Author: BRWC

It only takes a quick Google search of Pitch Perfect and Glee typed together in the same sentence to amass hits of ‘comparison’ this and ‘rip-off’ that. In fact, Universal Picture’s Pitch Perfect has even been repeatedly described as being both a better-written and sexier version of the famed musical television series. Regardless of the inevitable comparisons and questions of proverbial thunder-stealing, it should be stated that Pitch Perfect, on its own, is certainly an enjoyable film to watch and is not shy of having strong comedic elements.

As an impressive directorial film debut by experienced Broadway director Jason Moore (Les Misérables, Shrek the Musical), Pitch Perfect is a musical comedy that follows all-girl a capella group, The Barden Bellas, fight to win at the University National’s singing contest. 30 Rock and New Girl comedy writer Kay Cannon provides a fast-paced and comedic script, which, although technically concise and strongly-structured, unfortunately does lack in any fresh originality. Loosely based on Mickey Rapkin’s non-fiction novel of the same name, Pitch Perfect is also notably the second highest grossing musical comedy after School of Rock.

Although it features a large ensemble cast, Pitch Perfect mainly follows the story of aspiring DJ Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) at her freshmen year at Barden University. Despite Beca’s dreams of moving to Los Angeles to pursue her musical career, she is instead forced by her father (John Benjamin Hickey) to attend the University and consequently is halted of her musical ambitions for the time-being. To add to her frustration, Beca is soon dismayed to discover that freshmen are not allowed to enter the recording booth at the local University radio station that she is interning at. Left to practice her musical talents in the seclusion of her own dormroom, Beca’s father soon chastises her to make more friends, leading her to reluctantly audition for the all-girl a cappella group, The Barden Bellas. Needless to say, independent and creative Beca is far from the perfect match for The Barden Bella’s uptight and controlling resident queen-bee, Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp). Haunted by the embarrassment of projectile vomiting during the previous year’s finals, Aubrey still has faith that the group’s tired and outdated musical arrangement will reign supreme over her former discrepancy, assuming that she is able to keep the vomiting force within her at bay. Inevitably, this lack of musical creativity causes an escalating conflict between Beca and Aubrey, however, it also helps to ground one of the thematic messages of the entire film; teamwork is key.

Fast-paced and lively in its execution, Moore’s energetic direction of Pitch Perfect clearly demonstrates his impressive previous experience in directing famed Broadway musical productions. The script itself is tightly-structured and well-written, however, it is the comedic elements that truly shine through, allowing a somewhat cliché plot involving the benefits of team-work to become entertaining and also provide more than a few laughs. As in most comedies that are set in a University campus environment, there is a romantic sub-plot that pleasantly allows Pitch Perfect to break itself away from simply being a suited and booted all-wharbling singing battle. Executed in somewhat Grease-esque style, Beca begins to form a forbidden bond with rival all-boy a capella group member Jesse Swanson (Skylar Astin), providing another plot layer that cleverly takes neither too much or too little predominance.

The ensemble of character’s featured within the film are interesting to follow, the grounded lead Beca perhaps being the most relatable character to an audience. Although created to be the classic uptight perfectionist that everyone hates, the character Aubrey has a nice character arc that is believable in both its turnaround and execution. In fact, as a group unit, The Barden Bellas could have easily been written to be your typical bunch of lipgloss-smacking fraternity girls, however, it truly does add a nice touch of realism that every member of the group has their own individual and entertaining quirks.

Overall, the acting in Pitch Perfect is well-played, each actor enthusiastically matching the vibrant musical nature of the film. Anna Kendrick plays Beca in a fittingly understated manner, adding a strong likeable nature to the character that allows her to become instantly more humanistic to the audience. As a stand-out comedic performance, fans of hit comedy Bridesmaids will be pleased to see Rebel Wilson taking on the self-titled character of Fat Amy with hilarious guise, providing many of the comedic moments featured within the film.

The music and soundtrack throughout the film mostly consists of contemporary pop music turned a capella, including the likes of Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson and Bruno Mars, to name a few. The musical arrangements featured frequently within the film are entertaining to both listen and watch, each impressively joined together and easily having mass appeal to a modern audience. Some of the more impressive musical highlights demonstrated within the film are the ‘Riff-Off’s’ featured throughout, each usually taking place in some suitably dark and gritty area under the cover of night. Similar in theory to the dance-off’s showcased in the popular Step Up series, the a capella voice battles add a much needed edge that stops Pitch Perfect from being too overly clean and clinical in all its musical interludes.

Although Pitch Perfect is somewhat predictable at times and certainly far from innovative in its ending, it is the witty and unexpected dialogue featured throughout that truly makes this musical comedy an entertaining feature to watch.

