The Hunger Games came out last weekend! Its cultural saturation was so complete that you could hear the crowds lining up for fifty miles in every direction! And yet somehow I never got to see it until last night, when the superfans had all already gone, and all that was left was a crowd of easily-confused people, two frat guys who should probably have just cut their losses and left, and at least one racist! (We’ll get there.)

(Note: I read the book in advance of seeing the film, which is actually not how I prefer to do it, because having read the book, it’s impossible not to occasionally judge the film on its efficacy as an adaptation and not just as a film. However, the movie gives us plenty to talk about, and there are a few moments that actually hinge on book stuff, so it comes out in the wash.)

Much like the film, these points are all over the place; it had very effective moments and some moments I hope were not meant to be as funny as they ended up being. (If they were, that’s even better? Sometimes. Maybe.)

If you’re reading this, chances are you beat me to the draw on this one. All the same, let’s talk over eight things you should know about The Hunger Games!

(Accidentally hilarious cutaway to Gale goes here.)

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(Yikes!)

Late last night, I landed in NYC after five days in two states at two cons. It was a great time! Except for the aftereffects of travel, which means my body has lost its sense of time. (It now assumes that if I’m sitting down, I’m on a red-eye flight and should be sleeping. Today’s commute was awkward.)

ICFA was honestly amazing. Talking with old friends and meeting awesome new people, missing all the alligator sightings because I refuse to go outside in Florida sun – what’s not to like? It was my first time at this conference, but I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome than I got; it was a pleasure from beginning to end, and I’ll definitely be going back again.

This picture is me, moments before heading down to the cocktail hour preceding the banquet. The top is silkscreened with the interior of an antique dress, including slightly-ghostly hand stitching and pleating, and I love it immensely, and knew immediately it was what I wanted to wear for the Crawford.

Being awarded the Crawford was an honor; dressing for the Crawford was a prom-movie montage; accepting the Crawford made me so nervous I was worried I’d fall. (Spoiler: everything was fine. However, the Hostage Eyes in this photo were real. Similar terror happened just before my reading – being billed with China Miéville will do that to you – but he and the audience were so kind that it was hard to stay nervous, even for me.)

Then it was 6:40 Sunday morning, and I was flying out to Denver to partake of AnomalyCon! The setting was amazing (my camera photos all turned out like shots of the Loch Ness Monster, but trust me, the Tivoli brewery-turned-student-union is wonderful), the audiences very engaged in the panels, and it was a pleasure to chat with people one-on-one. (I even got to talk about Jonah Hex, which is a film that should maybe start paying me to do that, because seriously.)

Because travel is what it is, and because if you’re flying United travel means never taking off on time, I got home late last night and am playing atch-up. Totally worth it for such a great weekend, but it means I have a lot to get done. (Number One on that list is The Hunger Games, which I tried three times to see and never managed, and the press coverage from which I’ve been trying hard to sequester myself. Review coming tomorrow, I desperately hope!)

Tomorrow I’ll post my schedule for Eastercon, which I’ll be attending next week! Before that, I feel I should probably unpack.

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And while I’m catching up on nearly a week of The Internet, I’m gathering some writing updates.

* As of today, the Armored anthology is out in the world! My story, “The Last Run of the Coppelia,” follows the Coppelia’s crew of backwater-planet algae harvesters, the handmade diver-mecha who love them, and a salvaged data drive that makes them question the feasibility of a non-interference policy.

* Dovetailing nicely with ICFA’s theme of the Monstrous Fantastic, the Weird Fiction Review celebrated Twelve Days of Monsters in delightful fashion. I’ve only scratched the surface so far, but already there are several essays bookmarked. If you’re in the mood for short fiction about a very particular sort of animal, my story “The Dire Wolf” (which originally appeared in Running with the Pack) has been made available as part of the festivities! You can read it here.

* And a cover has been released for Willful Impropriety! (To be Wilful where applicable.) It is pretty gorgeous. “The Dancing Master” is the story for which I overloaded on Victorian etiquette, so expect more of that as we go along, because those pears aren’t going to cut themselves (and then offer themselves to the lady on their right presuming this is a private dinner and not a public ball, because these are pears with manners, not some pile of country gentry or something. Pears are jerks).

So, I am having a con-heavy weekend this weekend!

Thursday through Saturday I’ll be at ICFA, hiding from the sun in Orlando, Florida!

On Friday, I have a reading at 2:45pm. At some point, if all goes well, I’ll be skittering through patches of shade to see the Hunger Games, which I hope to write up before the banquet. (At the banquet, I will be accepting the Crawford and quietly freaking out.)

Sunday morning, I’m headed to Denver for AnomalyCon! I land less than an hour before my first panel, so my costume will be “person who is clothed,” but I hope to charge into the Tivoli on time. My schedule for the day is more or less as follows:

10:00 AM Western Steampunk and the Weird West
2:00 PM Science of Steampunk
4: 00PM Strong Women in History and Steampunk

I might also have the chance to crash the 1:00pm fashion panel, depending on number of panelists and my blood-caffeine level. And I’ll be hanging around all day – if you’re in the city and at all steampunk-inclined, you should stop by and say hi!

More updates as events warrant! (Where “events” are “things I remember I should blog about long after the fact.”)

I was going to post my con schedule for this weekend today, but if movies are going to keep releasing trailer after trailer trying desperately to one-up the hype of their rival who is probably not even targeting the same audience they are, then the time has come to stop peeking at bus ads through my fingers and actually look at these movies.

Let’s do a Trailer Cage Match, shall we? (SPOILER WARNING, for trailer content only. Also spoiler: there are no winners in this battle, except producers. And people who have stock in the folktales market: when fairy tale movies fight, they always win.)

The long-form trailer for Mirror, Mirror:

* So, I think it matters that we don’t judge these films for what they are not. Saying that Mirror, Mirror doesn’t look as dark as Huntsman is accurate; saying that categorically makes Mirror, Mirror a worse movie is not. It’s probably for the best that these movies aren’t going to be in direct tonal competition, and there is absolutely room in the canon for two very different takes on a fairy tale, one of which is lighthearted (pretending that fairy tales were ever lighthearted is how Disney makes rent).

* That said: I am not sure about this one at ALL.

* A large part of the issue I’m having is that if you go too camp and self-referential with a fairy tale, you end up in 10th Kingdom territory. (If you have a prince acting like a dog, you are actually in The 10th Kingdom, but that is a separate pearl-clutching.) And since this is a PG family film, this tone is a legitimate tone to take, but it is a bit of a hard sell.

* Julia Roberts, I saw Anjelica Huston in Ever After, and you are no Anjelica Huston.

* I like the hint of Bollywood! I…am not sure if you can do just a hint of Bollywood and have it be effective. (Judgment withheld on this until I have seen the final product and determined the percentage and efficacy of Bollywood-per-litre.)

* Tarsem Singh, we have talked about The Fall, which was, while occasionally flawed, a fucking gorgeous film. Every still from that movie, whether it’s a costume close-up, a wide shot, a special effect, a flashback, or a two-shot of a couple of actors shooting the breeze, is beautiful. Aside from Eiko Ishioka’s costumes, there’s not much about this movie that’s visually striking, and THAT really worries me. Even Immortals LOOKED good, you know? Tarsem, at this point, if you take away your visual flair and promise me an awesome hilarious campy self-aware fairy tale because I’m awesome with folktales didn’t you see Immortals just trust me everything’s fine, you are not promising me very much. You are sort of negative-promising me things, and I am beginning to edge slowly towards the door of a movie theatre I have not even entered yet.

Not to be outdone, the newly-released Snow White and the Hunstman:

* This movie is almost exactly what happens if Legend, Lord of the Rings, and Snow White: A Tale of Terror had gotten married and had a baby. It could not look more like that if footage of the earlier films was spliced together. (The internet is probably on top of this already.)

* On the other hand, those were good inspirations; there’s definitely more happening visually in this trailer than in Mirror, Mirror (which is funny, because if you showed me these two trailers blind and asked me which one Tarsem Singh directed, it would have been the one with the woman entirely dripping in white and then vanishing into a flock of crows, hands down).

* The framing of this story, as a totalitarian regime that consumes the hearts of young women in order to gain power while fighting several wars simply because the seat of power has the military power to do so, could not be more timely. I hear you, movie, and man, am I listening.

