Wait, Ray Liotta Was In Two MUPPET Movies?!!?

When Ray Liotta passed away last week, tributes poured in largely citing his intense performance as Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster classic GOODFELLAS, and his touching portrayal of Shoeless Joe Jackson in Phil Alden Robinson’s 1989 baseball drama, FIELD OF DREAMS. Liotta’s other notable work in various films and TV series got some print as well, but one vital item got glossed over, and that's the surprising, and very fun fact that the man appeared in two of the Muppet movies.

In Tim Hill’s MUPPETS FROM SPACE (1999), Liotta appears in the third act credited as “Gate Guard,” a typical authority-figure-our-heroes-have-to-get-past part. In order to infiltrate a top secret national security facility called C.O.V.N.E.T., Miss Piggy utilized her Mind Mist spray to manipulate Liotta, basically turning him into an agreeable, smiling idiot. Watch the scene:

15 years later, Liotta’s second cinematic run-in with the Muppets found him on the other side of the law. In James Bobin’s MUPPETS MOST WANTED (2014), Liotta plays a Gulag inmate named “Big Papa,” who mostly lingers in the background like an extra until the Siberian Gulag Revue, the prisoners’ annual talent show. That’s where we hear Big Papa declare “we like Boyz II Men,” and display some rough, but invested harmony singing.

In an interview with We Got This Covered, Liotta explained his involvement: “With the Muppets? We sing and dance. Me and Danny Trejo are in prison, Kermit is there as well as scattered other Muppets. Kermit gets thrown into jail because they think he’s somebody he’s not, and the identical of him, this guy Constantine, is going out and doing bad things. So yeah, we’re just singing and dancing. Tina Fey is the Warden, Ricky Gervais is somebody in it, it was a lot of fun. It’s really funny. It’s all singing and dancing.”

 

Another interview with Liotta, from the set of MUPPETS MOST WANTED with ScreenSlam, also shows us a bit of how much fun he was having on the shoot:

Now these cameos may seem trivial, maybe even the definition of trivial, but it’s significant to me because of Liotta’s tough guy persona, and that over the run of eight Muppet movies, the human guest stars rarely repeat. The only other example I can find is that Elliot Gould put in cameos in THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979), and THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN (1983), but Liotta’s walk-ons were just a little more substantial - one of them even has a name (“Big Papa”) while Gould’s were just “Beauty Contest Compare,” and “Cop at Pete’s” respectively.

 

It must be noted that Zach Galifianakis played the same character, Hobo Joe, in both THE MUPPETS (2011), and MUPPETS MOST WANTED, but the scruffy comic feels like more of a fit in the world of funny felt than Liotta for sure.

 

Liotta was only in a few other films of the family-friendly variety (or maybe only one, the animated Jerry Seinfeld vehicle, BEE MOVIE), which is why having two outings with Kermit the Frog and company stands out in his distinguished, and fairly dark filmography. It also seems like a necessary side-line since when looking over Liotta’s career, which spanned over four decades, and contained over 70 movies, I’m not seeing anywhere else where he could really get in some singing and dancing.  

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R.I.P. Larry King: Legendary Broadcaster/King of Cameos

While largely known as an iconic radio and television host, the late Larry King, who just passed away earlier today at the age of 87, has been in nearly 70 movies and TV shows in small but crucial roles where he portrayed himself for the most part. So I thought that while others are celebrating his lengthy career of interviewing every imaginable celebrity from Presidents to criminals, and every kind of newsmaker there is on talk radio and CNN, we would take a look at his second career as the King of the Cameos.

King’s first foray into show business was in 1961, when at 27-years old he played a DJ (of course) named Sleepy Sam on Miami Undercover. Check out a clip featuring King from the mostly forgotten black and white crime drama that only lasted a season:

It was almost a quarter of a century later that he got his big break, one that led to him being the go-to in many comedies. In 1984, King appeared in GHOSTBUSTERS in the magazine cover montage that was a trope of many movies at the time. You know, when our heroes gain instant stardom, and we see them in a montage that shows them on the cover of every magazine? That’s right, you got it (see also: TOOTSIE).

While GHOST BUSTERS credited his name, his next motion picture gig just identified him as “TV Talk Show Host.” But since that move was the little seen, and little liked EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS II: EDDIE LIVES!, it so doesn’t matter.

King got his name credit back in his next several movie appearances: CRAZY PEOPLE, THE EXORCIST III, and DAVE. Ivan Reitman’s DAVE featured King in one of his juiciest cameos, though at the time it was most likely seen as an Oliver Stone cameo. The film involved Kevin Kline as an earnest everyman who, because of his strong resemblance, is brought in to take the place of the President, who is in a coma. Stone, at a time when the controversy over his 1991 film JFK was still in the air, the Director goes on King’s show to point out that there are distinct differences in how the President looks now compared to before his stroke. “Do you think that you’re a little paranoid, Oliver?”

