Jason Moore
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The film even borrows the "wacky commentator" schtick from the likes of Dodgeball, Best In Show or Baseketball, and does it really well.
John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks, a pair of cast-iron comic troupers who can't help but be fun to watch, are stranded as a pair of despicable color commentators hurling passive-aggressive insults at the Bellas, a steal from Best in Show that would be obvious even without Higgins right there reminding us that the earlier film exists; they get laughs out of many of their lines (how could they not, those two?), but the film would certainly be stronger without them.
A time-honored sports movie tradition is observed by having announcers provide "witty" play-by-play commentary for the cable network airing the event (they are played by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins, who's channeling Fred Willard from Christopher Guest's Best in Show).
Painfully stating the obvious, the event announcers (John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks, goofing like Best In Show ) point out The Bellas are no match for the fellas of Treble Makers, perennial winners led by the perfectly obnoxious Bumper (Adam DeVine).
It’s a quirky world not unlike, say, the dog show world featured in that terribly funny movie “Best in Show.”
John Michael Higgins (“Best in Show”) and co-producer Elizabeth Banks (“The Hunger Games”) are the acid-tongued commentators at the big competitions.
The love story goes nowhere, only serving to make a weird, self-serving parallel to one of the all-time great teenage comedies, “The Breakfast Club.”
One wishes the filmmakers had found room for more rough-edged oddities as this and spent less time borrowing goodwill from The Breakfast Club (and so soon after Easy A pulled the same act).
Beca develops a friendship with Jesse (Skylar Astin) from the rival group, and their friendship grows over his insistence that she learn to appreciate the classic John Hughes movie “The Breakfast Club.”
A scene where Kendrick and male lead Skylar Astin sort records is cheesy in the extreme, but it doesn’t half bring a smile to the lips, as does his undying love for John Hughes’ classic 80s film The Breakfast Club, the significance of which Beca doesn’t immediately comprehend.
And it's not even good John Hughes (like The Breakfast Club , which is explicitly acknowledged).
The story is pure formula, but, like Jesse's love of 1985's "The Breakfast Club," that's okay as long as there are well-observed characters to care about and a savvy soundtrack to compliment them.
The debut work of director Jason Moore (who was nominated for a Tony for helming Avenue Q) and scripter Kay Cannon (a 30 Rock vet), the film also recalls a dulcet Mean Girls, Bring It On, and pretty much any other school-set tale about being a fish out of water, love-hate relationships, cliques, competition, and letting that little light of yours shine.
"Pitch Perfect," a scattershot but infectious comedy in the vein of "Bring It On" and TV's "Glee," is here to capitalize on the a cappella boom, although its formula -- rival performing groups compete for an award -- could be (and has been) applied to just about everything.
"Pitch Perfect" does for a capella (making music with mouths, as we're constantly reminded) what "Bring It On" was to cheerleading.
If you’re at all predisposed to the choreographed karaoke of Glee, the underdog schematics of teen competitions à la Bring It On or the Step Up cycle, and the hero-misfits of a John Hughes comedy, then this slight but sunny entertainment is something of an idiot-grin-maker.
Built on a template that’s familiar to anyone who’s seen such movies as Bring It On, this comedy uses an engaging cast and a parade of popular songs (energetically recreated by several choral groups) to create a buoyant crowd-pleaser.
Combining the energy of Bring It On, the wit of Mean Girls and the vocal abilities of Glee, Pitch Perfect is an impossible-to-dislike burst of positive energy brimming with winsome performances from a game cast.
The debut work of director Jason Moore (who was nominated for a Tony for helming Avenue Q) and scripter Kay Cannon (a 30 Rock vet), the film also recalls a dulcet Mean Girls, Bring It On, and pretty much any other school-set tale about being a fish out of water, love-hate relationships, cliques, competition, and letting that little light of yours shine.
Screenwriter Kay Cannon must have learnt a lot from Tina Fey while working on 30 Rock, because her feature debut Pitch Perfect is clearly a descendant of Mean Girls.
(Echoes of Tina Fey’s screenplay for “Mean Girls, ” anyone?)
Combining the energy of Bring It On, the wit of Mean Girls and the vocal abilities of Glee, Pitch Perfect is an impossible-to-dislike burst of positive energy brimming with winsome performances from a game cast.
