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.Today we needed joyful / beautiful celebrities and the internet provided. After the jump six photos. Answer the questions in the comments, won't you?
• Kiki on the set of the Beguiled. How excited are you on a scale of 1-10? • Rita and Tom celebrating Tom. Again. How many more times can he be celebrated in his career? • Doona Bae teasing Season 2 of Sense 8. Shouldn't there be an air date by now? • Missi Pyle & RuPaul. What do you suppose they talked about? • Anna Kendrick promoting her book. Is there an audio version where she sings it? • Juliette Lewis promoting adoption day. When does she get another great film role? We're impatient!
This review was originally published in Nathaniel's Towleroad column...
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates starts out giddy with a bouncy firecracker of a credits sequence. Please take that literally as the credits involve a trampoline, fireworks, and two gleeful stars Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) in mid air. Their joyful abandon is short-lived. A scene or two later we're at an intervention with their parents (Stephen Root & Stephanie Faracy) in which we see these same high-flying images again from a less zhushed-up perspective in home wedding videos their parents play them. The inseparable brothers, always each other's bachelor dates at these gatherings, egg each other on until disaster strikes. Property destruction and ambulance calls follow them...
Manuel here. There is nothing funnier (I guess?) than a wedding, which explains why Table 19 is the latest comedy to tackle the hilarity of seeing two people profess their love to one another in as public a venue as one can imagine. I joke, though I have to admit this sub-genre has many great examples to justify its continued deployment: Father of the Bride, Bridesmaids, My Best Friend's Wedding, Muriel's Wedding, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Heck, even Wedding Crashers and The Wedding Singer have their charm.
Will Table 19 join that esteemed group? Let's take a look at its poster:
- Can we all agree this is a pitch perfect teaser poster? It gives you a sense of tone and setting with one simple image. I do wish we'd gotten fancier nail art though.
- "Don't Fit In. Take A Number" strikes me as a better tagline for a comedy set in a deli, a butcher shop, or somewhere else where you'd take appointments. (Rather than a wedding where you just get a number assigned to you, no?)
- What I love about this cast is that it perfectly captures the very spirit of a random table at a wedding. What could they possibly have in common but mere contiguity? Just thinking of the comedic stylings of Stephen Merchant hilariously (one hopes) clashing with those of Craig Robinson is surely one of the selling points.
- The promise of Kendrick and Kudrow in a film is enough to get me to buy a ticket, though now I'm wishing Kudrow had invited the Pitch Perfect star to do an episode of Web Therapy.
- So glad Revolori (so great in The Grand Budapest Hotel) will be back in our screens. Now if only he'd dragged Mr. Gustave himself with him as his +1. They'd fit right in with the teaser poster's color scheme.
- Is June Squibb the best recent example of an Oscar nomination breathing life into a character actress' career? I didn't much care for her in Nebraska but I've been happy to see her pop here (Girls) and there (Getting On).
- January 2017? Oy. I'll try not to read too much into that release date but I already foresee it getting lost in the shuffle of the New Year cinematic doldrums (Oscar players aside).
Oh, and the trailer is up but they had me at the cast and I'm too scared to realize the parts may be greater than the sum, so take a look at give it your own YNMS in the comments.
Margaret here with breaking news: Hollywood loves money, water is wet and Pitch Perfect 3 is officially in the works.
Pitch Perfect 2 is still in theaters, and presumably since it's nearing a $300 million worldwide take (which would be more than respectable even without its vastly profitable soundtrack tie-in), Universal has just announced that they've staked out July 21, 2017 for the threequel.
Critics were less than enthused about the second installment, but heaven knows if they can squeeze three movies out of The Hangover and Meet the Parents then there's no harm in in making room for movies starring and produced by women in the franchise club.
Screenwriter Kay Cannon is in talks to return for round three, and while there's no word on whether Elizabeth Banks will be back to direct, it has been announced that both Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick are on board.
See how ecstatic she looks?
The question is... how? Considering how inevitable another sequel seemed, it was strange to see the Pitch Perfect 2 screenplay consistently cutting off potential avenues for a sequel.
Of course, the most sensible (read: boring) solution would be to repeat the premise with a new slate of actors and have the original stars cameo in mentorship roles. But it's early yet, and we can hold out hope for a dramatic creative swerve. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a gritty game-change chronicling the harsh reality of post-college a cappella life, where the gang reunites to busk in the big city by night while by day they try to break into an unsympathetic industry. Featuring lots of shaky-cam, naturally. In what direction would you steer the Pitch Perfect series?
The standard formula for sequel-making is easy to remember: do it again, only bigger. Elizabeth Banks has taken this to heart while working both sides of the camera. Pitch Perfect 2 marks her feature directorial debut but she's still fully visible as one half of the insult-comic pundits that barrage the acapella groups with shade as we watch them perform. The absurd notion of live commentary during vocal performances continues to be a pretty good unspoken joke unto itself so naturally Gail (Banks) and John (John Michael Higgins), have larger roles this time. They're like the Waldorf & Statler to the Bardem Bella's Muppets only hornier and way more intrusive. The comparison may be fusty but so is the jokey tone - vaudeville sized in its caricature driven gags and completely shameless at wringing laughs from crude, repetitive and stereotype-loving jokes. In fact, it's so broadly cartoonish that it's easy to imagine virtually any of the cast members as muppets, especially Fat Amy (née Fat Patricia).
Who among you didn't visualize Rebel Wilson as a Muppet just now; the resemblance is uncanny!
Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 5:50PM 
Today we needed joyful / beautiful celebrities and the internet provided. After the jump six photos. Answer the questions in the comments, won't you?
