Tag: Anna Camp

In 1992, The Mighty Ducks came out, introducing a lot of youth to hockey and bringing an okay film to the world. It had a team of irregulars come together to win a competition. Standard story. Two years later, we were given D2: The Mighty Ducks, a much superior film, funnier, stronger, better. We got more exciting characters, the stakes were raised as they now had to compete and win in an international tournament. It gave us the knuckle puck!

Then another two years later, Disney had reached too close to the sun and tried for a third film. But where do you go after your group of kids have won a world championship? There is no intergalactic hockey (barring the Mighty Ducks TV Show). So they instead just made them go to a school, and play the varsity team of older players. It was a terrible idea, it was boring, no one cared.

That is what my concerns are for Pitch Perfect 3. In the first film they won the US, in the second film they won the world, and in the third film they are just…singing for the troops. What’s the point? The only real difference I could see is that at least in Mighty Ducks the second film improved upon the first, while in Pitch Perfect 2 it lowered in quality due to lesser plot lines.

Oh well, let’s see how it manages to justify its existence. And that is coming from a fan!

Well at least they are patriotic, so they can

Our third film is taking place probably around 3 years after the events of Pitch Perfect 2. Our heroes (?) now have all moved on with their lives, in graduate school, or with jobs, or no jobs at all. Who knows.

Becca (Anna Kendrick) is officially a music producer, but dealing with shithead artists who have bad tastes makes her quit and question her future in the business. Thankfully, the Bellas are having a reunion show at an aquarium, so she has that to look forward to since her life is falling apart.

All the girls are there (Alexis Knapp, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Chrissie Fit, Ester Dean, Hana Mae Lee, Kelley Jakle, Rebel Wilson, Shelley Regner) and even their protege Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) is there. At this show, everyone realizes that their lives suck, they are sad, and they just want to sing and be happy. Thanks to plot magic, they are able to quickly agree and get invited to a USO show to entertain the troops.

And lo and behold, this is secretly a competition. They are performing alongside three bands with instruments and sound systems, but apparently DJ Khaled is there sponsoring it all, and his favorite band will get to open for him on tour. I learned after the fact that this is a real famous DJ playing himself in this movie, not another character.

Oh joy, a competition, in order to really bring out their best. Also, John Lithgow is in this movie to play Fat Amy’s elusive father who was apparently a criminal in the past. Starring Elizabeth Banks, Ruby Rose, John Michael Higgins, Matt Lanter, and Guy Burnet, who is playing our Jesse replacement. Because Jesse/Benji/Bumper were written out of these stories, with only two of them getting a line to explain what happened.

0-3 on Riff Offs because these people used instruments.

Let’s start this analysis with another franchise comparison. I don’t like Cars. Some people do like Cars. No one liked Cars 2. Cars 2 had the main character change and a terrible no good very bad spy theme.

Pitch Perfect 3 starts off with the group actually on a boat performing, then danger guns explosion. “Oh gods,” you wonder, “Did they change this to a spy series and not put it in the trailers. Oh no no no.” And then you forget about it. You hope it is just a movie in the movie scene, maybe they become fake stars. Sure.

And then the terrible Fat Amy father plot continues, with Lithgow acting quite terribly at being a thief or whatever. It was such a bizarre aspect to add to a very lackluster film. When they finally were back up to that boat scene I started falling asleep in the theater. Oh it was so bad and unnecessary.

As for the main plot, it was so bad and unnecessary. Banks and Higgins were trash in this movie, their quips less good and they felt so useless. The competition aspect was forced, with an extremely long into and “riff off.” They spent all this energy into setting up their first USO show and raining down shit upon the group and their antics to be loved. After that? We were given a montage over the other performance, and hey, apparently now everyone loves them and all that strife was just filler. They fixed their goddamn problems and got popular again after two bad events magically through montage.

The second film did really well monetarily so they probably felt like they had to make this one. But with forgettable performances, less mashing up, forgettable and enraging plot points, this is not a movie that needed to be made at all. But sure, some side characters had good one off jokes. That’s the plus.

What up Pitches!!

First of all, I accidentally themed this week. I present to you, Yay Women Week. It should be self explanatory.

I was excited for Pitch Perfect, for like, the year before it came out when I first heard about it. I love it when people make music with their mouths. And I liked a lot of the people in it.

So of course I was excited about Pitch Perfect 2. Well, assuming they had a plot that made sense. I was excited about the additions to the cast and the fact that Elizabeth Banks was directing. But I didn’t understand why certain cast members, who should be gone and out of the picture, have returned.

Rawr. Don’t make a nonsensical movie for familiarity sake! It is a big problem with high school and college movies or shows. I am looking at you Glee. You needed to let your members move on not take it away from high school.

But again, I will forgive it if the plot makes sense. But only then.

Or if I really like the music. That trumps a lot of potential bad other things.

The Bellas are back, Bitches! Like literally, most of them are still on the team (Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Alexis Knapp, Shelley Regner, Kelley Jakle) and even Chloe (Brittany Snow) who refuses to graduate. The only newish member is Flo (Chrissie Fit), who is an immigrant and thus fulfills a lot of new joke material, offensive or otherwise.

Three years later, this is their senior year, and they totally won the next two years of competition too. However, while doing a nationally televised performance, some bad things happen, and the Acapella committee is going to disband their group to make sure everyone knows that things are bad. They can’t recruit, they can’t compete in the national title, nada.

