Tag: Musical

Pitch Perfect 2

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.

Sleep
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!

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.

3 out of 4.

The Last Five Years

I checked my charts and calendars, and I am pretty certain I have this whole thing figured out.

Yes. Indeed, it looks like we are on my first musical review of 2015! Hooray!

I don’t know how many will come out this year, but dang it, we at least got one. I think The Last Five Years was supposed to come out in 2014, but delays or something occurred. I couldn’t see this one in theaters when it came out around Valentine’s Day weekend, but it was released on iTunes as well. Thanks iTunes! You should be able to buy musicals always on a music organizing program. It just makes sense.

Acting
Musicals! Keeping jazz hands in business since 1932.

The Last Five Years has a rather simple plot. It is about a couple, who dated, got married, and lasted a whole five years. We know it doesn’t end up well, since the first scene is our female lead, Cathy Hiatt (Anna Kendrick), crying over Jamie (Jeremy Jordan) being gone. Very sad.

But it wasn’t all sad. I mean, he was Jewish and stoked to be in love with someone who wasn’t Jewish for once! She was an actress who had a hard time finding gigs, but didn’t have a hard time with Jamie. He was a writer of moderate success, but in five years, hopefully he gets something published right?

Long distance, early love, dreams and aspirations. These are all real words, and filler words, because honestly, it is hard to talk about this movie outside of a relationship that lasted five years. Oh, and that it isn’t told in order. You see, everything in Jaime’s point of view is told chronologically, however Cathy’s POV in the story is told in reverse order. We get to see various wins and losses in their relationship, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to follow.

Love Kind Of.
When you can’t even look at each other, you know there is a problem.

You may have noticed that I only tagged two people in this review. Sure, there are technically others in the movie. You saw a flower of actors in the first picture. But I think maybe at most, 2-3 other people have speaking lines. Definitely no singing lines. This is about two people, in and out of love, fighting and loving, singing and loving. A whole lot of love, really.

As they are the only two real characters, they are the only two singers. In fact, most of this movie is singing, very little talking dialogue, which is a nice surprise.

This is not the type of musical I can find myself ever singing along with. The songs are, for the most part, very wordy and emotional and don’t always have easy parts to sing with. It isn’t as hard as something like Sweeney Todd, but it still seemed really difficult at times. Despite that fact, right after I watched the movie, I went on youtube and listened to most of the album again. It was just that emotional and strong. I was really impressed with the lyrics and the story told here.

The acting for our two leads I could describe as phenomenol, but I did cry by the end and got close to it several toher times. And hell, the first two lines of the musical, I kind of figured I would already like it. They really have a “Hey, stop what you are doing and fucking pay attention to the screen, multi-tasking assmuncher!”

It is kind of cute if you read it in Anna’s voice. Speaking of Anna, the only other musical I know coming out this year is Pitch Perfect 2. Jeez, when did she become the singer for everything?

4 out of 4.

The Identical

The Identical actually came to theaters first week of September, and, from what I can remember, it was the only thing to come out that whole week. Yet I didn’t see it til its DVD Release.

Why? Well. It didn’t have any pre-screenings at all, around the country. Popular movies have pre-screenings. Movies that end up sucking have pre-screenings. But the only thing coming out that week didn’t even think it warranted them? That is a big warning sign if anything. Not letting anyone see the movie before it releases. That means they are afraid of the critics voice or popular opinion fucking up their sales.

That’s really all I knew going into The Identical, outside of its story involving a musician.

Elvis
And clones. Clearly this involves clones, right?

Back in the 1930s there was something going on called The Dust Bowl. Big storms, droughts, fucked up a lot of farms. Was after the Great Depression too, so that wasn’t a good thing for our economy. As for two unlucky folks (Amanda Crew, Brian Geraghty), they found themselves poor and struggling to get by. And with twins!

So after a long discussion, they decided to instead give away one of the kids to a traveling preacher (Ray Liotta) and his wife (Ashley Judd) as they were unable to have kids on their own.

