PITCH PERFECT Review

It's too easy to call Jason Moore's "Pitch Perfect" a hyper-blend of "Mean Girls," "Bring It On" and "Glee" -- although it very much is a hyper-blend of those three and then some. But, like I said, that's too easy. What this surprise smash hit out of left field really is is a high-energy, impossible-to-hate tale of collegiate a cappella that is heartfelt, hilarious and just weird enough to have a strange fascination with projectile vomiting. Witness the movie's pre-credits opening scene, and tell me I'm wrong.

The always reliable Anna Kendrick plays Beca, an attractive yet introverted girl entering her first year of college at Barden University. She's less than enthused about going to school and would rather jump ship to Los Angeles to begin her career as a DJ. Her father (John Benjamin Hickey), however, is a professor at the university and isn't about to fund that before she gives school a try. This also means she has to find a way to get involved. Lucky for Beca, the campus' all-girls singing group, the Bellas, is looking to regroup after a disastrous loss last year at the finals. Chloe (Brittany Snow) and Aubrey (Anna Camp), the figureheads of the Bellas, are tired of staying in the shadow of the rivalry all-male singing group led by the insidiously brash Bumper (Adam DeVine). And as a perfect cameo by Christopher Mintz-Plasse reminds us, this is not high school glee -- hint, hint.

The movie owes its peppy attitude to a wealth of young talent across the screen and its writer, Kay Cannon whose credits include 22 episodes of "30 Rock" and some "New Girl," and you can see that irreverent humor peeking through in every line. Take, for example, the punchy one-liners from the competition commentators (John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks). Headlining the young cast is Rebel Wilson, the vivid Aussie who made a claim for herself as the weirdo in "Bridesmaids" and has taken off since then. She plays the self-proclaimed Fat Amy who gives herself that name so skinny girls don't have to behind her back. If anything, "Pitch Perfect" provides Wilson the role that'll make her a star. The casting across the board is admirable with a playful chemistry between the rivaling a cappella groups. This comes to a head during a "West Side Story" style showdown where song improvisations are thrown back and forth in battle.

"Pitch Perfect" is fueled by the engine of its music, which is constant and flat-out great. In between bouts of musical numbers, catchy mash-ups and exciting hooks, a lot of the movie does model itself off teen comedy tropes and harkens back to the movies of John Hughes as did "Easy A." The movie plays into the whole a cappella craze that already excists and does so without ever taking itself too seriously painting the extra-curricular activity as equal parts nerdy, sexy and silly. And it wouldn't be complete without a love interest for Beca. He arrives in the form of Skylar Astin (best known for his stage role in "Spring Awakening" and most recently appeared in an episode of HBO's "Girls"), playing the relentlessly charming Jesse who Beca for some reason has a hard time being wooed by. For us, however, Astin is an absolute delight.

Archive: "Rocket Science" (2007)

It seems that the theme of movies lately has dealt with the geeks rising up and having a say in things. Similar in the way the recent comedy smash hit "Superbad" addressed the blunt awkwardness of high school, this movie shows the geeky side of school where there are different levels of cool even amongst the overall aura of uncool. It's about the range of popularity amongst nothing more than the debate team, which vacates all of the usual high school cliches. It makes for an open yet exaggerated look into the lives of a couple ordinary teenagers, or at least teenagers who are doing their very best to be as ordinary as they can. I've been a bit off on my indie scouting lately, but then again, maybe not because I did manage to stumble across this treat of an indie film; it's one of the best I've seen in months.

The movie opens at the finish of an intense debate tournament where contestant Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) is witnessing her partner, Ben Wekselbaum, freeze up at the last minute. She is stuck with the second place trophy, a sense of devastation, and a partner who leaves school to work at a dry cleaning shop. Enter Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson), a small and timid student who has a hard time saying exactly what's on his mind. He has things to say, but the words get caught in his throat. He practices ordering pizza on the bus to school, but when it comes time to order in line at the cafeteria, he stutters uncontrollably. And then one day Ginny sits next to him on the bus and asks him to join the debate team. She claims to see greatness in him, the sort of potential that could build up to the quality of her last partner. Maybe that's not the real reason she invited him, and maybe she has other reasons of her own. Either way, it's not what we are expecting.

Soon after the invite, Hal begins falling for Ginny. It's not that he even likes her, but it's simply that he sees something new in her. He likes the idea of love and having a love interest, something that his parents failed at. Hal's dad walked out on his marriage to kick off all of the problems to come. His mom started dating a naive but kind Korean judge whose son is a friend of Hal's, but their relationship lacks something, as well. His older brother Earl has small flashes of compassion towards Hal between the abusive put downs. And so, Hal resorts to going to the house across the street from Ginny's, where he can privately long for her with Ginny's obsessive neighbor. Hal's frustration results in him heaving a cello through her front window.

