Movie Review Pitch Perfect 3

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) 

Directed by Trish Sie

Written by Kay Cannon, Mike White

Starring Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Elizabeth Banks

Release Date December 22nd, 2017

Low expectations are sometimes key to enjoying a particular kind of movie. For example, the third movie in a franchise that was only barely capable of supporting one sequel. The trailer for Pitch Perfect 3 turned out to be the perfect introduction to the supposed finale of the Pitch Perfect trilogy. The trailer was so bad that I expected the characters in the movie to walk on screen, fart, and give me the finger before walking off. That would have been only a slight improvement over that trailer.

What a nice surprise then to find that Pitch Perfect 3 is way better than the trailer indicated. Sure, the film is yet another iteration of the comedy of the awkward pause which has come to plague modern comedy since its introduction in the mid-oughts, but those jokes really only hang around the first half of the film. In the second half we get actual funny jokes and a bizarre plot that works even as it has no business working.

We pick up the story of The Bellas, the A Cappella singing group at the center of this franchise, struggling to find their place in the real world. Becca (Anna Kendrick) has her dream job as a music producer turning into a nightmare when she deals with a talentless rapper who dislikes her changes to his terrible song. Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) is out of work except for her street show performances as Fat Amy Winehouse and the rest of the Bellas are either bored or merely dissatisfied.

When the group mistakes an invitation to a party for an invitation to perform together at a party, they throw on their Bellas gear only to find humiliation and embarrassment waiting for them. Drowning their sorrows, they concoct a plan to get themselves on a USO Tour where they can at least spend time performing together. That the USO Tour also carries the opportunity to perform and tour with rap god D.J. Khaled makes it all the more exciting.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Almond and the Seahorse

The Almond and the Seahorse (2022) 

Directed by Celyn Jones, Tom Stern

Written by Celyn Jones, Kaite O'Reilly

Starring Rebel Wilson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Celyn Jones, Tryne Dyrholm 

Release Date December 16th, 2022 

Published December 15th, 2022 

The Almond and the Seahorse stars Rebel Wilson in a rare dramatic role. Wilson is Sarah, an archaeologist who is married to Joe (Celyn), a gregarious house husband. At least, that's what you assume if you don't know what The Almond and the Seahorse is really about. You see, Joe isn't merely unemployed, he's not staying home by choice. Joe had a brain tumor that has caused irreparable damage to his memory which slips away more and more as each day passes. 

Sarah has tried to care for Joe using medication and list-making, and tapes that remind him of who he is and why he can't leave home or what might happen if he left home unsupervised. Eventually however, Sarah will be forced to admit that she can no longer care for Joe on her own. Joe is going to have to go to a facility that can care for him as his memory continues to deteriorate. Sarah thus is dealing with losing Joe both emotionally and physically as he forgets who she is and is no longer under her care. 

Running concurrent to Sarah and Joe's story is that of Toni (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Gwen (Tryne Dyrholm), a long term couple who have lived with Gwen's traumatic brain injury from a car accident for more than 15 years. Recently, Gwen has begun to no longer recognize Toni who has begun to show her age. For Gwen, she's not left the day of their accident and thus Toni has slowly become a stranger to her as she no longer recognizes her as her wife. 

Like Joe, Gwen has reached a point in her growing memory loss that she can no longer live at home. She's become a danger to herself who wakes up in the morning thinking a stranger is in her bed. Gwen and Joe will each be living at a hospital facility overseen by Dr. Falmer (Meera Syal), a loving and thoughtful woman who does nearly as much to help Sarah and Toni as she does for Joe and Gwen. The people left behind in the wake of those losing their memories are suffering nearly as much and need nearly as much care. 

The title, The Almond and the Seahorse, is a reference to the shapes that make up the parts of the brain that retain memory. Beyond that, the title reflects the strange and jarring storytelling, seemingly disconnected moments that seem like reality but have an uncanny quality because one person in the scene sees reality a little differently than another character. Joe, for one, thinks Sarah is the one who is having delusions and acting strangely. He doesn't remember his tumor or recognize that he's changed in any way since the tumor was removed. 

