Pitch Perfect; Seven Psychopaths; The Spirit of '45; I, Anna; May I Kill U?
"Aca-scuse me?" Variously pitched as "Glee with teeth" and "X Factor meets Mean Girls", Pitch Perfect (2012, Universal, 12) more closely resembles an anarchic mash-up of High School Musical and Best in Show, with a hint of Heathers and a smattering of Stick It thrown in for good measure. Anna Kendrick is the indie-spirited newbie at college where "organised nerd singing" is the new so-uncool-it's-cool sensation. From the moment we see the prim leader of the all-girl vocal group projectile-vomiting in the middle of an Ace of Bass tribute, you know this isn't going to be a well-behaved affair.
What follows is a tale of heats and heartbreaks, torment and Treblemakers, nobility and nodes ("they sit on your windpipe… and they crush your dreams"), a cheese-cutting satire which delivers a consistent spewy stream of laughs, screams and cackles. Stealing the show is rising star Rebel Wilson as the force of nature who calls herself Fat Amy "so twig bitches like you don't do it behind my back", with strong support from the likes of (co-producer) Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins as the waspy commentating duo from hell. Add to this a weirdly affectionate subplot about falling for the nostalgia of The Breakfast Club, and Pitch Perfect shapes up as a surprisingly sassy close-harmony comedy which hits all the high (and low) notes.
Amid the aca-madness of Pitch Perfect, by far the weirdest element is Hana Mae Lee's Lilly, a barely audible presence who augments her singing chores with whispered admissions that "I light fires to feel joy" and "I ate my twin in the womb".
Compared with Lilly, the shouty, sweary caricatures of Seven Psychopaths(2012, Momentum, 15) seem positively mundane. Colin Farrell is the blocked writer attempting to finish the eponymous "life-affirming" screenplay, surrounded by a menagerie of dog-napping, gun-toting crazies, played with relish by Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits et al. Having been lazily compared to Quentin Tarantino in the past, writer/director Martin McDonagh here lives up to the tag – more's the pity. While In Bruges boasted breathtakingly audacious black comedy, Seven Psychopaths wants to have, eat and shoot its cake in the face, settling all too often for knowing self-referentiality; just because someone says "your women characters are lousy", does that actually justify them being so? While Charlie Kaufman spun strange surreal gold from a similar premise in Adaptation, McDonagh sometimes seems as creatively stifled as his bedraggled antihero. Of course there are pleasures to be had from the frequently scabrous turns of phrase, of which the ripe rogues' gallery make the most, but the laughter rings rather hollow.
In The Spirit of '45 (2013, Dogwoof, E) Ken Loach reminds us of a period in which Labour won an election on a socialist ticket, and built a postwar dream based on national health and nationalised industry. There's some extraordinarily moving first-hand testimony from those who lived through squalor, conflict and hardship to witness the rebuilding of a new world which is now all but forgotten. As a living document of a time which now seems like another country, this is stirring stuff which deserves to be seen in homes and schools alike.
Richard Hawley's lonely voice and chiming guitar lend the perfect backdrop to the neo-noir ambience of I, Anna (2012, Artificial Eye, 15), in which a detective (Gabriel Byrne) investigating a murder is unprofessionally distracted by a melancholic singles-club devotee (Charlotte Rampling). While the overworked plot doesn't quite surprise at it intends, Barnaby Southcombe's stylish thriller makes great use of its London and Southend locations, and conjures an air of enigmatic unease.
May I Kill U?(2012, Cyclops, 15) is depressing homegrown fare, a nasty, unfunny Death Wish satire aimed at bored teenagers who will find its social networking gimmick so last year. Kevin Bishop is the policeman who gets pushed off his bike by a hoodie and turns into an internet avenger, getting loads of likes for his uploaded snuff movies. The titular twist is that the killer asks his victims if he can kill them; after half an hour of this, the answer "yes please" leapt to mind.
