The Hunger Games has sold 26 million copies and is the first young-adult book to sell a million copies on Kindle. When it was released in theaters on March 23, the film version broke box office records for a new non-sequel release. People who know only the basic plot are asking why the series is so popular. The Hunger Games is, after all, a dark story set in a post-apocalyptic future, featuring 24 teenagers who are released into the wild with a mandate to kill or be killed until just [...]
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Commentary: Sundance – Imagining the world as it ought to be
It’s been said that Hollywood films comfort the afflicted while Sundance films afflict the comfortable. Film offers a vicarious entry to the world the way it is, and the films I saw at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival left me longing for a different world—the world the way it ought to be. It ought to be a world in which Muslims and Christians love, serve, protect and forgive each other. Circles is based on a 1993 incident that took place in a small town in east Herzegovina. Three Serb soldiers [...]
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