Review: Glee-ful Pitch Perfect Nails The Laughs, Warbles On Originality

"We're probably gonna be the only people to hold this together. You with me?"

Grade: B-

Pitch Perfect undeniably proves two points: Glee is, at best, a finite concept, and Anna Kendrick probably would have made a better Bella Swan than Kristen Stewart.

Based on Mickey Rapkin's novel of the same name, which documented Rapkin's year of covering competitive collegiate acapella, Pitch Perfect apes a lot of what made Glee very popular in its first season: ragtag misfits brought together by their love of song, self-aware riffing on competitive singing, and a fondness for mash-ups. Director Jason Moore melds all those qualities in with some decent performances to make a flick that is frequently funny yet fails to fall into the very traps it spends half its runtime making fun of. 

Anna Kendrick is at the center of Pitch Perfect as Beca, a Barden University freshman who would rather pursue her dreams of becoming a DJ than attend Intro to Philosophy. After slumming  and moping for a semester, her college professor father makes a deal with her: one more semester of giving it the college try and making friends in exchange for the chance to go to to LA and pursue her dreams, with full financial support and no questions asked. To appease her father, Beca joins one of Barden's many competitive acapella groups,  the all-female Barden Belles, a group trying erase a legacy of losing Barden's star  acapella group: the, pompous, Treblemakers. Immediately, Beca's alt-pop style clashes with lead the Belles, Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow), and their Pan Am cum Mad Men airline attendant aesthetic, but her pipes, and those of a collection of misfit toys that includes Rebel Wilson's spunky Fat Amy, are just what they need to win regionals, nationals, etc, and become glee club...I mean...competitive acapella champs.

By compressing what is effectively an entire season of Glee, with scraps of every entry in the Bring It On franchise thrown in  for some padding, into a roughly two-hour package, Moore has made a far more palatable version of a narrative that has become insufferable and disposable thanks to more than a decade of overexposure. Granted many of plotlines and jokes are nakedly recycled from Glee, Bring It On, and any number of ripoffs of both, Pitch Perfect possesses a willingness to be deliberately wacky and ribald that exceeds many of its predecessors that makes it more consistently funny than either series has been in a very long time. When the comedic highlight of the movie revolves more around pure gross out humor rather than silly misunderstandings (though the misunderstandings are there), it shows that is Moore is playing on a slightly different level. Not to mention, ninety percent of Wilson's antics as Fat Amy are slightly more clever and far more hilarious than anything found in a typical episode of Glee or any of the Bring It On flicks since the first.

Kendrick and Wilson are, unsurprisingly, the major components of Pitch Perfect's success. Kendrick, who is youthful and deft enough to have played a high school student, college student, and post grad professional all within five years, brings a Tina Fey-like wryness to her role as the girl who is clearly to cool for all this acapella foolishness. She delivers sly digs with an ease and drollness that would surely have made her a better fit to bring life to a dry character like Bella Swan. Conversely, she also handles the more dramatic moments with more subtlety than deserved, even if her romance with Dane Cook-alike, Skylar Astin, is far too tepid to even register as barely interesting. On the other hand, Rebel Wilson delivers solid gags with alarming frequency, most of which are, sadly, at the expense of her characters weight and antithetical overconfidence rather than her any intrinsic cleverness. But, hey, Hollywood. Anna Camp makes a valiant effort to squeeze some life out of her thankless role as head Belle, but it is mired in too much cliche to be special. Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins are, however, a pretty welcome presence as a pair of jaded color commentators covering a "sport" with such visible disdain that they almost act as the purest audience surrogates to ever infiltrate such a flick.

Despite some solid performances and fairly consistent laughs, you've seen Pitch Perfect before, likely on a Blockbuster/Redbox/Netflix/VOD night. The plot goes exactly where expected and there are few if any surprises to be found in any of the characters individual narratives, which should be enough for the Gleeks and Cheerios. The musical performances are fairly engaging, with a few memorable mashups, as long as you are willing to believe that every actor is using their real signing voice. Pitch Perfect is the type of flick that appeals explicitly to a certain demographic, almost to the exclusion of all others, and often ends up as a guilty pleasure to those who fall outside of the target demo. But, those who might find themselves accidentally, or intentionally, enjoying Pitch Perfect needn't be ashamed. There's a modicum of talent behind and in front of the camera, and the flick is unquestionably entertaining for most of its runtime. So, to that end, Moore and his cast and crew have done achieved their relatively modest goal of crafting a fluffy piece of entertainment that does little to enlighten or educate but constantly delivers laughs, intentional and otherwise. And, really, how much more could be expected from such a modest endeavor?

