Hunger Games

Film fans are still forking over for The Hunger Games, which took in $33.5 million to lead the box office for a third straight weekend. According to studio estimates Sunday, The Hunger Games raised its domestic total to $302.8 million and easily topped the American Pie sequel American Reunion and a 3-D version of the blockbuster Titanic. Both newcomers opened solidly - American Reunion pulled in $21.5 million, while Titanic in 3-D reeled in $17.4 million over the weekend, raising its domestic take to $25.7 million since opening Wednesday.

The golden image of a bird that graces the book cover of The Hunger Games - and now is captured in the movie - is as elegant, haunting, and psychologically nuanced as the book itself. The ternlike creature is a mockingjay, in Hunger Games parlance. Surrounded by a gold circle, its wings are spread and held back taut, the tips just touching the circle, its neck curved down, its head turned back, a sharp arrow in its beak. For its creator, artist Tim O'Brien, a professor of illustration at University of the Arts, it was an image that stood apart from the oil portraits of political and pop-culture figures he more commonly makes.

IF YOU'RE ONE of those people who wonder why Hollywood gave Jennifer Lawrence the lead in "The Hunger Games," do yourself a favor. Go rent a movie called "Winter's Bone," which earned Lawrence an Oscar nomination. She plays a tough-as-nails Ozark mountain girl with a dead father and an emotionally withdrawn mother who steps up to protect her younger siblings. And, let's see, Katniss Everdeen is ... a tough-as-nails Appalachian girl with a dead father and a catatonic mother who steps up to protect her younger sister.

The Hunger Games is a visual smorgasbord of a movie, a cast of hundreds dressed in everything from utilitarian garb with Depression-era grit to glam-gone-grotesque Gaga getups inspired by the latest haute couture. It may seem as if it doesn't get much better than this for a costume designer. But the pressure is on to please fans of author Suzanne Collins' YA trilogy; the film opens Friday. "I tried to stay as close to the descriptions in the book as I could," says costume designer Judianna Makovsky.

By Paul F. Bradley From my house, I could hear the wailing start every Saturday at 8 a.m. It penetrated the walls, growing louder with each wave. By 9, it was loud enough to prevent any further sleep. By 10, it was deafening. Was it a battle reenactment? Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan was filming in the area? Hardly. It was just the sound of crazed parents screaming as their 6-year-olds played soccer. One day, I walked over to the sports complex, drawn by the shrieking.

IF YOU'RE A tween girl, this is a merger of the two most awesomest things in the whole world. The Hollywood Reporter says Taylor Swift tweeted a link last week to her new song, "Safe and Sound. " And it's from the upcoming movie version of "The Hunger Games. " O! M! G! "Something I've been VERY excited about for a VERY long time is going to be happening VERY soon (and I'm not referring to Christmas)," she wrote, later adding: "And this is it, the big surprise . . . Go get it!"

NOW THAT "Harry Potter" is nearing his finale on screen, the next big teen/tween movie franchise may be "The Hunger Games," based on Suzanne Collins ' best-seller. With competition for the lead role of heroine Katniss Everdeen drawing the finest young actresses in Hollywood, director Gary Ross has chosen Jennifer Lawrence (the Oscar-nominated star of "Winter's Bone" and the Oscar red carpet bright-red scoop-neck dress) to star. "Jennifer's just an incredible actress.

Harry Potter. . . . Bella Swan. . . . Katniss Everdeen? If the bespectacled boy wizard of the Harry Potter books and films and the sulky high schooler-turned-vampire-wife of the Twilight Saga have long been imprinted in the collective consciousness, is it now time for the teenage heroine of The Hunger Games to join them? With the Suzanne Collins book perched atop the children's and young-adult best-seller lists pretty much since its publication in late 2008, and with advance ticket sales for the $100 million Lionsgate film adaptation - opening at Friday - outpacing the inaugural Harry Potter, there are strong indications that Ms. Everdeen is indeed heading for that rarefied realm of pop iconography.

For four consecutive weekends, the most popular movie in America has been one depicting a government contest in which children kill children. The Hunger Games, based on a dystopian series of young-adult novels by Suzanne Collins, recently broke the $500 million mark in worldwide box office receipts. What gets people into movie theaters is hard to tell. But the film version of The Hunger Games is appealing to more than the books' chiefly young, female fan base, drawing boys and adults as well.

Last week, late one morning on a break from class, Emily Ansara Baines could be found seated at a table in the cafeteria of the Los Angeles-area school where she works as a substitute teacher. She was not eating Mockingjay flatbread crackers, or Prim's basil-wrapped goat cheese balls, or Rue's roasted parsnips, although she could tell you how to make them if you asked. Baines is the author of The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook (Adams Media, $19.95), a food-centric fan's tribute to the mega-selling Suzanne Collins trilogy.

