Skylar Astin

  • 09 October 2009

Occupation

Actor

'Pitch Perfect' Co-Stars Anna Camp And Skylar Astin Are Engaged!

By Stephanie Chase in Lifestyle / Showbiz on 03 January 2016

Anna Camp Skylar Astin

The pair met while filming the musical comedy back in 2012.

Anna Camp and boyfriend Skylar Astin are starting off 2016 with some pretty big news, they’re engaged! Camp announced the good news on Instagram by posting a pic of her new rock, along with fiancé Astin.

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Pitch Perfect 2 Review

By Rich Cline

Excellent

In 2012, Pitch Perfect came out of nowhere to become one of the most-loved comedies in recent memory, and the good news is that this sequel matches it with both spiky humour and buoyant music. It would be impossible recreate the surprise of watching the original, but the cast and crew make up for that by kicking everything off with an outrageously rude prologue (complete with the biggest cameo imaginable), and the comedy that follows is relentlessly hilarious.

It's been three years, and the Bellas are now in their final year at university, having won three more a cappella National Championships along the way. Then they're disgraced by a wardrobe malfunction at a triumphant performance for the US President's birthday. Suspended by officials, their only chance to redeem themselves is to win the World Championships in Copenhagen. So Beca (Anna Kendrick) and her sidekicks Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) and Chloe (Brittany Snow) rally the troops to prepare to take on the fearsome reigning champions Das Sound Machine. And there's a new Bella on the team as well: freshman Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), who is dabbling in songwriting.

Along with this central plot, Kay Cannon's script also weaves in a series of side-stories for each of the central cast members involving decisions about the future and romantic entanglements. All of these are a bit feeble, but they add layers of comedy, drama and even some meaning, although there isn't a single surprise along the way. Still, it's consistently amusing, as every line of dialogue has a witty joke in it, and the performances crackle with improvisational silliness that's genuinely infectious. Once again, the seriously gifted Kendrick is effortlessly charismatic as the natural leader of the gang, while the class-clown Wilson steals every scene with her random gags. Steinfeld offers a fresh blast of energy and talent in her role, although the perky Snow is somewhat sidelined this time.

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Pitch Perfect 2 - International Trailer

Suspended after an unfortunate incident of accidental nudity during a performance of Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball', the spunky all-girls a cappella singing group the Barden Bellas are subsequently replaced by European champions Das Sound Machine. They've got a lot of work to do if they want to win the World Championships and beat their rivals, and while they've certainly got both the attitude and more than enough talent having previously succeeded at winning the National stakes, whether or not their ideas can bring them further fortune is another matter. Nonetheless, they have each other, and that's the most important thing for them to hold on to right now as now they face more than just embarrassment and Europeans, but prejudice and heavy doubt from the organisers.

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Pitch Perfect 2 - Super Bowl TV Spot

The Barden Bellas are back after their impressive victory in a national a cappella chorus competition, where they proved the strength of girl power over some of the biggest choirs in the country. Beca, Emily, Chloe, Aubrey, Cynthia-Rose, Stacie, Lilly, Jessica and Fat Amy have got bigger fish to fry these days, as they eye up global competition ahead of the daunting international contest. They may have bags of confidence, but as no American chorus has ever managed to land the coveted prize before, it may not be enough to get them through this time. Nonetheless, it's time these girls tested their odds against the greatest collective voices on the planet, even if their new rivals are showing some seemingly matchless talent.

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21 And Over Review

By Rich Cline

OK

The writers of The Hangover stick with the same formula for this university-aged romp about three young guys who get far too drunk for their own good. It even opens on the morning after (they're walking naked across campus) before cycling back to piece together what actually happened. But all of the humour is as cheap as it can be, merely laughing at stupid behaviour rather than mining much genuine comedy out of the situation. At least the actors find some chemistry along the way.

Our three chuckleheads are party-boy Miller (Teller), smart-guy Casey (Astin) and their pal Jeff Chang (Chon), who is turning 21 at midnight. This prompts Miller and Casey to propose a night of drunkenness to celebrate his legal drinking age in style. But Jeff has his med school interview in the morning, so they have to sneak past his terrifying dad (Chau) to have just one drink together. Unsurprisingly, this drink turns into an epic bar crawl, culminating in Jeff's unconsciousness. And since Miller and Casey can't remember where he lives, they go on a ludicrously convoluted quest to find his address. This involves enraging a sorority house, releasing the university's mascot buffalo and tormenting the tough-talking boyfriend (Keltz) of a cheerleader (Wright) who catches Casey's eye.

