Pitch Perfect - Review

Genre: Comedy, Musical?(well there's music in it )

The music in it is brilliant first off,  the remixes are just clever and well done and the choice to do the biggest songs of the last few years was smart so even recluses of music like myself were able to recognise them and enjoy it. The music was also always so fast paced that it kept the movie going at a really good pace. The only other thing to really say about the music is that its fit really well into the film , i know they are on stage so its not hard to fit it but it never felt like and now have a cut to another song, it felt very natural which is a really difficult to do as seamlessly as this film does.

The cast was just brilliant with a special focus on Anna Kendrick who was one of the most realistic teenagers I have ever seen. Most trying to play a teenager give this impression that they never were one while she was just spot on and her acting was consistent and just brilliant, seriously I cant praise her enough for this. The relationship between her and Skylar Astin( who according to imdb is in several things but I have never seen before) is really fun and again much more like a real couples relationship and they worked really well together.

The stars of Pitch perfect though were the minor characters, especially the commentators who often you only heard in voice over and just were brilliant.Their lines had to some of the best in the whole film and were just what you really want commentators to say.

In a very nice segue its time to talk of the  comedy which really is the main event. It was this weird mix of really clever humor and just blatant humor. What I mean by clever humor is jokes that arn't pointed observed or exploited but are just left to be funny in their own right. So loads of the script and particularly the commentators  had this, as well as backgrounds and sets, and all of these created this continuous sense of joviality throughout the film and it was fabulous. 

On the other side their is the more blatant comedy which I really like as well and in some points they were spot on with it, however at other points I felt like they were holding back and scared to go the whole legnth and if they had just given in a little more to the ludicrousness of their jokes i think this would have been an even better film.

My only real complaint of the film was that it was trying t do too much and then seemed to forget parts. So at the start of the film one of the lines was how they only sang songs made by female artists and then the point of how all the music was out of date was made and I thought this was going to be deadly, that they were going to preform modern songs by female artists and going to carry this idea on, however when they get modern(i dont count that as a spoiler its a comedy, plot twists are rare) they just drop that and "give me everything" by Pitbull makes it into the finals and that really let me down because I just thought that keeping it would add so much to the film.

Final word: 

I appriciate some of my complaints were from expectations but I still feel they give up easy chances to make this film so much more then it was. That being said it fills its brief and it really is a fun addition to this years comedy collection, plus if it encourages more music films I am not complaining.

7.5/10

some links to the best songs from Pitch Perfect:

riff off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q573_hDhTbE

right round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx-cpRnEG5I

The Hobbit An Unexpected journey (i.e the first) - Movie Review

Premise: This is the first third of the hobbit book by J.R.R.Tolken and tells the tale of Bilbo Baggins,a baggins of bagend no less, and how he 13 dwarves and a wizard joined together to cross middle earth and reclaim the lonely mountain. The reason for this quest? a fire breathing dragon by the name of Smaug stole it from the dwarves alone with all their treasure and head dwarf Thorin Oakenshield is a little bitter about it.

Now to the hobbit itself, I said before I loved the first three so was rather excited to see the hobbit and ended up seeing it in both 3D and 2D so i shall start by comparing them. As in all 3D films there was a few of those obligitary shots when the camera plunges a great depth( mainly so 3D watchers don't feel cheated i suppose) and once that shot is over i started actually comparing them. The 3D i enjoyed alot more then I normally do because it was far more intergrated to the film then most, it wasnt a few grand 3D moments on what is a glorified 2D film as I find most to be.

 The Hobbit actually really effectively uses 3D and it has to be one of the first films where i really enjoyed the 3D ( maybe it was the 48 frame shot that compliments it more ?). That being said it was fun to see it didnt add anything to the film for me I didn't find the world any more or less real then i did on my 2D screening.