King spent a good deal of the ‘90s making guest appearances on seemingly every show that aired including The Larry Sanders Show, Coach, Murder One, Murphy Brown, Spin City, Frasier, and, of course, The Simpsons.

King’s connection to the Muppets was cemented in his turns on Muppets Tonight, Sesame Street, and his allowing Kermit to guest host Larry King Live on April Fool’s Day in 1994.

During this same period, King showed up in THE LONG KISS GOODBYE, CONTACT, OPEN SEASON (not to be confused with the 2006 animated family film or its sequels), MAD CITY, PRIMARY COLORS, BULWORTH, ENEMY OF THE STATE, THE JACKYL, and the horrid oddity that is AN ALAN SMITHEE FILM: BURN HOLLYWOOD BURN.

King didn’t slow down in the next few decades, in fact, as if the Simpsons wasn’t enough, he doubled down on voicing cartoon versions of himself. In the animated 2007 Jerry Seinfeld comedy, BEE MOVIE, he appeared as Bee Larry King:

In the 2012-2016 seres, Gravity Falls, he played Wax Larry King:

But in the SHREK franchise, King played a character not based his persona: Doris, the Ugly Stepsister. King first played the part in SHREK 2 (2004), then reprised the role in SHREK THE THIRD (2007), and SHREK FOREVER AFTER (2010):

King’s cameos continued in such films as THE CONTENDER, JOHN Q, THE STEPFORD WIVES remake, a movie actually called THE REMAKE, SWING VOTE, CHLOE & THEO, THE POWER OF FEW, and something called DUDE BRO PARTY MASSACRE III, in which he played a character named Coach Handsey.

TV work during the same era was just as busy as he did more than one Law & Order series, poked fun at himself on the shows 30 Rock, Boston Legal, and 1600 Penn; got serious on multiple episodes of American Crime Story, and put in many hilarious appearances on Conan O’Brien’s TBS program, Conan, over the years.

King’s connection to the Muppets was cemented in his turns on Muppets Tonight, Sesame Street, and his allowing Kermit to guest host Larry King Live on April Fool’s Day in 1994.

King will be certainly be missed, but he left a lot behind in his stamps on so many movies and TV shows so we’ll keep seeing him pop up in unexpected (and expected) for ages. One interesting tidbit that I’m sure will delight fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that comic book mastermind Stan Lee (1922-2018) portrayed King in a brief moment in IRON MAN 2:

Pretty neat to see one icon portray another, huh? I had actually forgotten about this as I’ve pretty much forgotten all of IRON MAN 2.

But back to the King:

R.I.P. Larry King (1933-1921)

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Film Babble Blog's Top 10 Favorite Cinematic Sight Gags

Back in the day, I used to post listicles (before they were called listicles) of movie tropes that I would attempt to amusingly connect to break up the flow of review after review. So with the upcoming glut of year-end releases plus the stress of the holiday season coming (not to mention the craziness of the post election season we're going through) I thought I’d rekindle that idea and do something silly – list my top 10 favorite movie sight gags.

The following are what I consider meme-worthy screen shots from the obvious suspects: Monty Python, Zucker brothers, Mel Brooks, super hero movies, etc, They’re the engrained images, mostly from my childhood, that always make me laugh when I think of them. So here goes:

1. The shit hits the fan in AIRPLANE!

(Dirs. David & Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, 1980)

Almost every other shot in the line of movie spoofs made by the Zucker brothers (David & Jerry) and Jim Abrahams is a sight gag – some brilliant; some idiotic. The one that most appeals to me is an absurdly literal visual joke from their classic disaster film satire AIRPLANE! that involves Ted Striker (Robert Hays), who’s been called in to land Boeing 707 (Trans American Flight 209) after the pilots have been taken ill. Striker: “The oil pressure, I forgot to check the oil pressure. When Kramer hears about this, the shit's gonna hit the fan.” The film then cuts to a shot of actual shit hitting a fan in the airport control room. Hey, I warned you above that there would be stupidity.

2. Clark Kent can't find an old school phone booth in SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (Dir. Richard Donner, 1978)

As an eight-year old kid, I remember the laughter from the audience being really big when Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) was first called into action in the first big screen Superman movie and found that the walk-in phone booths of the past, that he regularly used to change into his suit in the comics, were largely non-existent. Reeves’ expression at this realization of modern times is priceless.

3. The town sign for Plotpointburg in MUPPETS MOST WANTED (Dir. James Bobin, 2014)

Sure, MUPPETS MOST WANTED isn’t the best of Muppets movies, but it’s far from the worst, and this meta gag about how their European-set adventure, the latest in the cinematic series that was rebooted by Bobbins and Jason Segel in 2011, was adhering to a tried and true formula, got the biggest laugh of any of the jokes in their 2014 follow-up.

