is in the book, save one precious retort to the old standby line "You're not going to shoot me." No swordfights. And the fight scenes were mediocre on the whole - the en guard position for Dauntless H2H was silly. You know what would be really cool? A film which climaxed with a sword fight between Shailene and Jennifer Lawrence....in 3D no less.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse