In any case after watching the movie it made me think about why The Hunger Games is becoming such a huge success whereas a couple weeks ago, John Carter was such a tremendous flop. There are all the obvious reasons including marketing, the already existing fanbase from the books, etc., but in the end, I'd easily argue that John Carter was the better movie. At least I enjoyed it a little more than The Hunger Games (the dog was great in John Carter, can't think of anyone in The Hunger Games I liked more than that dog). Just thought it was interesting how two big budget movies opening in the same month could have drastically different box office results and that it would be an interesting discussion.

****spoiler alert****

This story involves kids who get their necks snapped, die of poisoning, get stabbed and bled out, take spears to gut and arrows to the chest, get munched on by wild dogs, etc.. Ross, to his credit, handles this well, minimizing the violence but maximizing the pain, and Collins contextualizes all this in the absurdity of the games, as well as in the service of social commentary.

This gets a PG-13 rating, but Bully, which features a few kids spouting off profanity (as most of us either did or heard at that age) gets an R rating???

That seems just as wrong to me as the concept of picking 24 kids and putting them in an arena to kill each other.