The set and the shooting just as in LoTR is fabulous, New Zealand is clearly a wonderful place to shoot. The sets and the world were brilliant and there is no denying that however i didnt find any of the places very unique to the film, in the other 3 there was always somewhere i remembered and particularly associated with an area but with the hobbit it was just a new cast in the same places. Also Jackson did his famous sweeping shots as his characters just trek over incredible beautiful places , for no other reason then to inform the watcher they are moving (we need such shots or us audience will assume they are actually still in the shire). I know that was famous in the first lot but I think the hobbit needed to distinguish itself a bit more and in this area it was on par but did not exceed the others.

Now to the cast and plot , the characters were really great, it had a wonderful timing to the conversations and i rarely found it strained. The characters were really great ,though admittedly there were a lot of dwarfs which really didnt seem to do anything other then just walk around, like no lines nada, but even still there was a really nice natural comradeship by the cast which made up for the accents thing (seriously there were 12 dwarves from middle earth and one born and breed in Northern Ireland, very strange). I really enjoyed the lead performers  Ian McKellen was a wonderful Gandalf as always and actually brought and developed his character which i was just really impressed with.Martin Freeman as Bilbo was really spot on with Bilbo however I remained unconvinced it was his talent, i think its more that he is like Bilbo naturally, either way it was a good preformance. 

Now i really dont believe it is possible to disscuss the hobbit without talking about how brilliant Andy Serkis was as Gollum

The single biggest thing coming from this film has to be that this man deserves an oscar and i am right on that band wagon, his half an hour is by far my favorite part of the film and the whole time he is just spectacular. He manages to both terrify and make you love Gollum who is as tragic as he is dangerous. There is even a great amount of really brilliant humor in that scene and it honestly was what got me through the whole film(that and the amazing goblin killing scene which is just spectacularly bizzare).

Finally a special topic, the legnth of the damn film, for to discuss the hobbit without talking about the timing is impossible. It was the single longest film I have ever been to that I really enjoyed. I mean i really really liked this film and am a big fan of the franchise and particurally the hobbit book , but it got towards the end when i was just horrified to learn I had another 30 minutes after Gollum left to go. When you are 50 minutes into a film and the blasted unexpected journey has yet to occur something has gone wrong in editing. I really liked all the stuff in the Shire but most of that belonged on extended addition versions and I think that first part may well have dampened many peoples view on the rest of the film, which is a pity as all in all its a really wonderful film.

Final Word: good god my review is nearly as long as the bloody film, sorry. I thought this film was a good addition to the series and didnt damage them which was a serious worry for some (george lucas you are gone but not forgotten). I think the editing team needs to be replaced sharpish and that the envelope needs to be pushed more because the warm fuzzy feeling of being back in middle earth lasts ownly so long. The hobbit has its flaws but all in all is really worth a watch.

8/10

Netflicker 5# - The Machinist, Stardust, Chicago

The Machinist: Thriller, psychological, suspense

premise: Trevor is a lonely machine worker who hasn't been able to sleep for a year and is

beginning to have flashes and lapses.

Please ignore the poor description and the questionable year long lack of sleep and just carry on with that idea. 

This was one of those films that i heard was really good and always meant to watch but didnt till now and it was my mistake because it was just so well done. I knew the premise and that the lead (Christian Bale) was fabulous and he is but in truth its far more beautiful and iconic then i could have ever imagined. 

Stardust:Fantasy, fairytale, comedy, drama(ish)

Premise:Tristan makes his way accross the wall to the magical realm to retrieve a fallen star and win the heart of victoria.

If you havnt seen this then seriously what are you plating at , its out since 2007 (yes im very  up to date this week). Its one of the best fairytales ive ever seen, tales of adventure, courage and magic. It sounds cheesy but it contains everything a fairytale should and more which just adds to how brilliant it is.

Chicago: Musical, Drama

Premise: The love of murder in chicago during the 1920s told through music, focusing on two cases and there scheming lawyers.

Another beautifully shot film, it has this cool glamerous edge to everything about it, the costumes, the sets, the people everything just speaks of wealth glamour and sex. I think its a good lead up to the great gatsby despite the difference in  topic it has a very similar style