Wandering About: Madrid (2008)

OHHHH, I haven’t done one of these in a while!!! I had a good reason though, because in October I filled this blog with posts about South Korea and Japan, and I didn’t want to overwhelm everyone with traveling posts… But, it has been a while now, so I’m going back to this. Today I’ll share some pictures of Madrid (Spain).

Incredibly, even though I LIVE IN SPAIN, I’ve only been to Madrid once, and it was because I had a course/workshop there about Forensic Anthropology. I actually really loved the city, and I think I would rather live there than in Barcelona (though Barcelona is undoubtedly more beautiful).

I didn’t take much pictures, and I didn’t saw that much of the city because the course was 5 days (if I remember correctly), so I’ll show you some of the stuff that we saw during this workshop… 😀 (warning, you might be a bit creeped out).

Yep people, those are bones… human bones… In case you’re wondering, the skull had a lot of bone growth, some kind of bone cancer, most likely. And the last pic is a skeleton of a subadult individual.

Movie of the Week: The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 finally opened this week here in Spain – yes people, we are ALWAYS behind on movie’s premieres… it sucks! Anyway, it opened on Friday, so I was obviously there.

I really liked the movie, it’s a stellar adaptation from the source material. These 3 books might just be the best adaptations from book to screen ever. The movie does a great job telling the last part of the story, still showing all that goes on behind the action, and how Katniss and her team are still nothing more than a piece in the game of President Snow vs. President Coin.

The action was on point, there are some true horrific moments that will make you gasp if you haven’t read the books. Heck, I read the books, and when these moments and deaths came, I still gasped and cried like a baby. It’s such a sad movie… Oh Finnick… 😦

The only thing I wish that they had included in the adaptation was Johanna and Katniss bonding and becoming friends. The movie does very little to humanize Johanna and she comes off as a b***h sometimes, while in the book we see her struggles firsthand. Hers and Katniss’ training is important, but I do get why they had cut that.

The acting is truly stellar here! Jennifer Lawrence is perfect as always, but Josh Hutcherson is brilliant as Peeta, he looks so broken most of the time =/ that it’s unbearably sad 😦 . But Elizabeth Banks is still my favorite! She has a scene towards the end, when she’s saying goodbye to Katniss and Haymitch that just broke my heart with a single expression from her.

The ending is bittersweet, and while I admire that they included the epilogue in the movie, and almost wish that they didn’t. The epilogue in the book is all Katniss inner monologue and they translated that to her talking to a baby, and while it’s well done, I almost wish that the movie would have ended in the mythic “real”.

And finally, I’m so glad that my theory about Haymitch and Effie came true!

So people, have you watched this movie yet? Did you cry (oh, please, tell me I wasn’t the only one…)? What did you think of it?