Anyone watching...



this weekend?

Seems interesting and it has been receiving decent reviews.

[spoiler]Claude turning out to be only manipulating the teacher to his benefit was implied from the moment the "fiction" started to dilude with the "reality". The way the movie was constructed led me, at least, to believe it was keeping one last surprise to the end - and it delivered what the story initially suggested, instead. Him sleeping with the wife was indeed unexpected but the whole context of the ending was a concretization of a something I already saw coming. Of course a movie delivering what its story was initially set out to be isn't bad, but taking the nature of the film into consideration, I wasn't completely satisfied. [/spoiler]

[spoiler]Well.. Your final impression of the movie is already totally different than mine. Claude wasn't necessarily manipulating the teacher for the sake of his benefit. Everything converges to the fact that Claude is writer. Writers are, pretty much, voyeurs. After all, a story is narrated by a point of view - even if in first person or third person, even if it's based in something real or not. Germain was part of Claude's life and story since the beginning. But why couldn't he finish the story? Because, if you recall, he always said that he needed to be inside of the house to tell the story. And that was what was missing from his story: Germain's house. Besides, he sleeping with Jeanne... It's not concrete. It's a conclusion that Germain got, but it is never implied if it really happened or not.

I don't see how the ending is predictable. Yes, there are clues in the movie, specially when Jeanne says that Claude was teaching Germain a lesson. But I doubt that you even consider that the ending to Claude story would be about Germain and his house. And, once again, it ties up the whole idealism of the film: the relationship between writer and reader, or even movie and audience.

It appears to me that you wanted a shocking ending just for the sake of being surprised and satisfying yourself, instead of being in context and making sense. But if you recall, during the movie, Germain says that the main point of a writer is satisfies himself first, and thats why Claude finished the story the way he wanted, because the story wasn't only about the Rapha's, but also about Germain.

You also say that you loved the twists of the movie. Well... Funny enough, one of the most shocking twists - Rapha's suicide - is not even concrete. And that's why the movie is brilliant. Are you sure that everything you are watching is real? What is fiction and what is not?[/spoiler]

"I hate foreign films. They are all slow-paced, boring and uninteresting".

http://thegladerunner.tumblr.com/post/49345348743/10-reasons-why-the-maze-runner-is-better-than-the

10 reasons why The Maze Runner is better than The Hunger Games

Hey guys,
I’ve been a huge The Maze Runner fan since I started the first book, 2 years ago. I read right after I was done with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. And I basically followed both series while they were getting popular, and popular. Nowadays, I’ve been reading a lot of comparisons between the two so I decided to write this list. Of course, everything written here is my honest and sincere opinion, and I hope to be respected by that. My intention is not to cause fights between fandoms, but just to expose why I think that The Maze Runner should receive more attention from YA readers. Sorry for my bad english, if anything.

1. Third Person Narrative
As an enthusiastic Teen Fiction reader, it’s impossible to not notice how common the first person writing style became. I have nothing against this option, but honestly? As a Filmmaking graduate, I think I can say that writing in Third person is much more challenging. After all, it is much harder to make the reader to feel closer to the main character in third person instead of having him telling the story, right? And, in my opinion, James Dashner does it brilliantly. In The Hunger Games, we have another girl narrating the story. It’s just common place now.

2. Character Development
The Third Person Narrative take us to the next reason: character development. If writing in First Person makes it easier to put the main character closer to the reader, Third person helps developing the personality and profile of secondary characters. In The Hunger Games, all characters are developed by Katniss perspective, a very partial vision that actually converges to her opinion about certain character and not accurate behavior. In The Maze Runner, all of the characters are deep, have proper time on page and most important: they feel human. Why? Because they have flaws and this take us to our next reason.

3. No Manichaeism
Once, I friend told me that the he liked The Hunger Games better because the characters are more “likable”. While it does make sense this type of thought, it is very obvious why some people think that. In The Hunger Games, there’s this very clear line between bad and good. Or the characters are bad, or they are good. There is no intersection, and pretty much the antagonists are stereotyped. There is no conflict. And that’s what makes characters likable and not likable in the series. In The Maze Runner the characters just feel… human. All of them have flaws because there is no bad or good. There is conflict, doubts, flaws, questionable attitudes, as there would be in any human being. It feels real. Even Thomas has it flaws. Nobody is untouchable. And this duality, specially represented by WICKED makes things much more interesting.