Gwen, more frighteningly, wakes up each morning screaming for her wife and unable to recognize that Toni is standing in front of her. Imagine what that must be like, waking in fear every morning and taking most of the day to recover from that. Each day becomes more of a struggle for Toni to reach her wife, calm her, soothe her, and then losing her all over again by the end of the day. It's heartbreaking to imagine and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Tryne Dyrholm bring that heartbreak to devastating light in The Almond and the Seahorse. 

If the film isn't fully successful it's because there is a rather rote quality to the drama. A sort of surface level presentation of the material that limits your emotional involvement. So much of the film is obsessed with the upturning of day to day routine for these two couples that the film fails to build out beyond the surface to illustrate the full breadth of what has been lost here. We empathize with these characters but only on a basic level. Our empathy is limited by not getting to know these characters as the movie focuses the showier parts of their story, the dramatic loss of memory and the bigger emotional displays that come with that. 

There is a focus, unfortunately, in The Almond and the Seahorse, on the more showy, actorly aspects of memory loss in these movie characters. Celyn Jones especially, in his role in front of and behind the camera, favors Joe's broader expressions of his memory loss. We get little grounding in who Joe was and what we are left with is the struggle as expressed in the broad enacting of trauma and the growing emptiness behind Joe's eyes. Jones is a fine actor but, I needed more than his big performance to connect me to this character beyond a basic sense of empathy. 

As for Rebel Wilson, in her first major dramatic leading role, she's overmatched here. Stripped of her sense of humor, Wilson seems not to know what to do with herself in any given scene. I'm thinking specifically of a scene in a library where she's left the ringer on her phone on and it continuously interrupts the quiet of the library. The scene is pointless, it has no purpose. It's the kind of scene in any other Rebel Wilson movie where she would do some kind of bit, a physical or verbal gag. Since however, this is a drama and not a Pitch Perfect movie, Wilson is left to being awkwardly apologetic. Why did this scene exist? 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Isn't it Romantic

Isn't it Romantic (2019) 

Directed by Todd Strauss Schulson 

Written by Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, Katie Silberman

Starring Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemworth, Adam Devine, Priyanka Chopra 

Release Date February 13th, 2019 

Published February 14th, 2019

Isn’t it Romantic is a complete delight. This gimmicky, in a good way, romantic comedy stars Rebel Wilson who demonstrates the kind of star power and charisma we’d been expecting of Wilson after her numerous, scene stealing supporting turns in the Pitch Perfect movies and in trifles such as How to Be Single or her breakout cameo in Bridesmaids. Rebel Wilson has been expected to be a thing for some time now and now appears to be that time. 

Isn’t it Romantic stars Rebel Wilson as Natalie, a New York architect with strong self esteem issues. As a child, Natalie loved the bubbly romantic comedy of Julia Roberts but as an adult, in the real world, she has soured on the saccharine, synthetic cliches of the genre, many of which she rants about in a lengthy but funny gag that deconstructs nearly every trope in the genre. This is one of many inspired and hilarious gags in Isn’t it Romantic. 

The plot kicks in when Natalie is mugged in the subway and suffers a head injury. When she wakes up, suddenly, everything is perfect. Her doctor is a hunky, Gray’s Anatomy type who immediately flirts with her. The streets outside the hospital are lined with flowers and friendly, helpful and welcoming faces. And, notably, New York City doesn’t smell like an open sewer where people urinate in the streets. 

Then Natalie, quite literally, is run into by Blake, the handsome and jerky client at her architecture firm. When they first met, he insulted her and made her get his coffee. Now, out of the blue, he has a sexy Australian accent and appears to be completely enamored of Natalie. He gives her a ride home in his limo but because this is a romantic comedy universe, the 30 minute takes mere seconds. 

From here, Isn’t it Romantic sets in motion a plot with a ton of very obvious jokes about the tropes of romantic comedy. These are tropes that we, in the audience, have been poking fun at for years and you wouldn’t be wrong if you mocked the obviousness of these jokes. And yet, thanks to some crisp editing and direction, and especially Rebel Wilson’s exceptional timing and charisma, these jokes land, each with a big laugh. 

