Steven Spielberg
From our review: “We know the pandering sci-fi pseudo-epic, The Hunger Games, is off-track right from the long, swooning Spielbergian shots that frame its opening act.”
See: The war-ravaged city and internment camp of Empire of the Sun, viewed through the lens of the famed film director. (Available on Amazon Instant)
Winter’s Bone
From our review: “To start, we jump from the blue-haired television studio of The Hunger Games’ dystopian vision of the civilized future into the rural backlands of Winter’s Bone (star Jennifer Lawrence in tow) with a scream. That’s how director Gary Ross (who also co-wrote the film with Suzanne Collins, the author of the popular young adult novel of the same name) frames this shoddy dichotomy of haves and have-nots: all horror or glut. We learn that at some point in this imaginary future there was a bloody war, and when peace was established, it required the subjugation of the working classes, who live in districts, hungry and impoverished.”
See: A Best Picture Oscar nominee for 2010, Winter’s Bone also casts actress Jennifer Lawrence as a young girl left to forage for her own survival, in the impoverished landscape of the Ozarks. (Available on Netflix, Amazon Instant)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
From our review: “To keep the peace, each district (there are 12) must offer up a young man and a young woman to participate in the annual “hunger games,” a gladiatorial Tron/Mad Max-like battle to the death. We can almost hear the echoes of the Thunderdome: ‘Two may enter, one may leave!'”
See: The second sequel to Mad Max again finds Mel Gibson’s iconic “road warrior” in a hellish post-apocalyptic land forced to fight for his survival. (Available on Amazon Instant)
The Fifth Element
From our review: “The Hunger Games is the future cast somewhere between the bombastic camp of Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and the apocalyptic existentialism of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.”
The Road
From our review: “Those kinds of meandering associations sprout up all over The Hunger Games, and rather than deepening the movie’s effect, they mostly just leave us wondering what the film is trying to say. Is this a parable about celebrity or some sort of commentary on television’s voyeuristic savagery? Is it a story trying to make a case for our gentler humanity in the face of Darwinian inclinations? Is it about totalitarianism and victimhood, or just a good old fashioned underdog tale? And how do we land in Romeo and Juliet by story’s end? But wait, it’s not really Shakespearean, just another riff in The Hunger Games amended in a way that drains out all the potency of source material.”
Read: Cormac McCarthy’s Pultizer Prize-winning novel.
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