4. Subtle Social Criticism
The previous reason takes us immediately to this one. While I do think that the social criticism in The Hunger Games trilogy is very interesting, it is also very obvious and “at your face”. Of course, you have that whole thing of criticizing the media and the role of entertainment, and you also have the dictatorship type of government with all rules. Once again, manichaeism. It’s all about power and “ruling the world” again. There’s no development to that, and it feels flat. In The Maze Runner, the criticism is there and it is not obvious. The whole duality of WICKED represents that very well, same for the conspiracy approach.

5. No Cheesy Romance
It always admired me, in The Hunger Games, that even with all of the things that Katniss went through, she still have time to think about Romance, specially in Catching Fire. And, guess what? It’s that old story of a love triangle, that she will spent pages and pages wandering and questioning about. People might say that there is a “love triangle” in The Maze Runner, but that is totally wrong. What we have in The Maze Runner is two female characters attached to Thomas survival. There’s minimum “love” questioning, because, of course, there are far more important things to develop in the narrative. And, once again, instead of having that thing of “two ideal and possible love interests”, we have flawed characters what makes Thomas question not the “love situation” itself, but the characters temper. And actually, this will bring us to the 5th reason.

6. Appealing to both genders
Once again, as a YA novels enthusiast and a guy, you have no idea how hard has been to follow some Teen Fiction books due the fact that most of them are written from the girl point of view. Nowadays, Teen Fiction has basically become Teen Girls Fiction. It’s so hard to find a series that also is highly appealing to boys. After all, how are we supposed to relate ourselves to the drama of a girl in doubt between two guys? And that’s why I like The Maze Runner. It’s appealing to everybody, everyone can relate to something, there’s a little bit to everybody. I really wished that there wasn’t this obvious line in the field where so many Teen novels are dedicated to girls only. Boys also read. And thank you so much JK Rowling, for being a woman and writing one of the most beloved male characters of all time.

7. A satisfying and concise conclusion
In my opinion, Mockingjay was one of the worst ways of ending a series that I have ever read. The pace is awful, the fate of most of the characters are laughable, most of the social criticism get lost in the middle of really bad written action sequences. In The Maze Runner, Dashner provides an equally thrilling book when comparing to the other ones of the saga, with an ending that does make sense, surprises, and fits. It’s not happy or unhappy, it’s doubtful. It generates discussions between readers, it leaves some questions opened and while so many people see that as a bad thing, it is exactly the opposite. It’s the type of book that when you finish, you still want to talk about. In The Hunger Games, all answers are provided and that’s it. When I finished Mockingjay, my reaction was: “Meh.” What was I going to talk about it?

8. “Wanting more” factor
The fact the three books in The Maze Runner trilogy always leave questions to the reader is something that gets the reader wanting more. The books hook up very well, in a way that make you eager to know what is happening next. And yet, the books do feel complete. In Catching Fire, for example, everything is anti-climatic that instead of leaving the reader with that wanting more taste, it just feels that the story has been interrupt. It doesn’t conclude anything and it leaves a taste of frustration instead. In The Maze Runner, you basically feel like Thomas, by trying to solve the mysteries, getting intrigued and looking for answers.

9. Better written dramatic moments and action sequences
One of the most frustrating things with The Hunger Games is how bland and flat most of the key moments are described with they exception, maybe (and I do say, maybe), Rue’s death. My main target here is Mockingjay. Deaths totally lacking emotion, being not memorable at all. Same for action sequences. It’s brilliant how Dashner portrays the crucial moments on the books and they never fail to reach the catharsis. In the end, some novels are written in first person to make you more intimate to the main character, but in The Hunger Games, I couldn’t care less.

10. A Better Described World
Something that I really like in The Maze Runner is how James Dashner sets up his world. He does it slowly, he introducing to the reader not only the characters, but the actual conditions of living in a certain place. In The Hunger Games, it Suzanne Collins just throw information on you. Some might say: “Oh. That’s because the book is on First Person”. And that brings us to the first reason again to close this article. As I wrote, I feel that Katniss POV totally overshadows the other aspects of the novel that had potential to be much more developed. In the end, everything is stereotyped, unidimensional and, yes, points towards Manaicheism.

I imagined how awesome would it be if Emma played Brenda <3