Flash foward some years, Ryan Wade (Blake Rayne) wants to sing and play music, while his dad wants him to be a Preacher, obviously. He then basically invents rock ‘n roll somehow, with a friend of his on drums (Seth Green). But he doesn’t get famous from it. His dad sends him to the army, and then preacher school before he finally sets off on his own to do what he wants to do: automobile mechanics. Nope. He can’t be a star, too hard for him.

But not too hard for Drexel Hemsley, his twin, who became super famous and invented rock ‘n roll, or something. Everyone says they look alike. But that can’t be. Oh well, Ryan looks up to him and hopes he can meet him some day. Also with Joe Pantoliano as a mechanic shop owner and Erin Cottrell as the girlfriend/narrator.

Liotta
This is the first time in his life Liotta did not play a gangster.

I am so happy that I did not shell out money for a movie ticket for this garbage. It had so many ugh moments, on almost every level, that made this movie bad.

Starting with my already made joke, Ray Liotta as a preacher? What? Every scene set in the 1930s was done in black and white. That way you knew it was the past, versus the “present” of the 1940s and 1950s. Tacky and terrible.

It is such an awkward story (/book), because it is clearly just trying to make a strange fan fiction Elvis movie. The main actor isn’t an actor at all, but someone who won an Elvis lookalike contest in the 1990s and has made a career out of it. So yeah, that guy is the guy they have to play these two people who are notElvisbutElvis.

Not only is the plot itself terrible, but every one of the characters is two-dimensional and lame for no good reason. SPOILERS, but he doesn’t find out he is a twin until his “dad” is about to die. Great. His real mom and twin are already dead now too, so all he has left is a father who got rid of him. Yay?

It was so slowly moving, it became infuriating at times at how dense and pointless the whole film felt.

0 out of 4.

The Devil’s Carnival

Welcome to the final day of Musical Week! Aww, sad, yes I know. Part of the reason I picked this week for a theme was because of the two musicals coming out, yes. The other reason is because I am on my honeymoon this week, and for the most part, musicals are set in worlds where people are happy and singing and dancing. Dancing is important. If there is no dancing, then you have Les Miserables and that is a sad musical.

But dancing can also be creepy. We learned that with the Thriller music video. Horror Musical isn’t a huge category. Stage Fright from this year attempted it, but it was also definitely a comedy for going for the happy musical + slasher movie elements. The only one I can think of that got really close was Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Oh well look at that. The Devil’s Carnival is done by the same people who brought us Repo! How quaint. I can’t believe how that segue came so naturally~.

In fact, a lot of the actors from Repo! are in this one as well. It is basically an unofficial and not at all related sequel to Repo!

Gif
Satan + Dancing = Horror musical.

The stories from The Devil’s Carnival are based upon Aesop’s fables. That isn’t subtle at all, because we have Lucifer (Terrance Zdunich) reading from the book to a kid. But at the start of the film, three people die. Ms. Merrywood (Briana Evigan) dies in a shootout with the police. John (Sean Patrick Flanery) has just lost his son and is about to slit his wrists. Tamara (Jessica Lowndes) was dealing with bad boys and got killed by an angry boyfriend.

And apparently they are all now in Hell!

The Ticket Keeper (Dayton Callie) runs this Hell/Carnival, where it uses demons and devils to teach those new residents their lessons. But you know, with circus themes and shit.

With such carnival employees such as The Painted Doll (Emilie Autumn), Wick (Alexa PenaVega), The Twin (Nivek Ogre), The Scorpion (Marc Senter), Hobo Clown (Ivan L. Moody), The Magician (Bill Moseley), and The Fool (Mighty Mike Murga), who wouldn’t have a good time?

Knifes
This game is actually my favorite sort of foreplay.

The Devil’s Carnival is only an hour long, but it packs a lot of material and a lot of crazy shit into that hour. Anything more would definitely be pointless. The songs were both eerie and beautiful. There wasn’t a lot of time for talking either, as the story advanced through songs for the most part.

