If, Like Me …
… you grew up watching “The Muppet Show” in syndication in the 1970s and still have fond memories of that first, immortal “Muppet Movie” flick, then this will do your heart good. An added bonus, the new film includes “Freaks and Geeks” star Jason Segel and the adorable Amy Adams.
Here’s what Salon has to say about “Green with Envy,” which hits theaters this Thanksgiving:
“From the beginning, Jim Henson’s Muppets have placed a high premium on their own self-referential humor, bridging the gap between children’s humor and the meta-narrative of a show-within-a-“Muppets Show.”
Though the past two decades saw a decline in their public appearances (the forgettable “The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz” was their last feature film), in the past two years the variety stars have staged a comeback. There was the Muppet YouTube channel, launched in 2009, where the puppets gained back some of their lost cred with covers of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Internet commentary by original trolls Statler and Waldorf, and short sketches. There were unofficial appearances with LCD Soundsystem in “Dance Yrself Clean” and late night cameos.
Most heartening of all, there was news of “Freaks and Geeks” actor Jason Segel writing a new Muppet film, to be directed by “Flight of the Conchord’s” James Bobin. As the cast list expanded to include every Apatow prodigy and alt-comedian out there, it became obvious that this was the film to revitalize the franchise and make Kermit cool again.”
It May Be Getting …
… uneven reviews, but moviegoers lined up to see the latest installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” this weekend. The Johnny Depp-starrer led this weekend’s take.
Here’s this weekend, by the numbers:
Name: Weekend: Total:
Pirates $90.10M $90.10M
Bridesmaids $21.06M $59.52M
Thor $15.50M $145.41M
Fast Five $10.63M $186.22M
Rio $4.65M $131.65M
Priest $4.60M $23.68M
Jumping The Broom $3.70M $31.32M
Something Borrowed $3.42M $31.43M
Water For Elephants $2.15M $52.43M
Madea’s Big Happy Family $0.99M $51.76M
This weekend’s New York Times, meanwhile, has a big take-out on “Network” screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky and an in-depth look at the notes he left behind:
“LAMENTING the lack of “satirical clarity” in the screenplay he was laboring on in the early 1970s, Paddy Chayefsky was mad at himself and American television viewers at large. He was seeing the venomous spirit of the era of Watergate and the Vietnam War infiltrate every program the broadcast networks offered, from their news shows to their sitcoms, and he concluded in a typewritten note to himself that the American people “don’t want jolly, happy family type shows like Eye Witness News”; no, he wrote, “the American people are angry and want angry shows.” He had set out to write a comedy, but if his film script was funny at all, he said, “the only joke we have going for us is the idea of ANGER.”
My favorite part about this is that “Dark Knight” is filming in Pittsburgh. Can’t wait for the first person who shouts “Hey dere, Batman! Yinz goin dahntahn to fight da Joker an’at?!”
Here’s A Good Read …
… from the LA Times’ “Hero Complex” blog. It’s an interview with actor Michael Keaton, who portrayed Batman/Bruce Wayne in director Tim Burton’s 1989 reboot of the venerable comic book hero.
Full disclosure time: I’m a hardcore “Batman” fan. Always have been. I read the comics. I’ve collected the toys. And it’s family legend that the first book ever put in my hand was a 1970s “Batman” comic probably written by the great Dick Giordano. Thus, I am totally geeked to read this posting.
Here’s part of the piece:
On the magnitude of “Batman” and the landmark moment it represented in Hollywood history:
“It was awesome. It was so cool. It was so much work. Now it would be done so much more efficiently; that guy [Christopher Nolan, the director of the new Batman trilogy] is great, he’s really, really talented, but at the time we did ours, there was no example to follow. It was new territory. And what Tim accomplished changed everything. It was hard. It was harder on Tim than anyone and he changed the way people look at those movies. That really is the case and the reason for that is the originality of Tim and the people Tim put together – [production designer] Anton Furst was off the chart, [composer] Danny Elfman was perfect, bringing in Prince and Nicholson, all of it was just so right and so huge. The promotion of the movie was genius too. The look of the movie was a turning point, too, you still see that around in different versions. What I remember is how so much of it was an experiment while we were doing it. There was the practicality of how to get this stuff done. For a lot, well, I don’t want to say we were making it up as we went along, but there were a lot of choices made to overcome difficulties as went along. This wasn’t the [CG effects] era you have now.”
