Basicc believes this first of many installments of The Hunger Games is designed to reach freshman in high school and teach them conformity, how to deal with a corrupt corporate and governmental system through compliance rather than resistance. Rather than simply being written off as a critic in a short Siskel and Roepert article, Basicc believes with movies like this it is important to go through each element of the film critically to show how it is manipulating people into saying they like it even though they don’t really like it in their heart.
Basicc believes this is because Lionsgate is perpetrating propaganda rather than cinema on its victims, as opposed to viewers. Basicc points out in his introduction that even Roger Ebert thought it was a hunk of garbage but of course it is extolled by its creators, through its fans, as this great work. This is Basicc’s second work and his first feature-length film commentary, a parody director’s commentary of The Hunger Games created by Suzanne Collins and created as a film in 2012 by Lionsgate.