4. Sherrif Justice's restroom faux pas in SMOKEY & THE BANDIT (Dir. Hal Needham, 1977) 

The second biggest grossing movie of 1977 (STAR WARS was the biggest – duh!) had its share of dumb visual jokes, but this one which had Sherrif Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) leaving the men’s room at a truckstop with a line of toilet-paper following him out the door really made me giggle as a kid. According to Wikipedia, Burt Reynolds said that it was Gleason’s “idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pantleg” in the scene. I may just have to agree with writer Tyler Coates, who said in his Decider post about seeing the film for the first time, that the shot may be “the greatest toilet-paper sight gag in the history of motion pictures.”

5. A 23rd century McDonald's in SLEEPER (Dir. Woody Allen, 1973)

Many of Woody Allen’s movies have sight gags, especially his “early funny ones,” but this particular one has stayed with me as it’s a really outdated, but still funny joke. In the film, which concerns Allen’s Miles Monroe, a nebbish NY neorotic (duh!) waking up 200 years in the future, our protagonist walks by a 23rd Century McDonald’s that has a sign boasting “Over 795,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000" Served.”

In the IMDb trivia section for SLEEPER, it is noted that “if translated into American numeration this value would be Seven Hundred, Ninety-five sexdecillion," a value with 51 zeroes. By comparison, Avogadro's Number, 6023E23 (or 6.023^23), or "mole," is a value normally used to count atoms or molecules, and, incidentally, thought to be about the number of grains of sand on all the beaches on earth, give or take a couple orders of magnitude. The value of 795 sexdecillion is very nearly a mole of moles.”

As McDonald’s was a somewhat seemingly new fad of a fast food chain in the early ‘70s, you can see why Allen made this joke. Though these days, it seems like a hell of an under-estimate.

6. Combing the desert in SPACEBALLS (Dir. Mel Brooks, 1987)

Another Jewish comedian turned ‘70s comedy star, Mel Brooks, also had many sight gags in his films. In the late ‘80s, Brooks’ schtick was pretty played out, but that didn’t stop him from making a spoof of the STAR WARS films and modern movie sci-fi in general called SPACEBALLS. One of its most memorable involved Rick Moranis’ Darth Vader spoof Dark Helmet ordering his troops to “comb the desert” for the missing Princess Vespa, and, of course, they do just that.

Maybe a funnier sight gag in SPACEBALLS was in the film’s few minutes, in which there was a parody of the opening of the original STAR WARS’ long, continous shot of a ginormous starship. That one, isn’t as well captured in a gif though.

7. The Black Knight's limb loss in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Dirs. Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)

More ‘70s sight gag funniness comes from the iconic British comedy group Monty Python, whose films are full of them. I’ll go with this one from their 1975 classic MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, in which a black knight gets both his arms chopped off yet afterwards still continues fighting. The blood gushing was a new thing for a comedy film in that era (Dan Aykroyd's Julia Childs SNL bit around that same time  hit the same vein - sorry), so this was as groundbreaking as it was hilarious.

As a runner-up, I’ll go with this shot from MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN which happens after Brian (Graham Chapman) has been up all night following a strict Roman Centurion’s (John Cleese) orders (again with the literal following of orders) to paint “Romani ite domum,” which means “Romans go home,” a hundred times all over the Roman Palace’s walls:

8. Steve Martin cleans his gun in DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID
(Dir. Carl Reiner, 1981)

Okay, so either the ‘70s-‘80s is the glorious age of cinematic sight gags or I’m just old and that’s the era that I most identify with, but I have to go with either this Steve Martin should be comedy classic’s shot of Martin’s detective character Rigby Reardon cleaning his handgun in a sink with a bottle brush, or the tie shot that has him shaving his tongue. How either of these really satire the world of Humphrey Bogart-era gumshoe film noir is debatable, but I still find both damn funny.

9. TIE: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (Dir. David Silverman, 2007) & AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (Dir. Jay Roach, 1997)





Both of these films feature sight gags involving the obscuring of the male member. I don’t feel I need to explain any more than that.

10. Brick Tamland's reaction to his dismembered TV image in ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGANDY (Dir. Adam McKay, 2004)

Although Will Ferrell's big deal newscaster Ron Burgandy could be seen as a walking sight gag (as could just about every character he's ever played), it’s Steve Carrell’s character in the 2004 '70s news spoof, Brick Tamland, freaking out because his green pants made his legs disappear on a weather green screen that makes the cut here.

Okay! So what are your favorite sight gags? Let me, and other readers, know in the comments below.