Rebel Wilson was made to play the role as the one sane, angry, snarky, voice of reason in this outer romantic comedy universe. Sure, she is poking some familiar, well worn, holes in the romantic comedy plot, but she does so with gusto and timing. Wilson is a movie star with the kind of genuine likability and relatability that you really cannot teach to actors. Wilson has a natural and genuine sense of humor that speaks to the audience and doesn’t stand above them. 

Wilson is not afraid to be the subject of the joke but she’s also not here to be humiliated and laughed at either. One of the criticisms leveled at Wilson has been that she uses weight as a punchline so often that it becomes her own kind of cliche. I’ve never felt that way about Wilson myself. I felt that her performance as Fat Amy had an empowering quality, stealing back the notion that she is to be ridiculed for her weight, not merely by making fun of herself but aggressively, confrontationally, putting your bias against her awkwardly to the fore. 

Her aggressiveness is part of her charm in  the Pitch Perfect movies and I really enjoyed how that energy is used here. Natalie is initially mousy and shy and then, in the romantic comedy universe she comes into her own out of frustration more than anything. She sees the falsehoods all around her and like being trapped in The Matrix, her mind rebels against all of the fatuousness and untruth. Almost by accident this experiment works on her and she begins a great arc about being more confident and assertive. 

On top of Rebel Wilson’s outstanding performance, we get stellar work from her supporting cast. Adam Devine plays Natalie’s best friend Josh who is part Ducky from Pretty in Pink and part nerdy, male best friend in every romantic comedy ever. Devine brings a great deal of charm to this character and his chemistry with Rebel Wilson is top notch, as it was when they co-starred in the Pitch Perfect movies. 

Brandon Scott Jones is a veteran of the improv comedy scene and he brings some of that anarchic, improv energy to his character in Isn’t it Romantic. Jones plays Donny, Natalie’s stock, gay best friend who appears to only live to give her advice and support. Jones throws himself into this broad caricature with comic verve and never fails to get a big laugh. He doesn’t steal scenes per se, but he’s the perfect addition to the scenes he’s in. 

Betty Gilpin and Priyanka Chopra round out this superior supporting cast as Natalie’s assistant turned romantic comedy rival, Whitney and Josh’s romantic comedy universe, perfect, supermodel girlfriend, Isabella. I will leave you to discover the fun of these characters when you see Isn’t it Romantic. Chopra has the bigger, broader laughs but keep an eye on Betty Gilpin, she provides just the right foil for Rebel Wilson as both friend and foe. 

I haven’t even mentioned director Todd Strauss-Schulson and his exceptional work yet. Strauss-Schulson was the acclaimed director of the indie darling, The Final Girl, a film that toyed with the tropes of horror movies. Here he takes a similarly satiric aim at the romantic comedy genre and once again nails it. Isn’t it Romantic has a great pace, strong visual style delineating between the real world and the romantic comedy world, and the movie has barely an ounce of any scene it doesn’t need or lingers on for too long. 

It’s not a flawless piece of direction, it relies incredibly heavily on the appearance, chops and charm of Rebel Wilson, but Strauss-Schulson makes smart choices. He, along with screenwriters Erin Cardillo and Dana Fox, keep the movie clipping along, getting big laughs and moving on. There is barely an ounce of fat on this screenplay, scenes begin, get to the big laugh and get out and on to the next joke. It’s efficient and funny which goes a long way toward overcoming the obviousness of many of these jokes. 

In case it isn’t clear, I completely adore Isn’t it Romantic. I am a major Rebel Wilson fan after this movie and I can’t wait to see this one again. It’s not the greatest comedy of all time, I feel like I might be overhyping it just a tad, but the film is outstanding in and of itself. The execution of this gimmicky premise is damn near flawless and in the hands of star Rebel Wilson, even the most obvious jokes still get a big laugh. 

