Pitch Perfect 2
Not Awful!
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 115 min

I don’t think I sat all the way thru Pitch Perfect 1 (I was probably laying/lying, not sitting). The wife said, lets watch it on TV, and she watched it, while I played on my phone and mocked it while 1/2 paying attention. It was a movie you can get the gist of in about 8 seconds – it’s Glee, with girls as the focus, and maybe more laffs, but not really

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to being forced to see #2… after 5 minutes of eye-rolling, my eyes stood in place, and my ears followed, and I sat thru the sequel – ALL OF IT. And you know what, it was not awful! Sure, this thing was far from sexy or original or awesome or deep or anything, but it has more going for it AND was more enjoyable than Sucker Punch is/was, and Sucker Punch had scantily clad women fighting ninjas or something!  

Pitch Perfect 2‘s plot is razor thin, but it makes up for it in the girth that is Fat Amy/Rebel Wilson, who doesn’t steal the show, cause she IS the show.  Without Fat Rebel Wilson, the movie would be nothing but mousy Anna Kendrick looking for cheese and Brittany Snow rolling her eyes more than I did when I was forced to watch #1, and Elizabeth Banks (who directed this movie!!!) and John Michael Higgins with their not so witty repartee reprising its repetitive rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s.  But don’t worry, you get all of Fat Wilson, and the fat butt and fart and poop jokes that come with it!!  + Keegan-Michael Key! and David Cross!  and Snoop Dogg!!  and some Green Bay Packers!!!!!

The Pitch Perfercts are light and fluffy and pitch perfect for viewers young and old, but if it REALLY wanted to razzle dazzle (at least if it wanted to dazzle my razzles), they should go light on the tunes and heavier on the theatrics.  Time to Step-Up evermore yo!

Verdictgo: sirprizingly Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Pitch fast at a theater near jews tomorrow

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Kill Your Darlings 
Beat, Off
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 104 min

Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and Carr.  One of these names does not belong… to the annuals of history, but does to the Beat Generation‘s history.  Lucien Carr was the supposed ‘glue’ of the crew.  Without him, would the other three have crossed paths, and beat on???  Who knows, but in John Krokidas‘ inspired, but tiring directorial debut – Kill Your Darlings – Carr’s story is driven to the forefront, and he’s eventually driven to murder!!!!!!!!  Oooooh, sounds intriguing!  It is, but it somehow doesn’t end up being all that intriguing (as a movie)

What does it end up being like?  Muppet Babies for the Beat Generation stizz!!  Looks, there’s beardless, skinny Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), discovering all kinds of things at college thanks to new found literary ‘maybe more than friends’ friend Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan, always giving it his de-All), and their buddies Jack Kerouac (pretty boy Jack Huston) and spacey mumblecored William S Burroughs (Ben Foster).  They drink!  They smoke!  They listen to jazz!  The reject what their teachers are teaching them!  They pull pranks!  They flirt with being gay!  Oh my, so much going on in the mid-1940s!  I KNOW!!!  But trouble lurks, in the form of David Kammerer (Michael C Hall), a man obsessed with Lucien.  After endless years of unwanted attention and advances, Lucien can no longer withstand his predator, and so one knife-fight later, Kammerer dies, Carr gets incarcerated, and the other three Beat-ers go on to infamy.  Carr becomes a footnote and here we are, and yet, I feel like we’re nowhere.  Just a Muppet Babies take on young dudes about to become men.  Beat on?  More like beat off

Cross Roads: David Cross is the only man on earth to play both Allen Ginsburg (I’m Not There) and his father Louis Ginsberg (Darlings)

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

Darlings doesn’t exactly kill it, today in NY & LA only, and elsewhere elsehwhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Lucien, Jack, Allen & Bill

was last year really the first year we had a TV awards??? no time for looking back, and only time for looking forward. hactually, this is a look back, at what was bestest in 2010 TV, and while some songs remain the same, new fun can always be found on the tube boobs!!!