In-Between The Scenes Observations

• Anna Kendrick can sing...or can she?
• Rebel Wilson is hilarious, but watching her, you can't help but countdown her fifteen minutes. It's sad, but comedians with a specific schtick usually have a short fame-span.
• With a little less star wattage, this would have gone straight to ABC Family.
• We now have an idea of how Glee will continue into the college years. It will become: Acapella!

Review: Brutal End of Watch Blurs Line Between Cop, Horror Films

"That boot from the OC actually thinks he can chase down every perp on foot?"

 Grade: B+

I'm not ashamed to say that Training Day is my second favorite movie--in life. I also have a healthy respect for Training Day writer David Ayer and his oeuvre, so I'm practically predisposed to kind of love End of Watch. But, there's no way around it: End of Watch is Southland: The Movie.

As reductive as it sounds, that's not a bad thing.

End of Watch doesn't necessarily surprise or change the game for cop film, but it goes a long way to making the fear and uncertainty that cops live with every day as tangible as it is terrifying. With a Paranormal Activity aesthetic and enough jump scares to match anything coming out of Lionsgate's October offerings, End of Watch is as much a horror film as it is a slice of life psuedo-docudrama.

David Ayer returns to his favorite well--the grimy, unflinching world of the cops, crooks, and gangbangers who populate the streets of South Los Angeles--with End of Watch, this time following  LAPD patrolmen Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena), a pair of dudebro "supercops" who epitomize the gung ho warrior spirit that drives young men and women to put their lives on the line for a citizenry that hates and fears them in equal measure. When Taylor and Zavala return to the streets after justifiably shooting a pair of gangbangers, the two "Ghetto Gunfighters"--clearly, Keanu's Tom Ludlow was not the  last of these legendary figures--they manage to anger a small time gang and a stumble onto the operations of a major Mexican cartel, both of whom are seeking to establish a foothold in South LA's crime-ridden streets. As Taylor and Zavala go about their days of patrolling, saving lives, and building families, danger follows them to every call, waiting for the opportune moment to strike and make sense of the title End of Watch.

Ayer takes his third shot at directing with End of Watch, opting for the now-exhausted found footage approach, and manages to make something that is both wholly derivative of his earlier  work yet remarkably purer. Taking cues from  underrated network-then-cable hit Southland, he smartly follows the daily adventures of his two central patrolmen while letting the main arc simmer in the background until the riveting third act. Keeping the action focused on Taylor and Zavala's patrolling proves as effective on the big screen as it does on the small screen because, despite the best efforts of the networks to push detective-based police narratives, patrolling officers invariably get the most action of their brethren in blue. Yet, their position as the tip of the spear means they are constantly in the line of fire, an unnerviing state that Ayer wisely highlights with some superb scenes where Taylor and Zavala have no earthly idea of the danger lying around the next blind corner, an approach that culminates in a harrowing final act that proves that bravery rarely replaces brains in any combat situation. That's not to say End of Watch is solely a harrowing, suspenseful experience. Quite the contrary. Ayer peppers End of Watch with the same type of slice of life moments that are riotously, absurdly funny--especially an early scene that sees Zavala fist fights a perp, who may seem familiar to Training Day fans like myself, in an attempt to defend his personal honor.

80% of End of Watch's success comes from the exceptional work done by Gyllenhaal and Pena. Gyllenhaal retreads much of the same ground he covered as shell-shocked marine--Taylor just so happens to be an ex-Marine--in Jarhead, but we see a man who is a little better adjusted--and supported--and drifting closer to happiness. Granted, it's still a typical Gyllenhaal performance, which means he's a little too wired, too unsettled to make anyone entirely comfortable in his presence. Pena, on the other hand, continues to prove himself an invaluable character actor who can easily switch from dramatic to comedic postures. From a distance, the interactions between Pena and Gyllenhaal resemble the traditional buddy-cop formula, but both Pena and Gyllenhaal ground the characters in enough earnest, off-the-cuff humanity that they make Taylor and Zavala's overdone masculinity seem just like the act it truly is. Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez both do a decent job of providing anchors as Taylor and Zavala's respective significant others, but neither has enough screen time to register as more than vaguely motivational afterthoughts. America Ferrera and Cody Horn offer a better counterpoint to Gyllenhaal and Pena as two female officers who have been irreparably hardened by their time streets. While most of these ladies do adequate wotk with the small roles their given, the undeniable MVP of the ladies hovering in Taylor and Zevala's orbit is Latin rapper Flakiss (government name: Yahira Garcia) as a Chola Snoop. Flakiss may sport clearer delivery than Felicia Pearson but their gangster girls share a spirit that guarantees wildly inappropriate, and often violent, moments that recall some of the more offbeat moments from The Wire.

