Pitch Perfect 2 is Almost Done Shooting!

Anna Kendrick posted this last night, with this note:

All these bitches wrap tomorrow and leave me behind...... I totally H💖TE them.

Pitch Perfect wasn't a perfect movie but it turns out to be highly HIGHLY rewatchable. A cable perfect pleasure. I could watch it back-to-back and nearly have. I love "Fat Amy" and every single whispered line delivery from Hana Mae Lee as Lilly. Plus every moment when Anna Kendrick sings.

So pleased that Anna is doing three musicals in one year (see earlier post). That's some commitment to the genre that we haven't seen from literally any other contemporary star.

"Under the Skin" is Coming

Are you picking a "Best Shot" for next Tuesday? The more eyeballs the better.

Tim's Toons: Why the animated Batman is the best Batman

Tim here. During this week’s edition of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, it came as, I assume, no real surprise that my pick came from the animated Batman feature, Mask of the Phantasm. But it’s not just a fixed obsession with animation that led to that choice: it’s my earnest belief that there has never been a better adaptation of Batman in any audio-visual medium than the dark, broody cartoon series that filled in the gap between the theatrical releases of 1992’s Batman Returns and 1995’s Batman Forever. So before we fully leave off our tribute to Batman’s 75th anniversary, I’d like to invite you to join me in a brief appreciation of Batman: The Animated Series.

That animation would be a good fit for a superhero comic adaptation shouldn’t be surprising on any level, of course: drawings to drawings, rather than drawings to real-world actors, limited by the rules of physics (just think about how much easier it is to make masks look expressive when you’re not bound by things that masks can actually do). And a weekly TV series is more akin to the structure of a monthly comic book, with shorter stories based around more clear-cut scenarios than superhero tend to boast. But there obviously has to be more to it than just that, or I could just as easily make this same argument in favor of The All-New Super Friends Hour, and apologies to the Wonder Twins fans, but no. Just no.

NO

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Links

Complex imagining TV prequels to movies. Hilarious. The description of "Kramer Loves Kramer" is priceless.
New Republic "I don't f***ing care if you like it." an excellent piece on gender politics in the now with framing guest appearance by Amy Poehler
In Contention David Fincher's Gone Girl will open NYFF this year. Yay!
AV Club "I Killed At the Movies" interesting article from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky on film criticism for the camera

 

The Dissolve an excellent review of Sex Tape which I have no plans to see and therefore can read interesting reviews freely
Daily Mail Sullivan Stapleton gets an Animal Kingdom tattoo
Variety Ben Whishaw will be the new voice of Paddington
Cinematically Insane on possible corporate mergers and what that might mean for classic film fans. Uh oh.
Pajiba Ewan McGregor rumored for True Detective Season 2? (at this rate with the male cast the female role is going to be supporting)
VF Hollywood Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston seen dining together. This changes everything!
The Wire dissects the VMA nominations. I didn't realize they'd happen but there's lots of Beyoncé of course
Kenneth in the (212) Desperately Seeking Susan finally coming out on Blu-Ray 

And look at this beautiful poster of The One I Love. I am the one that loves it. I loves it much. I hear the movie is really good too but I haven't yet seen it.

Elaine Stritch (1925-2014)

When Colleen Donaghy died on 30 Rock in the episode "My Whole Life is Thunder" I tried to think of it as tragicomic rehearsal. A chance to acknowledge that death was coming for the beloved theater great but to laugh at it or at least about its absurd finality.

Elaine Stritch herself wouldn't have approved of my wussiness. She might've said something like "it's me who's dying, not you!" (albeit in a much funnier manner) because she had a tart tongue and was quite a truth teller. In the documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (reviewed) released early this year she references her impending death more than a little as she prepares to move back home (Detroit) and retire finally, in her late eighties, for good.

But even this documentary didn't quite convince me that she was leaving us.

I saw Elaine Stritch’s famous one woman Broadway show “At Liberty” in early 2002 a couple of years after moving to New York. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was nothing short of spiritual ecstasy but then showbiz is my religion and actresses are my only gods. 

 I had mythologized her, you can see in that excerpt of that intro to my review of that documentary. How could Death conquer such a life force?

It wasn't until after the special screening here in NYC that Stritch (or as I like to call her "Stritchieeeeeeeee!" imitating her imitation of an angry director in At Liberty) was wheeled out to greet us that it finally sunk in. She looked undeniably more like a feeble old woman than the  giant of the theater in white shirt and black tights that I was accustomed to looking up at with awe.

The last time I'd seen Stritchieeee in the flesh before that she was also in a wheelchair. It was late 2010 when she took over for Angela Lansbury in the Broadway Revival of "A Little Night Music." She sings her big number "Liaisons" from a wheelchair. But that was just acting. More rehearsal.

When Elaine set out to do something she worked her ass off until she did it right. 

So here's to the girls on the go--
Everybody tries.
Look into their eyes,
And you'll see what they know:
Everybody dies.
A toast to that invincible bunch,
The dinosaurs surviving the crunch.
Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch--
Everybody rise!
Rise!
Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!
Rise!

And this Tony and Emmy winning legend did it right. A final round of thunderous applause please because this time there's no more encores.