Ending weeks of speculation, Sam Claflin (Snow White and the Huntsman) has officially been cast as the dashing former Hunger Games champion Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Lionsgate announced today. The British-born Claflin, 24, had been the front-runner for the coveted role since mid-July.

Of all the new characters in Catching Fire, Finnick looms largest. After he won his Hunger Games for District 4 when he 14 thanks to his prowess with a trident, Finnick’s rakish good looks and louche charm helped him become something of a celebrity in the Capitol. (MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!)

'The Hunger Games' ignites the ALA's list of most challenged books

Joel Stein: The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” {...} Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.

I’m sure all those books are well written. So is “Horton Hatches the Egg.” But Horton doesn’t have the depth of language and character as literature written for people who have stopped physically growing.

I appreciate that adults occasionally watch Pixar movies or play video games. That’s fine. Those media don’t require much of your brains. Books are one of our few chances to learn. There’s a reason my teachers didn’t assign me to go home and play three hours of Donkey Kong.

I have no idea what “The Hunger Games” is like. Maybe there are complicated shades of good and evil in each character. Maybe there are Pynchonesque turns of phrase. Maybe it delves into issues of identity, self-justification and anomie that would make David Foster Wallace proud. I don’t know because it’s a book for kids. I’ll read “The Hunger Games” when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults.

Dr Who

True Blood

HBO has set an official season five premiere date for June 10


Game of Thrones:
Cersei:

Sansa:

Joel Stein: The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” {...} Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads.

I’m sure all those books are well written. So is “Horton Hatches the Egg.” But Horton doesn’t have the depth of language and character as literature written for people who have stopped physically growing.

I appreciate that adults occasionally watch Pixar movies or play video games. That’s fine. Those media don’t require much of your brains. Books are one of our few chances to learn. There’s a reason my teachers didn’t assign me to go home and play three hours of Donkey Kong.

I have no idea what “The Hunger Games” is like. Maybe there are complicated shades of good and evil in each character. Maybe there are Pynchonesque turns of phrase. Maybe it delves into issues of identity, self-justification and anomie that would make David Foster Wallace proud. I don’t know because it’s a book for kids. I’ll read “The Hunger Games” when I finish the previous 3,000 years of fiction written for adults.

Dr Who

True Blood

HBO has set an official season five premiere date for June 10


Game of Thrones:
Cersei:

Sansa:

It wasn't all good news for Team "Hunger Games" over the weekend. Despite fawning reviews and record-breaking ticket sales, some fans of the blockbuster young adult trilogy by author Suzanne Collins were upset by the decision to cast an African-American actress as Rue, one of the supporting characters. Never mind that she's described as having "dark brown skin" in the original book.

As Jezebel notes, many "Hunger Games" viewers resorted to sending racist tweets over the fact that Rue (played in the film by young actress Amandla Sternberg) was black.

"Why does Rue have to be black," wrote one ignorant fan, whose Twitter page no longer exists. "Not gonna lie, kinda ruined the movie."

Another girl wanted to know "why they 'made all the good characters black.' "

"Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blonde girl you picture," wrote another user, whose account has also been deleted.

---

…And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that she's very like Prim in size and demeanor…

(elsewhere she's described as having 'dark satiny brown skin'

Thresh's description in the book:

The boy tribute from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there. He's one of the giants, probably six and half feet tall...

But before you choose to be appalled by a work of fiction or by a film adaptation, it's good to know that the concept that fuels The Hunger Games is both unthinkable and ever-thinkable, since it's a story that seems to get told over and over again. Equal parts dystopian classics like 1984 and Brave New World and pop-culture barnburners like Death Race 2000, The Running Man, and the Japanese kid-slaughter Battle Royale,

The Hunger Games reflects our secret and not-so-secret fears, which helps explain why it has captured more young readers than any recent books that don't feature Harry Potter or sparkly vampires  {...}  Setting aside whether something is good or not so good (Twilight in my estimation is not so good, and yet there are screaming audiences for it), people are often drawn to a work at a given moment because it exudes a peculiar relevance for them {...} that help explain why Publishers Weekly called The Hunger Games "the right book at the right time."