1. Misfits (E4, England)

Remember how Heroes sputtered in its 2nd season. Yeah, that really sucked, so spankfully there wasn’t any sophomore slump for the British ASBO-super hero super dooooper show Misfits, which juss earned our choice for the bestest of the bestest FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW!!!! it’s not even fair to call this a TV show. it’s like watching the dopest and innovative movie week after week that doesn’t play in a theater!!! don’t wanna say too much more about what actually happens, hispecially since you/us Americans probably never even heard about this show (outside of our glowing tweets), and that’s the biggest crying shame, but you can do something about it. (CLICK THE ‘it’ TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!! trust us). oh, and after all the Clockwork Orange location love, The Shining refs almos shined even mo!

2. 30 for 30 (ESPN)

So what if the top 2 picks are the same ones as last year, cause nothing new or used was remotely comparable. That was quite the honor for 30 for 30 last year, considering only 7 of the 30 docs aired, and so watching 23 more entries in this glorious and unprecedented series was more of a delight than watching Judith Light and Tony Danza fight to see Who’s The Boss. Sure, not all of them were winners, but a majority of them were. Stand outs include Guru of Go, The 16th Man (it was better than Invictus!!!), June 17, 1994, The Two Escobars and Into the Wind. Bestestest news of all? ESPN are liars and have 3 more above the 30 to drop on us in 2011, including the one we’ve been waiting for mostest

3. Sherlock (BBC/PBS)

No wonder this aired on PBS’ Masterpiece Theater, cause the three 90-minute episodes were juss that, theater thats be a masterpiece!!!!!!! Only question is, when can we see the next batch?

4. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (IFC)

Life a bit empty and a lot less funny in an Arrested Development-less world? Todd Margaret fills the void, and then some, and awesome with David Cross to bear/bare. Mos deaf = funniest moment on TV in 2010!!! Anyone know where we can buy a can of Thunder Muscle?

5. Party Down (Starz)

With Jane Lynch trading in her pink bowtie for large checks over on Glee, we thought for a moment that Party Down would go nowhere but down. Well who knew that newbie Megan Mullally could be such a valuable employee of funny (see the ep ‘Nick DiCintio’s Orgy Night’ for proof)? Also, 2192989278 bonus points for employing Fred Savage as a director!!! Sadly, all good things that have no audience muss come to an end, and after its cancellation, Party Down enters the ranks of Twin Peaks and the British Office as two season wonders that keep us wondering what if…

6. This Is England ’86 (Channel 4, England)

Imagine if one of yer mos flavorite movies of the past decade relaunched the partying 3 years after the fact, but on the small screen, and yet still kicked major major major ballistics. That is eggzactly what happened with This Is England and its equally killah lil TV brother This Is England ’86!!! Good news is that ’90 is a go!

7. The Innetweeners (E4, England)

Will, Jay, Neil & Simon are the new John, Paul, George & Ringo. Emily, Emily & Hannah are the newest additions to our JO collection. Thanks for the 3 beyond solid seasons lads & lasses. Any chance the movie plays in America? Would be better than all the American Pies combined times 32837!!!

8. Hard Knocks: The New York
Jets and 24/7 Penguins/Capitals: Road to the NHL Winter
Classic (both HBO)

Rex Ryan & Bruce Brodeau both deserve their own channels (or a buddy cop comedy), and 238824354 refrigerators. Lets go eat a goddam snack.

9. Dexter (Showtime)

How do you top last year’s Lithgow’s afterglow? You don’t, but Johnny Lee Miller as a mysterious motivation speaker is motivation enuff to keep Dexter on our list. Think most people hated Lumen. We didn’t. She made Dexter happy, and a happy Dexter is a happy we. Also, LOVED the Six Feet Under ref in Ep 1

10. Kendra (E!)

Who knew being a football wife of a journeyman NFL player could be so heartbreaking? This is the only reality show worth watching

11. Entourage (HBO)

Stuff finally happened!!!!! 3 cheers to coke snorting & Sasha Grey’s boobs (& too hairy bush?? [SFW])!! Yes, this was the 11th best show in TV in 2010. Yes, it was more betterer this year than Mad Men

speaking of…

other solid forms of entertainments: In Treatment, Mad Men, The Tudors, Breaking Bad, Making & Selling Jeans In America, Community, Rubicon, Chilrden’s Hospital, Modern Family, Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, Real World: New Orleans, Boardwalk Empire, The Big C, Skins, Eastbound & Down, The Walking Dead, Outsouced and yes, Desperate Housewives

+

bone-yes moments

– Sally Draper/Kiernan Shipka!!!!

