Catching Fire

Earlier this month, I re-watched Catching Fire, since I've been re-reading all of the Hunger Games books.  I noticed that when the tributes parade through the Capitol, there are white roses decorating the chariots:

For anyone else, this just looks like decoration, but to Katniss, it's a visual reminder of when President Snow told her to convince him of her love for Peeta, after which he gave her a white rose:

While they're disguised as a mere decoration, the white roses are actually Snow's continued threatening of Katniss and those she loves.

A Bug's Life

A few weeks ago, I re-watched A Bug's Life.  I seem to remember watching this a lot on VHS after it came out, and I think it's my favorite Pixar movie, but watching it this time, there was a lot that I noticed that I hadn't seen before.

This post contains some spoilers.

The movie opens with a shot of the sun:

This is significant, as it illustrates the hierarchies that are present in the film.  As Hopper explains it later, "The sun grows the food.  The ants pick the food.  The grasshoppers eat the food."  The whole system starts with the sun, and the movie does too.

But then a leaf falls into the water, and it's revealed that that image of the sun was just a reflection:

Distorted perception is also pretty significant in the movie - the ants are capable of more than they'd originally thought, and - more comically - the circus bugs are mistaken as warriors.

Part of the opening exposition is the ants' gathering food.  At one point, Thorny says to Princess Atta, "Your Highness, I can't count when you hover like that."  The first few times I watched the movie, I almost certainly didn't understand that this line is a pun (I was, like, 6 when I first saw it).  The princess is hovering in the literal sense of flying, but she's also hovering in the micro-managing sense:

To contrast the regular way of gathering grain, Flik is introduced with his harvesting machine.  I'd never really thought about Flik's name (because, again, when I first watched this movie, I was a stupid kid), but it blatantly indicates that he's an outcast.  Flick is what you do to bugs to get them to go away.  When I was a kid, I'm not sure I noticed the bug-centric nature of some of the other names either, like Manny (the praying mantis), Gypsy (the gypsy moth, although it could play into the circus connection too), Mr. Soil, Dr. Flora, and Thorny.  And I certainly didn't understand the reference to P.T. Barnum in P.T. Flea's name.

Later, Flik talks with Princess Dot.  He gives her a rock and tells her to pretend that it's a seed.

And then he says:

Now, now, do you see our tree?  Everything that made that giant tree is already contained inside this tiny, little seed.  All it needs is some time, a little bit of sunshine, and rain, and voila!  ...  You might not feel like you can do much now, but that's just because, well, you're not a tree yet.  You just have to give yourself some time.  You're still a seed.

What's interesting about this is that Hopper makes the same sort of comparison later, but with the opposite intention.  While Flik tells Dot that a seed can grow into a tree (that a person is capable of a lot), Hopper tells the grasshoppers to "pretend this grain is a puny little ant."

Then he throws individual grains at the grasshoppers, which don't hurt.  They just bounce off:

Instead of illustrating that a person is capable of a lot, Hopper agrees with the grasshoppers' discounting of "just one ant."  But then he unleashes the whole bottle of grain, and the grasshoppers are engulfed.

He makes his point:  "[If] you let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up."  So while Hopper does oppose Flik in the value of just one ant, he recognizes the power that a group would (and does) have.  Ultimately both (a single person's capability and the power of a group) are part of the film's lessons.

A slightly less significant parallel is going the wrong direction.  At the circus, when Manny and Gypsy are on, Manny goes the wrong way to the stage:

And then Gypsy tells him, "The stage is the other way, dear," so he changes direction:

The same thing happens later with Princess Atta and Flik.  Princess Atta goes to check on the bird:

But then, realizing the bird is in the opposite direction, she crosses the screen again:

Interestingly, Manny and Gypsy and standing arm-in-arm in the background, which strengthens the parallel and seems to indicate that Flik and Atta will end up together like Manny and Gypsy are.

I also discovered some subtle references in the background of the city.  First, it's Pixar's A113, along with 1195 - the release date for Toy Story (November 1995):

In a wider shot, there's a box of Darla (I think it's dish detergent) on the right:

I think this is a reference to the Darla character in Finding Nemo, a later Pixar movie, but there are five years between the two, so I'm not sure.

An-other small detail is the lighting when Dot goes to get Flik's help.  At first, Flik is dismissive of the using the bird to scare the grasshoppers and thinks he himself is "a guaranteed failure."  The lighting reflects this.  The sky is overcast, so the colors are muted:

Then Dot gets a rock and tells Flik to "pretend it's a seed."  This makes him change his mind, and to reflect this, the sun comes out, making the colors more vivid:

Flik has a literal enlightenment.

I think it's also significant that the movie ends in the spring:

Spring is usually seen as a season of renewal, and this particular spring is a harbinger of a new period in the ants' lives because they're no longer threatened by the grasshoppers.

Grimm - S2E18 - Volcanalis

This post contains some spoilers.

By episode eighteen of season two of Grimm, Juliette is starting to regain some of her memories.  What's interesting is how that's portrayed visually.  At first, it's completely black and white:

Then Juliette herself is the only element that has any color, and even that is sort of washed out:

But as she continues to interact with her memory, more things start to gain color.  At first, it's Nick:

Eventually, the whole room is in color, although it's still a bit desaturated in order to differentiate between the memory and what's happening in the present:

It's a subtle shift, and I don't even think I noticed it the first time I saw the episode.

There are also some interesting things in the police part of the episode.  While it's not really Wesen, the suspect in the episode is Volcanalis, a priest of the Roman god Vulcan.  An-other person of interest in the case is Markus Hemmings.  Markus (spelled more normally as Marcus) is a very Roman name - apparently it derives from Mars, the god of war - so it fits well with the other element of Roman mythology.  Also, the derivation from Mars (and the bellicosity which it implies) fits with what Nick finds in the books in the trailer about Taureus-armenta (the type of Wesen that Markus is): "Many have been found in the front lines, first to volunteer, willing to face down any enemy, with nerves of steel under fire."

There's also a possible reference in the name of the geologist at the very beginning of the show - Jill Pembrey.  A lot of episodes of Grimm come out of fairy tales, and the Jill in this one, along with the mountain, seems to suggest the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill."  The other geologist is named Tom though, and there aren't any other elements in common between the nursery rhyme and the episode, but I still feel it worth mentioning.

An-other minor point is the name of geology business - Eon Industries:

An eon is a unit in the geologic time scale, so it's an apt name.

Grimm - S2E16 - Nameless

In re-watching season two episode sixteen of Grimm, I discovered that the name of the video game that's fairly integral to the plot is called Black Forest 2:

I didn't pay any attention to this at all the first time I watched the episode.  While the game is sort of important in the episode, it's more important for what it causes than for what it is.

In any case, I'm pretty sure the name is a subtle reference to the Black Forest in Germany (der Schwarzwald in German).  German culture informs a lot of the stories that the show adapts (like the Grimm fairy tales, which resulted in the show's name) and the history in the show itself.  In one episode, I think Monroe even mentions some ancestor of his who lived in the Black Forest.

Grimm - S2E15 - Mr. Sandman

The Wesen in season two episode fifteen of Grimm is a Jinnamuru Xunte.  They blow sand in people's eyes, which blinds them, and then lick their tears.  So eyes are pretty important in the episode.

One of the locations in the episode is the Santa Lucia High School.  In one shot, the sign is visible, although it's at a not-super-legible angle:

I realized that this was a reference to light, as Lucia comes from lux - the Latin word for light, but then I looked up Santa Lucia and discovered that she's the patron saint of the blind.  It's a very subtle reference to the specific characteristics of the Wesen in the episode.