Pitch Perfect on DVD and Blu-ray 15 April

Spring Breakers will be some people’s favorite film of the year. It will sneak onto a few top ten lists, and no doubt spin a few Tumblr’s into a gif-making, line quoting spin. Because for better or worse depending on your own constitution, this is a work of originality. It is exactly what it wants to be. The problem for me was what it wanted to be was a rap video with delusions of grandeur. A film that conceals its exploitation movie core with a layer of irony and faux moral concern that strikes the loudest possible false note, thinking that enough cod-philosophical ruminations of loss of innocence in voice-over whilst we see slow-montages of hot chicks in bikinis making out will somehow add up to poetic social commentary. No. Everything this movie is trying to tell you, every point it makes is lazy, poorly communicated, hypocritical bollocks. Make no mistake.

And yet I still sort of liked the movie. No, not because of hot girls in bikinis, although I realize given my first paragraph that’s the logical conclusion for any reader to draw and I suppose the cynical amongst you could doubt any point I throw at you in this review and assume that its all just a cover for a larger perving agenda. I promise you its not (how can you trust that) so yeah. The reason I liked this movie is because if you can tune out the whimsical sixth form ramblings, its pretty clear that Harmony Korine is a fantastic visual director. The film has a tremendous, pulsing beat music video rhythm to it that in the place of story becomes sort of compelling and in its best moments, entirely arresting. It gets a tedious in places, particularly nearer the end where the movie appears to get exhausted and run out of ideas and thus has a serious case of diminishing returns on the visceral montages. That said Korine puts together a couple of fantastic sequences, the most impressive being a robbery filmed in slow-motion (like everything in this movie) through the window of the getaway car as it drives around the building. I don’t think it has the highest hit rate, but those kind of exceptional moments to exist in this movie, amongst the tangents and the clutter.

As for the performances, well when 3 of your 4 lead actresses are famous for being in Disney channel fluff (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson) and the other is your wife (Rachel Korine), you’re not exactly expecting Meryl Streep, or even Katherine Heigl level acting, but for the most part they equip themselves well and do the job. The job being to get ogled by Korine’s camera and occasionally speak lines. I thought Hudgens and Benson probably equipped themselves the best, and I was pleasantly surprised that Selena Gomez wasn’t completely embarrassing. As soon as James Franco arrives, the movie gives itself over to him, which was probably the right idea. Franco creates a fairly ludicrous, cartoon ‘gangsta’, He’s funny more than he is legitimately menacing, but his hamming is pretty entertaining and fits nicely with Korine’s in your face style. I think there could have maybe been a more interesting version of the character for the movie, maybe a darker one, that could have lead the film somewhere more interesting, but I did enjoy what Franco was doing for the most part, so I can’t get too mad.

A movie like Spring Breakers isn’t really for me. Edited into a purposefully dreamlike rave state, it’s a movie that aspires to be a drugs and boobs filled poem, the story is less important than the vibe, the characters less than the style. For what it’s trying to be visually I think it succeeds, Korine has enough verve and a unique enough imprint that there are moments strong enough that you can get lost in its trance, but ultimately – and I have the same problem with Sofia Coppola movies, who is clearly is a huge influence on Korine even if he is the skrillex to her Norah Jones in terms of content, they both have the same misplaced high-mindedness- is that after a while you adjust to the style and the shallowness of the the thing begins to seep through the cracks, and the idea that all the pomp and circmustance and pretension is all just a cover for ultimately not knowing how to craft a great story. Then again maybe all Korine wanted to do with Spring Breakers was cause some outrage and experiment in style. That’s fine, at that it would have arguably succeeded. But I strongly don’t think so, I genuinely think this is supposed to be a have your cake and eat it piece of satire, that ultimately is just as air-headed as the girls it looks down at and pities.

Oh and there’s also some pretty fucked up sexual politics here about sex corrupting good, god-fearing small town girls, just so you know. Yeah.

Rating: 5/10

Let’s face it, most paranormal reality shows can come across as a bit of a scam; it seems as popularity rises, authenticity decreases, particularly with the quite frankly poor acting in shows such as Most Haunted and Celebrity Ghost Hunt. The question of credibility can not be answered for many of these series but when it comes to recent YouTube Horror Channel, Haunting Season and its release of a series exploring a haunted convent, there’s a refreshing honesty that comes across from the creators, making these short films not only an entertaining watch, but also an uncanny and eerie one.

Haunting Season was launched over a month ago by creator Joshua Sterling Bragg as a creative space to launch videos of supernatural anecdotes and scary films. What I found personally enjoyable about the channel is Bragg’s own telling of ghost stories such as A Haunting in the Woods and The Devil’s Grip where his accomplished and animated storytelling really nudges the viewer’s scary bone, bringing back those familiar goose bumps present at the ghost tale era of your childhood sleepovers.

What else is included in Haunting Season are short films including Bragg’s newest development where every Tuesday the network will unleash a paranormal investigation in this field. The first two episodes are already up to see, taking a look at a haunted convent turned theater in New Jersey. It’s surprising to see their level of knowledge and professionalism, with Bragg’s associate actually being an employee of the theater. High profile investigative shows have camera crews, large budgets and research teams to back them, where as Haunting Season is a totally independently produced collection. Contrary to this the team does a good job of setting up sound equipment as well as initializing the video with a well-researched and quite frankly creepy back story.