– boo to the end of at The Movies, but yea to a talking Ebert!!

– The Lost finale sucked, and so did the last 2 seasons

– Temple Grandin was the bestest TV movie of the year. so dang good in fact that they should have released it as a movie in theaters!!

– Skins season underwhelms, but still…

+ killing off one of their wurstest characters, and the way that they did, was a masterstroke!!!

– Psych is watchable thanks to its Twin Peaks flavored ep!!

– Carrie Fisher’s darling one-woman autobiographical show Wishful Drinking was so so entertaining that we regret not seeing it on Broadway

– The Hub is added to our cable line ups, and The Wonder Years re-enters our lives

– bestest re-discovery of a lost show from our
childhood: Robin of Sherwood

+ love the soundtrack by The Clannad!!!

– Deep Roy is the only one truly standing tall on this season’s Eastbound

– the return of these forgetten kids!!! &
Kilborn (& Christine Lakin)

– Rasta Monsta

– a reason for Glee‘s being

– hotties Erin Kaplan, Isabel, the 2nd Mrs Draper, half face, & Lake Bell Torrance Coombs AND all the Tudors hottie hotness over the yearz

wait a second, did you LOOK AT THIS PAINTINGGGGG????????????????????????????????????

if yous knows us, yous already darns wells knows hows much we suffer from Anglophilia.  you would be wise to catch the sickness too, cause the ye Olde Countrye is churning out some mighty stunning material these days, which you can anglo-file under ‘A’ for AWWWWWWWWWWWESOME.  one such filmed entertainment that has so captured our hearts and thighs is the 3 part modern-day Sherlock Holmes mini-series called…

SHERLOCK!!!

it’s, as the English say, ‘brilliant’!!!  5reals, yo!!!  6reals, yo!!!!  it makes Guy Ritchie’s Holmes look like a broken Holmes!!!!  and it stars 2-time Fenella Woolgar Bestest Names Award winner Benedict Cumberbatch as the super sleuth IN MODERN TIMESSSSS!!!!!  and not only does he own Holmes in the name game, but he owns the role too.  he relishes in it so dangs much that he may have to start his own relish company!!!!!!!!!! CUMBERBITCHES!!!  and to make matters even bester, his Watson is played by the wisecrackin Martin Freeman, aka Tim from The Office, aka Bilbo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  the beyond thighnamic duo haves so many clues that it’s no mystery how fanastic this mini-series be!!! and it’s all so elementary my dear Emma Watson, and there’s no face like Holmes + a million other Holmes clichés and puns!!  and the good news for you is that if you missed it on BBC this past summer or on PBS for the past 3 weeks, shiz is being released on DVD like NOW and STUFF!!!

but wait, there’s mohr from their shores!

pissed at how lame Running Wilde is as a pseudo-answer to the Arrested Development blues??  yeah, we three, but be pissed no further lads, and turn your attentions to IFC’s abroad broad comedy…

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret!!!!!!!

David Cross crosses every London Bridge and glorifies every refarted British stereotype as an American fish well out of the chippy water.  it’s, as the English say, ‘brilliant’!!!  9reals.  it’s the perfect combo of British dry wit and American slapstickery.  it’s also the funniest show we’ve seen in 2010.  and remember, we think NOTHING is funny, so that statement hactually means something! + Neil from The Inbetweeners (the 2nd funniest show of 2010) is on it AND the theme song is by Johnny Marr.  and luckily for you, IFC renewed it for a 2nd season AND be re-airing all 6 eps starting this Friday.  make it happen future Anglophiliacs!!!

been a long time since we gots our ffix1975 fix, home of much NSFWness, and the occasional Nazi photo

wait, is that Jason Bateman & David Cross?