The Hunger Games is a powerful metaphor for the Great Recession, for this moment when even younger readers may be aware that their parents or older siblings are struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly dog-eat-dog economy. It's only a slightly-exaggerated look at our "reality TV" culture.   And it reflects our long-running military adventures {...} 

Some of the early reviews (of the movie) from England tell us what the book and the previews have already shown us: that, as The Guardian put it, "the America of The Hunger Games looks a lot like the 30s Depression." And that vision of economic hardship is as it should be -- a narrative that shows young people competing to the death against each other so that those they love can have enough to eat is just a more-violent version of the Ayn Randian capitalism {...} God help anybody who falls under the wheels, because nobody else will.

Panem, the nation where The Hunger Games takes place, is the Latin word for "bread," and clearly related to the Latin phrase "panem et circenses" -- "bread and circuses." Author Suzanne Collins intended that The Hunger Games satirize our culture, where we watch "real life" on television and are thus distracted from our own real lives.  As the Romans knew, if the people are entertained, they are less likely to notice {...}

Katniss Evergreen (Jennifer Lawrence) a resident of one of the poorest districts, lives with her mother and younger sister Primrose. Unable to find work, she scours the countryside for food, hunting squirrels and birds. When the Reaping, the selection of the two entrants to the Hunger Games picks out Primrose and a baker's son Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), Katniss offers herself as a volunteer in place of her sister. Peeta and Katniss travel to the Capitol. After five days of training, they are pitched against the other twenty two entrants, only one of which will emerge victorious.

Before the film has been released, there has been argument over how much of a debt the film owes to Battle Royale (2000), the Japanese film in which high school students are forced to compete towards the same grizzly outcome. Yet while The Hunger Games does share certain similarities with Battle Royale, the scenario employed by both films is used to ask different questions about the nature of different societies. Battle Royale can be seen as a satirical take on the Japanese authorities' hostility towards a youth culture which it refuses to countenance or attempt to understand. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is more concerned with the Western world's relationship with violence and reality television.

In the run-up to the film's release, star of the film Jennifer Lawrence compared the film's subject material to the very public breakdown of reality TV star Kim Kardashian's marriage. This, a very tragic and supposedly private event, was knowingly recorded on camera and then broadcast for entertainment. In the same way that reality television is edited and staged to affect an emotional response from the viewer, in the film we see both Katniss and Peeta complicit in manipulating the audience to ensure their own survival.

Yet although the subject material is compelling, does it make for an entertaining film? The answer for the most part is yes. The film is not didactic and grants the audience the intelligence to grasp with the issues that the narrative is conveying. As the film's lead, Jennifer Lawrence carries on her good work from Winter's Bone, with a performance that mixes gritty stoicism with vulnerability, unable to withstand the realities of the horrors she is being asked to carry out in the name of public entertainment {...}

But before you choose to be appalled by a work of fiction or by a film adaptation, it's good to know that the concept that fuels The Hunger Games is both unthinkable and ever-thinkable, since it's a story that seems to get told over and over again. Equal parts dystopian classics like 1984 and Brave New World and pop-culture barnburners like Death Race 2000, The Running Man, and the Japanese kid-slaughter Battle Royale,

The Hunger Games reflects our secret and not-so-secret fears, which helps explain why it has captured more young readers than any recent books that don't feature Harry Potter or sparkly vampires  {...}  Setting aside whether something is good or not so good (Twilight in my estimation is not so good, and yet there are screaming audiences for it), people are often drawn to a work at a given moment because it exudes a peculiar relevance for them {...} that help explain why Publishers Weekly called The Hunger Games "the right book at the right time."

The Hunger Games is a powerful metaphor for the Great Recession, for this moment when even younger readers may be aware that their parents or older siblings are struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly dog-eat-dog economy. It's only a slightly-exaggerated look at our "reality TV" culture.   And it reflects our long-running military adventures {...} 

Some of the early reviews (of the movie) from England tell us what the book and the previews have already shown us: that, as The Guardian put it, "the America of The Hunger Games looks a lot like the 30s Depression." And that vision of economic hardship is as it should be -- a narrative that shows young people competing to the death against each other so that those they love can have enough to eat is just a more-violent version of the Ayn Randian capitalism {...} God help anybody who falls under the wheels, because nobody else will.