Like Mean Girls and Clueless before it, Pitch Perfect takes what ought to be a story with limited appeal and makes it so hilarious you can't deny it.
For those moments and more, "Pitch Perfect" is delightfully funny and geeky, and it's a fun addition to the sub-genre populated by films such as "Bring It On" and "Mean Girls" (and is just as funny).
We're talking Career Opportunities-type John Hughes.
Bring the Perfect Dance was the best we could manage, Frankensteining together Work It ’s most obvious, uh, references: cheerleading film Bring It On ; the mortifying 2001 artifact Save the Last Dance ; and of course the more recent Pitch Perfect films, about college a cappella groups doing battle.
It doesn’t blow the formula, or do a Pitch Perfect and actually question the lunacy of such high stakes being put on a tournament for an extracurricular activity, but it gives a few nods to let us know, “don’t worry, we know it’s a cliché, but just go with it”.
One wishes the filmmakers had found room for more rough-edged oddities as this and spent less time borrowing goodwill from The Breakfast Club (and so soon after Easy A pulled the same act).
Along with 2009’s Easy A, this triumvirate make up the best girl-centric teen flicks of the past decade.
Rivals "21 Jump Street" for being the funniest studio comedy since "Easy A."
The debut feature from director Jason Moore (Broadway's "Avenue Q") and writer Kay Cannon ("30 Rock"), based on the non-fiction book by Mickey Rapkin, feels like a mash-up of "Glee" and "Revenge of the Nerds," with a broad soundtrack ranging from David Guetta and Bruno Mars to The Bangles and Simple Minds.
The good news is, it’s much funnier and meaner than the show that influenced it; and if you squint a little, it’s basically an all-girl remake of Revenge Of The Nerds.
Director Jason Moore (a Tony nominee for Broadway's "Avenue Q") and screenwriter Kay Cannon (a producer and story editor on "30 Rock") pretty much eschew the vulgarity that's in vogue for most campus comedies, instead favoring a sexually unthreatening sweetness appropriate for the tween girls and their sidekicks who will be the movie's most enthusiastic admirers; the result is efficient and unpretentious — an estrogenized quasi-musical that's more "Revenge of the Nerds" than "Bridesmaids."
So, in the tradition of every movie from “The Dirty Dozen” to “Revenge of the Nerds” (not to mention the hit television show “Glee”), they assemble a ragtag team of singers, including Beca, a brash Tasmanian named Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) and Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), an introvert who barely speaks above a murmur.
Beca’s Kevin Bacon, Aubrey’s the preacher, and the group is the town from “Footloose.”
In fact, this could well be a movie produced in the city of Zootopia, a light comedy to entertain its inhabitants — their Pitch Perfect, perhaps.
Even if we didn’t have La La Land in such close proximity, the movie would still probably look like the least inspired stretches of Zootopia and Pitch Perfect smashed together.
It my seem flippant to compare “Sing” to another Universal property, “Pitch Perfect,” but in many ways its truly an apt and positive comparison.
Marking the directorial debut of Kay Cannon, the American writer behind the Pitch Perfect franchise, Blockers is an above average comedy that’s easy to engage with.
The crucial difference is this film, directed by Pitch Perfect’s screenwriter Kay Cannon, gives parents and their daughters equal screen time.
Then I read Lindsey Bahr’s piece on Kay Cannon (known for the Pitch Perfect franchise, as well as TV shows like 30 Rock, New Girl and Girlboss) and it all made sense: “Cannon took the script, which had only been worked on by male writers and executives when she signed on, and infused it with a more modern, sex-positive and feminist spirit,” Bahr explains.
It would have been easy for the girls to get slotted into stereotypes — the pretty one, the smart one, the jock — but brothers Jim and Brian Kehoe’s screenplay, in the hands of director Kay Cannon (a former 30 Rock writer who also wrote the Pitch Perfect screenplays), mostly resists the impulse.
What an outstanding directorial debut for Kay Cannon — making the leap from writing profitable Pitch Perfect installments to shaping dramatic moments as disarming as the laughs are large, and for both veteran actors and impressive new faces.
