Shaneyah Galley reviews Pitch Perfect 2

This is going to be a slightly biased review, as I’ve been hanging out to see this movie since rumours of a Pitch Perfect sequel started flying last year. You have been warned.

The movie starts with the infamous President’s birthday concert that lead to the Bella’s being kicked out of the ICCAs. Chloe is utterly devastated, and is determined to win the world championships so that the Bella’s will be reinstated before they all graduate. Well, all except newbie ‘legacy’ named Emily.

We see routines from two new groups – both of whom we saw in the trailer – and renown acapella group Pentatonix make a cameo in the worlds as the Canadian team. One old group (besides the Trebles) makes a comeback with a new member. It’s so hilarious, I’m not going to spoil it for you.

All in all, this movie is a super fun sequel to the original flick. Catchy songs, a cute and kind of weird romance sub-plot, and lots of self-discovery by protagonist Becca. This is definitely one to see with your friends and lots of popcorn. Major props to Elizabeth Banks who produced the last film, and makes her directorial debut with this one.

Now see what Belinda Hamilton thinks.

The Bella’s are back, as are the fun A Capella battles and the great soundtrack.

This time they are trying to save face, or should I say, butt, from a disastrous performance for President Obama, you’ve seen the trailers… yeah that.

As part of their punishment they’re replaced by the European group on what should have been the Bella’s victory tour. Enter Das Sound Machine, the team they have to beat at the world titles.

The old cast is back and the newbies make me smile, including the Green Bay Packers. Uh huh I agree with Fat Amy on that one.

As with most sequels, the impact isn’t as punchy as the first time around; however, there are just enough laugh out loud and ‘oh no he didn’t just say that sexist remark,’ moments to save it from yawnsville.

I didn’t mind paying the $17.50 it cost to sit in a dark room with perhaps the 6 other people and sing along and snort giggle together.

I just hope they either realise the storyline has run its course and quit while they’re ahead or switch it up considerably if a third instalment to the franchise is to be considered.

If money is tight, wait for the DVD, hopefully the extras will be just as funny and add to the comedic value of the film.

4 out of 5

Shaneyah Galley reviews iZombie, the new offering from Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars.

iZombie: crime and YA with braaaaaaaaaains

As a comics fan, I feel like I should be tired of all the TV and movie adaptations from the last few years. But watching iZombie, I kind of want more.

iZombie is about a woman named Olivia who has the incredible misfortune of having been at a boat party that turned into a zombie attack. She survived – kind of. Unlike most zombie movies, her ‘turning’ was an isolated incident, and life seems to have continued as normal for the rest of the world. Olivia quit her job, broke up with her fiance, and is now dealing with her new un-life as best she can. The only person who knows she’s a zombie is her boss, medical examiner Ravi. He is utterly fascinated by her and shows interest in finding a cure for her “condition.”

So far, the character diversity is a little disappointing – there is one female character besides the protagonist, and only two of the characters are non-white. There’s a major romance subplot, but there’s more than enough wit and murder to balance it.

iZombie is incredibly thematic. Liv, the main character, changes personality and acquires new skills as a result of the brains she eats. It’s a little like Psych, where she pretends to be a psychic to explain her extra-ordinary knowledge about crimes. Unlike Psych she does have vision;, she just doesn’t get them from spirits.

Liv and her zombie issues are an almost perfect analogy for post-adolesent struggles. Liv has her life all figured out before she gets turned, but after it happens, she removes and isolates herself from her old life in an effort to protect her loved ones. This has her understandably spiralling into depression. She is afraid of infecting her fiance, but can’t turn to her family, as they’re confused by her leaving her blossoming career at the hospital for a dead-end (hurr!) job as a medical examiner at the police morgue. It’s a smart move, since Liv can now eat brains in safety and in secrecy, without killing – but of course, she’s not going to tell her mum that.

If you like wit and mystery with a dash of introspective angst thrown in, you’ll enjoy iZombie.

HOWEVER, if you’re already a fan of the comics, you may want to skip this one. Adapting to screen is always dicey; I accept that. But the adaptation of iZombie has broken several of my cardinal rules:

1. Never change character names. In the comics, the protagonist is named Gwen. In the TV show, she’s Olivia.
2. Don’t remove main characters. iZombie is an ensemble piece, set in a far more paranormal type of universe. Gwen has two besties, one of whom is a werewolf, the other a ghost. So far in the series, Liv has only hung out with her boss and a detective named Clive.
3. Book-Gwen cuts her family out of her life entirely. TV-Liv is still very much enmeshed with hers.
4. Book-Gwen is a grave digger by trade, an excellent option for a zombie. TV-Liv is a morgue attendant.
5. Book-Gwen slowly loses her memories as she consumes more brains – so there are definite costs and balances to her zombie appetite. They may integrate this into the TV show, but they haven’t yet.

Alright, those are almost all of my cardinal adaptation rules, which makes me kind of unhappy.

So in summary: if you’re a comics fan, steer clear of this one and grab the trade. If you’re a fan of fun, crime-y shows and don’t care much for comics, you can enjoy this pretty much guilt-free. Personally, I’m going to have to have a serious think before I sit down for the next episode.