Movie Review The Hustle

The Hustle (2019) 

Directed by Chris Addison 

Written by Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, Dale Launer, Jac Schaeffer 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp 

Release Date March 10th, 2019

Published March 9th, 2019 

The Hustle is a remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine. Scoundrels itself was a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. So yeah, this material has been traversed on multiple occasions and that’s not even accounting for the numerous movies that Bedtime Story was heavily influenced by. Con artists have long been figures of fascination at the movies as they provide a rich playing field for actors and screenwriters alike. 

The Hustle stars Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect’s Amy, as Penny, a boorish Australian con artist who uses a scam involving a sick sister, and a little bit of catfishing, to get men to give her the little amounts of money she needs to get by. It’s small potatoes and when she’s seemingly run low on gullible Tinder dates, she decides to give Europe a shot. Penny is headed to the French Riviera in hopes of finding a bigger game for her cons. 

On a train to a place called Beaumont Del Sur, Penny meets Josephine (Anne Hathaway), a fellow con-artist, though Penny doesn’t know that yet. Josephine has set up shop in Beaumont Del Sur for years, using its lavish, expensive hotels as her hunting ground for rich husbands looking for a good time on the sly from unwitting elderly wives. Josephine isn’t worried that Penny will provide competition, she’s worried that her clumsiness will scare away the bigger fish marks. 

When Penny proves herself to be a little more formidable than expected, Josephine takes her in and begins to teach Penny about higher level cons. A con-job, codenamed Lord of the Rings, is the centerpiece of this early portion of the second act and I really enjoyed it. All three movies, Bedtime Story, Scoundrels and The Hustle, feature this sequence and it proves to be a durable comic sequence, earning some unexpectedly big laughs. 

Unexpected laughs are a hallmark of The Hustle. The disjointed narrative of The Hustle, a series of setups and payoffs with a bare minimum of connective story tissue, works in spite of the structure. The laughs are so big and so often that I actually didn’t mind the obvious flaws in the structure. I somehow didn’t mind that The Hustle isn’t much of a traditional movie and is rather a series of gags, skillfully performed by the talented duo of Wilson and Hathaway. 

On most occasions a movie as faltering in structure as The Hustle would not work for me but I have a notable soft spot for Rebel Wilson. Few people in Hollywood make me laugh as hard as Wilson, who has become one of the most remarkably ingenious comedians on the planet in recent years. Her Isn’t it Romantic from back in February of this year remains one of the highlights of 2019 at the movies and Wilson makes it impossible for me to dislike The Hustle or dismiss it over some very noticeable flaws. 

Those specific flaws are embodied in the character of Thomas played by newcomer Alex Sharp. Sharp is central to the film’s third act and he’s completely overmatched in attempting to keep up with Wilson’s brilliant comic chops and Hathaway’s skillfully light touch comedy. I get that this part requires a performer who appears at a loss consistently opposite the brilliant cons on either side of them, but Sharp is an almost non-existent presence. Those who’ve seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels know where his character arc is headed and I will tell you, Glenn Headly struggled to pull it off in Scoundrels and Sharp doesn’t even compare to her. 

The Hustle was directed by Veep veteran, Chris Addison. Addison has demonstrated a strong talent for gags on Veep and he shows that same flare for setup and punchline in The Hustle. The Hustle unfortunately doesn't have the advantage of being a weekly television series that can more simply perform setup and punchline and pick up narrative strands as needed. Characters have time to grow and for us to get to know them on television. The Hustle doesn’t have time to develop these characters or a deeper narrative, which necessitates the reliance on big gags over what makes movies great.

That said, the laughs in The Hustle are often so big that I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it. I can levy a number of complaints about the film, but what matters is that I laughed and laughed loudly and quite often at The Hustle. I can’t say my fellow critics who don’t care for The Hustle are wrong about the movie, they are right in many instances and complaints. I just happen to be in a position to be a great deal more kind about The Hustle due to my adoration for Rebel Wilson. 

Lower your expectations of an actual movie and get set for some funny set pieces and you can enjoy The Hustle as much as I did.