Review: Pitch Perfect (2012) - Jason Moore

"You guys are gonna get pitch-slapped so hard, your man boobs are gonna concave"

          This is one of the funniest film’s I’ve seen all year forget about whatever misconceptions you may have about this film, it’s brilliant. It’s such a smart and funny film, the comedy is layered so if you bring someone younger or more innocently minded they won’t get all the little jokes especially the ones the presenters make and has a great soundtrack, a typical chick flick this is not.

          What really made the film work in my opinion were the great cast; especially the protagonist Becca (Anna Kendrick, one of my favourite young actresses) and the standout comedian Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) who carries most if not all of the films jokes. The characters seem real and believable and have depth which helps you invest in their struggle and story. So the basic plot of the story is loner girl, whose great at remixing songs wants to be a music producer, she goes to college, reluctantly and then joins an all female  a cappella group (The Bellas), makes friends with the other members and gets a boyfriend, who joins the opposing all male  a cappella group (Treble Makers). I’ll try and keep this review spoiler free as I hope most of you will go see this in the cinema, and guys don’t worry if your dragged along to this as a date movie it’s actually really interesting and while it sounds like the set up for the kind of film most guys would hate, I found myself really enjoying it.

          Anna Kendrick’s character of Becca seems like a very believable person, some people will relate to her, but everyone will certainly understand her and why she is the way she is. The love story never felt tacked on to me and felt like it moved along at a natural pace, there’s no “I love you” after 2 days nonsense and I suppose being awkward like Skylar Astin’s character Jesse, I was rooting for him, oh and most impressively there’s no love triangle shoe horned in because it’s the cool thing to do in teen drama’s. The internal conflicts in The Bella’s are also very grounded and while they can sometimes be blown up for the plot’s sake they come from a real place and it never felt like conflict for conflict’s sake. Fat Amy is the standout character in this film by a mile, you can just tell Rebel Wilson is having so much fun in this role and in a way she’s the films de facto narrator at least in the scenes she’s in, I hope this girl gets an Oscar nomination for this role, but I’m certain she’ll win a few MTV awards and other people choice style awards.

          The soundtrack was not just pretty good, it was downright awesome. Normally with these Glee/Step Up type films there’s one really good some and the rest is just filler which always affects you losing yourself in the movie, well not here. The songs are all current and most if not all have been in the top 30 this year, there are a few songs mainly the ones the groups sung by the group that are Glee-esque but their there for a specific reason so they get a pass.

          If your still on the fence about seeing this movie I’d recommend giving it a chance, like I said bring your girlfriend or sister or go with a group of friends, you won’t be disappointed. So wrapping things up I’d give this movie a solid 8/10, it’s not going to win the Oscar for best picture, but it will win a load of viewer’s choice awards like MTV’s so go and enjoy yourself.

Review: The Birds (1963) – Alfred Hitchcock

The Birds

          I remember seeing this film when I was about 7 or 8 with my Gran and being terrified of Birds for the next few months.  I used to love when she came to babysit myself and my brother as we used to always end up watching Classic films; in fact I remember seeing this film in Black and White, which in my opinion makes it scarier.
I put this film on the other night for Halloween and it was my first time seeing it since then, at least 12 years since the 1^st time and it was my first time seeing the colour version and being honest the horror elements didn’t stand up and the special effects really let it down (at least in my opinion). Having said that though I still immensely enjoyed the film and in my opinion it is still a classic and one of my favourite Hitchcock films.

           Ok to get started with the review proper, the story starts off with our two leads Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meeting in a bird shop and the Mitch plays a trick on Melanie, treating her like a sales assistant which she plays along with, he asks her for some Love birds for his sister, as well as flirting with one another and setting up the romantic element of the film.  To shorten the plot Melanie buys a pair of Love birds and plans to delivery’s them anonymously to Mitch’s house via boat for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) and intends to leave Mitch a nasty letter but thinks better of it and instead leaves a note for Cathy, on her way back across the lake she is attacked by a seagull. Mitch then tends to Melanie and convinces her to stay for dinner and she agrees and it’s here we meet Cathy and Mitch’s over possessive mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy). Melanie stays the night in Annie Hayworth’s (Suzanne Pleshette) house, who also happens to be Mitch’s ex-fiancé, she warns Melanie about Mitch’s overprotective mother and how she ultimately broke the two of them up, that evening a sea gull kills itself by flying into the house door.

           The next day at Cathy’s birthday party the children are attacked by Seagulls which Melanie, Mitch and Annie ward off, later that evening sparrows invade the home and a neighbour is killed by the bird in his home, who is found by Lydia whom freaks out. Melanie then comforts Lydia who wants her to go to the school to get Cathy and bring her home, while outside she notices a large group of crows gathered on the play ground (this scene still terrifies me). Melanie and Annie (the school teacher) make a plan to evacuate the school in a mock fire drill, while outside several of the children are attacked by the crows. By this stage the police are now involved and are reluctant to draw a link between the attacks and play down the birds involvement in the neighbours attack instead putting it down to a failed burglary attempt and putting the other attacks down as random unrelated incidents.

The scene that still terrifies me to this day

           At a dinner Melanie is on the phone to her father telling him the story so far and in interrupted by local citizens who don’t believe her until another bird attack begins and basically destroy the town. Melanie, Mitch, Cathy and Lydia then board up the house and wait until daybreak to make a run to the city, they are attacked during the night by a large group of birds who nearly break in through the sealed doors and windows but ease their attacks. During the night Melanie hears a noise upstairs and investigates and is attacked by a group of birds that have broken into one of the upstairs rooms, injuring her badly. Mitch rescues her and start the car for their escape and its heard on the radio that the attacks have spread and that the national guard may be called in to help with the unexplained attacks, the film ends with the car driving into the distance with thousands of birds of different species watching them.

           As a result of this film to this day I’ll look twice when I see a large flock of birds, but like I mentioned the special effects are dated. I love how this film never explains why the birds are attacking and it doesn’t show us winning over nature and shows us how vulnerable we really are against the might of nature.