Pitch Perfect 3 Movie Review

It used to be that adults in middle age experienced a mid-life crisis. The new crisis experienced by the younger generation is called the Quarter-life crisis.

This is the basic premise for Pitch Perfect 3. It’s been three years since the audience has seen the Barden Bellas. Adulting has not come easy for them, to say the least. The Bella’s unofficial leader, Beca (Anna Kendrick) is working for a record label, but it seems that the career she imagined in college does not fit her reality. At a Bella’s reunion, Audrey (Anna Camp) informs the girls that she can get them onto a USO tour. When the girls arrive at their first stop, they discover that the tour is actually a competition. The winner of the competition will be the opening act for DJ Khaled. Not only are the Bellas going against acts who use instruments, there is also a little issue with Fat Amy’s (Rebel Wilson) previously unknown father, played by John Lithgow.

Can the Barden Bellas win the competition or are they stuck  in the past?

 

Directed by Trish Sie, in terms of the narrative, it is the weakest of the films in the franchise. However, there is an undercurrent of girl power and diversity that helps to make up for the parts of the narrative that needs work. The overall message of the film, which I truly appreciate is that family, whether by blood or emotional connection is forever and it is ok to move on with our lives, if we have the courage to.

Do I recommend it? Yes.

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Time And The Conways Review

Family, if nothing else, is f*cked up.  Just because we love each other and we have the same DNA does not mean that sometimes we can’t stand each other.

The revival of the J.B. Priestley play, Time And The Conways, is set in two different time periods, 1919 and 1937. Mrs. Conway (Elizabeth McGovern) is the widowed matriarch of an upper middle class family in Britain. She has six children: Alan (Gabriel Ebert), Hazel (Anna Camp),  Robin (Matthew James Thomas), Kay (Charlotte Parry), Carol (Anna Baryshnikov) and Madge (Brooke Bloom). The rest of the cast includes two family friends, Joan (Cara Ricketts), Gerald (Alfredo Narciso) and a friend of Gerald’s, Ernest (Steven Boyer).

A friend who saw the play a few weeks ago said that these characters need to be in therapy. I couldn’t agree more. Mrs. Conway is not a bad mother, but her parenting skills need some improvement. I’ll be frank, I saw the play because Downton Abbey is and will always be one of my favorite television shows. I was not going to pass up seeing Elizabeth McGovern live and in person. What I liked about the play is that the playwright not only plays with the grey areas of life, but also that family is not the picture of perfection that we, as an audience almost expect.

I recommend it.

Time And The Conways is at The American Airlines theater until November 26th, 2017. Check the second link above for showtimes and ticket prices.