If I had one major complaint, it is that I thought we had repetitive songs. Not tunes or musical themes, but the songs themselves were basically saying the same thing a few times. I think twice this happened, where the plot/punishment was unfolding for the characters,through a song, then someone told the same story/fable in another song right after. It felt awkward. Like, stop talking about the Scorpion and the Frog. I don’t care that much.

Overall it was a really well put together story and the ending implied a lot more is to come. And there is! More importantly, it won’t just be a rehash of the first film with new people coming to Hell and new fables. No, they have grander plans in the underworld. The next movie, The Devil’s Carnival: Alleluia! It will be a full length production and should be coming out in sometime 2015.

I can wait, totally, a good while. Saying “I Can’t Wait” would be dishonest. But a part of me is pretty excited to eventually see where this story goes.

3 out of 4.

Walking On Sunshine

Another day of Musical Week, another musical!

This is the third day of Musical Week and I am bringing you a British musical that came out this year as well, just no one ever heard of it. When I was first looking up musicals this year, I saw that this one came out in the summer and was pretty apathetic about it. But that was when I thought Jersey Boys was going to be the best musical of the year. Given the weaker field overall, I figured I would give Walking On Sunshine a second chance.

I had watched the trailer, sure. It was cheesy and terrible, exactly what the most famous musicals are supposed to be like, right? It is a jukebox musical, so I was happy I wouldn’t have to learn or judge new songs. The vague theme of this jukebox is just popular songs from the 1980s. Kind of boring. I feel like that is too big of a spread to choose from, so perfect songs for each moment should be easy.

But we shall see!

Marriage
Especially if we are forced to by someone holding our head towards the screen.

This is your typical summer lovin’ type of film. Namely, Taylor (Hannah Arterton) and Raf (Giulio Berruti) have what feels like true love. But stuff happens, they cannot stay together.

Now, three years later Taylor is returning to Italy to visit with her best sister Maddie (Annabel Scholey). Surprise! Maddie is actually getting married in Italy, and not to her on again off again ex Doug (Greg Wise). Nope. Some mysterious Italian guy she has only known for five weeks.

I think you see where this is going.

The new fiance is Raf! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

What a crazy random happenstance. Either way, she doesn’t want her sister to know, despite all her old friends knowing (Leona Lewis, Giulio Corso, Danny Kirrane).

And now she has to keep it a secret until she can understand her feelings. And understand Raf’s feelings. And figure out what to do about this wedding mess without ruining her sisters life. Also Katy Brand.

Power Of Love
But don’t forget about the singing and dancing.

Walking On Sunshine is everything a musical should be. Cheesy. With some love. Featuring non main characters as back ground dancers. But also, and most importantly in this case, the songs they decided to use in the musical sound unique and aren’t just carbon copies of the original.

Thank goodness.

For the most part, that is what I care about for jukebox musicals. It is one of my top twenty complaints for Glee, when they “sing a song” and it sounds identical to the radio version on the radio with no unique elements.

The story though is incredibly week in this musical. It is like a lot of romcoms or even other musicals. It felt like Mamma Mia! and Moulin Rouge! with other shitty elements rolled in. Also they have Leona Lewis in this movie, a real singer! And she doesn’t have any great singing parts or songs to her self or anything. What the hell is the point of that? I mean, this is a completely original musical, technically, so it is not like the only role she looked like had to be so minor and pointless. What a waste of talent.

It’d be like having Idina Menzel in a musical and not letting her sing. Oh wait.

So, shitty plot, waste of talent, but kept the songs at least somewhat unique and fun. Could have been better, could have been worse.

2 out of 4.

Annie

Welcome back to Musical Week!

The realest reason for Musical Week is that this December had two musicals coming out only a week apart, which meant I only had to find 3 more. Into The Woods was yesterday, and Annie is today!

When I first heard there was an Annie remake, I was mostly indifferent. I didn’t know if we needed a new one, but hey okay. But when I heard she wouldn’t be a tap dancing ginger, but a BLACK GIRL? I was still mostly indifferent. At least there was a change for the remake so that it wasn’t just rehashed material. It would allow them to do a more modern version, not one set in the way back early times.

