Having just finished listening, it doesn't seem at all unclear what the muttations are. They have the numbered collars, they have the physical characteristics of the tributes (hair and eye color, size, etc.) and Peeta confirms Katniss's realization.

Unlike the pin, which could certainly be given more weight and backstory in later films when it comes up again, I feel they lost an easy opportunity with the mutts. Given that the CGI wasn't great to begin with, I feel they could have conveyed at least slightly more menace by just the numbered collars and size.

ETA: Also, one reason Peeta is so resigned at the end is he doesn't want the mutts to come back and "die like Cato" .

I just saw Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and ha! What a great idea for a movie. Very fun, very well done.

I also watched Drones, the office comedy with aliens directed by Amber Benson and Adam Busch. It's pretty good, but it's got snap and crackle without the pop, for some reason.

I went to see The Hunger Games last night.

However I cannot say that I saw all of the movie, because the film-makers' commitment to shaky-cam gave me such violent nausea that I was forced to leave the theater when Katniss teamed up with Rue. I came back long enough to see her find and save Peeta, and then I had to leave again when they got attacked in the forest.

Argh. If this trend towards hand-held/shaky-cam keeps up, I'm going to be reduced to watching all movies on my television, where moving the camera rapidly doesn't make me want to vomit.

That sucks, Consuela. Shaky-cam bothers me too, but I got through Hunger Games OK.

I did have to miss part of Blair Witch and that Lars Von Trier movie with Bjork. And I skipped Cloverfield for the same reason.

I hate shaky-cam, not because it makes me sick but because I think it's shitty filmmaking. I'm a big fan of action movies and their history and that's such an incredibly lazy way to convey excitement/confusion whatever.

It's an affectation that will mark this particular era in filmmaking, and will stand out like a sore thumb historically (like poor CGI from eight years ago already does).

There's a threshold under which I don't seem to notice shaky cam at all--over which, I register it viscerally, like Consuela did, and have to leave. So I never say "That movie had too much shaky cam. Sitting through it was hard." Either it was impossible, or I didn't notice.

I would have said this movie did a lot of PoV storytelling, but that was also apparent in the audio. Was that where the shaky cam was--in the Games themselves? Or did they do it before that?

Or did they do it before that?

Yeah, it was at the beginning, when they showed District 12 for the first time.

eta: It was in the game too.

Lame SNL Hunger Games sketch: [link]

There's only one funny bit... when they show a still from the upcoming Hunger Games Puppy Bowl... which you can see in the player without having to watch the whole thing.

I saw Hunger Games in the theater again and after all the shaky cam talk, I was trying to pay attention to its uses and while certain scenes were definitely shakier than others, it didn't bother me. I was kinda surprised.

I caught much more of the details the second time around and felt they showed more than I originally though. I guess the first time I was so excited to see how they translated the book, I missed little things.

I guess the first time I was so excited to see how they translated the book, I missed little things.

This.

The shaky cam was everywhere, I thought. Even in non-action scenes, where it seemed more hand-held, documentary-style.