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The MUPPETS Follow-up: Funny But Felt Too Long

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

MUPPETS MOST WANTED
(Dir. James Bobin, 2014)

The Muppets are back in “the seventh sequel since their original motion picture,” as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew informs us in the opening song and dance number (“We’re Doing a Sequel”), to prove that they don’t need Jason Segel’s help anymore to forge the franchise ahead. 

Since the first sequel to 1979’s THE MUPPET MOVIE, was a jewel heist scenario set overseas (1981’s THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER), returning director Bobin, co-writing with Nicholas Stoller have apparently decided that the new follow-up to the 2011 franchise reboot, THE MUPPETS, should go the same route.

That's fine by me because, unlike, say, J.J. Abram's STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, the movie doesn't retread the same ground blindly. It uses its premise for a springboard for a bunch of new inspired nonsense; it doesn't repeat as much as a single joke from before.

As one of human guest star leads, Ricky Gervais pops up as a slick promoter to suggest to Kermit the Frog: “How about the Muppets go on a world tour?” and we're off. Ignoring the red flag that Gervais' name is Dominic Badguy (“pronounced bædgee, it's French.”), The Muppets put on a series of shows on a tour that includes stops in Berlin, Madrid and London.

We learn in Plotpointburg (yep) that Gervais is Number Two to the world’s Number One criminal, Constantine, who happens to be Kermit's exact double, well, except for a distinctive mole. Constantine (voiced with a heavy Russian accent by Matt Fogel) frames Kermit by planting a fake mole on him, which gets him captured and placed in prison, a Siberian Gulag run by Tina Fey, also laying the Russian accent on thick.

Constantine takes Kermit’s place - despite his accent and demeanor none of the other Muppets notice (well, Animal does but nobody pays attention) – so that he and Gervais can pull off museum and bank robberies while the others put on their noisy shows in the neighboring venues.

Another of the highlighted humans, Modern Family’s Ty Burrell is on board as an Inspector Clouseau-ish Interpol agent who works with Sam the Eagle to track down the thieves, and somehow they are able to fit in cameos by such celebrities as Lady Gaga, Christoph Waltz (dancing a waltz, of course), Frank Langella, Céline Dion, and Ray Liotta (who was also in MUPPETS IN SPACE incidentally).

This is all funny stuff, and Brett McKenzie’s incredibly catchy witty songs are all just as strong as his Oscar winning “Man or Muppet” from THE MUPPETS - especially Constantine’s soul ballad sung to Miss Piggy: “I'll Get You What You Want (Cockatoo in Malibu)” – but at an hour and 53 minutes, the movie is way too long.

Even with every scene having at least one big legitimate laugh, a bunch of bits should’ve been shaved off to make this a tight 90 minutes or so. 

A scene in which we learn that Fey is a closet Kermit fan is cute but would’ve been better as a deleted scene on the later Blu ray/DVD release. Likewise some of the storyline involving Fey’s staging a production in prison with Kermit and his Gulag inmates (including McKenzie’s former Flight of the Conchords partner Jermaine Clement) could’ve been edited down a bit, as funny as it is to see Danny Trejo singing a verse of “The Casa Grande.”

Overall, I enjoyed MUPPETS MOST WANTED quite a bit, but just wanted it to end earlier. Bobin, Stoller, McKenzie, and all the Muppeteers (shout out to Dave Goelz, the only original member of the original Muppet team here) are doing a good job keeping the spirit of Henson’s warm and fuzzy vision alive, they just need to reign it in.

So here’s hoping that the Muppets next sequel, in which they’ll probably be Broadway bound, will find them putting on a tighter show with a much more reasonable running time.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 8/13/13

 

 

Antoine Fuqua’s action thriller OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN heads the batch of new releases today on a 2-disc Blu ray/DVD Combo edition (includes UltraViolet Digital Copy), and a single disc DVD version. The movie, starring Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, and Aaron Eckhart is as standard issue as the floating heads poster art on the packaging (as you can read in my review from last March), but there’s tons of Special Features anyway.

They include a couple of minutes of Bloopers, and several featurettes (“The Epic Ensemble,” “Under Surveillance,” “Deconstructing the Black Hawk Sequence,” “Ground Combat: Fighting the Terrorists,” and “Creating the Action: VFX and Design”) equaling roughly a half hour. After the nearly identical WHITE HOUSE DOWN, which I actually preferred, flopped earlier this summer, don’t expect be any more DIE HARD at the White House movies anytime soon.

 

A movie I missed, as did most folks did, when it was in theaters last April, Jason Zackham’s THE BIG WEDDING, also drops today on Blu ray and DVD, both in single disc editions. The poorly reviewed comedy stars Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, and, here’s the kicker: Katherine Heigl. Only one Special Feature on this clinker: a 16-minute featurette entitled “Coordinating THE BIG WEDDING.”