But then I saw the first trailer. I knew something was weird and different and off from it. And it is an unfortunate change. But one I will clickbait tactic and wait to talk about at the end of the review.

Rooftop Dance
And it isn’t just that when I do this dance, I always look like I have to take a pouty poop.

Little Orphan Annie (Quvenshane Wallis). No, wait, fuck that. She is just a foster kid, not an orphan. She has parents, she just doesn’t know who they are or when they will be back for her. She just knows that maybe, one day, she will see them on a Friday night at a local Italian restaurant eating cannolis.

But while being chased one day by some jerks, she falls in the street and almost gets run over! But thankfully, a man is there to pick her up and chastise her. That man is Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), the owner of a NYC based phone company that is hugely successful, so he is totally rich, and he is also running for mayor! He isn’t doing that great though. He is super behind. Well, footage goes out of him saving Little Foster Girl Annie on the internets, which gives him a bump up. His campaign manager (Bobby Cannavale) convinces him that if he temporarily takes Annie in and make him seem more charitable.

Annie is a free going individual who understands this is just for publicity, and she is cool with that. Getting to live in a rich house for a few weeks? Hells yeah. She doesn’t want him for a dad anyways, she wants her real parents, who will totally come eventually. Maybe tomorrow even. Or the tomorrow after that.

What could go wrong? Also featuring Rose Byrne, Cameron Diaz, David Zayas, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Stephanie Kurtzuba.

Finale
No, trust me, I counted them. Definitely 76 trombones.

Let’s talk about…pop music. Some of it is good, a lot can be bad, even more of it is catchy. That is what this version of Annie is, for the most part. Just pop music broadway. And that is my major complaint. The songs don’t feel as natural as musicals usually strive for. It didn’t have that extra bellow or personality behind the notes that made me care about the lyrics and not just nod my head to a tune. Kids in general like all kinds of music, so a different sound to all of the sounds doesn’t feel warranted.

This is the second thing I have seen Wallis in, the first being Beasts Of Southern Wild, which I kind of hated. She is fine as Annie. She really is. She has charisma and she is charming and she carries that strong independent feeling with her the whole movie.

Everyone else? Ehhh. Byrne did decent. Diaz only annoyed me.

And Foxx. Come on, Foxx. I know you can sing. I remember Gold Digger quite vividly. Was your role in that song fake? I am starting to believe it. You had passion in your lines and feeling in your voice. Every song with Jaime Foxx is terrible. His voice is ridiculously soft for most of them, so I felt like I had to strain to hear him and there is just nothing of substance behind any of them. I kind of felt he was just talking his lines. Maybe they accidentally put in the mumble take? They are just down right terrible.

But you know what bugs me the most? The finale, when they re-did Tomorrow? Despite how terrible I thought the music was in the movie and thus how bad the movie was, it still made me tear up. Just a little bit. Great lyrics can do that. Balloons help.

So who is to blame for this? Will Smith and Jay-Z. They are producers, must be their fault.

1 out of 4.

Into The Woods

Yay yay musicals! If you are a long time reader, you know I really like musicals. Which is why I am finally having a musical theme week. Yay Musical Week!

Into The Woods decided to be a musical coming out on Christmas Day. The last time that happened was two years prior for Les Miserables which I absolutely loved. It was also my first real attempt at watching it, outside of listening to a few songs ahead of time. I loved the shit out of Les Mis.

But going into Into The Woods, I knew a lot more about it ahead of time. I saw a performance of it from college actors, which I guess is above community theater and high school actors, but still not great professional people. And you know what? I down right hated it. It took a lot of familiar stories, intertwined them, gave us their endings, and that was the halfway point. The second half was all new material, it felt super awkward, it got darker and more metaphysical, and it dragged on an on. So yes, I thought it was too long. I thought there was only four or so unique sounding songs, everything else kind of melded together and by the end, it was as if everyone got a long slow ballad, one right after the other.

I guess you can say I was not at all looking forward to this movie. But hey, the fact that it was only a little bit more than two hours definitely helped ease it in.

Cow
One of the biggest changes is that the cow was played by a real cow. Boooo.

