TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

I just watched The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1  yesterday, and I have to say it is the polar opposite of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman or (The Virtue of Ignorance) . Despite the pretentiously long name (just pick one or the other!) Birdman  is the movie with the Hollywood cast that's very Broadway, very independent, and very...alive. Of course, anyone who has seen it knows that Michael Keaton's Riggan berates a critic, saying that he takes risks being an actor, but what does she have to lose? This in effect makes this movie critic proof...but Inarritu and his brilliant cast need not worry, this movie is fantastic, and will surely pick up a trophy or two come Oscar time. Mid-life crises, putting on troubled plays, family dysfunction are all themes here that have been explored to death in other movies, but Birdman has a way of taking them, flipping them on their head and analyzing them in a way that feels fresh and electric. The closest thing I can say it is co...

You'd be surprised since I've only been around for 16 years and some change, but I've seen a lot of national tragedy.  I can vividly recall being pulled out of my kindergarten class on that Tuesday in September 2001, and hearing that both towers had collapsed when I arrived at a family member's house.  I can remember exactly where I was when word broke of the Connecticut massacre and the Aurora massacre.  My Virginia brethren probably know exactly where they were as well when that earthquake hit us back in late August...I was completely engrossed in my new Kanye West album when I thought the ground was opening up and I ran outside and into my neighbor's house.  The same applies to the Indian Ocean earthquake back in December, the day after Christmas (we Americans don't know this, but in other countries it's called Boxing Day).  I wasn't informed immediately, but the morning on the day I went back to school, I remember being in a Min...