(no subject)
Last night I finally got around to seeing The Muppets. Today I have spent a few hours watching Muppet-related things.
I really liked it! It was interesting what got to me: of course it is a nostalgic movie (they based the plot on that, didn't they?) but I found it interesting how we're presented with two characters, Gary and Walter, who are stuck in a rut. They don't know that they're stuck in a rut: they're happy with their lives, but they've made no move to change the status quo. Walter is dependent on Gary, and Gary would rather let that go on than propose to his girlfriend of ten years. Neither of them want to face the hard matter of saying, "You know what? Maybe things would be better if this changed."
Which is echoed by the Muppets. Whatever happened to break them up (I'm glad the story didn't elaborate; it would have been distracting and probably depressing), it seems that Kermit is somewhat responsible, and it turns out that what he needed to do was apologize and start pulling things back together. Which isn't easy. (In fact, the one thing I think the movie could'a done was give more focus to Kermit going from regret and apologies to his old fearless leader role.)
Kermit's song in the mansion was heartbreaking. Holy cow.
The tension in the Man or Muppet song was beautiful. Gary and Walter each had to make the decision they'd been avoiding: who are they, really? It's not abandonment for Gary to start a new life with Mary. It's not betrayal for Walter to join the Muppets. It's just the next stage of life. And yeah, things will be different, but things will always be different, the question is how? (Also, surprise Jim Parsons cameo! Nice!)
The love stories were the rare kind that didn't make me want to hit something. I was kinda worried they would, but I don't think the movie made it look like Mary was somehow incomplete without Gary, rather that she loved him and his inability to commit was driving her nuts. And so she gets fed up and tells him, "Choose!" Which, there are some women who make unreasonable demands, but I think Mary's was quite reasonable.
Likewise, I liked that Miss Piggy was successful without Kermit. It wasn't the fame or the money that brought her back, and she's capable of making her own way, and even more interestingly, when he didn't say what she wanted, she still came back - for the sake of the other Muppets. (Given Piggy's Kermit-fixation, it's nice that this hints how much she likes everyone else.)
There was plenty of their trademark meta-humor: picking people up "via montage", traveling "by map", "If I didn't know better, I'd say that was an important plot point!" And the just-as-awesome zaniness: kidnapping Jack Black, the barbershop-quartet rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Gonzo pulling out a giant red plastic button for blowing up his toilet business, the Swedish Chef torching the fridge contents, and my personal favorite, the car driving out of the ocean and up onto the beach.
And then, center-stage, the nostalgia. They laid it on thick, and I didn't care: references to previous movies and the old show, as subtle as Gonzo going back to plumbing, up through the Mad Man Mooney snippet, onto the Muppet Show theme with stunning new sets and shimmering colors, and then we hit that glorious rendition of "Rainbow Connection", and yeah. I got chills.
From the scene where they kidnap Jack Black, it's like the movie hits overdrive, saying, This is why we are awesome! This is why a variety show from the 70's still makes you laugh! This is the comedy genius that you've been missing! And you know, we are missing it. I think if you got the right writers back together, and some artist and designers with twisted imaginations, and a few good actors, we could totally have a new Muppet Show. (Trouble is, anybody with that kind of genius is probably inventing their own thing. Which isn't bad...)
It's interesting. When people talk about the Muppets, I get the idea that people see them one of two ways: either they latch onto the sweetness or the madness. The genius of the Muppets is that they have both. They're sweet: they're genuinely nice, they're just trying to get laughs, they're not mean-spirited or cynical, and they're out to have a good time. At the same time, they're insane. An episode of The Muppet Show is forty-five minutes of zingers and weirdness, with some satire thrown in for good measure. Various monsters eat each other. Things are blown up. Waldorf and Statler heckle it all. And I think, therein lies the key: there's something elvish about them, something utterly wild, but you keep watching because you know it's all in good fun, that the creatures who got eaten will show up again in the next scene, and that Jack Black probably asked to have his head shrunk.
The odd thing is, I think it's the zaniness that gives the Muppets their gravity. They take almost nothing seriously, so anything they do take seriously must be serious indeed. We sit up and we listen.
When Kermit stands on that staircase and tells the rest of the Muppets that failing together isn't failure at all, you believe it. A green piece of felt - a sixty-one-year-old fictional character - a frog puppet with ping-pong-ball eyes with a goofy voice, famous for the way he throws his head back and flails his arms when happy - in a world full of CGI and animatronics and motion-capture and incredible prosthetics, this cloth sock with a hand up its bum gives a little speech that in any other mouth would be sugar and schmaltz, and it works. Because these mad little creatures are devestated. Because someone put a stop to their fun. Because all that really matters to them is laughing and being silly and having a good time together, and forget the fame and fortune, they just want to entertain and to do it as a team. And this is their leader, the manager of the madness, the almost-infinitely patient frog who somehow turns their insanity into a show, and they respect him. Therefore we respect him. Because it's Kermit.