* I’m almost always up for a fairy tale retelling in which a heroine does more than passively suffer. (Even Mirror, Mirror has that going for it – Snow White isn’t taking much guff from the Queen, looks like.) I have zero problem with turning Snow into a crusading knight.

* I have greater-than-zero problems with her wandering through the pollen glen as adorable creatures left over from Alice in Wonderland (PRODUCER OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND is a double-edged trumpet) peer up at her Disney-style as delighted music plays. I loved the pollen glen in Legend, but I loved it because it was meant as patently false brightness, and things swiftly got creepy. It might go this way here, too. Judgment withheld, since this might work better in context.

* However, since that context involves Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, who are both hilarious people but are not great actors, I am not sure how much better some of this can work. (You’ll notice how little of this trailer is either of them talking.)

* Charlize Theron does a lot of talking! That’s not doing the movie any favors, either. (Charlize, I saw Sigourney Weaver in A Tale of Terror. You are no Sigourney Weaver.)

* “Evil Fights Destiny” – collection of keywords or actual phrase that is supposed to make some kind of sense? This trailer doesn’t know, and the more you think about it, neither do you.

Obviously I’ll be lining up for both, but the more I see, the more mixed my feelings become. Luckily, I’ll be able to wrap one of these up next week, when I will be the only person at the Mirror, Mirror midnight show, because I am pretty much the only person who even cares, is the feeling I’m getting. (This week I’m trying to wrangle a strategic disappearance from ICFA long enough to see an 11am showing of The Hunger Games somewhere, where I will have to point and shout “IT’S JENNIFER LAWRENCE” just so I can distract the long lines of people and sneak into a seat. More on that tomorrow!)

This weekend marks the long-anticipated release of John Carter of Mars, a movie that spent 80 years in discussion for adaptation and has only now managed to happen, which is kind of telling. Given the length of its incubation period, and the mangling of a marketing campaign that, among other things, shortened the title to John Carter so that people would definitely have the least possible clue about what was going on in John Carter and the SuperSaturated Red Blob Poster: The Movie, it’s safe to say that everyone was expecting a total disaster.

It is not a total disaster. It is, however, a movie whose good moments were chosen with great care at the expense of large swathes of mess, as if Michael Chabon and Andrew Stanton sat down with a series of Post-Its with things they wanted to make sure to do (“AWESOME WALKING CITIES AND FLYING SHIPS AND STUFF” they just wrote directly onto the wall).

“Lots of Structure” was a Post-it, and so this movie had a prologue, and then ten minutes of frame story, and then twenty minutes of extended flashback, before we ever get to Barsoom. “Fix Sexist Nonsense” was also a Post-It, and they worked very hard to do that. Then they went to lunch and the “Fix Racist Nonsense” Post-It blew away while they were gone and when they got back they didn’t notice there was an empty spot and skipped right to “Make Woola More Adorable” instead.

So, let’s go through the movie and talk about Post-Its that happened, or should have.

1. The biggest surprise was how seriously everyone took the “Fix Sexist Nonsense” Post-It. Deja Thoris, scientist-warrior who flees an arranged marriage to find a way to finish her experiment that will help defend the planet against her fiance, is a character who has dreams and hopes entirely outside the hero’s storyline, who can defend herself if given half a chance, and doesn’t have to change to be a match with our hero (he’s the one who tries to be worthy of her). Sola, the Thark assigned to protect John Carter, does so without unrequited love or maternal overtures; she’s a loyal friend and awesome fighter who has her own non-Carter emotional arc about Dad Being Secretly Proud of Her. It’s not perfect, and it’s still as cheeseball as you’d expect from an action film from Disney, but you can see the work they did. (Deja and Sola even get a moment of friendship during a battle scene that might have passed the Bechdel, which was something I didn’t expect this movie to get within a hundred yards of.)

2. …which is why one has to assume that the “Fix Racist Nonsense” Post-It blew away entirely, because this film has not done much of anything to interrogate, update, or handle the racism that coats everything in the Barsoom novels. The Tharks get some lip service about having the traits of the Spartans or the Romans, but they are Noble Savages and no mistake. In fact, in case you were going to make a mistake and assume best intentions, they go out of their way at the start of his story to show that John Carter Is Cool with The Superstitious Warlike Apache and Speaks Their Language and Nobody Think About How He Was Confederate, Please, Okay?, and then drop him in the middle of Barsoom, where it turns out What These Tharks Really Need is a Honky.

