Musical

Anastasia

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Anastasia
  • IMDb: link

AnastasiaOne of only two feature releases for the short-lived Fox Animation Studios, 1997’s Anastasia has the feel of a Disney princess movie while mixing the look and design of a Don Bluth film. Beginning with the fall of the Russian Czar by the evil Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd) and the disappearance of the family’s young daughter (voiced as a child by Kirsten Dunst), the story picks up a decade later with an older Anya (Meg Ryan) leaving the orphanage where she was raised to journey into the wilder world searching for a family she scarcely remembers.

Along the way our heroine will encounter a pair of con men (John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer) who attempt to take advantage of Anya’s resemblance to the missing princess by training her to be Anastasia (not realizing she is indeed the genuine article). On the way to Paris to present Anya to the Dowager Empress in exile (Angela Lansbury) the group will also have to deal with the undead Rasputin out for vengeance and his cute sidekick Batrok (Hank Azaria).

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Still Slightly Out of Tune

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pitch Perfect 2
  • IMDb: link

Pitch Perfect 2Based on the book by Mickey Rapkin 2012’s Pitch Perfect was an occasionally fun, if wildly inconsistent, story glorifying a bizarre college subculture where a capella groups were the biggest celebrities on a college campus. Picking up three years later, loner Freshman Becca (Anna Kendrick) has grown into the Senior leader of the three-time defending a capella champions who face new adversity when a complicated stunt goes wrong at a public event.

Barred from competing, touring, or defending their national championship by the announcers (John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks) who cover the sport (and also run it now?), the Barden Bellas’ only chance for redemption is to become the first American group to win at the World A capella Tournament.

If you thought it was bizarre seeing colleges go wild over a capella singing in the first film you haven’t seen anything yet as, in typical sequel fashion, Pitch Perfect 2 goes bigger this time around. The results are much the same as the first film with awkward romantic subplots and an odd storyline designed to make Becca the outsider of the group once more as she is the only member of the Bellas planning for life after college.

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Eddie and the Cruisers Double Feature

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Eddie and the Cruisers / Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

“I want to be remembered for the music or not at all.”

Eddie and the Cruisers Double FeatureReleased in 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers was a box office bomb despite a hit soundtrack that got the film a second theatrical release the following year. A rock and roll mystery, the film told the story of frontman Eddie Wilson (Michael Paré) through flashbacks and interviews with the other members of the band (primarily the keyboard player played by Tom Berenger) by a reporter (Ellen Barkin) hot on the story of the band’s missing second album and questions as to what really happened to Eddie Wilson. Despite it’s lack of response from both theatrical audiences and critics the movie has become a cult hit that even spawned a sequel in 1989.

Where the first film focused on the fallout of Eddie’s disapperance to those he left behind, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! picks up the threads of the first film finding Eddie Wilson alive in Canada pushed to give music a second chance thanks to the release of the Cruisers lost “A Season in Hell” and an Eddie Lives! campaign by the studio that ruined his life.

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Galavant – It’s All in the Executions

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Galavant – It’s All in the Executions
  • IMDb: link

 

“We’re off on a secret mission!”

 

Galavant - It's All in the Executions

On the night before King Richard (Timothy Omundson) has been tricked into fighting Gareth (Vinnie Jones) to the death for control of his kingdom, Richard and Galavant (Joshua Sasse) bond over Madalena’s (Mallory Jansen) deceptions, several glasses of wine, and a secret mission to murder Kingsley (Rutger Hauer) in his sleep. Like most of Galavant’s plans it doesn’t go well.

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Galavant – My Cousin Izzy

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Galavant – My Cousin Izzy
  • IMDb: link

 

“This is my moment in the sun.”

 

Galavant - My Cousin Izzy

Family is a big theme of the penultimate episode of Galavant. Opening with a flashback musical number of a young Galavant (Harry Collett) with his father (Anthony Head) which helps explain Galvant’s (Joshua Sasse) views on both heroism and love, “My Cousin Izzy” returns to the present with our heroes locked in King Richard’s (Timothy Omundson) dungeon while the King deals with a surprise guest of his older brother Kingsley (Rutger Hauer) who Madalena (Mallory Jansen) plans on making her new husband

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