#I'm surprised there's so many offshoots for this movie

[chansaw]

i read donald sutherland’s letter to gary ross pleading for the role of president snow and was so struck by his eloquence, wit, and humor. i’m posting it in full below. what a loss </3

Dear Gary Ross:

Power. That's what this is about? Yes? Power and the forces that are manipulated by the powerful men and bureaucracies trying to maintain control and possession of that power?

Power perpetrates war and oppression to maintain itself until it finally topples over with the bureaucratic weight of itself and sinks into the pages of history (except in Texas), leaving lessons that need to be learned unlearned.

Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand.

Not so, I think, with Coriolanus Snow. His obsession, his passion, is his rose garden. There's a rose named Sterling Silver that's lilac in colour with the most extraordinarily powerful fragrance — incredibly beautiful — I loved it in the seventies when it first appeared. They've made a lot of offshoots of it since then.

I didn't want to write to you until I'd read the trilogy and now I have so: roses are of great importance. And Coriolanus's eyes. And his smile. Those three elements are vibrant and vital in Snow. Everything else is, by and large, perfectly still and ruthlessly contained. What delight she [Katniss] gives him. He knows her so perfectly. Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises him. He sees and understands everything. He was, quite probably, a brilliant man who's succumbed to the siren song of power.

How will you dramatize the interior narrative running in Katniss's head that describes and consistently updates her relationship with the President who is ubiquitous in her mind? With omniscient calm he knows her perfectly. She knows he does and she knows that he will go to any necessary end to maintain his power because she knows that he believes that she's a real threat to his fragile hold on his control of that power. She's more dangerous than Joan of Arc.

Her interior dialogue/monologue defines Snow. It's that old theatrical turnip: you can't 'play' a king, you need everybody else on stage saying to each other, and therefore to the audience, stuff like "There goes the King, isn't he a piece of work, how evil, how lovely, how benevolent, how cruel, how brilliant he is!" The idea of him, the definition of him, the audience's perception of him, is primarily instilled by the observations of others and once that idea is set, the audience's view of the character is pretty much unyielding. And in Snow's case, that definition, of course, comes from Katniss.

Evil looks like our understanding of the history of the men we're looking at. It's not what we see: it's what we've been led to believe. Simple as that. Look at the face of Ted Bundy before you knew what he did and after you knew.

Snow doesn't look evil to the people in Panem's Capitol. Bundy didn't look evil to those girls. My wife and I were driving through Colorado when he escaped from jail there. The car radio's warning was constant. 'Don't pick up any young men. The escapee looks like the nicest young man imaginable'. Snow's evil shows up in the form of the complacently confident threat that's ever-present in his eyes. His resolute stillness. Have you seen a film I did years ago? 'The Eye of the Needle'. That fellow had some of what I'm looking for.

The woman who lived up the street from us in Brentwood came over to ask my wife a question when my wife was dropping the kids off at school. This woman and her husband had seen that movie the night before and what she wanted to know was how my wife could live with anyone who could play such an evil man. It made for an amusing dinner or two but part of my wife's still wondering.

I'd love to speak with you whenever you have a chance so I can be on the same page with you.

They all end up the same way. Welcome to Florida, have a nice day!

sourced from this article

[heavensbeehall]

Letter from Donald Sutherland to director Gary Ross, after reading the script for "The Hunger Games"

Dear Gary Ross:  Power. That's what this is about? Yes? Power and the forces that are manipulated by the powerful men and bureaucracies trying to maintain control and possession of that power?  Power perpetrates war and oppression to maintain itself until it finally topples over with the bureaucratic weight of itself and sinks into the pages of history (except in Texas), leaving lessons that need to be learned unlearned.   Power corrupts, and, in many cases, absolute power makes you really horny. Clinton, Chirac, Mao, Mitterrand.  Not so, I think, with Coriolanus Snow. His obsession, his passion, is his rose garden. There's a rose named Sterling Silver that's lilac in colour with the most extraordinarily powerful fragrance — incredibly beautiful — I loved it in the seventies when it first appeared. They've made a lot of offshoots of it since then.   I didn't want to write to you until I'd read the trilogy and now I have so: roses are of great importance. And Coriolanus's eyes. And his smile. Those three elements are vibrant and vital in Snow. Everything else is, by and large, perfectly still and ruthlessly contained. What delight she [Katniss] gives him. He knows her so perfectly. Nothing, absolutely nothing, surprises him. He sees and understands everything. He was, quite probably, a brilliant man who's succumbed to the siren song of power.  How will you dramatize the interior narrative running in Katniss's head that describes and consistently updates her relationship with the President who is ubiquitous in her mind? With omniscient calm he knows her perfectly. She knows he does and she knows that he will go to any necessary end to maintain his power because she knows that he believes that she's a real threat to his fragile hold on his control of that power. She's more dangerous than Joan of Arc.  Her interior dialogue/monologue defines Snow. It's that old theatrical turnip: you can't 'play' a king, you need everybody else on stage saying to each other, and therefore to the audience, stuff like "There goes the King, isn't he a piece of work, how evil, how lovely, how benevolent, how cruel, how brilliant he is!" The idea of him, the definition of him, the audience's perception of him, is primarily instilled by the observations of others and once that idea is set, the audience's view of the character is pretty much unyielding. And in Snow's case, that definition, of course, comes from Katniss.  Evil looks like our understanding of the history of the men we're looking at. It's not what we see: it's what we've been led to believe. Simple as that. Look at the face of Ted Bundy before you knew what he did and after you knew.   Snow doesn't look evil to the people in Panem's Capitol. Bundy didn't look evil to those girls. My wife and I were driving through Colorado when he escaped from jail there. The car radio's warning was constant. 'Don't pick up any young men. The escapee looks like the nicest young man imaginable'. Snow's evil shows up in the form of the complacently confident threat that's ever-present in his eyes. His resolute stillness. Have you seen a film I did years ago? 'The Eye of the Needle'. That fellow had some of what I'm looking for. The woman who lived up the street from us in Brentwood came over to ask my wife a question when my wife was dropping the kids off at school. This woman and her husband had seen that movie the night before and what she wanted to know was how my wife could live with anyone who could play such an evil man. It made for an amusing dinner or two but part of my wife's still wondering. I'd love to speak with you whenever you have a chance so I can be on the same page with you. They all end up the same way. Welcome to Florida, have a nice day!

