Podcast: Top Tens of Summer 2015

For this week's edition of the podcast, Katey, Joe, Nathaniel and Nick reunite to share their top tens of summer movie season. We allowed ourselves full movies, single moments, general themes. It's a free form top ten roundelay. 

Topics include but are not limited to... 
Mad Max: Fury Road, I'll See You In My Dreams, Jurassic World, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Far From the Madding Crowd, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Diary of a Teenage Girl, Amy, Trainwreck, A Little Chaos, Ricki and the Flash, Joss Whedon, Amy Poehler, Elizabeth Banks, Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, footwear, camera-shaking music, counterprogramming and more...

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments. Share your top ten anything from the summer movie season!

Summer Top Tens

Elizabeth Banks' 2015 World Domination Tour Continues. Next Stop Venice

As previously noted, Team Experience won't be covering Venice Film Festival (no funds *sob* but I've wanted to go to Venice ever since I saw virginal Madonna singing on that gondola on MTV as an impressionable young lad) but we have planned a couple of Venice-related treats for you this year. And speaking of treats. The Venice juries were just announced and loaded with so many big names, you'd be hard pressed to guess which among them was the President of the Jury at first glance. But killing the suspense... the main jury's president is Alfonso Cuarón.

COMPETITION JURY MEMBERS:

ALFONSO CUARÓN, PRESIDENT (Mexico)
of The Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien fame

THE ELIZABETH BANKS WORLD DOMINATION TOUR (USA): Previous Tour Dates: Directing and Co-starring in Pitch Perfect 2; Best Reviews ever for Love & Mercy; Co-starring in Magic Mike XXL; Next Stops: Netflix Binge-watching Dominance with Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Conquering Venice Red Carpet Coverage, and wrapping up a phenomenon with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2...

Lynne Ramsay and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Podcast XXL: Brian and Earl and the Inside Out Girl

Nathaniel R is thrilled to welcome Nick Davis back to the podcast. He's been binge-watching 2015 movies after months of deprivation. Seven films discussed if you count Jurassic World... but perhaps you shouldn't. We talk fast because there was just so much to catch up on.

Contents

• 00:01 Jurassic World
• 02:00 The Upcoming 1995 Smackdown
• 04:45 Magic Mike XXL and his women
• 10:37 Dope and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Or, The Good and Bad of Sundance Quirkiness 
• 22:10 Inside Out and a little more XXL just because
• 29:24 Love & Mercy and/or 'Admirations & Misgivings' about the movie itself
• 39:00 Spy

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  Please continue the conversation in the comments because if the podcast were twice as long there'd still be plenty left to say. We repeat: seven movies.  

Further (Related) Reading: 
1995 Smackdown Info, Nathaniel on Magic Mike XXL, Nick on Magic Mike XXL, Rose Byrne FYC, and Nick's "Fifties" Report for 2015

Inside Out, Magic Mike XXL, Me and Earl

Review: Pitch Perfect 2

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!

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Yes No Maybe So: Pitch Perfect 2

Margaret here...

Long have we waited. Our lands have been barren, our sleep fitful, our souls thirsting for what we have been promised. But hope may yet again have a life in our hearts, because the trailer for the Pitch Perfect sequel has been granted unto us. Aca-praise be.

Honestly, Pitch Perfect 2 is exactly the kind of movie where most of us know long before a trailer hits whether we're a yes or a no. (I'm a yes because when I saw the first one, it was at a three-dollar theater after a happy hour, and I was with resident TFE ray of sunshine Anne Marie. Five-star experience, would recommend.)

That said, the trailer calls irresistably for our scrutiny. Excited to join our acappella brethren and sistren for an evening of good/clean/goof fun featuring extensive cameos from the Top 40 of our recent past? Hop on board.

 

YES:

• Who among ye can resist the bewitching call of pretty, pretty harmonies? Bless this team for hiring a group of actors who sound genuinely lovely when they sing.
• Anna Kendrick is as good a leading lady for this mini-franchise as they could possibly have landed. She's such a star, and musical comedy sure is her sweet spot.
• Lilly (Hana Mae Lee) licking Beca's nose! A+ character, will need much more of her in the sequel. She brought a welcome dose of genuine weirdness to the first movie and I hope this time around they let her comic chops roam free. 
• So they cast David Cross as the gatekeeper/emcee of some kind of underground acapella speakeasy? Y'know, that.... sounds pretty right to me. 
• There is a downright absurd suite of performance outfits we see on the teams, and I am all for it. Can't have show choir world championships without Scottish BDSM enthusiasts, a disco bowling league, prep-school altar boys, or Chili's hostesses. 
• Ahhh ha ha ha the tagline for this is "The Pitch Is Back." I can't even be mad at that, that's High Cornball genius.

 

NO:

• Pretty pretty harmonies notwithstanding, am I seriously hearing that damn Cups song right now. I'm pretty sure it only just left the Billboard charts/my brain after being beaten into us all for a solid two years and now it is coming back to taunt us all and when will it end, Anna Kendrick, when will it end?!?
• This isn't a dialogue-heavy trailer but they still manage to squeeze in several jokes carbon-copied from the first movie. If they don't try to find new sources of humor, this is going to be one stale hour-and-a-half. 
• Velour blazers on the boys' group are a big, loud no. Apologies, but if they're going to position that Skylar Whatsisface as a romantic lead there is going to need to be a strict moratorium on velour blazers. It is for the good of mankind that I speak.
• Snooty European rivals have been done, and they have been done, and they have been done some more.

 

MAYBE SO:

• This is Elizabeth Banks' directorial debut, which is a bit of a question mark. She produced the original and clearly gets what made it so beloved, plus her scenes playing commentator with John Michael Higgins are far and away the funniest parts of the first movie and of this trailer. Could mean good things.
• Pillow fights, slow-motion group hugs, team mud-wrestling.. it looks like they plan to lean pretty hard into the rag-tag misfit sisterhood thing. Not inherently a bad thing but can often tip into triteness on the quick. 
• For a minute there, Rebel Wilson was all over the place and totally happening. If she nails it here she might be able to kickstart that momentum again. I hope they give her more to do than recycle bits from the first movie..
• Remember the career we all thought Hailee Steinfield was gonna have? Do you think that's still in the cards?

Suprise surprise, I'm still a yes. Who else is with me?