Classic fairy tales go into the dark woods, because the woods were the scariest parts of Germany. This was Pre-Nazis, post Lutherans, I think. So it makes sense.

Like who? Well, Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) needs to bring food to her grandmothers house, in the woods. Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) was told by his mom (Tracey Ullman) to sell their milkless cow in a nearby village, on the other side of the woods. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to go to the three day ball on the other side of the woods, but she has to get past her step family (Lucy Punch, Christine Baranski, some other chick).

And there is also the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) who cannot bare children. Turns out, a neighboring witch (Meryl Streep) put a curse on them. So now they have to go into the woods to get ingredients over the next few nights to fix that with a potion!

And surprisingly, that is most of the plot you need to know. We’ve got princes (Chris Pine, Billy Magnussen), girls with long hair (Mackenzie Mauzy), and wolves (Johnny Depp)! Shit, I bet the woods even have more secrets than the Library of Alexandria.

Baker's Wife
The biggest secret is what is real name of the baker’s wife? Can she not have an identity outside of her relationship?

So for those big fans of the musical, there were changes made of course. This is a PG movie because Disney is involved, you aren’t going to see everything you saw in the musical. Like most of Rapunzel’s story line. The second Agony song. No sex is had in this movie. And the sexy times are subdued.

But the only thing I really was sad to see missing was the Agony song reprise, because like the college school production, it was my favorite part. In the movie, it is probably even better as the two princes ham it up and I was laughing hard the entire time.

I do feel like the beginning of the was extremely quick and just kind of threw you into all of the plots far too fast. (Some of these complaints would be complaints with the actual broadway version. I am not reviewing how close they are, just how I feel watching the movie). So that was awkward. I thought I saw some sound editing mistakes, which is one of the hardest parts about a musical to make sure to get right. I also have a problem with the ending, that seems to just whimper and finish instead of an awesome musical bang.

But throughout the film it is definitely entertaining. My favorite would be Blunt (who had an excellent year). I didn’t know she had such singing chops, but she played a great character. I have heard Corden sing before, and it was okay. He was better in this movie than his other recent roles. I was also surprised with the singing voice of Chris Pine, so much that I don’t trust it. And Lilla Crawford, a little girl, had a surprisingly powerful voice as well.

Overall though, Into The Woods is a decently good time. Still has its bleak and sad moments and it may be one of the best musicals of the year, but this year was a bit weaker in that genre. At this point, I would say I enjoyed Muppets Most Wanted more, and probably Begin Again had better music. Despite that, the music has now been stuck in my head for several days, so I will most certainly get a soundtrack as soon as I can and listen to half of it over and over again.

3 out of 4.

Get On Up

What is going on with Chadwick Boseman?

For the most part, he is relatively new to the movie scene. He has had a bunch of temporary roles in TV shows, mostly one offs. But then he got to play Jackie Robinson in 42. Then he got to play a highly sought after draft pick in Draft Day. And now? Now he is doing another biography, but this time not an athlete.

He is going to play James Brown, because of course, Get On Up is his story.

Damn Chadwick. James Brown and Jackie Robinson? Who will he play next, Oprah Winfrey?

Open Wide

James mother fucking Brown (Boseman). A cultural icon from the 1900s, a man who seemingly was around and performing forever, and in the news for sometimes less than glorious reasons. He came from humble beginnings, living in a small shack in the woods with his mom (Viola Davis) and dad (Lennie James). After that, he was working for Ms Honey (Octavia Spencer), a madame. After that? Prison.

That is where he met Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), not a prisoner, but a local singer, and James impressed him with his own unique sound. Next thing you know, he is part of a gospel group dabbling in that R&B, and eventually the dabble takes over and James Brown and the Famous Flames become a thing. The rest? Well, you know. Drugs. Wars. Marriage. Kids. Drugs. Friendships. Drugs. Egos. The story basically writes itself.

Featuring a bunch of people, who I will try to write in order of importance: Dan Aykroyd, Jill Scott, Craig Robinson, Fred Melamed, Brandon Smith as Little Richard, and two small cameos with Allison Janney and John Benjamin Hickey.

