Pitch Perfect (2012)

This is a great follow-up to those who are going through ‘Glee’ withdrawal.  It is set in a college setting rather than a high school one—the competition is no less juvenile, but there is no faculty supervision.  The story is that two of the most competitive a capella groups in the country are to be found at the same college—so they have juvenile competitions on campus, where the performances are good enough to make up for the juvenile nature of the dialogue and the excessive vomiting (what is up with that?  The script writer must have had some traumatic vomiting on stage experience, because it happens not once but twice, and really adds less than nothing to the movie).

I was thinking about musicals this morning.  I was listening to Stephen Spielberg’s long time publicist, Marvin Levy, talk about the films that he wishes he could have done publicity for and they were all old movies.  He said that he would have loved to do the publicity for ‘Singing in the Rain’.  I am too young to remember when the movie first came out, but I loved it when I was doing musical theatre myself in high school.  The singing and dancing talent was overwhelmingly evident, and it is just not there in the 21^st century movie.  We just do not produce much in the way of modern musicals that will survive the test of time (not to disrespect ‘Les Miserable’, but there just aren’t actors who sing and dance in combination on a regular basis who are performing in movies).  It made me realize that I should stop by the library’s DVD collection and take out a musical or two this weekend.