Monthly Archives: March 2012

Five Scenes You Didn’t See in The Hunger Games Movie

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OK. By now, you’ve heard about this movie called THE HUNGER GAMES. You may have even read the book (I hope). Like any adaptation, there is bound to be some scenes, characters, or storyline that will be cut out or merged due to time constraints. It is understandable that sacrifices must be made in order to progress a story and in this case, the adaptation is perhaps made slightly more difficult by the fact that the books were written in first person – from the point of view of our heroine, Katniss Everdeen.

But I am not here to critique the movie – there are already plenty of movie critics and film reviewers who have done this.  I thought I would just highlight a few scenes that made the book all-the-more appealing to me that did not make it into the final cut of the film, or were changed.  To those of you who have read the trilogy, you will probably notice some of these scenes/characters will become more significant in the subsequent books in the series, and so, I hope, they will be brought back into the film adaptation of those books.

Please note that I am writing this post on the assumption that you have either read the book or seen the movie or both, therefore, no detailed explanation is being given as to the overall plot or cast of characters.

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How Aussie Is That – Or Is It?

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G’day mate! ‘Owyagoinmateawright? (Translation: Hello! How are you going, mate, all right?”)

For a long time, Aussies like me have been complaining about how our country and people are portrayed and perceived by people in other countries.  The kinds of questions I get asked about Australia whenever I travel abroad never cease to amaze me – sometimes they make me laugh, while other times, they just make me shake my head and wonder what kind of education people are getting about us.

Let’s start with some basics: we don’t all have kangaroos hopping around in our backyards or cuddly koalas perched in our trees chewing on eucalyptus leaves.  Thankfully, I have not had these questions in a very long time.  Maybe if I lived in the bush or in the Outback, I might find them, but out here in the ‘burbs in metropolitan Sydney, the only place where I would see said natives is at the zoo or wildlife park.

On my first visit to the US in 1995, I was constantly asked “Do you have a lot of flies in Australia?”  The first time I was asked this question, I replied “yeah, that’s why this [waving hand in front of my face as if swatting away flies] is called the Australian salute”.  Now this is actually true.  But when I was asked this a couple more times as I met different groups of Americans, it suddenly occurred to me I might have been missing something.  When I asked why everyone was asking me this (as opposed to the typical “do kangaroos really know how to box?”) I became curious.  It turned out the Discovery Channel had just aired a program about flies and apparently Australian flies were heavily featured. Mystery solved!

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Lights! Camera! Action!

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Mobilisation. Yes, we have heard that word used a lot when it comes to wars and flash mobs. I guess this is not too far off. Maybe I’m exaggerating. What I’m trying to say is, never underestimate what a group of determined fans can do, especially when armed with the technological wonders of webcams, iPhones and peer-to-peer file sharing.

Confused? Let me explain.

OK, so my last post on this blog was a little tribute to my favourite TV showrunner, Jeff Eastin, and a little recap of what happened in the WHITE COLLAR season finale. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you are way behind the 400+ readers who have hit that page in the week since I posted it but it’s never too late. You can still read it here 🙂

Several weeks ago, frustrated by the fact that international fans of WHITE COLLAR like myself are never eligible to enter competitions related to the show, I suggested to some of my fellow “Collars” that we make our own fan video to show how deserving we are of getting recognition for our fanliness (I admit, this is not a real word but neither was “google” until recent years). I mean, why should we get left out just because we don’t happen to live in the US? Continue reading →

An Open Letter To Mr Jeff Eastin

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Dear Mr Eastin,

Though we have never met, I feel like I have known you forever, so I’m going to dispense with the pleasantries and just call you Jeff, if I may.

Well, Jeff, I know your birthday is fast approaching (no, I am not being creepy stalkerish, it’s public information for those who already have one finger on the phone to the police), and unfortunately I am not able to give you a present as awesome as the “FBI Profile” file that a group of us gave you last year. So I hope this open letter will suffice.

FBI’s most wanted

Now, as you know, I am a big fan of yours.  There may be a small dissident group who think genuine fans are sycophants and like to diss other fans for their support – but thankfully that is just a minority. Your show, WHITE COLLAR has got me addicted to the point of unparalleled obsession.

I have lost sleep because of you and your crazy cliffhangers.  Because of you, I discovered the world of fan-fiction and it re-ignited a passion for writing that I had not experienced since high school. Because of you, I have also discovered the world of slash-fiction…let’s not go there…I can’t write it but, boy, do I admire the talented people who do!

So now let’s move on to the season 3 finale, “Judgement Day”.  Let’s start with the spelling.  We here in the commonwealth spell it with an “e” in the middle but  what’s a letter here and there between friends, right?

I know you love leaving clues and hints for fans to find, so let’s take a look at the bread crumb trail you left for us that led to where we are now.

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