'Hunger Games': Jennifer Lawrence reaps praise from critics

The central figure in the film "The Hunger Games" and its source material, Suzanne Collins' young-adult novel about a post-apocalyptic society where teenagers are forced to engage in an annual televised death match, is 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a brave, resourceful and reluctant competitor. Katniss, as played by Academy Award-nominated actress Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone"), is also the focus of many of the film's reviews, and most critics agree she's up for the task.
In his positive review for The Times, Kenneth Turan calls the film "an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention by sticking as close to the book's outline as it can manage."
Among the relatively minor changes made by the screenwriters (Collins, director Gary Ross and Billy Ray), Turan commends the most prominent one: "elimination of the book's first-person structure, which allows for scenes ... that were not in the novel." Above all else, the film succeeds based on the strong lead performance by Lawrence, "an actress who specializes in combining formidable strength of will with convincing vulnerability."
PHOTOS: Meet the main cast of 'The Hunger Games'
Slate's Dana Stevens writes that "The Hunger Games" film adaptation "isn't quite as crackingly paced as the novel, but it will more than satisfy existing fans of the trilogy and likely create many new ones." She adds, "The key to making this adaptation work was the casting of Katniss Everdeen," who Stevens notes appears in nearly every scene. Luckily, "The film's producers nailed it in picking Jennifer Lawrence ... who carries the whole film on her sturdy shoulders." Among the film's stumbles, Stevens says, are the dumbing down of the character Gale (Katniss' male best friend, played by Liam Hemsworth), the cleaning up of the character Haymitch (Katniss' mentor, played by Woody Harrelson) and the narratively unsatisfying cliffhanger ending.

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times has some issues with Ross, whom she refers to as an "unlikely and at times frustratingly ill-matched director for this brutal, unnerving story," and Lawrence, who offers "a disengaged performance that rarely suggests the terrors Katniss faces, including the fatalism that originally hangs on her like a shroud." Still, Dargis finds the fiercely independent character of Katniss to be compelling enough to compensate. She writes, "What finally saves the character and film both is the image of her on the run, moving relentlessly forward." In the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday says the book's "perverse dystopia is brought faithfully, if un-spectacularly, to life" on the big screen. Hornaday adds that Ross "judiciously sidesteps the most barbaric aspects of Collins' tale" and "brings the bread and circuses of Collins' story to life with lurid color or primitive brutishness, depending on the setting." Once again, though, it all comes down to Lawrence and Katniss. Hornaday writes, "'The Hunger Games' is clearly Lawrence's movie to carry. She shoulders that burden with the same quiet, compelling focus and raw-boned directness she exhibited in 2010's 'Winter's Bone.'"
Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune deems "The Hunger Games" "pretty sharp entertainment. Phillips agrees with many of his peers that Lawrence's performance is "fierce and purposeful," and in those ways reminiscent of her work in "Winter's Bone." "I'd say she carries the movie," Phillips says, "except she's not the only good thing about it." Among those other good things are Ross at the helm ("a smart match for the material") and the score by James Newton Howard.
Among the minority of critics offering negative reviews, a number of them nonetheless praise Lawrence's performance. In the Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern describes the film as "both a feast of cheesy spectacle and a famine of genuine feeling, except for the powerful — and touchingly vulnerable — presence of Jennifer Lawrence." Other than Lawrence, he finds the film sluggish and heavy-handed.
Similarly, New York magazine's David Edelstein finds Ross' approach "hackish and dimwitted," and he laments that the film fails to plumb the truly grim and tragic stakes of the story. But he calls Lawrence one of the film's "two great assets" (the other being the score), adding, "The actress is not a conventionally chiseled Hollywood ingenue or a trained action star. But there’s a steadiness in her blue eyes that makes her riveting."
Now that the games have officially begun, this much is certain: We'll be seeing much more of Katniss and of Jennifer Lawrence in the days to come

David Horst column: One stray cat quickly becomes a colony

We didn't seek to become one and we'd rather we weren't. Somehow, we've become a certified feral cat colony up on the sand hill we call home.