Final Form
And this isn’t even his final form.

When I left Get On Up, I felt good. I didn’t know that I would. I felt nice too. Not sure how to describe the nice feeling, maybe sugar and spice? Hard to say.

Either way, if I can say anything about Get On Up it is that it is certainly entertaining. A lot of energy was put into the film, especially early on where it seems to go everywhere hard and fast. The movie isn’t told in a linear order, splicing in scenes from his childhood through a slight narrative of events, and finishing those events when the film felt like it. It also featured some breaking of the 4th wall, allowing Brown to narrate his own story to the audience and explain things.

But the real stars of the film are, well, the stars of the film. Chadwick Boseman and Nelsan Ellis. Holy shit. First off, Boseman, knocked it out of the park (its a baseball metaphor, get it?). When he was Mr. Robinson, I thought he did okay, but it didn’t seem like a lot of acting going on. He acted the shit out of James Brown though. He had the voice, he had the moves, he had the charisma. I was a little bit skeptical, but he did a really amazing job.

Nelsan Ellis? I don’t watch True Blood, so I don’t know a lot about him, but the amount of heart in his role was incredible. He looked so sincere about everything and my emotions tended to match whatever he was feeling versus Brown’s emotions.

Some aspects of the film were disappointing of course. All of the music in the film is actual James Brown recordings, so no we don’t get to hear Boseman try out that voice. Probably impossible, I guess.

It didn’t go a lot into his troubles with the law in the last decades of his life, but gave you enough to figure it out.

This film doesn’t make out James Brown to be a saint (probably because everyone knew he wasn’t) and mixes the good with the bad and a whole lot of soul.

3 out of 4.

Begin Again

After the very recent disappointing musical that I saw, I quickly began looking at the other musicals to come out this year that might be of interest.

So Begin Again is a smaller musical coming out this year. I am not getting my hopes up that it will be a traditional musical in any way, because it is begin directed by John Carney. Carney brought us Once about five years ago, and although it was turned into a Broadway musical, the movie version is very musical lite. Just a few songs and a lot of emotion.

I can only assume this will be similar.

Ear Phnes
Try to say the movie title five times fast. Hell, just try to say it once.

Begin Again is a story about love, music, and losing it all.

Like Dan (Mark Ruffalo) who has lost it all, his love and music. He is getting outted at the record company he made with friend Saul (Mos Def) for not being able to bring in a successful act for several years. He also is living alone, his ex wife (Catherine Keener) has custody of their teenage daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld). He has lost everything he has ever loved, until he hears a sound…

Like the sound of Greta (Kiera Knightley) reluctantly performing on an Open Mic night because her friend (James Corden) forced her too. She is having a rough time as well. She moved over to New York with her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine). Dave and Greta are song writers together, but a song Dave sang was featured in a popular movie, so now they want to sign him to a contract. Yay success, but boo the price that fame brings.

Dan hopes that Greta will be able to get his life back on the right track in every direction.

Maybe they will also make some sweet and sexy music too, along the way.

Also, CeeLo Green is in this movie for a small part, so we can have half of the original The Voice judges in here.

Phone
Just like how they totally didn’t make this scene for Apple product placement, I am using this picture for the same not reason.

As expected, in this movie music plays a central role in almost every scene, but it isn’t a standard musical. No one is singing and dancing throughout the streets (kind of). Although, there is copious amounts of singing, dancing, and listening to music in the streets, it is all completely natural. All performances are performances, whether on a stage, in a “sound studio” or at home with a small recording device.

The music is also really fucking good. I don’t remember how much music was in Once, because I mostly just remember that one famous song, but Begin Again has a crap load of songs. And it is more than just artsy fartsy indie music too! I am not saying it is completely diverse, but it is there. Each song felt great. The soundtrack of regular background music also felt pretty unique.

Basically, I am saying that I am mad the soundtrack isn’t out yet because I want it hard.