What makes this channel a winner for me is a combination of Bragg’s charming presence on screen, his passion for supernatural findings and of course the subject matter itself. Here is a reality ghost show without the ulterior motive, making the videos not only plausible but also entertaining. The station has now generated over 1000 subscribers and 50,00 views and it is forever growing. If you share the love, or in my case, curious fear of ghosts then subscribe and support Braggs and the team in their apparitional adventures while checking out their first investigation at http://youtube.com/hauntingseason. Serving suggestions: at night with the lights off.

Hot on the heels of reviewing Robot and Frank, which just so happens to be the best film I’ve seen this year, I was tasked to review The Fall of the Essex Boys, which just so happens to be the worst film I’ve seen this year. Isn’t that funny?

Nope.

The plot stems from actual events, in much the same way a turd stems from actual food. The film is based on the 1995 Rettendon Murders, a notorious case of triple homicide wherein three drug dealers (let’s call them The Bell-ends) were mysteriously executed in a range rover parked on an isolated country lane. Do not be deceived by how interesting that sounds. The murders only serve to provide the filmmakers with a pre-prepared, gift-wrapped ending which they simply duct-tape to collection a clichéd, poor-scripted, abysmally-acted scenes of rote cockney thuggery.

Tediously aggressive and aggressively tedious, navigating the film’s unfocused and ugly plot is like slowly chewing your way through a beehive. Except there’s no honey, and the bees keep calling you a “soppy c**t”. It’s scum-sploitation from brain to bollocks, serving up nonstop nasty, all without any theme, moral or central idea; it’s just a celebration of nastiness.

You could argue that it’s a “crime doesn’t pay” story, but that doesn’t wash. The majority of the film follows The Bell-ends as they do various horrible things, often shot to make the thugs look cool and without a character present to be disgusted by it, which makes me wonder if this film actually disapproves of these actions at all. These moments of violence are the most visually interesting thing in the whole vapid feature and are the scenes most likely to appeal to the film’s target audience. This is a terrifying thing.

Sure, The Bell-ends get offed at the end, but you never find out why. The entire purpose of the film is supposed to be built around around revealing the secret history of what happened that fateful night and why, but the film ends with “random masked men did it, so we’ll never know.” Is that justice? How exactly are the Essex boys falling, because apart from this one mystery event – which could have happened for any reason – crime seemed to be paying plenty. Breaking a fellow’s face open for daring to use a posh word like ‘bespoke’ is made to look like a right old laugh.

This is all making me out to look like an snobbish hooligan-hater who eats cricket and shits privilege. While it’s true that I’m rather partial to not being a total dick to people, I actually like british gangster flicks. Snatch is one of my favourite films, made with infinitely more style and charm than this witless tosh. I’m not adverse to bad dudes doing bad things. I’m adverse to bad storytelling, and in this regard, The Fall of the Essex Boys is functionally broken.

For starters, who’s the main character? I know who the screenwriters think is the main character, but he barely appears in the first half of the movie. Instead the story flits from subplot to subplot never gaining any momentum, leaving us confused over which cliché-burdened character to invest it.

Maybe it’s the honest cop with a wife and daughter? He’s appearing a lot. But no, he’s not really doing anything, just looking glum and reacting to stuff.

Maybe it’s the honourable older gangster, having an affair with one of The Bell-ends’ girlfriends. He seems caring, he’s around a lot and he’s trying to “get out of the life”. Seems like a protagonist’s arc – no wait… He’s just become the big bad?! When did that happen?

The film spends most of the time following The Bell-ends, again NOT through a protagonist’s eyes. Just us watching The Bell-ends visiting violence on people who don’t deserve it, calling people “c**ts” and giggling about it like 12 yr-olds.

Turns out the main character’s a guy called Darren Something. Apparently he’s undercover, which he seems to be really good at because I forgot he was in the fucking movie. By the end of it he’s pretty much only rendered the main character by default because everyone else is dead or banged up.

Well that’s not entirely true, because throughout the film Darren also provides The Worst Voiceover In Cinema. That’s not hyperbole. It’s almost a character in and of itself, written with all the cloth-eared, alpha-male non-irony of a GCSE student and delivered with all the unconvincing bravado of a librarian reading Danny Dyer’s autobiography at gunpoint. The voiceover couldn’t be worse if they taped the recording mic to a pig and chased it around a farmyard. It practically breaks the movie.

In short, The Fall of the Essex Boys is a confused, confusing, unfocused mess, devoid of a single solitary scrap of charm or original thought. It doesn’t even stand out on the merit of its ‘based on actual events’ claim. This is the fourth film about the Rettendon Murders after Essex Boys (2000), Rise of the Footsoldier (2007) and Bonded by Blood (2010), rendering the whole enterprise pretty much worthless. Don’t see it, please.