Even cooler … here’s Keaton on a scene that didn’t make the final edit:
“There was a thing that never got in that was really interesting. I went to Tim and said that we should see if we could do a scene that showed the transition and Tim was really great about these things so we tried. I wanted to see and to show that transition when he goes from Bruce Wayne to Batman, the time when he’s about to don the suit and go out and wreak some havoc. That’s not a casual thing, obviously, it’s not putting on a jacket to go out for the evening. So what is that transition like? So there was a thing we did early on that showed him going into a sort of trance and it justified this shift in him. So we did that scene and it never made it into the film but I think helped me in a way. It was part of the way he became this other thing and even if you didn’t see it, it was part of the character and the way we created him. Tim was always open to that. Jack and Kim come to him, too, chipping in with ideas and it was a really creative environment.”
A Norse God And A Bridal Farce …
… topped the weekend’s take at the box office.
Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” stayed at the top spot, while the Kristen Wiig-starrer “Bridesmaids” came second this weekend. Here’s the haul:
Name: Weekend: Total:
Thor $34.5m $119.5m
Bridesmaids $24.41m $24.41m
Fast Five $19.53m $168.78m
Priest $14.50m $14.50m
Rio $8.00M $124.97m
Jumping The Broom $7.30m $25.99m
Something Borrowed $7m $25.65m
Water For Elephants $4.10m $48.48m
Madea’s Big Happy Family $2.20m $50.22m
Soul Surfer $1.80m $39.20M
And here’s a new release, “The Artist” that’s worth looking out for at your local art house (from Salon):
“One of the first films to be picked up for American distribution out of the main competition here this year has the following qualities: It’s French, and unless you’re a fan of Gallic comedy, and specifically the recent “OSS 117” spy spoofs, you’ve never heard of either its star or its director. It’s in black-and-white. It’s not merely a silent film but one that both imitates and spoofs the Silent Age dramas of the late 1920s, movies that relatively few living people have even seen. That’s at least three strikes — if not four or five — against “The Artist,” an exceedingly weird and delightful new film from writer-director Michel Hazanavicius that premiered on Sunday in Cannes to a rapturous, uproarious reception.
This is a project so idiosyncratic, so unlikely, so simultaneously innocent and sophisticated that it could only have been devised by the French. Yet it’s such a sheer delight — something one doesn’t often say about movies at Cannes — that Harvey Weinstein may well be right in believing he can turn it into a hit. “The Artist” of the title is a silent-film star named George Valentin, played by Jean Dujardin, the hilarious, handsome ship’s figurehead of an actor who plays the super-spy hero of Hazanavicius’ “OSS 117″ series. (I don’t have to call Dujardin the poor man’s Sean Connery, because he’s done so himself.)”
Name: Thor Release Date: 2011 Writers: Ashley Miller, Zac Stentz and Don Payne (screenplay); J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich (story); and Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby (comic book). Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast:
Chris Hemsworth: Thor
Natalie Portman: Jane Foster
Tom Hiddleston: Loki
Anthony Hopkins: Odin
Stellan Skarsgård: Erik Selvig
Kat Dennings: Darcy Lewis
Clark Gregg : Agent Coulson
Idris Elba: Heimdall
Colm Feore: King Laufey
Ray Stevenson: Volstagg
Tadanobu Asano: Hogun
Josh Dallas: Fandral
Jaimie Alexander: Sif
Rene Russo: Frigga
Adriana Barraza: Isabel Alvarez
Maximiliano Hernández: Agent Sitwell
With the summer movie season officially upon us, and with super heroes officially at the center of the mythology of American cinema, it’s only fitting that the filmed adventures of a musclebound Norse god take the first bow at the box office.
Of all the superheroes in the Marvel Comics pantheon, bringing Thor to life on the big screen presents one of the biggest challenges: Namely, how does a mortal audience relate to an invulnerable, immortal, exceptionally good-looking divinity?
Unlike the Spiderman franchise, Thor doesn’t have a secret identity as a bumbling everyman from Queens. Unlike Batman, from Marvel’s industry rivals DC, there’s no formative moment of tragedy firing his desire to slip into spandex and rubber and fight crime.
And of all the costumed do-gooders competing for an ever-shrinking share of readers’ attention, Thor remains one of the hardest characters for readers to build a relationship with. Most of his adventures take place in fantasy realms, and since his debut in the early 1960s, he’s spent much of his career speaking in a Yoda-esque Middle English replete with Thees, thines and thous.
So it’s unsurprising that director Kenneth Branagh and a team of writers that includes the respected comics writer, J. Michael Straczynski, turn to a cinematic trope that’s underlined countless Hollywood classics: the big-shot getting taken out of his element to learn a little humility.
