Please Don't Stop the Music

How many times in the past year have we been subjected to attempts to recapture the magic that was Bridesmaids? The fem-semble take of a Judd Apatow production was not just a great film, but also an extremely popular one, grossing (and that is the right word) $288 million and earning itself a ton of Oscar buzz in the process. Since then, we've seen some decent stories that have tried to match that movie's blend of feminine camaraderie and raunchy humor, but neither Bachelorette nor Friends with Kids had much mainstream appeal, and Bridesmaids now threatens to be an exception of fem-first comedies rather than a rule.

On the surface, it doesn't appear that Pitch Perfect would be the type of movie to talk about as a spiritual successor to last summer's blockbuster, considering how much their promotional material is a blatant copy. But I think this one has the chance to surprise you. For example, preconceived notions of the film's goody-two-shoes nature last about five minutes, after which you will see exactly how I drew this comparison. Pitch Perfect takes a seemingly innocent topic - the rise of a capella (non-instrumental vocal music) as competition and community in college - and absolutely goes crazy with it, resulting in a movie you likely will never see coming.

Surrounded by women is not a bad way to go through college.

Socially-withdrawn Beca (Anna Kendrick) doesn't want to go to college. The aspiring music producer and talented sound mixer knows exactly what she wants to do with her life: move to Los Angeles and begin paying her dues as a producer. Her father insists she get a college education however, and gets her admitted to the school at which he teaches, hoping that she will find something in her peers that inspires her. Beca at first rejects the idea that campus life holds anything of value for her, as boys and classes have nowhere near the draw for her that music does. Things change when she is heard singing and begged to join a capella group "The Bellas", who are desperate to win the regional championships after an embarrassing end to the previous season. Beca's contemporary beats and the traditional style of senior member Aubrey (Anna Camp) fail to mesh, and the other young ladies chafe under Aubrey's strict leadership, but the Bellas still manage to put together a competitive group that is on the road to reach the finals. But will the tension break the group - and everyone's musical aspirations - before the final curtain is drawn?

Oh, no it's Mormons... look the other way, look the other way...

I don' t know about you, but my experience with a capella growing up was restricted to PBS's Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, whose theme song was performed by quartet Rockapella and for the longest time was my only connection to the music style. What Pitch Perfect re-introduced to me was not just a capella itself, but how good an ELITE team could be in performance. And this movie does well by it's soundtrack, from the all-vocal rendition of Universal Pictures' opening credits to wonderful performances of classic tunes to excellent mash-ups including one of Bruno Mars' 'Just the Way You Are' and Nelly's 'Just a Dream'. These represent some of the best the film has to offer, as the emotional and professionally-done performances draw you in and force you to discover the glee (no pun intended) you get from watching.

As if with a name like 'Treblemakers' they could be any less than rivals.

I remember being told that in order to make it as an actor, you have to be a lot more than just an actor. Often the best actors have a multitude of secondary talents, whether they be singing, dancing or juggling. Often these talents can lend themselves to aspects of their performances, and multifaceted performers can simply do more. For instance, I never knew that Anna Kendrick was the third-youngest Tony award nominee at age 12 for her work in Broadway musical High Society. The Up in the Air and 50/50 actress was already among the best up-and-coming performers of the past few years, and her multi-tiered role here is a a strangely perfect compliment to her career so far. But beyond Kendrick is a surprisingly deep pool of talent. Promotions may have focused almost exclusively on "Fat Amy", played by Bridesmaids' Rebel Wilson, and the Australian actress certainly does her part in sowing chaos as the brutally honest, free-thinking international vocalist. But while Wilson is perfect, the film's heart is not unjustly heaped on her shoulders. There is also Brittany Snow as Chloe, the Bellas' other senior member who tries to mitigate Aubrey's iron fist. Skylar Astin, Alexis Knapp, Ben Platt, musician Ester Dean and Hana Mae Lee provide tons of entertainment, with Lee perhaps the sleeper of the bunch. Adam DeVine provides an effective - albeit unnecessary - face to the Bellas' problems as a rival group leader. And duo John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks (who was also a co-producer) provide hilarious commentary during the competition scenes; Higgins is a hilariously misogynistic Regis Philbin while Banks is... well... Kathy Lee. In a comedic sense, it works perfectly; both are immensely well-used, but thankfully don't play any larger a role in the film than they need to.