Performances and aspects of Ayer's direction aside, End of Watch is so similar to Southland that Ayer should probably be staring down an IP case right now. From the hand-held camera style--which is fairly inconsistent--to the patrolman focus, Ayer does little to distinguish End of Watch from its TV contemporary, which leads End of Watch to fall victim to many of the same failings as other cop narratives, including telegraphed plotting and one-dimensional character work. Mostly, End of Watch fails to do anything overly different or unique with the traditional day-in-the-life of a cop narrative, and it rarely seems ambitious enough to make any cognizant statement on the lives of its heroes aside from "life is hard for those cops out there." Truthfully, this is to be expected from Ayer because as good as he is at stirring potboilers, he's less skilled at crafting a larger, deeper narrative about cops and bangers that looks beyond the battle on the street to find the depth in souls and stories of these conflicted warriors and their mixed-up opponents. That said, End of Watch is still a solidly entertaining diversion that should tide you over until Southland starts its new season or new episodes of COPS surface.

On the side:

• The sheer presence of real Bone from Training Day implies that End of Watch probably exists in the same universe as Training Day and Street Kings.
• At some point the camera switches from first person to third person perspective within minutes. Way to watch for consistency, Ayer.
• Anna Kendrick is going to have a busy fall and will probably compete against herself in the coming weeks. Who does she think she is ? Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Can we be done with found footage? It rarely makes a narrative any more realistic, and it's leaning towards being more intrusive now than it did when Blair Witch popularized it.
• Why did no one else think of framing the cop experience as a horror experience before now? It's so simple it's brilliant. If only, they could do something like this on Southland...

Review: Paranorman is sharp, scary, and just shy of spectacular

"AHHH!!! It's the Mystery Machine! We're so dead."

Grade: A-

There's a moment near the end of Chris Butler and Sam Fell's Paranorman where it is clear the movie was aiming squarely at adults.

It's a moment that I won't spoil, but it is one that got more audible gasps from the screening audience than any other scary scene in the movie. It is also a moment that cements the theme of Paranorman in such a delightfully subversive way that it will surely put a smile on the face of most of the adults in the audience.

Essentially, Paranorman is about the tried moral: "Don't judge a book by its cover." The second feature by the company behind stop-motion instant classic Coraline, Laika, Paranorman centers on a middle-schooler Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who can see and talk to the ghosts hanging around his small Massachusetts town. Norman's ability is a source of consternation for his father (Jeff Garlin), concern for his mother (Leslie Mann), and annoyance for his boy-crazy teen sister (Anna Kendrick). his ability also guarantees daily abuse from his classmates, especially lunk headed bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, voicing way against type). Despite his rep and clear desire to shoulder his burden alone, Norman finds a friend in the relentlessly optimistic Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), who also deals with his fair share of abuse due to his chubbiness. Oddly, Norman's harassment seems at odds with his hometown's claim to fame. As the site of a colonial era witch trial, almost every business in town, plus a statue in the town center, is based around witches. What the town doesn't know is that the witch that fuels their livelihoods actually placed a curse on the town, and only a creepy malcontent (John Goodman) who can talk to ghosts has been able to keep the witches curse at bay for years. When the grumpy old ghost whisperer dies suddenly, it's up to Norman and his friends to find a way to satisfy the witch before her curse raises the dead.

As the first film by Laika after Coraline, Paranorman has pretty high expectations to live up to, and while it doesn't quite ascend to the heights or dig to the depths that Coraline did, it still works as a focused, charming, and sharp fable. In many ways, Paranorman is the descendant of the same 80's Speilbergian kid adventure flicks like Goonies and ET that inspired JJ Abrams' Super 8. The characters are broad but lovable archetypes, with Neil and his musclebound brother, Mitch (Casey Affleck), being the real standouts, that have enough pathos to be far more relatable than characters with more unique characteristics. The well-paced plot  centers around the kids interaction with an unnatural force, but its subtext is filled with a sharp, witty, and thematically consistent examination of a moral that is increasingly relevant to today's kids. Yet, Paranorman tackles its central theme with an honest, earnest tone that never speaks down to anybody in the audience, regardless of age. It is this approach that, unfortunately, leads to Paranorman's central weakness. 

