Are you ready to step back into the arena? Natey and I, your favorite movie podcast hosts, have strapped on our boots and stepped into the wild world of "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". Get ready to listen as we tackle this prequel, analyzing everything from the acting to the character development. Natey isn’t entirely sold on the flick, while I find some gems within, particularly lauding the performances of Viola Davis, Rachel Zegler, and Peter Dinklage. Don’t be shy to join the debate as we also touch on some heavy topics like representation of marginalized groups in the film.
As we journey on, we give you our personal ratings of the movie. I found it quite a thrill ride and a great source of motivation to pick up the book. Natey, on the other hand, wasn’t as impressed, finding it a tad lackluster. However, we agree that if you're a fan of the series, it's a must-watch. We also discuss Rachel Zegler's performance and the controversy surrounding her upcoming role in the live-action Snow White film. So tune in, leave your reviews, suggest some films for us to watch, and remember, "May the odds be ever in your favor!
Are you ready to step back into the arena? Natey and I, your favorite movie podcast hosts, have strapped on our boots and stepped into the wild world of "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". Get ready to listen as we tackle this prequel, analyzing everything from the acting to the character development. Natey isn’t entirely sold on the flick, while I find some gems within, particularly lauding the performances of Viola Davis, Rachel Zegler, and Peter Dinklage. Don’t be shy to join the debate as we also touch on some heavy topics like representation of marginalized groups in the film.
As we journey on, we give you our personal ratings of the movie. I found it quite a thrill ride and a great source of motivation to pick up the book. Natey, on the other hand, wasn’t as impressed, finding it a tad lackluster. However, we agree that if you're a fan of the series, it's a must-watch. We also discuss Rachel Zegler's performance and the controversy surrounding her upcoming role in the live-action Snow White film. So tune in, leave your reviews, suggest some films for us to watch, and remember, "May the odds be ever in your favor!
One's a movie buff, One watches movies.
Speaker 2:Just enough Together fun will be had by all. This is Nady and Katie at the Movies.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of Nady and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nady, of course, and with me is my good, good friend, katie. Hi, katie, how are you?
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm good. Thank you. I feel it under the weather, but could not miss this episode because it is from one of my favorite book series of all time.
Speaker 1:That's right, let's jump right into it. We are reviewing the Hunger Games the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to the Hunger Games, but before we can get into the movie, we got to go over the synopsis. Quaralona Snow mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games. The Hunger Games the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes stars Rachel Zegler, tom Blythe, viola Davis, peter Dinklage and a bunch of other people. Like we said, this is the prequel to the Hunger Games starring Jennifer Lawrence.
Speaker 1:I was a fan of those films, so I was like I'll give this movie a chance, even though it stars someone who's become infamous to a lot of people. That would be Rachel Zegler. She will be starring in Snow White, the live action version, and she's already given everybody a bad taste in their mouth about that film based on what she's talked about. So I didn't know how I was going to feel about this movie. But, katie, I will let you. Let me know. Have you seen? Obviously you just said you're a fan of the books, but did you go see the original Hunger Games films?
Speaker 3:I have read the books and seen the movies, but not for the snakes and Songbirds and Snakes. I have not read that fourth book. I kind of, because it came out so much farther later after I did not pick up on it and read, just kind of missed it. So to get right into, maybe, the review, it was a good enough movie, or at least the end of the story itself was good enough that I am definitely motivated. I went ahead and already Amazon Prime bought the fourth book, the prequel. So I'm excited and I do miss.
Speaker 3:I mean that started my obsession and love for Jennifer Lawrence. Hopefully at Nathan you may be able to post this, but there's actually a picture of us from Halloween a few years ago where I dressed up like Katniss. I went through a big Katniss phase. My professor in college started calling me Katniss because I was just die hard. So I will say this was not like the new Katniss for me. You know there was not a character that I was in love with from this movie, but I don't know if I was supposed to be.
Speaker 1:When the book first came out, a lot of people were kind of is like my feeling about Star Wars when they Feel like they have to tell the backstory of One of the main characters. And then this one is Coriolan of snow, who turns out to be the big bad guy in the Hunger Games Books and movies, and a lot of people were wondering why are they making this book? Why are they trying to humanize this bad guy who is okay with letting kids go into an arena and Kill each other? Why? Why are they trying to humanize it? And I was kind of in that boat because, again, why, why would you try to humanize a villain? And that's exactly what this movie is because, again, it's based on the book.
