Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Dissecting the Pitch Perfect 2 Trailer

The trailer for Pitch Perfect 2 is out! I’m SUPER excited for this movie. So excited in fact, that I decided to watch, re-watch, and breakdown the trailer piece by piece. I recommend you watch the trailer first, because this article will contain trailer SPOILERS!

1)   The World Championships of A cappella

Is there such a thing as the world championships of a cappella?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Sort of.

The most well known international choral event is called the World Choir Games. Though not exclusively a cappella, and definitely not exclusively pop a cappella, the World Choir Games is the Olympics of the choral world, so in a sense, there is definitely an international choral competition. That part is true.

Also, don’t forget that the ICCA is an international competition already. (hence the word “International” in the title)

There are DEFINITELY international a cappella festivals, and some even have local competitions. As for the competition featured in the movie, no, that doesn’t exist…yet. I’ll bet five dollars that this becomes a thing once the movie has premiered.

2)   Riff off part 2

David Cross (Arrested Development, Mr. Show) is a rich a cappella enthusiast who hosts an international, underground Riff-Off. That’s the mansion the Bellas travel to in the trailer (the one that requires a fart noise password…or so I assume). Does this exist? As I am not part of the underground a cappella scene (most likely the dorkiest underground scene of ALL TIME) I can neither confirm nor deny this. But all bets are that this does not exist.

3)   Cups

I LOVE the new version of cups. After the song hit the Billboard charts and went viral, I was wondering if a bigger, cup-pier version would make an appearance in the sequel, but the softer, more mellow version is more appropriate to the story. Besides the main rivalry between the Bellas and the international groups, the story is mostly about life after college, where the Bellas will “miss me when I’m gone.” Well done.

4)   Recurring characters

They are hard to spot, but Benji (Ben Platt), Aubrey (Anna Camp), and Jesse (Sklyer Astin) are definitely there. Benji is the hardest to spot, because he only has one quick glimpse, when he performs a magic trick with a puff of smoke.

5)   They don’t speak loser

The two European actors who stole the trailer are possibly (this is a guess) Flula Borg and Birgitte Hjort Sorensen.

Birgitte is not very well known in the American cinema community, as she has only had roles in mainstream films like Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s “The Worlds End.” She is starring in an upcoming rock and roll project for HBO, according to imdb.com, but after Pitch Perfect 2, I’m sure she will be much more recognizable.

Flula Borg is more of a musical personality, with a viral Youtube page of over 40 million views. A musician/DJ from Germany, Flula has many comedic posts on Youtube, combining silly discussions of American idioms with music.

6)   Aca-talent

The first glance of the riff-off shows a tremendously talented beatboxer. Deke Sharon has confirmed that his name is Andrew Fitzgerald, formerly a collegiate a cappella singer from Madison. You may also have noticed famous live looper and comedian Reggie Watts of Comedy Bang Bang. Multiple sources have confirmed that famous groups such as Pentatonix and the Filharmonic are set to appear in the movie, but are not currently in the trailer.

Marc Silverberg

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