The biggest thing to come out of Twilight?

Great music, good acting, great heart... it might seem like a cliche, but Pitch Perfect actually does turn out to be the feel-good film of the year. It's not without minor glitches; rookie director Jason Moore and screenwriter Kay Cannon try a little too hard to work the words "pitch" and "a capella" into jokes and puns that are far less entertaining than the bulk of the film's humor. Still, Moore's amateur style actually works better for this type of film than a more polished effort, and makes Pitch Perfect feel scrappy and earnest. Cannon also shows some potential, and might inspire me to start watching her TV series New Girl as a result. If you even remotely like musicals, college comedies, and a humor range that spans the gap between gross-out and brilliant, then this is most definitely your jam. If you're even remotely on the fence, do yourself a favor and give this one a try. I promise it won't be quite what you expect.

Two Days 'Til Retirement

In a weekend where there were four major theatrical releases, at least two high-ceiling limited releases and one major expansion into wide release, there's one reason that people didn't go out and enjoy Dredd, an excellent genre flick which sadly finished in sixth place at the box office and hasn't gotten the love it deserves. It wasn't House at the End of the Street or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which mostly attracted young women. It wasn't Trouble with the Curve, which appealed mainly to older folks. And it wasn't The Master, which is more like Oscar bait than blockbuster. No, for a film appealing mainly to young men, Dredd was hampered by the fact that most of their potential audience was instead down the hall with End of Watch. This movie is perfectly in director David Ayer's wheel house. The writer/director has been basing his stories in Los Angeles for over a decade, and he's best known for the man who wrote Training Day, which won Denzel Washington an Oscar and is this century's epitome of Los Angeles crime drama. All this time later, and Ayer still has stories to tell about the LAPD, though thankfully they're not all about corruption and scandal, as he proves here.

Just another day in the office.

Police officers and best friends, Officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are two of the hottest shots, regularly seen patrolling the worst areas of South Central Los Angeles. End of Watch details their close friendship, rivalries and pranks with other officers, and their everyday lives, which include Zavala's expecting a child with wife Gabby (Natalie Martinez) and Taylor's burgeoning romance with a Janet (Anna Kendrick), whom he meets at school. When the duo discover an even darker side to the city in the form of the Mexican drug cartels, Taylor and Zavala find themselves on the wrong side of Hispanic gangs that have lately been rising in prominence in the area. One night, that brewing conflict will all come to a very violent conclusion

No, ma'am, this isn't Magic Mike.

Strangely, though, that finale really takes its time to come around, meaning that most of the first two acts of the film are not intensely focused on the cartels but the everyday challenges of being a beat cop in LA. Having had a grandfather on the force in Atlantic City, I appreciate how the movie took care to present the men and women of the law as normal people with families and problems and times both good and bad. Ayer humanizes his heroes, and while they're considered among the best of their class, Taylor and Zavala are still unpredictable, prone to both mistakes and heroics. Most importantly, they're men who love their jobs, which makes it incredibly easy to root for them.

Paperwork: the stuff that keeps the world spinning.

Ayer also makes an effort to portray the story from a gritty, street-level perspective. To that end, he has incorporated the popular "found footage" method by showing the footage as being recorded by the two officers via a handicam and some fairly sophisticated flash cameras attached to their uniforms, all as part of a college project for Taylor. It does a great job of making much of the film feel natural and off the cuff, but it does present its own set of problems. For one, while it's feasible for some police helicopter footage to make its way into the film to present a sense of scale, some of the movie contains far less likely cam footage, for instance from the perspective of the Latino gang that just happens to be recording their own misdeeds at the same time as our heroes. It's far less natural than the police footage, and gives far too much away, as I would have preferred more mysterious and less predictable antagonists. Also, the found footage attempt turns in a few clunkers, as more than a few occasions see scenes apparently not captured by anybody's camera, but are shot just the same. Ayer is quoted as saying (in an interview on Open Letters Monthly) that if you're wondering who is carrying the camera, then he lost you. Well, as a critic, he did lose me. It wasn't often, but occasionally my thought process turned to the fact that nobody could have been casually shooting at a certain moment. Thankfully, those were few and far between, and most of the camera efforts were done well enough to escape serious scrutiny.