A film that fared much better is also available today: Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s modern day adaptation of Henry James’ 1897 novel WHAT MAISIE KNEW, out now in 2-disc Blu ray and 1-disc DVD editions.

Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan, Alexander Skarsgård, Joanna Vanderham, and the 6-year old Onata Aprile star in the well done divorce drama that I wrote wasn’t just KRAMER VS. KRAMER from the kid’s point of view in my review during its theatrical run in Raleigh last May. Special Features: a director’s commentary with McGhee and Siegel and a little over 7 minutes of deleted scenes.

 

I wasn’t alone in being unimpressed by Peter Webber’s post-World War II drama EMPEROR, starring Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones as General McArthur, as most critics hated it and audiences stayed away in droves, but here it is in spiffy single disc Blu ray and DVD editions with a bevy of bonus features anyway. Special Features: Commentary with Director Webber and Producer Yoko Narahashi, a 15-minute featurette “Revenge or Justice: The Making of Emperor,” deleted scenes, Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery, Historical Photo Gallery, and the theatrical trailer. So, if there are actually any EMPEROR fans out there, well, they should be pleased.
 

Robert Redford’s preachy political thriller THE COMPANY YOU KEEP, another bland offering out today on home video, also gets the single disc Blu ray (Blu-ray + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) and DVD treatment. The film which I called a “star studded dud” in my April review, comes packaged with 4 featurettes: “Behind the Scenes: The Movement,” “Behind the Scenes: The Script, Preparation and The Cast,” “On The Red Carpet” (from the New York premiere), and “Press Conference,” with Robert Redford, Stanley Tucci, Brit Marling and Jackie Evancho. Man, that bonus material sounds almost as thrilling as the film itself! I kid.

In my book, or more accurately on my blog, the best older title new to Blu ray this week is James Frawley’s 1979 family friendly classic THE MUPPET MOVIE in what’s billed as “The Nearly 35th Anniversary Edition.” Extras include such featurettes as “Director Jim Frawley’s Extended Camera Test,” “Pepe Profiles Present Kermit: A Frog's Life,” ‘Doc Hopper’s Commercial” (long live Charles Durning!), original trailers, and something called “Frog-E-Oke Sing-Along,” in which viewers can sing along to a few of the soundtrack classics (“Rainbow Connection,” “Movin’ Right Along,” and “Can You Picture That”) with the help of dynamic text.

Another great retro release of a movie making its debut on Blu ray this week is the Criterion Collection edition of John Frankenheimer’s 1966 thriller SECONDS, starring Rock Hudson, one of my all time favorite conspiracy movies. 

Special Features: the 15-minute video interview “Alec Baldwin on SECONDS,” a mini-documentary “A Second Look,” “Palmer and Pomerance on SECONDS” (a new visual essay by film scholars R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance), Archival Footage, a short video interview with Director Frankenheimer, “Hollywood on the Hudson” (a rare WNBC news special shot on location in Scarsdale, New York, during the filming of SECONDS in 1965), commentary with director John Frankenheimer from 1997, and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring an essay by critic David Sterritt.

TV series sets available this week include Girls: The Complete Second Season, Once Upon a Time: The Complete Second Season, Enlightened: The Complete Second Season, The Mindy Project: Season One, and Southland: The Complete Fifth and Final Season.

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THE MUPPETS: Go Ahead, Call It A Comeback

THE MUPPETS (Dir. James Bobin, 2011)

It’s not surprising that somebody would try to reboot the Muppets. I mean, every other franchise in the world has been dusted off in the last decade so why not Jim Henson’s once wildly popular creations?

And it’s not surprising that that somebody would be Jason Segel, the oafish man-child best known for his work with Judd Apatow and the hit TV series How I Met Your Mother. Segel is a huge Muppets fan, who previously proved he could provide puppetry power in the Dracula musical climax of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, so there’s that.

But what is surprising is that THE MUPPETS is really good.

Segel, with the assistance of co-writer Nicholas Stoller, and director James Bobin, has wonderfully captured the spirit of the Muppets I knew as a kid in the ‘70s and ‘80s, making it feel like the muddled Muppet movies made in the ‘90s never existed.

The film has quite a lengthy, yet quite enjoyable, buildup before we see our old felt friends in which we meet a new Muppet named Walter (voiced by Peter Linz), who lives in a small town (named Smalltown) with Segel as his brother Gary. You see, somehow Muppets can be related to humans – we never see their parents or get any explanation, which is just as well.

Segel, and his longtime girlfriend Amy Adams, take Walter to Los Angeles to visit the Muppet Theater and Muppet Studios, only to them find them to be abandoned cobweb-covered tourist attractions that an evil oilman named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is targeting to tear down so he can drill for oil.