Well, apparently every four years, there is a world competition though. And the winner of the American National always gets to go the next year, so they at least get that right. And sure, if they win, they can keep their team. If you follow the film time line, that means the Treble Makers would have competed in it the year Aubrey (Anna Camp) blew chucks, but you know, continuity things. They do get a new member in Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), because her mom was a Bella. She likes to sing her own music.

So there you go, a very simple plot. Beat all the other countries at singing, especially those very sexy, very well choreographed and amazing German singers in Das Sound Machine (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Flula Borg). Oh, but maybe there is more? Maybe Beca also has to worry about her life after college and actually becoming a music producer with intense internships? Yeah, jobs are still important!

And you know, this movie features a shit ton of people. Of course John Michael Higgins, Skylar Astin, Ben Platt and Adam DeVine. But also Katey Sagal and Keegan-Michael Key! And some of the Tonehangers with new people! And other cameos I don’t want to spoil or tag! And that Pentatonix group! And the Green Bay Packers!

I assume everyone in this picture is Aaron Rodgers.

I am officially flooded with actors, I think I can avoid tagging anyone in my next two.

Let me start off by saying that I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to give this a 4 out of 4. So when I talk about negatives, remember I still enjoyed the movie overall. It is hilarious. For the most part the songs are good. Sure, a few songs features I might absolutely hate in real life, but I got over it. I mean, fuck, the final song out of no where made me all teary eyed, just like the first time. I am actually mad I can’t get the soundtrack immediately to see if they messed up a few songs like he first movie. The friendship chemistry is fantastic. They “Expanded” on the Riff Off game from the last movie, in a new and probably better way. I laughed a ton. The analysts got even more dicey!

But my issues. Ugh. Most of my problems come from a misuse of the cast. Skylar, my favorite part of the movie, felt like he was barely in it. He got one main song, and was in the pseudo-Riff Off. But that was about it. He was so pointless, and he didn’t even talk about movies. Other Bellas, namely Cynthia-Rose, Lilly, and Stacie, felt like they barely had any lines or reason to be in the movie. The former got to sing a bunch, but their jokes went way way down and felt wasted. Even Ben Platt technically got less screen time. So many individuals who were there but didn’t seem to matter. THey tried to fit too much in the movie.

Hailee was wonderful though. Sure, they tried to force this weird Flashlight song down our throats. The original I kind of hate, but by the end of the movie, the few different versions seemed to grow on me. I am probably still going to grab this movie day one on Blu-Ray and watch it again and again, although arguably it is of some lesser quality than the first film.

Uh oh. Pitch Perfect. A movie with an overload of things I like!

Singing A Capella? Check. Anna Kendrick? Check. Remixes and mash ups? Check! Pseudo-satirical analysis of the college life style and “Gleeks” in the high school crowd? Check mate.

Don’t even get mad glee lovers. Its all just jokes. Jokes and raps.

This movie takes place at the fictional Carolina University. Probably somewhere in North or South Carolina, who knows. There are four main groups on this campus, a madonna group, a pot head group, The Treble Makers, and the Bellas, an all lady group who only sings women songs from before 2000. Kind of lame. But somehow they made it to the national championships, along with the Treble Makers, lead by Bumper (Adam DeVine).

Unfortunately, Aubrey (Anna Camp), the captain of next years squad blows it during their first number and they become a laughing stock. So much that they lose all of their members, except for Aubrey and the second in charge Chloe (Brittany Snow), and have to rebuild from scratch.

Enter Beca (Kendrick). Freshman, doesn’t want to go to college though. She wants to move to LA and become a famous DJ and produce songs! She loves mashing up music on her computer, but her dad and roommate don’t see the point. She also hates singing. But hey, her dad gave her a promise! If she can put forth effort into joining a group and actually giving college a chance, if she still wants to leave after a year, he will move her out to LA himself. Hells yeah!

So she joins the Bellas, who are more ragtag than ever. Yet for whatever reason, Aubrey refuses to take advice from others and makes them do last years set again. Over and over. Every competition. Can’t even spice things up. Unless you count letting Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) have a solo. They also have a rule of no fraternizing with the Treble Makers. Too bad another Freshman, Jesse (Skylar Astin) has the hots for her and won’t leave her alone. He joined only thanks to the obsession of his roommate, Benji (Ben Platt) who didn’t make the team for being “weird”.

But can the Bellas regain their former glory and win nationals again? Will this just be another stereotypical movie where the ending is obvious, along with relationships? Could John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks be any funnier as commentators of A Capella groups?

Women power! And etc.

I think my favorite character in the movie ended up being Jesse. Why him? Well, he is a guy who really likes movies. Wants to work on soundtracks for them though. Loves the Breakfast Club the most. People who like movies and can sing tend to be awesome people. Just saying, ladies.

After watching Pitch Perfect, I think my biggest complaint is that there wasn’t enough music. I immediately got the soundtrack after I saw the movie, but I was disappointed there wasn’t full versions of some of the songs, and a few of the songs felt a bit more polished than the movie counterparts. You probably wont get the full effect of the movie if you aren’t familiar with a lot of the more popular songs the last couple years, because knowing how a song normally sounds is half of the fun.

Like recognizing the Cups song Anna Kendrick did, seen here, popularized on the internet before hand. Most of the songs and videos appear to be on YouTube, so if that is all you care about, you are set.

But if you want some funny scenes with your a capella songs, some love dialogue, and a few more cameos that I didn’t feel like mentioning, then go see this movie with your friends.