Mint Green With Envy (and my thoughts on The Hunger Games)

Good morning!  Hopefully everyone had a great weekend.  Mine is winding down as I write this, and it has been great so far.  N and I ended up going on a daytime double date with my new friend Erin, the stylish lady behind the blog Little e, and her fiance.  The four of us saw The Hunger Games at an 11:45 matinee that was completely packed!  Our men are good sports, since Erin and I definitely gave them no choice in the agenda, and we both enjoyed the movie.  (I'll share my nerdy girl thoughts at the end of this post, for the rest of you who care about such things.)

After lunch, I dragged N on my usual route around the mall to check out the sale racks at my favorite stores (LOFT, Gap, J.Crew and Banana Republic) and I couldn't help but notice that despite there being tons of mint green all over the internet, it's actually pretty hard to find right now.  This means that it has either all been purchased, or the mainstream retailers didn't get the memo and it's not as common as I thought.  I was sad, because I've been longing for more mint ever since I bought my beloved Kendra Scott chalcedony drop earrings and Peacock Plume necklace.

Not one to be deterred, I switched my attention to the internet and found some great alternatives:

Mint condition by cardiganjunkie featuring skinny leg jeans

The Essie polish will probably be my next Ulta impulse buy, but I'm dying to find a feminine blouse like the one from Miss Selfridge (that is out of stock in my size, of course).  I am also completely in need of a green lady bag with a long strap, but am not sure I want to invest quite yet.   Has anyone else found some great mint pieces this year?  It's a color trend that actually looks good on pale brunettes, so I want in on the action!

And now, here is where you stop reading if you don't care about The Hunger Games.  See you tomorrow with another DIY art project!

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////nerd.time//////////////////////////////////////////////

As I mentioned last week, I get reallllly into my books.  This series was no exception, and I read all three novels n 4 days (including a weekend, I'm not that fast).  I am one of those people who will always enjoy a novel more than a movie, so I don't think that any adaptation has a chance at surpassing the original story in my head.  My mental cast of characters is perfect, if you ask me, and my husband always insists that I don't give movies a chance because I will only enjoy a miniseries that leaves nothing out and takes no liberties.  Perhaps this is true, which is why I so enjoy Jane Austen movies, which tend to be long and faithful to the story.

Anyhow, my random list of opinions is as follows (warning, don't read this if you want to be surprised when you watch):

• I thought Jennifer Lawrence was a perfect choice for Katniss, and since I knew she'd been cast while I read, I pictured her the whole time.  I thought she played Katniss a little more stoically than I pictured her, but I think it's hard to adapt a book with so much of an internal monologue.
• I am not really a fan of Josh Hutcherson as Peeta.  Perhaps this is because when I read the book, I imagined Peeta as tall and fairly handsome, and I didn't really believe that he was in love with her.  I think he says his lines in the same tone a lot, and in my head they were more emotional.
• I thought Lenny Kravitz and Woody Harrelson were perfectly cast, and Elizabeth Banks was fantastic as Effie.  I loved her little outbursts ("That's mahogany!!")  I was waiting for Haymitch to act more drunk, and more complex as a character, but I think that will come in the next two (or three) movies. 
• Where the heck was Gale in this movie?  He had all of 10 lines in the whole thing, and they were all in the trailer.  I think the studio wanted to get teenage girls into the audience with the promise of Liam Hemsworth, which is understandable, but I think they should have followed through on it and let the character develop more so that you feel how much Katniss thinks about him while she's in the arena and how torn she's going to be later.  However, I guess they had to cut time somewhere since the movie was already 140 minutes long.  (I hope he's not actually engaged to Miley Cyrus, since she is icky.  And also 19 years old.)
• I am not sure why some things were changed from the book when they didn't have to be.  I understand combining things like the Mockingjay pin coming from The Hob and not Meg, but why did Peeta's leg need to get magically better, and there was no need to drug him to go to the feast?  Those were big parts of the book,
• I thought the art direction and cinematography were amazing - the arena was perfect!
• I liked the new storyline of conversations between Seneca Crane and President Snow, and I don't usually like when things are added to a great story.  Good job, screenwriters.
• Overall, I thought the movie was great, and I hate having to wait until Thanksgiving 2013 for the next ones.  I don't think the movie was better than the book, as some reviews have proclaimed, but they did a great job. 

What did you think?!