It started innocently enough. This multi-colored cat from somewhere in the neighborhood moved into our barn. She had two babies. We had them fixed. They and their mom disappeared almost right away.

Mom came back carrying another litter. Before very long, her babies started having babies.

I can see how a kindly, older woman is discovered to be living with 50 cats. If you aren't willing to send feral cats to pretty certain death at a shelter, and can't spare the $100-plus a vet typically charges for spaying or neutering, it can happen quickly.

We're not up to 50, but, unaddressed, it wouldn't take long. The experience gives meaning to the term "exponential growth."

The old farmer's way of dealing with excess cats involved either a .22 rifle or a gunnysack and a pond. We don't have that in us.

Instead, we fed them, gave them toys, old dog beds and a heated water bowl. I just don't understand why we can't get them to move out.

We talked about trapping these feral cats to get them fixed. The takeaway here — that needs to be a very short conversation.

I'm not a cat person. Still, it's hard not to smile at a barn full of kitten wrestlemania. A length of twine, a turkey feather or a rolling acorn is all a feral cat needs to entertain itself — and anyone who's watching.

We've only named the most sociable of the cats.

Mini Mama and Multi-Colored Mama are the offspring of the first squatter. Multi had a litter of eight. That included Bunny Kitty, a male with a little cotton ball of a tail and longer rear legs, which make him hop when he runs. He seems to have forgotten he's feral and enjoys being held by my wife.

Inspector Clouseau is a yellow tabby that has to be there watching when we do anything in the barn, particularly shoveling manure.

Little Weeble has some kind of back or hip injury. She wobbles when she walks, but doesn't fall down.

We finally took action again with the assistance of Judi McClain, an acquaintance who is very involved with Lakeshore Humane Association in Chilton. She put us in touch with Cats Anonymous, a nonprofit that relies on volunteer vets to conduct "spay days" one Saturday per month in Green Bay. They were a godsend.

They lend you cages and give you hints for outwitting felines that live by their wits. They ask for a $50 donation to spay or neuter and vaccinate a cat, but will do it for whatever you can afford. The catch is, you get the cats back, and you have to apply to be a feral cat colony.

The group organized in 2005 in response to a proposal before the Wisconsin Conservation Congress calling for an open season on stray cats. They are approaching 6,400 cats sterilized at more than 850 colonies.

"This is probably 1% of 1% of what is out there," Vicki Becker, one of the organizers of Cats Anonymous, said. The group has 300-400 cats on its waiting list.

We've made two trips to Green Bay with a load of caged cats in the back of an SUV.

The scene there is barely controlled, but effective, chaos. Cat cages are stacked two deep in the lobby with more arriving constantly. Amazingly, it all gets done and all of the right cats end up in the right cages.

Our third load of cats went to the Fox Valley Humane Association, which started a similar program a year ago at its shelter in Greenville.

"We patterned our program after Cats Anonymous, which is a fabulous organization," Deb Lewis, executive director at Fox Valley Humane, said.

Both programs notch the cat's left ear so you can tell at a distance which ones have already been under the knife.

Both also will work with people who can't afford the $50. Lewis said establishing an affordable spay and neuter program was one of those "before my career is done" issues for her.

There is no alternative. Shelters can't adopt out feral cats. They have more domesticated cats than they can handle. Putting a feral cat inside a house is no kindness to the cat either, Lewis said.

"We have to find a way that works better," she said.

Controlling feral cat populations is a serious issue. They are bad for wild bird populations, and not all of the cats get to spend cold winter nights in a barn. Their life expectancy is short.

If the problem surfaces at your place, get it fixed.

Old business: I wrote recently about a web cam installed at an eagle nest near Shiocton. It was beginning to look like they had been scared off, when the pair of eagles finally returned. The female laid her first egg Thursday. You can watch eagle parenting at