Speaker 1:I also did not read this book. I also didn't read the third Hunger Games book. I read the first two and a lot of people talk me out of reading the third book because they said it was kind of Boring. So I didn't read it and so I didn't read this one. But let's get right into our likes and dislikes of this movie. I honestly only have maybe one or two likes, and it was from an acting standpoint, and that would be Viola Davis. I thought she did a phenomenal job with her characters.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes in her look. I loved her look as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was dark, she was creepy, she was Just an evil person and it made sense that under this person, corillana Snow would turn into who he turns into. Rachel Zegler actually Didn't annoy me as much as I thought she was going to. I think her and Viola Davis were the only two, peter Dinklage to probably were the only three people that I feel like we're actually trying to portray characters, and Everyone else oh no, you're leaving out the main President snow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just thought he was bland, I thought he was boring, I thought he was bland, I thought his cousin Was kind of bland. Everyone in this movie was bland except, I think, rachel Zegler surprisingly Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage no you're.
Speaker 3:You're missing out on one more person. I got a and the guy that's the Host, the TV host.
Speaker 1:I thought he was too. He was trying to just be an imitation of what we've already seen before, and so that's why I didn't really like him that much. I didn't find it.
Speaker 3:It was a little more timid version of it because it's like still fresh, but once like your name, lucretius yeah, I thought he was his jokes landed for me personally, I Well, good for you, but honestly that's my only few likes for this movie.
Speaker 1:Everything else. I thought, because it's kind of like how I felt about the books. But before we get into my dislikes, Katie, would you like to divulge your likes about this film?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had a lot of likes. I thought the acting was great. I had no problem with snow. I do think that when you have an origin story like this, the difficult thing you're doing with a movie is you cannot really unless you put a narrator in there, you can't express the guy's thoughts. So there's a lot of acting that he's having to do with his face, that I'm sure the book goes into much detail about what he's thinking and how he's processing. In fact there's like a big moment at the end where it's almost like a one minute long, just silent and he's kind of frantic. I think if we could understand what he's thinking it would be more exciting.
Speaker 3:I liked the movie overall. I thought that the CGI was good, like any CGI pieces, except for there's a bombing at one point during the games and that looks really bad. I would say Like there's like dust kicked up and the green screen looks weird. But everything else I thought the Capitol was portrayed really great. I thought it was beautiful. I liked the kind of blend between older style, like it's supposed to be in the future, but they kind of make it look like it's a little more old-timey. I really liked the plot. So I don't know if I can give that to the movie itself, because the book's earning that, but I liked it. And to defend, I wasn't sure if I was gonna mention to the dislike how long it was, because it was a really long movie. They could have very well broken it into two movies, like they did the last, the third book and I'm glad they did not. I don't think there was enough content for two movies. So I will take this as like a compromise. So, knowing that, I feel like it was fine, although you do like look down at your watch and you're like this guy's not even close to being evil yet. Like how much time do we have left? So yeah, I liked it Again.
Speaker 3:I thought the costuming was great, I thought the singing was beautiful. But to get into my dislikes, some of the music was just weird. I'm like is this a musical? Like some of the songs where he's just uses like sitting on a rock and playing guitar, that makes sense, but when they almost like stop the plot to have her sing and like perform, I'm like this feels hokey. This is not. This is taking me out of the movie. To go right into negatives, rachel, I'm sorry, you're kind of like Carol Danvers or Brie Larson for me that any interview I've tried so hard to look up interviews where she sounded kind and I can't find any she just seems like a brat in real life and so every scene I watched she comes across as a strong character. Right, that's the whole point. She's supposed to be very she's out for herself. You know you can't really tell who she's, whose side she's on, but she's really just on her, her own side. So anything she did that was like that just made me think, oh yeah, selfish.
Speaker 1:And that's one of my dislikes too, obviously. I guess if you read the book you would know that I guess her character sings, and this movie has her singing a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, not even justifying why they put her in the movie. They're like, well, it's all she can really do a thing, so we got to make her.
Speaker 1:It kind of makes me want to read the book just to see how much she actually sings. Or did they just say, hey, rachel Ziggler, you're gonna be in snow white and we want, oh, and you're also in West Side Story and you sang in that too, so let's make you sing so people know she can sing. I was like, okay after like the second song I okay, I get it, she sings, she's a singer. The canvass didn't have to sing, to make the audience.
