Juno (2007)

PG-13  |  96 min  |  Comedy, Romance  |  Released: December 25, 2007 (USA)

Director: Jason Reitman

Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, and Jennifer Garner 

Do not even try to tell me Juno doesn't have the best movie compilation soundtrack to date!

RATING: 9/10

Pitch Perfect

PG-13 | 112 mins | Musical, Comedy, Romance | October 10, 2012 (Philippines)

Director: Jason Moore
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin and Rebel Wilson



It is about young adults. It involves music and has a romantic element. 

LOL.

Pitch Perfect is something between Bandslam, Glee and Easy A. Only, imagine that all of the characters are in uni, and imagine they're more hilarious, more talented, and more badass.

Pitch Perfect follows a female acapella voice choir, The Bellas, competing to be the best of all the universities. I loved how understated Beca (Anna Kendrick), the main character, was. Her love interest, Jesse (Skylar Astin), was cocky yet cool. Everyone else in the cast were all exaggerated and funny characters. Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) is easily my favorite character. She's so funny I found myself eagerly waiting for her witty one-liners. 

As far as the music was concerned, it was topnotch. Man, they could sing! Awesome harmonies, great mash-ups. Our office has had to endure hours of people singing the same songs!

This movie is not your usual cheesy teen rom-com; the predictable love story and the girl bitching aside. It has funny puns via singing (watch out for the riff-off) & projectile vomiting. Haha.  

Apart from Anna Kendrick (Twilight, Up in the Air, Rocket Science) & Brittany Snow (John Tucker Must Die, Hairspray) the cast aren't exactly 'star studded'. But each one of them has 'one-to-watch' potential, which you may know by now because you realize you've heard about them all over and seen them in one or more other movies. 

Boys might not like this film as much, because there aren't any guns (although Fat Amy assumed she's been shot in one scene). So, yeah, this may sound unlikely as f*ck, but I want you all to know that I loved the movie. I thought it was quite good and didn't complain once!

Everything in this movie is musically and comically on key. It's what Glee wishes it could be! Kidding. It's refreshing to see a musical and comedy combo like this.

If you like a feel-good movie with excellent music and lots of really good laughs, then this one is definitely worth checking out. You're gonna like it whether you want to or not.

RATING: 7/10

Les Destinées Sentimentales

180 mins | Foreign, Drama, Romance | Release Date: July 12, 2000 (France)

English Title: Sentimental Destinies
Director: Olivier Assayas
Starring: Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling & Isabelle Huppert
Language: French; with English subtitles

Les  Destinées Sentimentales is an adaptation of Jacques Chardonne's epic novel. It examines the first four decades of the 20th  century through the lives of Jean Barnery (Charles Berling), his unconventional wife Pauline (Emmanuelle Béart) and his obssesive ex-wife Nathalie  (Isabelle Huppert).

The film's intention to follow moments through time was achieved. But it was exhausting at 3 hours of run time. There was just too much screen time for those heavy conversations, and an extensive focus on the finer points of  porcelain-making. LOL. For such a long running time, you would think that Les  Destinées Sentimentales would have perfected characterization. Wrong. The film was devoid of audience interpretation because it's a mere visual track of the  characters. Assayas' camera  would just follow the many characters, not too many observational moments. The transitions were weak, time would pass with little to no indication, or the characters would suddenly be in a specific emotion in the next scene but no attempt  to show how they arrived there.

The film was sensitive, but disappointing. It was over-extended and in spite of the elements to a period flick being present -- set in a small village, a devoutly Protestant  porcelain empire in Limoges, the Swiss Alps, and World War I -- it lacked the period movie breadth like how the Italian's would do it. Not even the beauty of Béart nor the shaky camera technique used throughout the movie could hold our attention for such a long time.

Oh well, this was Olivier Assayas' first period film, a departure from his contemporary works. That's a valid excuse for the film, I guess.

RATING: 5/10