17 May 2015

Off-Key: "Pitch Perfect 2" and "Where Hope Grows"

By Mike Schulz

PITCH PERFECT 2

Pitch Perfect 2 opens strongly, with the peerlessly funny Elizabeth Banks (who also directed the film) and John Michael Higgins performing an a cappella rendition of the Universal Pictures theme song and launching into the hilariously bitchy byplay that made their vocal-contest judges among Pitch Perfect's many highlights. And while it's true that this musical-comedy follow-up, like director Jason Moore's 2012 predecessor, is set in the world of collegiate a cappella groups - and specifically the world of Anna Kendrick's fledgling mash-up artist Beca - it's more accurately set atop a steep precipice. Because although it starts promisingly, as the saying goes, it's all downhill from there.

01 Oct 2012

Time Warped: "Looper," "Pitch Perfect," "Won't Back Down," and "House at the End of the Street"

By Mike Schulz

LOOPER

Rian Johnson's Looper, a time-travel thriller set primarily in the year 2044, casts Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a contract killer whose life is upended with the arrival of his latest target: his older self, who has been transported from the year 2074 and is played by Bruce Willis. This means that, with Gordon-Levitt delivering rather uncanny likenesses of his co-star's traditional scowls and smirks - and with the younger actor's countenance bizarrely altered to resemble the elder actor's familiar face - Willis essentially plays both leading roles ... which isn't the most enticing of setups if, like me, you generally find one Bruce Willis more than enough.

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