Even the Seth Rogen–versus–Zac Efron throwdown Neighbors reconciled with its slightly retrograde nature by letting women run wild in its sororal sequel Neighbors 2. Blockers, helmed by first-time director Kay Cannon (the woman who wrote the Pitch Perfect movies), gets it right the first time around, proving that a 2018 sex comedy can still be shocking and hilarious while checking off all the woke boxes.
Dratch’s existential moment praying to the porcelain god, an homage to “Dirty Dancing” and a tragic spandex interlude are also full-on giggle worthy.
"Sisters" feels like "Project X" for grownups who should know better.
Plot-wise it’s slight – it’s like Project X for grown-ups – and all the usual party tropes are wheeled out.
As the bash goes completely off the rails, the house gets trashed as thoroughly as the one in “Project X.” (An addendum to Chekhov’s gun dictum: if you’re going to mention a sinkhole in the first act, you have to use it by the movie’s end.)
Writer Paula Pell (who has a background on Saturday Night Live) is trying to tap into the success of other great party movies such as Superbad, Project X, Animal House and Old School.
The narrative is reminiscent of a high school reunion movie – Romy and Michele or a bloodless Grosse Pointe Blank – crossed with a house party pic, and is quality-wise somewhere between the endearing Risky Business and the woeful Project X.
Sí, hemos visto unas cuantas comedias americanas con la fiesta que se descontrola como telón de fondo narrativo (de la saga Resacón en Las Vegas a Project X) y quizá ese es el punto flaco de la película, pero ello no es óbice de que el caos que se dispara una vez arranca la celebración no provoque más de una carcajada.
The narrative is reminiscent of a high school reunion movie – Romy and Michele or a bloodless Grosse Pointe Blank – crossed with a house party pic, and is quality-wise somewhere between the endearing Risky Business and the woeful Project X.
The cast also includes Utkarsh Ambudkar (“Pitch Perfect”), Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out”) and many references and surprise appearances from other Disney and Marvel blockbuster franchises.
Joe Keery ( Stranger Things / Spree ), Utkarsh Ambudkar ( Pitch Perfect / The Broken Hearts Gallery ), and Howery ( Get Out / Space Jam: A New Legacy ) round out the cast in supportive roles and smoothly pick up the narrative baton in ways literally and metaphysically.
Throw in Pitch Perfect ’s Utkarsh Ambudkar as Keys’ malleable co-worker, Get Out’s Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend Buddy, and a laundry list of cameos, and the cast really brings Free Guy to a whole new level.
There’s something that feels slightly dated about Coda — the multiple digs about Glee and Pitch Perfect , and what appears to be a pretty deliberate homage to Pitch Perfect ‘s audition scene, feel five years too late.
She’s ready to dismiss the notion of the choir as a viable extracurricular activity – with a jab at “Pitch Perfect” – until the hot guy, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, typecast after “Sing Street”), signs up.
I hate to say it, but “Coda” hits every right note: it’s gurl power, overcoming a physical difficulty, with hints of “Pitch Perfect” and “Glee.”
Anna Kendrick only had a small role in her debut film, 2003's indie musical " Camp ," but it was a splashy one that found her bringing down the house with her performance of "Ladies Who Lunch" from Broadway musical "Company."
Fresh from their successful three year stint co-hosting the Golden Globes, comedic duo Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are on fine comic form in this raucous sibling comedy that plays like a female version of Adam McKay’s underrated 2008 Will Ferrell comedy Step Brothers.
Even outside the catastrophe-laden soiree, however, a generally festive spirit runs through writer Paula Pell’s raucous feminization of “Step Brothers,” finally giving the irrepressible Amy Poehler and Tina Fey a big-screen vehicle that feels sympathetically tailored to their comic gifts.
There’s nothing particularly inventive about the story on display in Sisters (written by Paula Pell), which plays like a very slightly smarter, feminist riff on the supremely dunder-headed Step Brothers.
Elizabeth Banks ("Hunger Games") and John Michael Higgins ("Yes Man," "We Bought a Zoo" ) get zany as color commentators (their on-air banter echoes the ironic and iconic "Best of Show," in which Higgins' gay dog-handler was unforgettable).
Smith (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Doug Liman, 2005) reconfigurados en una suerte de moraleja barata y oportunista sobre el amor verdadero donde la acción no está ausente, como tampoco los dobles de riesgo (que se notan demasiado).