Panem, the nation where The Hunger Games takes place, is the Latin word for "bread," and clearly related to the Latin phrase "panem et circenses" -- "bread and circuses." Author Suzanne Collins intended that The Hunger Games satirize our culture, where we watch "real life" on television and are thus distracted from our own real lives.  As the Romans knew, if the people are entertained, they are less likely to notice {...}

Katniss Evergreen (Jennifer Lawrence) a resident of one of the poorest districts, lives with her mother and younger sister Primrose. Unable to find work, she scours the countryside for food, hunting squirrels and birds. When the Reaping, the selection of the two entrants to the Hunger Games picks out Primrose and a baker's son Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), Katniss offers herself as a volunteer in place of her sister. Peeta and Katniss travel to the Capitol. After five days of training, they are pitched against the other twenty two entrants, only one of which will emerge victorious.

Before the film has been released, there has been argument over how much of a debt the film owes to Battle Royale (2000), the Japanese film in which high school students are forced to compete towards the same grizzly outcome. Yet while The Hunger Games does share certain similarities with Battle Royale, the scenario employed by both films is used to ask different questions about the nature of different societies. Battle Royale can be seen as a satirical take on the Japanese authorities' hostility towards a youth culture which it refuses to countenance or attempt to understand. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, is more concerned with the Western world's relationship with violence and reality television.

In the run-up to the film's release, star of the film Jennifer Lawrence compared the film's subject material to the very public breakdown of reality TV star Kim Kardashian's marriage. This, a very tragic and supposedly private event, was knowingly recorded on camera and then broadcast for entertainment. In the same way that reality television is edited and staged to affect an emotional response from the viewer, in the film we see both Katniss and Peeta complicit in manipulating the audience to ensure their own survival.

Yet although the subject material is compelling, does it make for an entertaining film? The answer for the most part is yes. The film is not didactic and grants the audience the intelligence to grasp with the issues that the narrative is conveying. As the film's lead, Jennifer Lawrence carries on her good work from Winter's Bone, with a performance that mixes gritty stoicism with vulnerability, unable to withstand the realities of the horrors she is being asked to carry out in the name of public entertainment {...}

After Lawrence was confirmed as Katniss, speculation turned to who might be playing the role of Peeta Mellark – a fellow contestant in the titular games who’s been carrying a torch for Katniss for several years. Now, THR has revealed a list of up-and-coming young actors that the studio is considering for the role. They also have a rundown of who’s being eyed for the part of Gale Hawthorne – Katniss’ good friend and hunting partner.

As far as Peeta is concerned, it looks like a few names that have popped up in the past are still in the running – specifically, Josh Hutcherson and Hunter Parrish.

The list also includes Alexander Ludwig, Lucas Till, and Evan Peters.

Interestingly, it looks like Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) is no longer in consideration.

For the part of Gale, THR claims that the studio’s list includes names like Liam Hemsworth, David Henrie, Robbie Amell, and Drew Roy.

After Lawrence was confirmed as Katniss, speculation turned to who might be playing the role of Peeta Mellark – a fellow contestant in the titular games who’s been carrying a torch for Katniss for several years. Now, THR has revealed a list of up-and-coming young actors that the studio is considering for the role. They also have a rundown of who’s being eyed for the part of Gale Hawthorne – Katniss’ good friend and hunting partner.

As far as Peeta is concerned, it looks like a few names that have popped up in the past are still in the running – specifically, Josh Hutcherson and Hunter Parrish.

The list also includes Alexander Ludwig, Lucas Till, and Evan Peters.

Interestingly, it looks like Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) is no longer in consideration.

For the part of Gale, THR claims that the studio’s list includes names like Liam Hemsworth, David Henrie, Robbie Amell, and Drew Roy.