...And there was much rejoicing.

Of course, none of this would have been worth anything if not for the excellent acting and chemistry of leads Gyllenhall and Pena. Ayer did a great job preparing the two actors for their constant partnership throughout the film, and it really shows in their ability to bounce seemingly random things off one another from scene to scene while still remaining relevant to the story. Gyllenhaal has struggled to define himself in modern Hollywood, going from young talent to pseudo action star to the character-driven performances in which he often excels. While he has sometimes struggled with consistency, that doesn't happen here, and he brings his special brand of intensity that often worms its way into his best work. Pena meanwhile has always been excellent, while not necessarily getting the choicest roles (the lot of Latinos in the movie industry, unfortunately). Still, he's often the best part of even bad movies, and he rewards Ayer's confidence in him by simply being the most wonderful, animated thing on the screen at any given time. Together the pair's antics are as authentic as anything I've seen in theaters this year, and their interaction with the surrounding landscape looks completely natural and familiar. While the film mainly centers around its leads, the pair get a lot of support from Kendrick and Martinez, as well as Frank Grillo, America Ferrera, Cody Horn and David Harbour as their fellow officers.

...here's the bad news...

The only real problem with End of Watch is its mess of an ending, which is almost completely predictable if you actually pay attention to the story (or the trailers, for that matter), and understand the usual cop movie cliches. This isn't really a surprise, as Ayer seems to like his tragedy-laden final acts, and to be fair it really doesn't feel out of place in the grand scheme of things. But for once I would love to be surprised, and Ayer just isn't the director who is going to do that for me. End of Watch is still an inspired production, with much more to like than not. Ayer needs to up his writing skills though, especially if he's going to keep working around treatments of the same subject matter. While I still believe Dredd is the best option for you action lovers in theaters right now, End of Watch is a more than solid second option while awaiting Looper's release this coming weekend.

Movie Monday: ParaNorman

Looking for the best animated film of the year? Look no further than ParNorman, the latest stop-motion picture by Laika, the company behind Coraline. In fact, this is the #4 movie for 2012, and for good reason.

In the small Massachusetts town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock is a withdrawn, shy boy who just happens to be able to talk to the spirits of the dead. It has caused friction with his parents, his sister, and the kids at school, many of whom bully him over his "weirdness". But one person does not think Norman is strange. He gives Norman the task of protecting the town from a witch's curse, one that threatens to raise the dead unless countered by Norman's ability. For the first time in his life, he will have the chance to prove his detractors wrong and become the hero he's destined to be.

ParaNorman is directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, and features the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, and John Goodman.

Click here for the complete review on Open Letters Monthly.

Whole, Not Half and Half

If I were to put together a list of the movies I was most anticipating this fall, it would not be a long one. Sure, there are the big budget blockbusters that are certain to entertain, such as the remake of The Thing, or the mythological warfare film The Immortals. But most of the high-class movies vying for potential award nominations are not making the compelling argument that they deserve to be seen, as I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to Martha Marcy May Marlene, Anonymous, Like Crazy, The Rum Diary, J Edgar, Melancholia, and The Descendants. There will be bad movies as well, many of which I will be readily avoiding like the plague. Even those that fall in the middle are no sure thing, and many I'll see not because they demand attention, but because they're all that is. 50/50 was definitely a film that fell in that category, a dramedy focusing on possibly the most unfunny topic out there. Sure, it sports a cast that was itself 50/50, including the excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Academy Award nominee Anna Kendrick yet the film also harbors the eyeroll-inducing Seth Rogen in a major supporting role. Sure, played right this could have been among the best films of the year but come on; SETH ROGEN!! Sure, he can occasionally be a positive influence in good films, such as his non-corporeal role in this year's Paul, but I still had a hard time believing that he would do anything besides drag a title like this one down from its full potential.

"And how does starring in a film with Seth Rogen make you feel?"