Speaker 3:Like her, she was a little bit of music in it. There was like some like the hanging tree song pops up in this movie and I really like that song from the other movies and so yeah, there's like a smidgen of music for sure. I think that's appropriate, especially if it's like acapella and feels very raw but overproduction. To go on again about her as well, her accent just was awful for me. Oh my gosh, it was so bad, like what she sounded like a hillbilly and I don't. That's not quite the she's supposed to be, basically like a gypsy, but I guess a hillbilly gypsy. Her accent was way off. It took me out of the movie every time she spoke and it wasn't even consistent.
Speaker 1:I don't know why that was a choice that the director made. Obviously was a choice the director made, and I don't. I don't understand it. And the thing is that this is the same director who directed the original Hunger Games, so he obviously loves the books and loves the stories. I just don't know why he went in that Direction with her character. Correct me if I'm wrong Was Katniss from district 12?
Speaker 3:She was and that's why there's some illusion to at one point, Lucy Gray picks up a plant. She goes oh, this is called Katniss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like oh, I was wondering when they're gonna do a nod to the originals. There it does.
Speaker 3:It does make it kind of neat, because then you think about when snow meets this girl from District 12, this powerhouse like it actually really puts a lot more weight on that, because I'm imagining all that flashback of you know his girl that he had from district 12. So I do really like that connection. Other dislikes you had, because it seems like you said you had more dislikes than likes. She's pretty much my only one and I didn't like the violence, but it's also hilarious. I say that because it's a movie. People kill each other, but there was just some violent scenes which I was like I didn't like it and I've also heard it's less violent than the book, so maybe they actually calmed it down.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the violence is alluded to. They don't really show that much violence, but like it's kind of like when you hear the noises and you know you just know something happened. That's kind of where the violence is in this film, so it didn't really bother me that much.
Speaker 3:The movie starts out with a guy chopping someone's leg off and like being a cannibal.
Speaker 1:Does it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he doesn't like eat, but in the book apparently he does. But the first scene is the kids like see this man hacking off a leg and the kids like why is he doing that? And the and his little cousin goes Some people need to eat, oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, but I guess I didn't. I mean, it was so shot far away that it you couldn't. I didn't know that that's what he was doing. I didn't. I mean, I figured he was eating somebody, but I didn't see him drop off the person's leg, anyway. So let's go other. Let's go to one of my other dislikes, and it kind of goes hand in hand with how I felt about the book, even though I haven't read it. I think this movie is unnecessary. Just like with Star Wars, I didn't need to know why he became evil, like why can't people just be evil because they're evil? Why do they have to have something dramatic happen to them to become evil? It's like Darth Vader. Why did Darth Vader have to have a wrecked relationship with someone?
Speaker 3:for him to turn evil.
Speaker 3:I like it. I actually do like it and, to agree with you, though it's unfortunate. The first thing I googled when I got out was is there another one? Because I didn't. Again, I didn't like remember, I don't. I don't read the book, so I didn't know if we stopped halfway through the book or not. But it is kind of weird to like introduce Lucy Gray and Introduce a young snow and we just get the one movie like it's done, like there's no or Else to go with that. So yeah, to reintroduce all of us to Hunger Games and then only provide one movie. It's really weird.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing. I bet they did plan on revitalizing the franchise, but, just like with almost every single movie nowadays, it's bombing in the box office. It's not doing well, and so I don't know if they're like, hey, maybe we shouldn't do this anymore. They need to stop rebooting, reintroducing Sanctions. Just leave them alone. I mean, if you like the book, okay, fine, go read the book. I don't think this needed to be a movie. I just Because here's the thing, it is a two-hour and 37 minute movie. Then you add in previews, then you add in Nicole Kidman. I went to a 715 showing. I didn't get out until after midnight. That is ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually watched it in two parts. I left the theater and came and came back another.
Speaker 1:I didn't read, I was I didn't even get there at 715. I tried to do what you said, you know, but I thought I was like, okay, I'm like 15 minutes late to this movie. I think I'm good, and then I get in 24 still previews going on 24 minutes.
Speaker 1:I've nailed it, I've done it, yeah it was like almost 30 minutes of previews and Then you add on the stupid Nicole Kim and thing and it's it's a three-hour movie. It's no. That was dumb. So I basically went over all my dislikes. I thought it was unnecessary. A lot of singing and the bland acting I thought which in the original Hunger Games movies the acting was kind of the same. So I don't know what that says about the fact that I liked. Maybe it was because Rachel's ankle was in it, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Did you notice that they actually had a girl with Down syndrome in the tributes? And you know, okay, it feels vicious. Because you know, normally when you see someone with Downs in a movie You'd be like, oh well, they're obviously not gonna get killed, because can't kill off down person. But boom, they just. You know Lucy Gray. No, not Lucy Gray, the snakes get her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was, and then we didn't have to watch it. But again, I just thought that was really cool that they were able to do an appropriate version of what I think you and I kind of Talk a lot, a lot, which is appropriate representation. Like, we're not about Not having representation, it's about the check a box and this didn't feel like check a box because they just treated her like anybody else and I thought that was really cool. What?
