Pitch Perfect review

Full disclosure, I was an a cappella nerd in a college, so a lot of Pitch Perfect hit very close to home. It was adapted from the book of the same name that profiled a cappella groups at Tufts University. How accurate is it? I can report that yes, there were intense intra-a cappella rivalries, bizarre freshman hazing rituals, and very often groups were differentiated by their brand: stoner guys, classical glee club nerds, the party group, the gay group. And all-girl groups were definitely at the bottom of the totem pole. By focusing on the fictional all-girls Barden Bellas, Pitch Perfect has a built in underdog story.

The Bellas are trying to rebuild after a disastrous showing at nationals at Lincoln Center where aca-veteran Aubrey (Anna Camp) spews Exorcist style during a rendition of Ace of Base's "The Sign." The Bellas' reputation has been tainted and the following year, returning members Aubrey and Chloe's (Brittany Snow) recruiting difficulties lead to a group composed not of cardio-happy Greeks, but of misfits including the self-styled Fat Amy ("So twig bitches like you don't call me it behind my back") played by Rebel Wilson, Lilly, a practically mute Asian girl in the tradition of Sister Act's Sister Mary Roberts, a promiscuous ditz, and a lesbian with a gambling addiction.

90s Nostalgia: Enemy of the State

In light of the recent passing of Tony Scott, which should remind us all that depression is an awful disease that sometimes has no correlation with perceived public success, I've started thinking about his career. The only Tony Scott movie I had actually seen was Top Gun, undoubtedly his biggest success. Top Gun loomed large in my brother's childhood and by extension mine. By our estimation, my brother had watched it over thirty times between the years of 1995-1999. His room was plastered with F-14 Tomcat posters. We attended an air show. Dylan dreamed of being a pilot until the arrival of myopia in 9th grade. The soundtrack was a daily staple of carpool.

The legacy Top Gun was examined back in 2011 in the GQ article "The Day the Movies Died" by Mark Harris. In it, Top Gun essentially gets blamed for destroying the auteur movie experience as we know it. It heralded the dawn of the blockbuster or "brand film". This provides for a compelling thesis, but I think a fairer assessment is that Top Gun was an inflection point for a trend already in motion: the rise of high concept films that could be reduced to a simple marketing soundbyte. 

Netflix Worthy? Young Adult

Like the car that she wrecks half way through the movie, Young Adult's Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is one dented, mashed up, and utterly fucked up character...and the collisions never let up. And you, poor sap, are the rubbernecking asshole who gets to watch the whole thing unfold. So be warned, it is a difficult to watch/impossible not to watch bruising, bleak, and brave character study (study might be the wrong word, more like character vivisection).

Cabin in the Woods: Campy Camping

This is a horror (if genre-mashupy horror) movie with twist and turns and surprises making it necessary to put out a disclaimer for this review's plot vaguness in order to prevent spoilage. (I actually don't mind spoilers...and apparently most people don't either http://io9.com/5829720/new-study-shows-that-knowing-spoilers-doesnt-ruin-a-story my diatribe on spoiler paranoia will have to wait, though).

Cabin in the Woods sets up two parallel stories. After a title sequence with blood pouring over ancient depictions of human sacrifice, the film opens on two office schmucks (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) drinking vending machine coffee, putzing around the office in a golf cart. They seem to work in a fairly mundane office/lab that has a lot of surveillance equipment. Out of nowhere, huge red block letters flash the title, as if to remind us to expect the unexpected, that this movie will get its kicks out of odd juxtapositions and mutating and merging genres all with a knowing, self-aware grin. Ah, to live in the pop-culture addled brain of Joss Whedon.

Titanic 3D: Revenge of the 'Berg

Titanic, they called it the Movie of Dreams. And it was. It really was Gloria. Sitting in the sparingly filled AMC on the Upper West Side at 7:15pm on a Sunday with my hastily purchased vodka from across the street, Diet Coke with Lime to chase it, and bag of pretzel M and Ms, I felt the same giddiness of my fifth grade self seeing it for the first time. While the refreshments were slightly different, Titanic remains an event movie for me. As far as stories suitable to be put on the screen, the sinking of the RMS Titanic is such a complete no-brainer. The facts are in and of themselves so sensational: an "unsinkable" ship (SPOILER: that moniker becomes ironic), an A-list passenger roster, and a horrific tragedy that has class and gender implications. So meaty!