Obviously, there's one massive problem with this whole premise: a cold shower and a cup of coffee would revive Jeff pretty easily. But then, Miller and Casey wouldn't need to go through, say, eight levels of frat-house drinking games to find a guy who might know Jeff's address. At least all of the antics give Teller and Astin a chance to deepen their characters a bit, mainly in the way they interact with each other as childhood pals who have taken unexpected turns along the way. Chon doesn't have quite as much to do with Jeff. Sure, he's been pushed into studying medicine by his fearsome dad, but he spends the entire movie in a drunken stupor.

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21 And Over Trailer

Jeff Chang is a typical high-achieving college student with a strict and proud father who is determined to get his son into medical school even if that means making him stay in on his 21st birthday in order to prepare for a crucial medical exam the next morning. However, Jeff is visited by his two best friends, who he has known forever, on his birthday night determined to drag him out for a night of fun, frolics and fraternisation with females. Predictably, the night turns into chaos as the three boys' antics spin out of control and Jeff finds himself being attacked by girls at a slumber party, drinking himself into a vomit soaked stupor, running through the streets in ladies underwear and having a run in with the cops. A typical night in the life of a college boy, however with Jeff's father on the warpath, Jeff's friends are feeling the pressure to get him to his exam the next day.

'21 And Over' serves as the directorial debut of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (collaborators on 'The Hangover' and 'Four Christmases') who were also responsible for writing the screenplay. The hilarity will be very familiar to those who know of the writing duo's previous projects and it's definitely set to be as much of a hit on its release on March 1st 2013.

Directors: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Continue: 21 And Over Trailer

Pitch Perfect Review

By Rich Cline

Essential

You can call this Glee meets Mean Girls if you want to, but this riotously intelligent comedy is much better than that. With one of the funniest scripts of the year, the film keeps us laughing all the way through, never running out of witty gags even when the rather predictable plot kicks into gear. But then, we never really care where the story's going when getting there is this much fun. And honestly, we never want this movie to end.

Anna Kendrick stars as Beca, a young woman who would rather mix mash-up tracks than attend a boring university. But here she is, so she decides to make a go of it by getting a job at the student radio station and joining the women's competitive a cappella group, the Bellas. But control-freak leader Aubrey (Camp) is annoyed to have the snarky Beca in her group, to say nothing of self-named Fat Amy (Wilson). Meanwhile, Beca's colleague at the radio station, Jesse (Astin), joins the champion male group the Troublemakers, led by the arrogant Bumper (DeVine). But as Beca and Jesse start to become friends, they risk running afoul of Aubrey's only rule: Bellas cannot date Troublemakers.

This rom-com plot isn't the focus of the film, nor is the impending a cappella championship, which we know from the start will be a showdown between the two groups. No, the focus is on the individual journeys of the characters, and even the smallest side characters are given space in which to grow on us. They're also brilliantly well-played by the entire cast, anchored by a solid, surprisingly layered turn from Kendrick. But the film's real scene-stealers are Banks and Higgins as competition commentators who reel off snappy jokes with such blinding speed that we can barely breathe whenever they're on screen.

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Pitch Perfect Trailer

Beca is a fairly aloof music lover who arrives at Barden University as a freshman apathetically unable to fit into any sort of clique on campus. She is approached by the leaders of an a capella girls singing group, The Bellas, who ask her if she would like to join. Beca declines insisting that she doesn't sing, however she is soon discovered by one of the leaders whilst she belts out some tunes in the shower and is almost forcibly dragged onto the team. The singing group turns out to be an odd mix of weird kids, mean ones and dumb but nice girls who all create the most amazing sound when bundled together for a song session; Beca fits into the diversity pretty easily. The group set out to compete against their counterparts, a formidable male singing group, in a college contest.

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Taking Woodstock Trailer

Watch the trailer for Taking Woodstock

Woodstock Festival was almost not meant to be, originally the permit was pulled, only when Elliot Tiber stepped in and spoke to the organisers offering them the use of his parents motel and his next door neighbour, Max Yasgur, land that things got rolling. Taking Woodstock starts the moving story of Elliot Tiber and his personal struggle to keep the family motel open, what eventually develops from Elliot's plans is way beyond anyone's expectation.

Directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee
UK Release date: 13th November 2009

Starring: Demetri Martin, Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Paul Dano, Henry Goodman, Imelda Staunton, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Jonathan Groff, Kelli Garner, Adam LeFevre, Edward Hibbert, Dan Fogler, Damian Kulash, Christina Kirk, Skylar Astin and Gabriel Sunday