Few of us will ever be so lucky to be cast out of Heaven (In this case, the Norse realm of Asgard, which is brought to CGI life looking like the cover to every fantasy novel you’ve ever read) only to wake up to the finely boned features of Natalie Portman. If this be penance, sign me up for the long course.
In this particular case, Thor’s sin is an ill-timed attack against a race known as The Frost Giants (who are exceedingly cranky and apparently live in a world without central heating) that risks war with Asgard and the lives of countless innocents.
To teach his beach-blonde tressed son some humility before he ascends to the CGI throne, Thor’s father Odin (Hopkins, whose presence in any film ups its class quotient by a factor of 10) strips Thor of his power and sends him down to Earth.
As an added bonus, he traps Thor’s all-powerful hammer in a chunk of stone where, like King Arthur’s famed sword Excalibur, he won’t be able to withdraw it until he proves himself worthy. Attention trivia fans, Thor’s hammer is called Mjolinir and you will only be able to pronounce it if you have spent a considerable amount of time purchasing tastefully appointed, assemble-it-yourself furniture.
Thus, it comes to pass that our hero (affably played by Australian newcomer Hemsworth) lands in New Mexico. That’s where we find Portman’s Jane, an astronomer, racing around the desert conducting Very Important Experiments whose nature does not become clear until later in the film when the Earthbound Thor explains them to us.
In comparison to the scenes in Asgard, where every word is spoken portentiously and is fraught with Shakespearean levels of meaning, the scenes in New Mexico are light and deftly handled.
Branagh, who’s made a career of exposing Shakespeare to the masses, seems the most comfortable handling these scenes of light comedy.
These include some nice moments for Skarsgard’spaternal Erik Selvig, who works out early on that the Norse myths of his childhood have come to life before his eyes.
Hemsworth also seems to realize that there’s no way to play it straight when you’re an omnipotent, six-and-a-half-foot tall immortal with matinee idol good looks. There’s a hint of mischief about his blue eyes as he smashes a coffee cup against a diner floor and bellows “Another!” or as he strolls into a pet shop and casually asks for a horse.
Portman, as ever, is luminous, and may get the best moment of screentime with one particularly lovely outburst in the film’s final act.
Dennings, as Jane’s slacker intern, is criminally underused and it’s not a stretch to say that the role could have been played by anyone.
And you don’t have to go see Thor to know that the film ends as you expect it might: With the balance between good and evil restored, the hero learning humility, the inevitable chaste, yet passionate kiss with the heroine and reconciliation between prodigal son and estranged father.
To be sure, there are a few legitimate grievances to lodge against Branagh and the filmmakers.
The romance between Thor and Jane seems shoehorned into the story. The audience is meant to believe that the two have fallen passionately in love after a romance that lasts barely (by my reckoning) 36 hours.
The attraction between these two admittedly attractive actors seems based entirely on Hemsworth doffing his shirt at the appropriate moment, exposing a vast expanse of well-tanned and muscled torso. Though I’m sure I’d have been similarly afflicted had the elfin Portman doffed her shirt at exactly the right moment as well.
And I’m still mildly irritated at the filmmakers’ decision to slap a coat of 3D on the movie during post-production. I counted maybe two or three instances of 3D action that contributed anything to plot development or action (Hey, look! It’s Thor’s hammer flying straight at you!). Otherwise, the decision to separately market the film in 3D seems mostly a cynical calculation to get the audience to part with a few extra shekels.
If you’ve paid even a scrap of attention to the entertainment shows this spring, then you already know that Thor, along with this summer’s still-to-come Captain America vehicle, is intended to set up a full-on Avengers film also featuring Iron Man and The Hulk.
As a result, there are plenty of Easter eggs sprinkled throughout “Thor” to keep the fanboys happy until The Avengers is released. I won’t give too much away, but suffice to say, the faithful will recognize a certain eye-patch wearing super-spy and a hero who has a way with a bow.
Despite the string of cinematic cliches that unite the movie, Thor functions as it is supposed to, not as deathless art, but as an enjoyable two hours of old-fashioned swashbuckling and derring-do.
Cast:
Noel Clarke: Sam
Adam Deacon: Jay
Scarlett Alice Johnson: Lexi
Jacob Anderson: Omen
Ben Drew: Dabs
Danny Dyer: Hayden
Femi Oyeniran: Moony
Shanika Warren-Markland: Kayla
Red Madrell: Alisa
Nathan Constance: Ike
Cornell John: Uncle Curtis
Run-Time: 105 mins. Studio: Cipher/Limelight Films
Set against the thumping beats of the U.K. hip-hop music known as grime, this 2008 English import traces the steps of a newly released convict and the delicate path he must walk as he tries to negotiate the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood.
