What Is It: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is the movie adaptation of the third book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy.  It is the first of two parts; the second part will be released in November of 2015.  After having been saved from the Arena in Catching Fire, Katniss (Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself as the new face of The Revolution.  Along with Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), the Rebels must work together to stop President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and save Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) from the Capitol. 

My experience: As with the previous Hunger Games movies (and all big franchise movies that I enjoy) I saw the first showing of Mockingjay Part 1 the night before it was released.  I reread the book before attending the movie and it proved to be a good idea.  It refreshed my memory of the events and allowed me to find and appreciate the differences between the book and the movie.  I also saw the movie with my sister who has never read the books so answering her questions was like testing my knowledge of what I had read.  I think I passed.

Why You Should See It: The Hunger Games is a great trilogy of books.  It’s not your typical young-adult dystopian future work of fiction.  It deals with real problems like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and war.  Because this movie is split into two parts, readers of the book will find that it delves into more details that we didn’t get to see in previous adaptations of this series.  As usual, everyone in the cast brings their A-game and watching the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance is truly touching and bittersweet.  While it does deal with some more difficult subject matter, it is dealt with in a sophisticated manner.  You will also get to see parts of the book that we don’t get to experience as readers of Katniss’ perspective.

The Future: This review is very late and the movie has been out for the better part of a month, so be sure to catch it during your winter break or during the holidays.  It will definitely leave to at the edge of your seat, waiting anxiously for next November to come.

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Episode 021 - “Happy Birthday Christina, Kelly, and Jesus!”

Episode Length: 1:32:17

Episode Summary:

In our twenty first episode, we start off with some podcast updates and a short disclaimer.  We then delve into all the fandom news that’s happened since our last episode!  There’s updates on Glee, Selfie, The Colbert Report, Agents of SHIELD, The Bachelor, America’s Next Top Model, The Flash, Once Upon A Time, Into The Woods, Jurassic World, Star Wars, Peter Pan Live, Toy Story That Time Forgot, Supernatural, Girl Meets World, “Flarrow,” Mockingjay, Suicide Squad, and James Bond.  Whew!  We also discuss a few of the revelations from the Sony hack as well as the Golden Globes nominations.  Christina gives some briefs highlights of the “Triple Ho Show.”  We discuss our current obsessions before delving into the main discussion: The Holidays!  We talk about our favorite parts of the holidays as well as what annoys us the most.  In honor of the release of the newest Star Wars trailer, J.J. Abrams is named our Episode MVP!  As always, we share our Ship Moments and remind you how you can reach us across social media. We’ll be taking a holiday hiatus to spend time with our families and friends, but we will be back in the new year with more great discussions!  Thank you all for making ALNM’s premiere year such a great one!  Happy Holiday to all and we look forward to seeing you in 2015!

This week’s featured music:
"Ho Ho Hopefully" by The Maine
“Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” by N*Sync

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Episode 020 - “A Very Supernatural Podcast”

Episode Length: 2:00:35

Episode Summary:

In our twentieth episode, we begin with our favorite moments from the past twenty episodes. Kelly gives a spoiler free review of Mockingjay and we talk about People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2014.  We discuss the futures of Selfie and Glee as well as Disney’s upcoming Broadway special.  Our main discussion is our tribute to our first mutual fandom: Supernatural!  We gush over the funny, the scary, and everything else that was memorable over the first 199 episodes.  We talk about the good and the bad of the meta episodes before recapping the 200th episodes.  Spoiler alert: it was awesome.  We share our obsession with the season two gag reel.  Our secondary discussion is all about the problems raised in Supernatural and across fiction and real life (we’re looking at you One Direction) with queerbaiting and shipping.  Our own Episode MVPs are Eric Kripke and Kim Manners.  As always, we share our Ship Moments and remind you about all the upcoming trailer releases! Be sure to tune into our next episode dedicated to the holiday season!

This week’s featured music:
“The Road So Far” by the cast of Supernatural: The Musical
“Carry On Wayward Son” by the cast of Supernatural: The Musical

Happy birthday to my favorite co-host callmechristinae! The boys of The Maine and I love you!

Love, K