'The Hunger Games' arrives with great expectations

Finally, after a “dizzying year of hype,” The Hunger Games is finally here. Will it live up to the elevated expectations of its legions of fans?

Well, that’s yet to be seen, but the opening weekend box office receipts are projected in the $100 million range, more than enough to cover the production costs and to ensure the cultural inevitability of the frnachise. In this week’s MovieStyle, the Washington Post’s Jen Chaney writes about the selling of the film. (For a review of the film itself, check out our complementary website blood, dirt & angels — www.blooddirtangels.com — where the new guy Dan Lybarger weighs in.)

This week’s counter-programming includes Frederick Wiseman’s Crazy Horse, a cinema verite look at the venerable Paris nude revue. According to our critic Philip Martin, Wiseman’s “camera seems to be unabashedly enjoying the garish spectacle it’s taking in, while at the same time offering an implicit critique of the narrow definition of beauty and the commodification of flesh embodied by the Crazy Horse aesthetic.” In other words, he liked it.

As for the faith-based October Baby, not so much. Martin thought it’s inherently compelling story was undermined by a paint-by-number that involved long stretches of people telling other people what was happening.

And finally, the newest new guy, Piers Marchant, critiques Will Ferrell’s Spanish language comedy, Casa de mi Padre, and concludes that it might “have made a killer 15-minute Funny or Die piece.”

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

Thank you for coming to the website of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. We're working to keep you informed with the latest breaking news.