First Comes Baby, Then Comes Love? "Friends With Kids" Review

If Bridesmaids went down like double fisting a beer and a glass of champagne, Friends with Kids was like sipping on a glass of vino. Now in another world, it would seem illogical to compare the two, but by virtue of having nearly the same casts, it's inevitable (was Rose Byrne too busy to accept the Megan Fox role?).

Jason and Julie (Adam Scott and writer/director Jennifer Westfeldt) are two best pals dontcha know because they call each other at 4:18 in the morning to indulge Julie's obsession with death hypotheticals ("Would you rather die by shark or alligator?"). This scene is straight out of the pilot episode of WIll and Grace, and, in fact, Jason and Julie's relationship feels a whole lot like our favorite sitcom upper west siders: they're friends since college, know every detail of each other's lives, and even live in the same building. Oh, but they're both breeders.

Hunger Games: Odds Are in its Favor

The odds were always in favor of a Hunger Games film adaptation. A blockbuster YA adult book series about a tough girl with two fellas competing for her attention. No pop culture phenomenon is complete unless you can say you are either Team Jail-bait Hottie #1 or Team Jail-bait Hottie #2. And in this case it's Team Gale and Team Peeta.

But the most refreshing part of these books is how much of a backseat the love plots take in the face of concerns for basic human survival. Our heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a girl who most of the time can't be bothered with the gooey mushy stuff, and if she does allow some flirtation, she's knowingly manipulating the situation to get out of the games alive.

Walking Dead finale

Alright, so this blog started off about movies, but I think I'm going to expand into talking about TV and theater, too. Because those 3 things all share part of my IMDB (that's short for internet movie data brain). So I will start this foray in boob tube musings with the "Walking Dead" finale. Some thoughts (SPOILERS ahead, danger...also ZOMBIES ahead).

This show refuses to kill off the most unsympathetic, annoying characters and ends by stranding the only character I do care about...gah. First, a recap. The show opens with shots of the areas surrounding the farm (all the way to Atlanta I think), and someone gets on a megaphone and shouts "Attention zombie shoppers, sale on aisle Hershel's farm." After the zombies all consult their internal gps systems they settle on the simplest straight line path for the farm. What?

Upcoming: "Gypsy" news

Among things that get me very excited, the prospect of Everything's Coming Up Streisand is near the top of my list. I'm still a little wary of Babs taking on the iconic role, but if there's been enough Mama Rose to go around between Merman, Russell, Daly, Lansbury, Midler, Peters, and Lupone, I think there's certainly room for b. streis in that hallowed pantheon.

I mean, essentially, if one thinks of Mama Rose as the vessel of so much gay iconography, not only in the women that have played her but in her blend of desperation, drive, and resilience, who better than Babs? Mama Rose is a tough old queen, and nobody better rain on that bitch's parade!

But more head scratchingly awesome is that Jullian Fellowes is now attached to write. Not even the internet, with it's insane daily production schedule of at least 8,432 "Downton Abbey" + "other pop culture phenomenon" mashup tumblrs, could have predicted this holy marriage of the things I like best: musical theater and upstairs/downstairs period soaps.

So let me be the first (I think) to put this out in the universe: Michelle Dockery would make a kick-ass Louise. We got a little preview of her pipes this season, and she could clearly pull off the vulnerable, quiet "Little Lamb."

Film Review: Back to the Future? Old School "John Carter"

It's hard at this point to have a completely fair and unbiased review of John Carter in the wake of the bad press surrounding its budget, much maligned marketing campaign, and Andrew Stanton's intractability. But here we have the finished product, and let's try to examine it in a vacuum.

A faithful adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars, the film opens with a brief prologue on Mars, then zeros in on our eponymous hero (Taylor Kitsch). A Confederate Civil War veteran whose family did not survive the war, he tries his hand at prospecting for gold in Arizona where he runs afoul of the local sheriff (Bryan Cranston in a brief role). Escaping from a group of Native Americans, Johnny boy makes it to a cave which transports him to Mars, or Barsoom as the locals call it.