Aw, geez. I gotta go buy all the movies now, don't I? *g*
I really liked it! It was interesting what got to me: of course it is a nostalgic movie (they based the plot on that, didn't they?) but I found it interesting how we're presented with two characters, Gary and Walter, who are stuck in a rut. They don't know that they're stuck in a rut: they're happy with their lives, but they've made no move to change the status quo. Walter is dependent on Gary, and Gary would rather let that go on than propose to his girlfriend of ten years. Neither of them want to face the hard matter of saying, "You know what? Maybe things would be better if this changed."
Which is echoed by the Muppets. Whatever happened to break them up (I'm glad the story didn't elaborate; it would have been distracting and probably depressing), it seems that Kermit is somewhat responsible, and it turns out that what he needed to do was apologize and start pulling things back together. Which isn't easy. (In fact, the one thing I think the movie could'a done was give more focus to Kermit going from regret and apologies to his old fearless leader role.)
Kermit's song in the mansion was heartbreaking. Holy cow.
The tension in the Man or Muppet song was beautiful. Gary and Walter each had to make the decision they'd been avoiding: who are they, really? It's not abandonment for Gary to start a new life with Mary. It's not betrayal for Walter to join the Muppets. It's just the next stage of life. And yeah, things will be different, but things will always be different, the question is how? (Also, surprise Jim Parsons cameo! Nice!)
The love stories were the rare kind that didn't make me want to hit something. I was kinda worried they would, but I don't think the movie made it look like Mary was somehow incomplete without Gary, rather that she loved him and his inability to commit was driving her nuts. And so she gets fed up and tells him, "Choose!" Which, there are some women who make unreasonable demands, but I think Mary's was quite reasonable.
Likewise, I liked that Miss Piggy was successful without Kermit. It wasn't the fame or the money that brought her back, and she's capable of making her own way, and even more interestingly, when he didn't say what she wanted, she still came back - for the sake of the other Muppets. (Given Piggy's Kermit-fixation, it's nice that this hints how much she likes everyone else.)
There was plenty of their trademark meta-humor: picking people up "via montage", traveling "by map", "If I didn't know better, I'd say that was an important plot point!" And the just-as-awesome zaniness: kidnapping Jack Black, the barbershop-quartet rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Gonzo pulling out a giant red plastic button for blowing up his toilet business, the Swedish Chef torching the fridge contents, and my personal favorite, the car driving out of the ocean and up onto the beach.
And then, center-stage, the nostalgia. They laid it on thick, and I didn't care: references to previous movies and the old show, as subtle as Gonzo going back to plumbing, up through the Mad Man Mooney snippet, onto the Muppet Show theme with stunning new sets and shimmering colors, and then we hit that glorious rendition of "Rainbow Connection", and yeah. I got chills.
From the scene where they kidnap Jack Black, it's like the movie hits overdrive, saying, This is why we are awesome! This is why a variety show from the 70's still makes you laugh! This is the comedy genius that you've been missing! And you know, we are missing it. I think if you got the right writers back together, and some artist and designers with twisted imaginations, and a few good actors, we could totally have a new Muppet Show. (Trouble is, anybody with that kind of genius is probably inventing their own thing. Which isn't bad...)
It's interesting. When people talk about the Muppets, I get the idea that people see them one of two ways: either they latch onto the sweetness or the madness. The genius of the Muppets is that they have both. They're sweet: they're genuinely nice, they're just trying to get laughs, they're not mean-spirited or cynical, and they're out to have a good time. At the same time, they're insane. An episode of The Muppet Show is forty-five minutes of zingers and weirdness, with some satire thrown in for good measure. Various monsters eat each other. Things are blown up. Waldorf and Statler heckle it all. And I think, therein lies the key: there's something elvish about them, something utterly wild, but you keep watching because you know it's all in good fun, that the creatures who got eaten will show up again in the next scene, and that Jack Black probably asked to have his head shrunk.
The odd thing is, I think it's the zaniness that gives the Muppets their gravity. They take almost nothing seriously, so anything they do take seriously must be serious indeed. We sit up and we listen.
When Kermit stands on that staircase and tells the rest of the Muppets that failing together isn't failure at all, you believe it. A green piece of felt - a sixty-one-year-old fictional character - a frog puppet with ping-pong-ball eyes with a goofy voice, famous for the way he throws his head back and flails his arms when happy - in a world full of CGI and animatronics and motion-capture and incredible prosthetics, this cloth sock with a hand up its bum gives a little speech that in any other mouth would be sugar and schmaltz, and it works. Because these mad little creatures are devestated. Because someone put a stop to their fun. Because all that really matters to them is laughing and being silly and having a good time together, and forget the fame and fortune, they just want to entertain and to do it as a team. And this is their leader, the manager of the madness, the almost-infinitely patient frog who somehow turns their insanity into a show, and they respect him. Therefore we respect him. Because it's Kermit.
Aw, geez. I gotta go buy all the movies now, don't I? *g*