The acting was pretty good as well. I mean that in regards to Knightley/Ruffalo/Steinfeld mostly. I am happy that Steinfeld is finally in a good role that can showcase her talent, unlike her last few movies. Ruffalo did give off a kind of creepy vibe for about half the movie to me. And this is completely different side of Knightley that we haven’t really seen before. I mean, singing songs!

I wouldn’t describe anyone else as being that spectacular. Most of the other side roles could have been anyone, including Levine’s character.

Overall, this is a fantastic movie, and personally, I liked it a lot more than Once. But then again, I only saw Once once, and I was way more immature then.

3 out of 4.

Jersey Boys

Looking over the musicals that were coming out in 2014, I figured that Jersey Boys would be the clear favorite for the entire year. I saw the Broadway version of the musical and it was fantastic. It had everything: music people already knew and enjoyed, exciting stage work, humor, drama, gangsters, you name it.

It is one of the easier movies to make too. Slap on some period piece appropriate clothing, get some guys who performed the musical already, and record that puppy. I was first weary when I heard that Clint Eastwood was directing it, but then I figured if the people who made the initial musical are helping, Eastwood can just focus more on getting the singers to act the drama parts better and really amp up the crime element to a higher potential.

Now, after seeing the film? Well, maybe Muppets Most Wanted will be the best “musical” of the year.

Early Group Image Is First To Show
Don’t even get me started on the new Annie and Into The Woods.

The original story is based on the (at the time) three surviving members of the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, and Tommy DeVito. They gave the information to the musical writers, who put on the show, with the first two having veto rights if they didn’t like what was going down. So presumably a lot of the events are actually true.

This is a story about how a few guys from Jersey were able to make it out of their home cities without joining the military or joining the mob. Just kidding, the mob is here too, with the local boss played by Christopher Walken.

It is about how Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) and his buddy Nick (Michael Lomenda) helped teach a then Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) how to train his voice to perform like an angel. Then their eventual finding of Bob (Erich Bergen), who could write them hits, play the piano and sing as well.

The story of four guys, rising to fame, how certain songs were conceived, and how they all began to crack and break apart thanks to home pressure, mob pressure, and money pressure. And two women who Frankie apparently slept with, played by Erica Piccininni and Renee Marino.

Finale
I like my lines of men like I like my computer. Shining and playing music.

Ahhh, musicals. What better way to put that song in your step as you leave the theater and go about your day? I love them so.

However, this movie really isn’t a musical. Sure, there are songs in it, but it is definitely feels a lot more like a generic biography film of a band, that features music the band did, than a musical. Something VH1 might have quickly thrown together. Only one real element of the movie is like a standard musical at the very end. When the story is over, but they sing and dance to two songs while walking down the street before the credits role. That is where we finally get to hear one of the more famous songs by The Four Seasons. A song that takes place much sooner in the story/broadway version, but they cut it out to save it. A time where they can actually use a song to help tell the story, instead of just being the guys singing in a club, and they push it to the end.

If that isn’t proof of them trying to take the musical out of the Broadway hit, then I don’t know what is.

I am not saying Jersey Boys ended up being terrible, it just ended up terribly disappointing as to what it could have been. So many things just felt off while watching the film. The story and plot were good. The music was good. Maybe the acting was off? They at least had the original Frankie Valli from the play reprise his role for this film, just none of the other guys.

They decided to go with a shitty brown filter over the whole film, to give it an old style, 60’s look. But it felt distracting to me. I would have definitely preferred instead a really nice polished looking movie, not the fake grittiness that made me compare parts of the movie to a Lifetime special.

I feel as I am being really hard on the movie, but it is just harder to point out the amazing parts versus its flaws. In all honesty, I think this is completely Clint Eastwood’s fault as a director. He meddled far too much in the musical side, making this into a more generic feeling movie. A lot of the charm was lost in the film making process, but thankfully this story had an over abundance of charm to work with.

So there are still fantastic moments to go along with the story, and not just the musical performances. For example, Lomenda did fantastic as the role of the bassist, really made it easy for the audience to feel his frustration and get on his side.

It just. It just could have been so much more.

1 out of 4.