So it’s up to Walter, Segel, and Adams to re-unite the Muppets so they can save their old digs. They find Kermit living in a dark mansion alone with his memories (well, and an ‘80s robot that serves Tab and New Coke – nice fitting retro joke, huh?).

Once they convince Kermit to join them, they’re off to find Fozzie Bear (in a sleazy Reno casino tribute band called “The Moopets”), Miss Piggy (now Fashion Editor of Paris Vogue), and the Great Gonzo (currently a corporate CEO of a plumbing empire). Most hilarious is Animal in court-appointed anger management therapy with Jack Black as his sponsor.

With the help of a montage they locate the others (Rowlf the Dog, the Swedish Chef, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beeker, Dr. Teeth, etc.), and they got a back-to-basics ‘hey, everybody let's put on a show' thing a-happenin'.

They have trouble getting a network to broadcast their telethon, as TV executive Rashida Jones tells them: “You guys aren’t famous anymore.” However Jones still gives them a shot, and the gang go full throttle to put on a money-raising spectacular in which almost every Muppet gets a chance to shine.

Bret McKenzie, from Flight of the Conchords, whose series was also helmed by director Bobin , wrote a few catchy songs for the production including the recurring theme “Life’s a Happy Song," and the Linz and Segel sung “Man or Muppet.”

I could’ve done without a few of the song/dance numbers – Amy Adams/Miss Piggy’s “Me Party” is a screen time waster, and Cooper’s rapping on “Let’s Talk About Me” is just plain awful - but for a great deal of its breezy 2 hour running time THE MUPPETS is a lot of fun.

Even the tacked on Segel/Adams rom com subplot (i.e. he forgets their 10th anniversary dinner in the midst of Muppet madness) doesn’t detract from the large amount of pure cinematic happiness on hand here.

I loved how so much of the meta material was laugh out loud funny, really enjoyed the abundant cameos which I won’t spoil, and was impressed at how dead-on the Muppet voices are – especially Steven Whitmire who has been doing Kermit since Henson died in 1991, and has often sounded a little off, but thankfully not here for the most part.

It’s certainly the best Muppet movie since Henson died, but it’s much more than that. Segel and co. have pulled off a tribute that revitalizes the furry family friendly franchise in the most welcome way.

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GONZO: Fawning & Loafing On The Bio-Doc Trail

GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON (Dir. Alex Gibney, 2008)




Every book on my shelf has a different definition of the word “Gonzo”; it’s a style of journalism, it’s an ethic - when I was a kid it was a Muppet. The basic meaning, as best I can gather, is when a commentator, reporter et al. is so intensely immersed in their story that they become part of it. 


The alternate meanings can be summed as an ‘in your face’ fact and fiction blurred aesthetic where anything goes. Despite Spanish or Italian roots (again depends on what book you read) the term became part of the popular lexicon in the introduction of an article by Hunter S. Thompson in 1970. Thompson who by then already had a reputation as an gun-toting druggie “Freak Power” anarchist is the subject of this over reverant documentary by Oscar winning dierctor Alex Gibney (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE).


Thompson spent much of the last 40 years in front of a camera when he wasn’t shooting up (in every possible way) so there is much fascinating footage to wade through with news reports about his Hell's Angels meddling, talk show appearances, and amatuer film of his campaign for Mayor of Aspen, Colorado making for a juicy narrative. 


Johnny Depp, who played the man in Terry Gilliam’s 1998 adaptation of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (which this film uses too many clips from), frames a number of segments with readings from Thompson’s work but since that device drops and he isn’t heard from throughout lengthy chunks of the film he can’t really be considered a narrator though he’s credited as such. 


Then there’s the music - with some of the most obvious 60’s songs employed to make easy points this has to go down as one of the least imaginative soundtracks for a period doc ever. I mean, how many times am I gonna have to see “All Along The Watchtower” * cut to war footage? Stones, Joplin, CCR, Lou Reed's “Walk On The Wild Side”; come on! Gibney makes a movie that feels like it was made by somebody whose never seen any 60’s or 70’s docs before. 


It’s also so not neccessary to go through the deaths and overused footage of MLK, RFK, and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon to get to the heart of Hunter S. Thompson but there it is and go through it again I guess we’re doomed to do forever. * To the films credit the version of “Watchtower” used is from Bob Dylan and The Band's live performance on “Before The Flood” (1974) not the incredibly done to death (movie-wise that is) Hendrix version. 


Concentrating mostly on Thompson’s early career and glossing over the rest since the 70’s to his death in 2005, GONZO does have its merits. There are interviews with the charming yet still smarmy asshole Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, former Nixon-aid turned Republican Presidential candidate now full-time Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (who surprisingly has reams of insight), 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern, and especially Thompson’s ex-wife Sandy Conklin Thompson (whose name is now Sondi Wright). 


There are many great anecdotes with Ralph Steadman's iconic splattered cartoons injecting the proceedings with some much needed rough edges. 


