Pitch Perfect

Still Pitchy, and Far From Perfect

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pitch Perfect 3
  • IMDb: link

Pitch Perfect 3 movie reviewScreenwriters Kay Cannon and Mike White bend over backwards the third time around to find a plausible reason to reunite the Barden Bellas for a final chance to sing and compete for glory. Given the glut of game shows which are music-based it would seem pretty easy to do. However, Pitch Perfect 3 goes old school and instead sends our ladies overseas to perform on a USO tour for American servicemen abroad. And, because everything in this series has to be about competition, the Bellas are pitted against the other bands competing for an opening act spot for prestigious musician DJ Khaled (playing himself).

Most of the cast return including the talented Becca Anna Kendrick, the awkward and all-the-sudden less-sexually-confused Chloe (Brittany Snow), the competitive Aubrey (Anna Camp), the younger Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), the odd Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), and the annoying Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) who gets her own bizarre subplot involving a long-lost father (John Lithgow) and gangsters… for the micro-audience of those waiting to see Rebel Wilson as a ninja? Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins also reprise their roles as commentators, this time tracking the group overseas for a documentary which would seem to have a very narrow target audience as well.

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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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Still Slightly Out of Tune Read More »

Cute, but not exactly Pitch Perfect

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pitch Perfect
  • IMDB: link

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“But you have fruit punch and Rocky!”

pitch-perfect-posterCashing in on the success of Glee, Pitch Perfect takes viewers on the wacky ride of competitive a capella competition. Based on the book by Mickey Rapkin which examined the real-life underground subculture of competitive collegiate a cappella groups at three separate universities, Pitch Perfect desperately wants a to be a celebratory parody for college choirs in the same way Bring It On was for cheerleading. Sadly, nowhere near as clever, Pitch Perfect plays much more like one of Bring It On‘s straight-to-video sequels.

Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a disgruntled college freshman whose father (John Benjamin Hickey), a professor at the university, is forcing her to get an education (what a dick, right?) when all she wants to do is head to New York and begin a career as a DJ. Making a deal to give college life a try, Beca begins working at the college radio station and is pressured into signing up for The Barden Bellas, an all female singing group, by an upperclassman (Brittany Snow) who hears Beca singing in the shower (and jumps in to sing along with her in one of the film’s more awkward scenes).

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Cute, but not exactly Pitch Perfect Read More »