Source

Been thinking about this a lot, mostly in regards to his notions on power.

But it's also quiet cool that he basically predicted the plot of TBOSAS before it came out. Snow's obsessive tendencies. The way he thinks love makes him weak. How he sees Katniss as like himself.

[snow-okki]

(x)

[queen-erika-the-songful]

Are there any Barbie DVDs out there you don't have? How big is your collection? (I'm assuming you're still unpacking so you can't take a pic of your DVD collection right now.)

I'm so sorry I took so long to reply to this!! I actually kept my movies unpacked but I then I misplaced the disc folder AGAIN and just found it today (it was under some blankets - of course!)

So here's what my collection so far is like (as of 09/2021). There are 4 sections

1. First, we have the CGI/ "main" movie canon. I have every single one from Nutcracker (2001) up to Dolphin Magic (2017). At the time of writing this, the last 3 movies - Princess Adventure (2020) Lost Birthday (2021), and Big City Big Dreams (2021) have not been released yet and are only available on Netflix.

2. Next, we have the "tangential/other" Barbie movies. I have a VHS-to-DVD rip of Barbie and The Rockers: Out of This World and Barbie & The Sensations: Rockin' Back to Earth, which are the 2 80's specials that were supposed to kick off a TV series that fell through. Then there's Dreamtopia, the special that introduces the Dreamtopia web series and toy line. It aired once on Nickelodeon and then just disappeared until it got a DVD release as a 2-pack with Star Light Adventure. Then I have all 3 My Scene movies since that doll series was an offshoot of Barbie (also I know only 1 of them is full-length but they’re all called “movies” so shhh we’re moving on). I also have a copy of Toy Story 3 in here because I actually just lost the case for it (it's actually our family copy whoops) and Barbie is an important side character in it so I just put it with these.

3. The next section is the "Bonus Discs" for extra DVD content packaged with their respective movies. So far I have 2 things: Barbie and Her Animal Friends, which is a documentary exploring the kinds of animals that co-star in Island Princess, and a dance instructional video that teaches you a basic ballet routine set to "Keep on Dancing" from Pink Shoes. 

4. Finally, here are my tie-in DVDs. These are DVDs that were released to promote the Barbie movies and weren't packaged in with their respective movie(s). Sing Along with Barbie (2009) is a sing-along DVD similar to the Disney & Disney Princess lines. I was honestly pretty disappointed with this DVD; it only has 12 songs with 2 music videos and not that diverse of a line up despite how many movies and songs there were at the time. Anyway, I also have Learn to Dance Like a Princess which teaches dances from 12 Dancing Princesses and came with a dance mat, and Learn to Be a Princess which taught dances and songs from Island Princess, as well as how to do a princess makeover and how to act at a tea party.

And that’s everything so far! This is what else I’m currently looking for:

Section 1 - The 3 remaining Netflix movies. Dolphin Magic was also a Netflix-only release at first but eventually went to DVD, so I’m just assuming the next 3 will too.

Section 2 - VHS tapes (or VHS-to-DVD rip) of the Kelly Dream Club videos. There’s Kelly Dream Club that has 2 episodes (”Sparkle Fairy Surprise” & “The Three Princesses”) and Sweetsville that just contains the 1 episode looped twice. I’m also looking for all of the My Scene “Hanging Out”/”Mixin’ It” discs that serve as a pseudo-prequel to Jammin’ in Jamaica. Each girl has a disc that tells their side of the events, exploring different details like how the girls met Delancey, how Barbie and River got together, what Madison’s weird dream was, etc. I’ve already seen all of these wants on YouTube so I’m not in the biggest rush to get these I just think they’re cool.

Section 3 - There’s another Bonus Disc that came out for Pink Shoes, the short film Land of Sweets. It was only released for a limited time with Target exclusive copies of the movie, and now I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Again, though, it’s on YouTube so I have seen it, but this is probably my biggest want currently.

Section 4 - Not much else so far. Maybe the Mermaidia and Magic of the Rainbow DVD games?

Thanks for dropping the ask!