Perhaps the most brutal, most shocking thing about The Hunger Games is not the squalid conditions of District 12, not the callous monsters of the Capitol, not the pile of dead children lying in a field. No, the most terrible thing about The Hunger Games is that members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences were not invited to a screening of the film, as is typically custom, and thus had to pay for tickets, like any common muggle.

Pete Hammond writes on Deadline about curious Academy voters calling him over the weekend, because he would know apparently, asking what the deal was with screenings of Lionsgate's big boffo box office bruiser. They get a schedule of screenings (which play "in their state-of-the-art Beverly Hills theatre within a week or two of release") every month and for some reason Hunger Games was nowhere on it. "'I told my husband I guess we’ll have to go to an 11 a.m. showing and get the senior discount', one disappointed member told me," Hammond  recalls.

Aw, that's actually kind of sad, that thing about the senior discount. But, oh well. Lionsgate was apparently approached twice about holding a screening of the film in March or April but they just couldn't make it happen. They're busy! It's a big movie! You can't really blame them. And anyway, showings are on the books for later on, for both Academy people and members of the various movie guilds, so everyone will be fine. Fear not, proud Academy member! You will get to see Katniss romp around the Murderdome for free sometime in the future. But if you're dying to see it now, or more realistically if your grandkid is begging you to take them right away, you might have to suck it up shell out the big bucks just this once. It's gonna hurt, but, hey, that's the Hunger Games for you.

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Richard Lawson