I decided I was close enough to being the last person to see The Hunger Games so we went to the Wednesday matinee. Even though watching teenagers kill each other didn’t provide the catharsis I was hoping for, it was pretty good. I can’t say if it was faithful to the book or not because I haven’t read the book, but the move did make me think the book might be pretty good because the movie they made out of it was right entertaining, and the author was one of the credited screenwriters so there’s probably some continuity going on.

Anyway, I really just want to say how good Jennifer Lawrence was. Her character bore some resemblance to the backwoods girl she played in Winter’s Bone, except for the bow and arrow and the glamourous costume and makeup sections in the corrupt capital city. But when they she was about to take the elevator up to go out there and fight for their lives, she conveyed the level of fear most of us would feel, and it seemed really genuine, which is to say it was the best kind of acting, which is acting that is so good it doesn’t look anything like acting.

You don’t see a lot of that. Especially from action heroes.