So, does she feel the same way about him? Well, it's hard to tell with her snidely quick-witted and fast-paced style of talk, which every single debate kid somehow has to acquire. After a lunge and a grab of a kiss in the janitor's closet (where Hal consistently takes refuge), the two of them part ways for some time, which leaves Hal eventually researching for the debate in the library alone. It's here that there's a humorously ironic cameo here by "Superbad"'s Jonah Hill. Anyway, there are bits of something to like and dislike in each and every character through all of their clever eccentricities. There are great performances, as well, from relatively new and young actors Anna Kendrick and Reece Thompson who both hold their own.

"Rocket Science" gets its title from the touching conversation Hal has with his father at the end of the movie. It's another one of those moments where an adolescent is simply trying to figure out what it all means. The movie is a dryly observed comedy-drama that is odd, charming, and funny. It comes from writer-director Jeffrey Blitz who did the Oscar-nominated documentary "Spellbound," so he knows a thing or two about stressed-out overachievers. "Rocket Science" was this year's Sundance crowd-pleaser, and that's really no shock because it's a movie that definitely satisfies with its honest and quirky delights.

Clooney Among The Clouds And Uncertainty

Up in the Air


Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has what some would consider the worst job in the world: he's the man who has to tell other people they no longer have their job. He does the job that bosses and employers don't want to deal with, and so people like Ryan get hired to do just that. The thing is that Ryan loves his job, and he takes it as performing a service to others, something that demands procedure and protocol, both of which Ryan makes sure to have in order. He has no home and no family. While flying on a plane and asked where he lives, Ryan responds with "here."

If Ryan were played by any other actor aside from George Clooney, this man probably would have been despicable; however, with the snarky smarts of Clooney, he's relatable and likeable. His performance holds the same depth he brought to "Michael Clayton" where he also played a man whose soul was in jeopardy. Except here you'd swear that he's just playing himself, which allows it to seem so effortless. Director Jason Reitman ("Thank You for Smoking," "Juno") has pulled off something of beauty with his third feature, "Up in the Air," and Clooney is at the center of it. It is an intimate and scalding character study while at the same time a brilliant and aware cultural study. This is our culture, the state of the nation we live in. It's hard to pull off timeliness, but this movie does it with ease putting a face on the recession and the crisis of unemployment. It is cynically funny but also deeply sad while romantic but also unapologetic and real, and it's a clear example of what we need to see more often from major studios. It is a movie of our time and our moment, and it's the best of 2009.

Ryan spends his detached life flying around the country with endless supplies of passkeys to hotel rooms and airport lounges and with the best deals with those companies. He's a valued customer carrying around special VIP cards, and he especially has his eye on reaching a certain mystical number of frequent-flyer miles. This goal he holds in the highest esteem. He knows the ways of the airport and has perfected the systematic lifestyle, one which America is more and more leaning toward. It's a world of Blackberry, text messaging, and fitting each other into a tight schedule programmed into a laptop. Most importantly, it's a lifestyle of downsizing and not only in the workplace. On the side, Ryan gives self-help lectures where the topic is keeping the load of your rhetorical backpack as light as you can. The people he talks to are exactly the kind of people he fires. Ironically, however, Ryan is forced to literally carry around a piece of his family; it's a cardboard cut-out of his sister (Melanie Lynskey) and brother-in-law (Danny McBride) with which they want Ryan to take pictures of the places he goes.

Threatening Ryan's own job is the talented young Natalie (Anna Kendrick of "Twilight") who offers a promising solution of grounding the firings and completing them over the Internet. It would make what Ryan has lived for all his life entirely obsolete. In an attempt to scare Natalie, Ryan agrees to take her along to show her the ropes and what firing people can really do to one's sense of humanity. They even make a stop in, yes, Detroit, and they don't hesitate in making it seem to be in the worst economic condition. Ryan and Natalie's sparring is a delight because Natalie has fast-talking comebacks that catch even Ryan off-guard. Their relationship isn't at all meant to be romantic as that is saved for a fellow frequent-flyer, Alex (Vera Farmiga), who Ryan meets in an airport lounge. She's a corporate shark just like him, and she has a biting sensuality that is irresistible. To Ryan she describes herself as him just with a vagina. Both Kendrick and Farmiga are already up for award nominations, and rightfully so. They are pitch-perfect in their parts each relating to Clooney's character in different and complex ways and each peeling back more layers as things progress.

The movie is adapted from Walter Kirn's 2001 novel, and it feels so shockingly in-tune with the state of today's society all thanks to a screenplay from Reitman and Sheldon Turner and polished, sharp-eyed direction from Reitman. In the sequences where people are given the news, those aren't actors. Reitman auditioned real people who had really lost their job and told them to articulate their feelings for the camera. That stuff hits home. Actors are interspersed into this footage, as well, including Zach Galifianakis and J.K. Simmons.

"Up in the Air" has a title that not only refers to the act of frequenting air travel but also the feeling of being unemployed, the uncertainty and the unpredictability. To those people everything is up in the air. In the closing moments, Ryan looks straight into the audience with a look that is hard to define, one that could be of either hope or pain. The film is optimistic and pessimistic all at once, and it is finely nuanced in both directions. Is Ryan's future bleak or not? And what does that mean for everyone else? We've captured an era on-screen while it's still happening, and the only thing that can be said for sure is that everyone needs some company, a co-pilot.