3. Speaking of which, for a dude who grasps language differences enough to learn a second one, there is a lot about the Thark language being played for laughs. Early on, Tars Tarkas taps his chest and says, “Jeddak Tars Tarkas,” and then points an open hand at John Carter, and John responds, “John Carter, I’m from Virginia,” and gets So Annoyed when Those Silly Tharks call him Virginia after that. Dude, you’ve already learned another language, you know how exchanging names goes. Why are you whipping out a street address and then rolling your eyes about it?

4. People the movie did not lose with the many Virginia jokes: the audience I saw it with, who thought that WAS hilarious, repeatedly. (Also heard repeatedly, from the young teen right behind me, regarding the shapeshifter character: “But wait, I don’t get it, who’s this other guy now? I thought he was the blue guy but now he’s this other guy.” – Inception Girl, 2012 edition)

5. Thing the audience also loved and the movie spent a lot of time on: Woola, whose Post-It about adorability was also taken very seriously. With a face like a pit bull smashed against a glass door, and all the rascally fighting spirit of a pit bull whose person is being smashed against a glass door by Martian bad guys, Woola’s designed to sell a billion plushies, and it will probably work! Computer-enhanced cuteness! Licks your face just like a real dog, and also rips the throats from your enemies, which is just like a real dog if you’ve ever seen a Chihuahua get super angry! Disney’s merchandisers were probably well pleased.

6. Things the movie spent the right amount of time on: a five-way Ham-Off by vets of Awesome Character Actor Camp. Ciaran Hinds, unfortunately, sort of phones this one in, one assumes because he was only in it to hang out with James Purefoy again. James Purefoy, however, is delighted to be in a big-screen Ham-Off, and plays man-at-arms Kantos Kan like Deja’s best gay friend. Mark Strong tries to sidle in with some creepy-priest sibilance, but even at his hammiest he’s too subtle for this. Willem Dafoe is definitely not too subtle for this, but still manages to turn in a performance that’s much too compelling to really be a Ham-Off entry. Cue Dominic West, who will be in any movie you want so long as you give him the worst possible dialogue and a free plane ticket, and who smarms his lines so hard he leaves a slime trail behind him. Winner, and still champion, with James Purefoy riiiiiight behind him!

(6a. Not at all hammy, and possibly the best performance of the movie, was Invisible Samantha Morton as Sola.)

7. People who didn’t even try to enter that upstaging bloodbath: Taylor Kitsch. He aimed for Vaguely Rakish Yet Quietly Doubtful and Heroic When Necessary, and did a serviceable job with what he was given, especially the large sections where it was just John and some Tharks, so he was probably standing in the desert for 8 hours at a time, talking to tennis balls on sticks and doing his best.

8. The cinematography did its job, sometimes with things like the double moons, but mostly by reminding you that if there is one thing that is both gorgeous to look at and painful to inhabit, it’s the desert. The river gorge was particularly National-Geographic worthy. (If it was also very Lord of the Rings, that’s a whole stylistic can of worms I’m not particularly inclined to open. Burroughs wrote a book in 1912 that had enough iconic imagery to have influenced a lot of other writers and filmmakers whose work made it to theatres first. If John Carter looks like some of those movies sometimes, that can’t necessarily be helped. The movie tries its best to be as artsy as necessary and no more than necessary, except when it can linger on Taylor Kitsch’s face for thirty seconds at a time, which it does, because this movie looooooves his face, which means the most remarkable takeaway is that at the end of the movie you know exactly how many eyelashes he’s carrying around, because you’ve had the time to count.)

All in all, the movie was the cinema equivalent of being locked in a Tilt-a-Whirl stuck on Gentle for two hours: not as bad as you thought, and in moments even fun, but you are still going emerge banged up because of the essential nature of the thing and the pressures it can’t escape. It made some surprising progress in certain areas; if it had been able to bring some more complexity to the racial issues, we might be looking at a popcorn flick that was actually a triumph over its source material. But it didn’t, so we aren’t. Instead, it’s a $250-million case of Selective Post-It Syndrome, which comes out about like you’d expect.