THE CAUSES of poverty are complex and many. One cause, though, is emerging as a dominant factor in the record numbers of people living in poverty: Congress. This week, both the Senate and the House moved on a new farm bill, which determines the budget and policies for agriculture every five years or so. In addition to agriculture, it also funds the food-stamp program. On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee approved a $940 billion farm bill, a day after the Senate approved its own version.

L IAM HEMSWORTH and Amber Heard shot a scene at the Four Seasons on Monday for the corporate espionage thriller "Paranoia. " You may recall that the movie, which also stars Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman , was being shot in town over the summer but that filming was interrupted because Hemsworth had another movie assignment, "Catching Fire," the second "Hunger Games" film. It seems Hemsworth's fiancee, Miley Cyrus , who stayed with him in Washington Square for more than a month, did not tag along for the remaining shoot, which we're told will take about three weeks.

Three new DVD releases this week deal with people and power. The Hunger Games, Grade A: A teenage girl (Jennifer Lawrence) must participate in a fight to the death. The film features high-tension action that eclipses the Twilight films and has more magical character development than the Harry Potter series, making it a prime contender for the next great film series. This is that rare case of a movie that will please lovers of the book as well as those who have never heard of the series.

In People Like Us, Elizabeth Banks plays a single mother with a troubled, troublemaking son. She works as a bartender, she's in AA — the irony of which does not escape her — and she's pretty much alone in the world.   When Chris Pine walks into her life — he's a messed-up, financial-world hustler — it's because he's been given a mission to give her $150,000. The money has been left to her by his father, who has just passed away. It turns out that Banks' Frankie is Pine's character's half-sister, the product of a long-ago affair his father had, and that Pine's Sam knew nothing about.

"A life of happiness. " That's what Miley Cyrus, 19, expects now that she's engaged to Liam Hemsworth , 22, one of the youngsters who kills for food 'n' fun on Hunger Games . "I'm so happy to be engaged and look forward to a life of happiness with Liam," Miley told People. (Do the kids in Hunger Games look forward to a happy life? We think not.) Before she met Liam, says Miley, she had no concept of happiness: "I was pretty much like, ‘I'm going to die alone?

RALEIGH, N.C. — Fans of The Hunger Games are turning up in North Carolina, seeking out places where the movie was shot, from old-growth forests to an abandoned mill town. And the tourism industry is prepared to cash in on them, with everything from hotel packages and zipline tours to reenactments of scenes from the film and lessons in survival skills. The movie, which led the box office for its first four weeks and had already earned more than a half-billion dollars worldwide, is based on a best-selling book about a post-apocalyptic world where teenagers compete to the death in fighting games.

Ada Arroyo was cleaning her house and rummaging through storage, when there, deep in a box from her teen days, she stumbled upon her bow and arrow. The discovery sparked memories of settling into a steady stance, bow drawn — the flight path lethally targeted. "Shooting is very meditative and psychological," said Arroyo, 36, who recently returned to the sport. "Because you need to focus so much in setting up a shot, you feel a sense of calm. " At B&A Archery in the Tacony section, Arroyo was among 15 archers firing arrows across the 50-foot range, while another dozen or so enthusiasts were milling about.

Dick Clark, who died Wednesday at 82 of a heart attack, has been cremated, rep Paul Shefrin tells USA Today. Entertainment Tonight reports the ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean, but Shefrin says Clark's family had not yet decided what to do with them. Plans for a public memorial hadn't been finalized. Simon Cowell: Not gay Simon Cowell, whose sexuality has been the subject of not a few gossip items, tells biographer Tom Bower in a new book he is straight.

For four consecutive weekends, the most popular movie in America has been one depicting a government contest in which children kill children. The Hunger Games, based on a dystopian series of young-adult novels by Suzanne Collins, recently broke the $500 million mark in worldwide box office receipts. What gets people into movie theaters is hard to tell. But the film version of The Hunger Games is appealing to more than the books' chiefly young, female fan base, drawing boys and adults as well.

By Paul F. Bradley From my house, I could hear the wailing start every Saturday at 8 a.m. It penetrated the walls, growing louder with each wave. By 9, it was loud enough to prevent any further sleep. By 10, it was deafening. Was it a battle reenactment? Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan was filming in the area? Hardly. It was just the sound of crazed parents screaming as their 6-year-olds played soccer. One day, I walked over to the sports complex, drawn by the shrieking.