How nice to meet someone whose work you admire and find that he is grounded, gracious, and immensely entertaining.

Morgan Spurlock spoke for about an hour and a half at the Reynolda Film Festival (engaging the audience the entire time) then answered lots of questions.  Afterward, he interacted with the festival organizers and invited guests at a private reception.

What a great guy.

Big switch now (get ready!) to The Hunger Games.  The film is a faithful adaptation of the book that downplays the violence a bit to get the PG-13 rating, but it’s pretty solid as a film.

Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss is softer than the heroine in the book, but that’s probably to be expected in this type of film.  Would I have preferred the harder edge?  Yes.  Does the adaptation diminish the book?  No.  The film moves along at a brisk clip, and the central ideas of the novel are intact on screen.

All in all, I liked it.  After all, books and movies are different things and should be considered that way.

I went to the movie with my niece, a discerning viewer who had not read the book.  She “got it” in terms of the major story elements (I’ve heard some devotees of the book complain that certain ideas and characters are minimized in the film) and seemed to enjoy the movie a lot.

In fact, now she plans to download the book!