As a "kids" movie, it may be too heady and scary for its target audience. Granted, animated features have never been squarely targeted a kids, but that's what the marketing teams would like moviegoers to think. This means that many parents are going to take their kids to Paranorman expecting something goofy and lightweight and finding something far heavier. To a degree Paranorman is a bit slight, especially as it is intensely focused on a theme that most older children may have already grasped and most parents certainly should have grasped, but it is that focus that enabled Butler and Fell to allow Paranorman to move so confidently, and effectively, between scares, laughs, and drama. The on-point voice performances also help Paranorman excel because the reticent scenery chewing and over-the-top antics are all grounded in character issues that draw back to the central theme. Speaking of character, Butler, Fell, and the Laika team have done an absolutely phenomenal job with the stop motion animation, especially the character designs, which are all charmingly unique and varied but in a way that makes the characters seem disturbingly human. All things considered, it's almost rare to see this kind of thematic and character focus in an animated feature outside of Pixar, but then again, looking at Laika's work so far, it should be expected.

Paranorman may not be anywhere near as bright, bubbly, and riotous as this summer's other animated entries, but its heart is in the right place and that heart has pumped out some talented meaningful work that kids, parents, and those without either to accompany them to the theater should not miss.

In-Between the Scenes Observations:

• If only one episode of Ghost Whisperer ended the way Paranorman did, I assure you it would have been even more popular.
• Guns, knives, and brass knucks are drawn at the mid point of the film; Mild ultraviolence ensues. parents beware.
• Sadly, there is at least one loud, angry Black woman stereotype; can't win'em all.
• The 3D enhancement was totally unnecessary and only makes the film even darker. But, hey, tickets!
•  There's no twist at the end, but after about an hour away from Paranorman, the impetus for the witch's curse will hit you pretty hard.

Review - 50/50

Grade: A

Good: Amazing performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt is at the heart of this respectful take on a young man struggling with cancer. Seth Rogen’s raunchy comedy is actually a relief. Great supporting work from Anna Kendrick and Anjelica Huston; Tearjerker that earns tears by avoiding emotional manipulation.

Bad: Hits a few rote plot points with Bryce Dallas-Howard’s character and offers a predictable relationship subplot; Rogen does his typical schtick, so mileage may vary.

Ugly: Surgery sucks.

In my review of 30 Minutes or Less, I mentioned how the popularity of R-rated comedies has led to the use of comedy to examine other genres. I also made note that the popularity of R-rated comedies today is due in large part to the success of movies like The Hangover and Judd Apatow’s oeuvre. It’s been a while since audiences have had a Apatow-directed project hit the screen, the latest being 2009’s Funny People. Despite the current absence of an Apatow-directed project, his influence is still fairly ubiquitous in the realm of R-rated comedies. Apatow’s style of combining subtle raunch with pure heart has left an indelible mark on writers and directors of contemporary grown-up comedies, forcing many to consider their characters as human beings rather punch lines or stereotypes and to craft stories based around realistic issues such as unplanned pregnancy and terminal illness. As is par for the course in Hollywood, studios have tried to ape this format to mostly diminishing returns, but Summit’s upcoming 50/50 is probably the closest any studio has ever come to capturing Apatow’s magic touch.

Directed by The Wackness’ Jonathan Levine, 50/50 stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adam Lerner, seemingly the nicest 27-year old in the world. Adam enjoys a decent existence as a public radio producer in Seattle, where he works with his slightly dickish best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen). He lives with girlfriend, flighty artist Racheal (Bryce Dallas-Howard) and dodges calls from his smothering mother Diane (Anjelica Huston). All seems well for Adam until a routine trip to doctor reveals that a pain in Adam’s back is actually a malignant tumor. Adam is diagnosed—by a doctor so bereft of bedside manner that one has to wonder how he made it past his residency—with a rare form of cancer, Schwanomma, that is marked by a 50% survival rate. From there, the film follows Adam’s attempts to deal with the diagnosis and chemotherapy on the path to an extremely risky surgery. Along the way, Adam tries to cope with a seeming death sentence with the help of his friend, family and an inexperienced, yet optimistic therapist (Anna Kendrick).