Belinda reviews Into the Woods.

Disney finally pokes fun at itself.

Jack and the bean stalk, Cinderella, and Rapunzel get a surprising makeover when intertwined with a fresh story of a couple who want a baby badly enough to work with the witch next door.

There is more corn in this film than the entire state of Iowa. So many great moments that made me face plant, or gape open-mouthed at the screen. There was an mix of young and not-so-young in the cinema with us. The adults snickered and groaned in all the right places and, though the film was rather long (2 hours and 5 minutes), I’m sure we all walked away smiling.

The cast is star-studded to say the least: Johnny Depp, Christine Baranski, and Meryl Streep are just some of the more well known actors. The entire cast blends beautifully, and each actor brings their own oomph to the plot.

My favourite scene has to be the duet between Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince)- and Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince). The song, called Agony, tells how both of them have it so tough when it comes to their respective love lives. I’d love to know how many takes it took them to complete the scene, but I imagine that the cutting room floor was littered with golden bloopers.

I don’t know what other reviewers have said about this musical film, and to be honest I would love it if people made up their own minds. I still haven’t decided if I want to own it on DVD, but as a one-off in the cinema, it was definitely worth the entry fee.

I thought this was a wonderful outing for the last few days of the school holidays!

Joelene Pynnonen love a good kids movie.

Emmet Brickowski is an ordinary construction worker, living life by the manual, when he finds a woman called Wyldstyle illegally searching his construction site. She’s mesmerising, and for once Emmet goes against the manual, following her rather than reporting her. Stumbling into a chasm, he finds the Piece of Resistance, the only object that might stop the evil Lord Business’s super-weapon, the Kragle.

Years earlier, it was prophesied that a person called “The Special” would be the one to locate the Piece of Resistance, which makes Emmet, Lord Business’s number one target. When he is captured by Lord Business’s lieutenant, Bad Cop, Wyldstyle steps in to save him. Now it’s up to him to find the powerful master-builders and convince them to launch an attack on Lord Business’s empire before he uses the Kragle to destroy them all.

I love kids’ movies, especially the ones that have been released in the last few years and are targeted at a wider audience. Even so, Lego Movie was not something that I was interested in when the trailer came out. Now, I’ve played several of the Lego games and am well aware of how fun they are. I just didn’t think that it would translate well to the big screen. Fortunately, my brother twisted my arm until I agreed to see it.

From the out-set Lego Movie is a fast-paced and laugh-out-loud funny film. There’s plenty of slapstick comedy for kids, but this is interwoven with subtler social-commentary humour and pop-culture jokes. The combination works so well that you’ll have to watch the movie more than once to appreciate all of the jokes.

This is one of those movies that combines its elements perfectly to create a fun and exciting film. The animation is wonderful, not quite losing the authentic feel of a stop motion film even though it is CGI. Voice acting is equally flawless. There are too many amazing performances to list, but Liam Neeson’s role as Good Cop/Bad Cop is superb.

While Lego Movie is a fantastic film, it is let down by the ending, which introduces a theme that has been done before – and better – by Pixar. The movie is entertaining enough to carry itself without needing a deeper meaning, and would have been stronger for it.

Lego Movie is another animated film that is transcending age. The plot is simple, but the execution is clever. 

Joelene Pynnonen reviews TV series Revenge and enjoys it with popcorn.

The Hamptons might be a place of glitter and sunshine on the surface; but once scratched it reveals a seething mass of secrets that people would kill to protect. When Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp) arrives in the sunlit piece of paradise that the affluent Graysons call home, she plans to scratch deeply.

When she was a child her father was framed by the people he had trusted most. Now, grown up and with a different name, Emily plans to break everyone who contributed to her father’s downfall, working her way up to the Graysons.

Everything in Revenge works perfectly together. It’s not frivolous, nor does it get mired down in angst. The assembled cast is amazing with Madeleine Stowe in the role of Victoria Grayson, the self-styled ‘Queen of the Hamptons’; Gabriel Mann as Nolan, Emily’s self-appointed vengeance assistant; and Nick Wechsler as Jack Porter the man that Emily knew as a child and is still in love with. All of the roles in the series are nuanced, and each character has their own secrets.

While this seems like the kind of idea that could germinate an amazing movie, I wasn’t sure that it would work well for a long-running TV series. The first season alone was enough to change my mind on that score. While Emily’s vengeance is the heart of the show, as the other characters develop, a myriad of deeper plots unfold, each of them as compelling as the main one.  Emotionally too, the series grows, the characters gaining depth as their secrets begin to unravel.

Revenge is a sumptuously indulgent series to lose yourself in. Morals and characters aside, it has a wonderful soundtrack featuring Australian folk-duo siblings Angus and Julia Stone. The filming locations are also gorgeous. From sunlit beaches to lavish parties and opulent mansions, the Hamptons of Revenge are a wonderful place to visit for an hour every week.

Everyone loves a good revenge story. There’s something about it that satisfies society’s moral conscience without breaking its rules. Revenge manages to do this in a creative and fun way. It’s the perfect show to curl up and eat popcorn to.