For the uninitiated this portrait may be an eye opening overview; to those well versed in the counterculture and the beginnings of the “new media” this may come off as an incomplete too respectful playing of Thompson’s greatest hits with very little new insight gleemed. 


In the end it’s just more than a bit disapointing that a film about the Gonzo mind-set and output of one of the most notorious and unruly writers of the last half century could be such a standard straight forward bio-doc; in other words so non-Gonzo. 


More later...

10 Movie Moments That Broke The 4th Wall

“What a pisser” - Ted Striker (Robert Hays) turning to the camera after being told off by girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagerty) in AIRPLANE! (Dirs. Jim Abraham, David & Jerry Zucker 1980)

Here I go again with another meta-movie list! The phrase “breaking the fourth wall” has been around for over a century. Though as a concept it's been around since before Shakespeare the phrase itself originates from the theater of Bertolt Brecht. It simply meant that a character makes an aside to the audience. Through the invisible wall those watching are addressed, acknowledged and made to feel a little more “in on the joke” so to speak. It’s a device used a lot more in television than on film.


In the '80s it even became fairly fashionable on such shows like Moonlighting and It’s Garry Shandling’s Show – a show that had as its entire premise comedian Shandling talking directly to the studio audience and the viewers at home. The Marx Brothers may have pioneered the concept in cinema with Groucho’s many knowing winks but Bob Hope really nailed it in the seminal road movies he made with Bing Crosby which is where we’ll begin:

1. ROAD TO MOROCCO (Dir. David Butler, 1942) 

Bob Hope is the reigning king of breaking the 4th wall for this classic alone. His character Oliver ‘Turkey’ Jackson has an immortal momment when he loses his detached wiseacre demeanor when he desperately declares “I can't go on! No food, no water. It's all my fault. We're done for! It's got me. I can't stand it! No food, nothing! No food, no water! No food!” As the voice of reason his friend Jeff (Bing Crosby) says “What's the matter with you, anyway?…We'll be picked up in a few minutes.” Hope in all his irrefutable glory responds “you had to open your big mouth and ruin the only good scene I got in the picture. I might have won the Academy Award!” That’s par for the course in a movie that actually has a camel comment - "This is the screwiest picture I was ever in."

2. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE

(Dir. Peter R. Hunt, 1969)

This is seriously significant because breaking the 4th wall was used to break in the new Bond. George Lazenby had one of the hardest jobs in cinema history – to be the first to fill the shoes of Sean Connery in the iconic role of 007. To make matters even more intimidating this was a Bond adventure with substance – one that he gets married in for Christ’s sake!

Bond's intro had to matter – it had to have him make a mark and it had to acknowledge the audience’s incoming notion that this guy wasn’t the guy they were used to.

So in what every Bond picture has - a cold opening - we see Bond tooling around Portugal in his classic Aston Martin having an instant of near road-rage (we don't see his face in close-up), parking to watch the driver (Diana Rigg) that cut him off attempting suicide by walking into the ocean. He watches through a gun sight mind you. He frantically pulls his car down and runs out to the beach to save her. He drags her out of the water and we get to see his face as he does the customary intro “Bond, James Bond” but immediately adversaries are on his back.

A moon-lit beach fight ensues and of course Bond defeats his attackers but Rigg departs eschewing all pleasantries. After picking up her discarded shoes Lazenby remarks “this never happened to the other fellow”. Priceless for many reasons but chiefly because it acknowledged that there was a much loved “other fellow” and while Lazenby didn’t look directly into the camera ‘til after he said the line – the self consciousness was reigned in. Didn’t save him from being a Bond one-termer but still.

3. ANIMAL HOUSE (Dir. John Landis, 1978)

According to IMDb this is a Landis trademark : “He often has his characters look into camera lens to make eye contact with the audience or 'break frame'". It’s true – it is all over his film work but most definitively when the late great John Belushi climbs up a ladder to view naked sorority girls and when getting what he thinks is a “money shot” turns to do his eye brow signature right at us.

Another trademark breaking the 4th came a few years later in SPIES LIKE US – this time Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase were trying to do their version of a Hope/Crosby road movie. During a stressful scene when our beloved SNL bumblers were pretending to be medical staff in Soviet Central Asia - the king of 4th wall demolition - Bob Hope himself appears as if in perpetual golfer mode - "Ah! Mind if I play through? (acknowledges Ackroyd and Chase) Doctor.. Doctor.. I'm glad I'm not sick." * While this is indeed a Landis trademark on the TRADING PLACES commentary Eddie Murphy says it came from being so used to mugging at the camera on Saturday Night Live.

4. FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF

(Dir. John Hughes, 1986) 

There are many instances of Hughes’s characters talking directly to the camera but Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is purely definitive as a narrator, commentator, and chastizer – like Animal in THE MUPPET MOVIE he even tells the audience to go home at the end. Bueller's great moment in breaking the 4th walldom is when he informs us on the best methods of faking sick to get out of going to school (as if you didn't know the premise). I believe this is one of the reasons that this is former Vice President Dan Quayle’s favorite movie.

After his parents exit Ferris looks us in the eye and says “Incredible! One of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second.”

Special mention goes to PRETTY IN PINK (1986) At the prom conclusion Ducky (Jon Cryer) looks directly in the camera and knowingly nods after being given a come-on look by a girl on the dance floor.

5. JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK

(Dir. Kevin Smith, 2001) 

As a self pro-claimed Hughes disciple Smith has to work the ‘to camera asides’ but in this movie he may have overdone it a tad. For example – playing themselves Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have a fight on the set of the fictitious GOOD WILL HUNTING 2 : HUNTING SEASON (Yes I know, another film within a film) in which Affleck tries to school Damon : “You're like a child. What've I been telling you? You gotta do the safe picture. Then you can do the art picture. But then sometimes you gotta do the payback picture because your friend says you owe him.” They both turn and look at the camera for an obvious dig at Smith.

The overdoing it comes from this bit in the same film also involving Affleck who this time plays his CHASING AMY character Holden who warns - “I mean, I don't think I'm alone in the world in imagining this flick may be the worst idea since Greedo shooting first. You know it, but... a Jay and Silent Bob movie? Feature length? Who'd pay to see that?” Holden, Jay (Jason Mewes), and Silent Bob (Smith) all look right at us – and to really set things off - Silent Bob gives a smiling double thumbs-up.

6. TOP SECRET (Dir. Jerry Zucker, 1982) 

There are many audience acknowledging nods throughout the Zucker Brothers canon like the one quoted at the top of this blogpost but this Zucker scene really drives the point home: Val Kilmer’s Elvis derived '50s heart throb singer Nick Rivers pours his heart out: “Listen to me Hillary. I'm not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover who she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground." Hillary (Lucy Gutteridge) responds “I know. It all sounds like some bad movie.” They both recoil then look our way as if to say ‘did you get that?’ And speaking of 'getting that':

7. SPACEBALLS (Dir. Mel Brooks, 1987) 

After being given the plot synopsis Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) looks at the camera and says "Everybody got that?" but most notably is the scene in which he and his minions actually put in a videocasette of SPACEBALLS to see what happens next and see themselves looking at themselves onscreen. Dark Helmet says : “what the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?” Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) responds : “now. You're looking at now sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.” Too bad this didn’t help this decade too late STAR WARS satire to be more “in the moment.”

8. JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone, 1991) 

I know, I know – every list I make has this film on it. Not only because it’s one of my all time favorite films but it does hold the monopoly on movie extras – deleted scenes, cameos, edits, and cinema contrivances galore confirm that it’s forever bloggable. That aside I really couldn’t leave out the moment that Garrison (Costner) wraps up his lengthy court summation by saying : “We, the people, the jury system sitting in judgement on Clay Shaw represent the hope of humanity against government power. In discharging your duty to bring a first conviction in this house of cards against Clay Shaw ‘ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’

Do not forget your dying king. Show this world that this is still a government ‘of the people, for the people and by the people’ Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important – it’s up to you.” As the camera goes upward but still holds Costner’s direct camera gaze we get a feeling that this breaking the 4th wall stuff isn’t just comedy kids stuff. Which brings us to:

9. WAYNE’S WORLD (Dir. Penelope Spheeris, 1992)

Like Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers has a SNL mugging at the camera background and the characters here come from a cable access show in which they talk directly to the camera so of course they would continue to bash holes in the ever so fraglie fourth wall. Funnily enough they use it to satirize product placement at the same time. Wayne tells sleazy TV exec Rob Lowe that he"will not bow to any sponsor" as he poses with a bag of Doritos, a piece of pizza from Pizza Hut, takes some Nuprin, and tops it all off with a swig of Pepsi. He grins at us and even says the slogan "it's the choice of a new generation."

10. THE MUPPET MOVIE (Dir. James Frawley, 1979)

Kermit and the other Muppets (my word program insists this should be capitalized) regularly consult the screenplay on their journey to stardom so it's unsurprising but still hilarious when Floyd Pepper (Jerry Nelson) says "well, if this were the movies..." and Dr. Teeth (Jim Henson) adds "which it is", Floyd continues "...we'd think of a clever plot device" then Scooter (Richard Hunt) energetically finishes "like disguising their car so they won't be recognized!"

Yep, when in doubt just think of how it would be done in the movies. It'll save you every time. Okay! That's enough meta-movie mania for right now - gotta go star in my own movie. Good luck with yours.

More later...