From that description, 50/50—based largely on the experiences of screenwriter Will Reiser—sounds like straight-up Oscar bait, designed to mercilessly manipulate audiences into watching it with tense smiles and tear-stained eyes. In truth, this movie will really make audiences laugh, cry and cheer. What makes 50/50 different from a Lifetime movie of the week is that it earns those laughs, tears and cheers through an honesty and subtlety that it could have easily avoided for schmaltz, melodrama and tasteless gags. 50/50 succeeds mostly due to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s amazingly understated performance. Most actors would look at a film like 50/50 as an opportunity to devour scenery with overwrought emotion, but Gordon-Levitt wisely avoids this path, opting to play Adam as shell-shocked and generally taciturn. Many cancer sufferers like Adam struggle with phenomenal loneliness despite the presence of family and friends, and Gordon-Levitt superbly captures the quiet loneliness that is as deadly as the cancer. His restraint throughout the majority of 50/50 leads to the usual moments of breakdown near the film’s climax that are truly heart-wrenching. What makes these moments so potent is the fact that Gordon-Levitt earns them. They don’t come out of the blue or after a series of histrionics. These moments are the result of suffering in silence and isolation, and they are far closer to reality than any overblown emotion that a lesser actor might supply.

While Gordon-Levitt’s performance is the unequivocal highlight of 50/50, the work of Rogen, Kendrick and Huston is also quite splendid. Seth Rogen brings his trademark exuberant snark and bawdiness to 50/50, which counteracts what could be a significantly melancholy proceeding. Rogen isn’t stepping to far outside his comfort zone with his performance, often delivering the same type of dick and sex jokes with alternating smarm and mania, but in 50/50 it serves a greater purpose. The audience needs Rogen’s type of energy as relief, but Adam needs it to survive, and for that reason Rogen’s typical humor becomes far less grating than it normally is. Like Rogen, Anna Kendrick brings her familiar perkiness and subtle anxiousness to bear as Adam’s therapist, Katie. Kendrick plays Katie with a balance of nervousness and earnestness that is appropriate for the character’s therapist-in-training status and uses the doctor-patient barrier to restrain a growing attraction to Adam. While it’s pretty clear where Katie and Adam will end up, Kendrick gives Katie an air of reluctance that is sensible, yet obviously challenging as she is well acquainted with the consequence of Adam’s condition. That sense of realism is what grounds Kendrick’s performance, and most of 50/50, in the notion that a happy ending isn’t all that likely.

On the other side of Adam’s support system is his mother Diane, played with disturbing accuracy by Anjelica Huston. Huston role is smaller than Rogen and Kendrick’s, despite her playing the typical cornerstone of support, but it is significant in how well it reveals the motherly response to dying child. The old adage of “a parent shouldn’t have to bury their child” is clearly at the heart of Huston’s performance. When she delivers moments of pure elation sadness, or fear, all of which her son coldly rebuffs, she becomes the mother that, hopefully, most members of the audience can identify with. Rarely have I seen a concerned parent rendered so pitch perfectly on screen and Huston deserves a true tip of the hat for the honesty in her performance. The only main performance that fails to connect is Bryce Dallas-Howard’s role as Adam’s girlfriend, Rachael. Sadly, it’s a thankless role as the girl who might not have what it takes to support a dying man. With some more shading and depth, it could have been something remarkable, but alas it is the stereotypical character who is villainized without reasonable examination.

The misstep with Dallas-Howard’s Rachael is one of only a few that Director Jonathan Levine makes with 50/50. Generally, he offers a respectful honest and occasionally lighthearted look at Adam’s struggle cancer without ever resorting to melodrama. He intelligently applies a low-fi approach to 50/50, letting the actors do the work without beating the audience over the head with flashing signs that say “CRY HERE!” He employs a fairly dim visual style that allows the film to mimic the dreariness of Seattle while highlighting the Adam’s isolation. In addition, he reigns in theatrical displays of emotion among the cast to open the door for more honest responses to the grave situation, which shows a much-needed level of respect rather than milking cancer for melancholy. Even when focusing on the more challenging aspects of the treatment and coping processes, Levine never overdoes it, showing something once and letting it stand instead of repeatedly dragging the audience into Adam’s personal hell. Levine does so well with most aspects of the film that when he does falter it’s painfully obvious. Aside from the issues with Dallas-Howard’s character, the burgeoning relationship between Adam and Katie can be pretty predictable and Rogen’s schtick is a bit too similar to his other roles. However, these are minor issues in light of the myriad triumphs that dominate 50/50.

Fair warning for those who are prone to easy tears, 50/50 will make you bawl by the end, but it never feels like a cheap manipulation. This is an honest film that deals with cancer respectfully and uses the light touch and raunchy comedy to provide relief and perspective, never mockery. With some amazing performances and tight direction, this is definitely prime Oscar bait and a true descendent of the Apatow legacy, and it is the rare film that actually deserves to both claims.