Speaker 1:I was still sad to watch her die and did you know that the person playing Tigris is Is a transgender person? I?
Speaker 3:Did not know that it didn't feel like a check box for me because I didn't even notice it, so like for me it didn't wasn't an issue, it was just like okay, great, well, maybe didn't change. For me he didn't feel like they flaunted that it wasn't very obvious. So to me I mean it was just would have never been the wiser.
Speaker 1:They did try to promote it a lot, but obviously you didn't pay attention to the news.
Speaker 3:So Well, the funny thing is, all I knew going into this movie was that I do not like Rachel Ziegler and I was very worried it would ruin the movie. For me it did not. If I only had one final critique, and it's from what I've read it's actually the book's fault, not necessarily the movie, but the rush from him being a kind person to a evil person feels real fast Like we're at the last ten minutes of the movie and he starts showing signs of being a bad dude. So to me that's just, that's not realistic to turn that quickly. But maybe it only takes one thing, one event, to turn you.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So the whole time he's trying to do these good things, like trying to save her, but they're actually he's cheating. And he's still helping her kill people and he himself is killing people, thinking he's doing this for her.
Speaker 3:She's only as valuable to him because it's something he wants, because he also throws his best friend on the bus. So yeah, to your point, even the kind things he's doing for someone else is still someone else that he has a romantic feelings for.
Speaker 1:That is, the Hunger Games, the ballad of songbirds and snakes. Let's go ahead and rate this thing, but before we do that, I want to give our listeners just a sneak peek of what we're going to be reviewing for our first movie of December. Take a listen.
Speaker 2:Three, two, one. Astra, I'm here. I'm here. Just one second, Let me catch my breath. Once upon a time stood Roses, the most magical kingdom, founded by a king with the power to grant wishes. You are their handsomest, most beloved king. You're right, I am a handsome king. I'm so nervous I think I'm going to explode. My best friend, the king's apprentice, my mouth drooping, I feel like a stupid Asha, come with me. The wishes of Roses.
Speaker 3:Whoa People give their wishes to me and I grant the wishes I am sure are good for Roses.
Speaker 2:Some of these will never be granted, not some most. They deserve more than what I decide, what everyone deserves. So I look up at the stars to guide me. I wish, and throw caution to every warning sign. Oh, you're spoilous with your magic. I didn't do it. What? Last night I made a wish on a star and the star answered I'm talking. I am talking. Who knew my voice would be this low? I believe I've just been threatened. Who would dare threaten you? I have no response to that. There is a traitor amongst us. Find Asha it's a dead end With unsanded mahogany. Oh good, find Valentino, my butt. Found it. I started this. I have to finish it. So I make this a wish. What are?
Speaker 3:you hiding Nothing and nobody. What is?
Speaker 2:going on in there. Okay, ladies, your wings can't fly, but your voice is.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're going to be reviewing Disney's newest animated film to celebrate 100 years of Disney wish. So that's coming, the first show of December. But before we can get to that, we got to rate this movie of the Hunger Games, the ballad of songbirds and snakes. Katie, I will let you go first, because I believe you're probably going to rate this Much higher than me.
Speaker 3:I think I will. I think I will. I was entertained, I was scared, I laughed and it was very motivating to go read the book, and for that I give them a five.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's. That's a lot higher than me. I'm going to give this a unfortunate 2.5 out of six stars because I thought it was boring. I didn't care about any of the characters, even though Rachel Zegler did a better job than I thought she was going to do. She sang a buttload of times and I just didn't see the point in this movie. So that is the Hunger Games, the ballad of songbirds and snakes. Katie, do you have anything to lead us out with?
Speaker 3:Are you?
Speaker 1:Are you?
Speaker 3:Come into your dream.
Speaker 2:Stop singing, rachel Zegler, thanks for listening to Nadie and Katie at the Movies Feel free to leave us a review so people can find the show.
Speaker 1:Follow us on all our social media platforms.
Speaker 2:And if there's a movie that you want us to watch, feel free to contact us at nadieandkadycom.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening and have a great day.