Adam's (Gordon-Levitt) life is fairly steady. He's got a steady job, a steady girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), a best friend who cares for him (Rogen) and he exercises regularly. Overall things are just fine. But Adam's latest doctor visit has forced his life down an unexpected road, as he learns he has a rare form of aggressive spinal cancer. With odds of surviving the disease 50/50, Adam's life and relationships quickly unravel as he struggles to exist in this new, barely survivable phase of his life. He finds no solace in his friends and family and depressed about his chances of still being here when all is said and done.

This is what we call "Bad Idea #1"

50/50 is not your typical "cancer flick", most notably because it's not entirely fiction. The film was in fact based on the real-life crisis of screenwriter Will Reiser, who was similarly diagnosed in his early twenties. Reiser obviously takes liberally from his own experiences, from chemotherapy sessions to the intensity that such a disease brings to the relationships between the afflicted and their family and friends. This isn't an overly sappy sob-fest or an inspirational tour de force, but a story told straight without need of epic dramatic flourishes. There are a few glossed-over or ommitted details (how many chemo patinets keep their eyebrows in real life, I wonder?), it still manages to get most right. There's something raw and stripped down about this, and it makes for a more compelling dialogue about life and living. We are told, and we believe, that having cancer is more than enough of a plot to follow.

Three cheers for medicinal marijuana!

Of course it doesn't hurt the telling when you've got the best cast available for the job. While I'm sure James McAvoy would have been great in the lead role (it was his before he had to back out for personal reasons), but it's difficult now to envision anyone besides Gordon-Levitt and his swiftly-rising star as the courageous and ever-shifting Adam. Adam has to cover a lot of ground as a character, not only affected by his condition but by the changing world around him. Gordon-Levitt is uniquely suited to this task, as he can convey more dialogue to the audience merely by his facial expressions and body language than most people can do by speaking aloud. It's a shame 50/50's somewhat juvenile nature will probably prevent it from attaining top tier status, as there was enough here I thought to make an argument for this fine performer as the year's best actor. The crew around him are no slouches however, as director Jonathan Levine shows that he really knew what he was doing putting this group together. Anna Kendrick once again stuns as Adam's student therapist, drawing amusement from the audience as she stumbles through emotional hoops to try and break through Adam's defenses. This may not be a far cry from her breakthrough role of the young Natalie Keener in Up in the Air, but since she's still charming enough to be cute and new enough for the acting to not be old hat, it works perfectly. Bryce Dallas Howard gives us yet another reason not to like her, though in this case it's because she's so good as making us hate her character, Adam's emotionally-distant girlfriend Rachael. It's only a small role, but the daughter of director Ron proves that she can be used effectively in the correct roles, usually the smaller the better. Furthermore, Anjelica Huston is both amazing and almost unrecognizable as Adam's mother Diane, an overly-emotive and smothering matriarch who was already dealing with her husband's Alzheimer's problems. This is one of the characters revered by the filmmakers, as the dynamic of Diane's and Adam's relationship throughout is one of two that are pivotal. The other is the one between Adam and his best friend Kyle. I'm shocked to be saying this twice in one year, but Rogen proves to be compelling and fun to watch unlike ever before. Though 90% of his performance is just like everything you've seen before from him, there is a certain otherness and honesty to his work here. It probably stems from experience: Rogen played much the same character in real life when Reiser was diagnosed. The result is an above average performance and a cast in which even the most likely flaw emerges clean and sparkling.

Gordon-Levitt's eyebrows are saying "Get the hell out"

After enjoying the movie as a whole for the first 80 minutes, something strange happened. It's often said that I am emotional and cry at the drop of a hat, but I don't believe I've ever broken down and cried while watching a movie in the theater before. The sheer emotion of the film's final moments are almost too much to bear however, and I'm certain most people would have reacted in the same manner. 50/50 is a completely honest, sometimes brutal and thankfully uplifting tale in which we are told that sometimes the best moments of our lives might be brought on by our worst disasters. For a movie I wasn't even sure I wanted to watch, it was quite a surprise to clock it in at #3 for 2011. That might seem a little low, even to me, but the line dividing 50/50, Drive and Moneyball is so thin that any of them could be the top movie this year. With a weak-looking winter field ahead, there's a good chance that these three could still be the top three come January. Until then, they're all must-sees and each worth the price however you invite them inside.