#005 Pitch Perfect

Sometimes you're just in need of a film that makes you laugh and forget about the phenomenally craptastic week you've just had and PITCH PERFECT is... well... perfect for just that situation.

The story follows Beca (Anna Kendrick), a young girl with family issues who doesn't want to be at college, but owing to pressures of her father she joins one of several a capella groups on campus filled with all sorts of quirky characters and they compete in the a capella competition.

This sounds all very simple and paint by numbers, and to an extent, it is. But it's fun. Really fun, especially Rebel Wilson, whose one liners sent me in stitches and most of the people in the theatre with me.

In fact, this whole film is filled with some brilliant one-liners all over the place including some great turns from Elizabeth Banks, Brittany Snow and Anna Camp.  As  for uncanny casting, Skylar Astin (from the underrated Hamlet 2) plays the love interest for Beca and he has a ludicrously strong resemblance to Dane Cook.  The casting for this whole film was pretty spot on, especially the supporting roles.

Pitch perfect is directed by Jason Moore who directed the Broadway production of Avenue Q, so this guy knows comedy and doesn't let down on the directing side. He gives us some great sequences including a wonderful 'auditions' montage and some wonderful twists on some typical movie scenes, proving he has some solid cinematic chops.

It pays to mention the music here which is, like the rest of the film, fun. Of course it's filled with the top 10 hits of the last decade, but who cares? The singing was pretty good, barring some occasional auto-tuning and some inexplicable bass harmonies in a supposed all-female group, but I'm nit picking now.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and came out smiling, and sometimes, that's all you really need.
8.5/10

#003 The Master

I delayed reviewing this one for a few days since I watched it in the hopes I would have somehow gotten my head around it... I haven't.

I've been a MASSIVE fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's work since I saw magnolia and it absolutely floored me as a film. When I heard about this one and that it centred around a cult and Amy Adams (my favourite actress of ALL time) was going to be in it, I couldn't wait.

However, I cannot help but feel that the film I wanted, wasn't what this film was and what it was, wasn't something I was particularly after...

The story... or what one can gleam from the films very deliberate slow pacing, is about a young-ish war veteran who find himself caught up in a cult being led by a gentleman known to his followers as "Master" played quite masterfully by Philip Seymour Hoffman. The protagonist is played by Joaquin Phoenix and he has some wonderful moments... that is when you get to see them at least.

The thing is that the movie spends an awful amount of time pondering itself and Freddie (that's Phoenix) spends a lot of time pondering.... stuff... I would assume.  There are some truly brilliant scenes, one in particular between Hoffman and Phoenix early on, and a particularly wonderful scene chewing moment from Hoffman again when the Master is confronted by a skeptic.

These scenes are from the movie I wanted to see, I am perpetually fascinated by cult psychology and the like, having had some personal involvement early on in my childhood with one.  But these scene are too few and far between for me to get a firm grasp on them when they do come along if at all.

The cinematography is brilliant, and Anderson uses plenty of long takes and developing shots that are too often forgotten in the world of directors these days. Interestingly enough, a lot of the movie is shot in ludicrously shallow focus, but it is never uncomfortable which is nice for a change and this odd way of shooting is helped along by a wonderful, if unnerving, score by Johnny Greenwood.

I still don't think I'll ever really get this film, but not in a good way as I do with Fellini's 8 and a half it shall probably remain an enigma to me and I'm not really fussed: the way for another cult-based movie is still clear for, hopefully me, to one day probe.

6/10 - Unnerving, well performed, yet not quite there...