As the film opens, Sam Peel (Clarke) has just finished serving a six-year jail sentence for murder.
No sooner than is he released, Sam discovers that a surviving relative of his victim is out for blood and has vowed that he won’t survive the day.
The film then follows Sam through the streets of West London, as he encounters those who have been affected by his actions. Some are trying to move on, while some seem doomed to learn the lessons that Sam has already learned.
The ultimate goal, it seems, is for Sam to convince those who are following his path to break from it and to turn away from violence. That decision is literally hammered home in the film’s final scene
That external struggle is mirrored by Sam’s own internal fight over his crime, and his struggle to find his place in an outside world that has moved on without him.
A sequel to 2006’s “Kidulthood,” the film has a raw immediacy, even if its performances are sometimes uneven. ”
Adulthood’s” subject matter should be immediately identifiable to any English moviegoer — headlines about gang violence and knife crime are a staple of the UK press. Though, at times, it seems as if the violence is overplayed either in the name of proving the film’s authenticity or as a heavy-handed object lesson.
Throughout, Clark remains “Adulthood’s” center of gravity. His eyes seem bottomless and he can convey even the most subtle of emotions with a glance.
American viewers may find the accents occasionally impenetreable. But Clark’s film strikes me as a reasonably authentic document of what it’s like growing up in the tower blocks (public housing to us Yanks) that dominate the London skyline.
Readers:
To add some interactivity, we’re breaking the fourth wall, and allowing you, the discerning Cineaste’s Lament reader, to cast your vote for the Best Guy Movie of all time. You’ll see our picks in the box below. Yours not represented? Feel free to add it in the comments.
Here’s the weekend’s haul from the big studios.
The news kind of seems superfluous given what happened in Pakistan last night. But the show goes on.
Title: Weekend: Total:
Fast Five $83.63M $83.63M
Rio $14.40M $103627000
Madea’s Big Happy Family $10.05M $41.08M
Water For Elephants $9.12M $32.26M
Prom $5M $5M
Hoodwinked Too! $4.14M $41.40M
Soul Surfer $3.30M $33.77M
Insidious $2.69M $48.31M
Name: Buck Rogers Release Date: 1939 Writer: Dick Calkins (comic strip), Norman S. Hall Director: Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind
Cast:
Larry “Buster” Crabbe: Buck Rogers
Constance Moore: Wilma Deering
Jackie Moran: George ‘Buddy’ Wade
Jack Mulhall: Captain Rankin
Anthony Warde: Killer Kane
C. Montague Shaw: Dr. Huer
Guy Usher: Aldar
William Gould: Air Marshal Kragg
Philson Ahn: Prince Tallen
Henry Brandon: Captain Laska
Wheeler Oakman: Lieutenant Patten
Kenne Duncan: Lieutenant Lacy
Carleton Young: Scott
Reed Howe: Captain Roberts
If you were a middle school kid in the early 1980s, then the chances are pretty good that your first exposure to the sci-fi swashbuckler “Buck Rogers,” came courtesy of an aging character actor stuffed into a size-too-small spandex jumpsuit and a comedy-sidekick robot voiced by the late Mel Blanc.
Airing for three seasons from 1979-1981 on NBC, “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” was one of those late 1970s efforts by network execs to cash in on the cinematic excitement created by “Star Wars.”
But just like the fondly remembered “Battlestar Galactica” that preceded it, “Buck Rogers” was hobbled by weak writing, low production values, and the inevitable cheesetasticness of Gil Gerard as Buck sucking in his gut and breaking the fourth wall while making goo-goo eyes at the brave Wilma Deering (Erin Gray).
You used to be able to catch the 1970s “Buck” show on the syndication-dependent Sci-Fi Network before it became Scy-Fy and started reliably churning out starring vehicles for Debbie Gibson and poorly CGI-ed crocodiles and sharks.
Alternately known as “Buck Rogers Conquers the Universe,” and “Buck Rogers: Destination Saturn,” may well be one of the stellar examples of the action serials that were a staple of film-going during Hollywod’s Golden Age.
Watching this iteration of the Buck Rogers serial (a 1950 TV show would precede the disco era “25th Century“), it’s not hard to trace some of Star Wars’ antecedents.
The 12-episode arc finds the dashing Rogers (Han Solo, anyone?) fighting along side a brave band of rebels to free the Earth of a tyrannic dictator named Killer Kane (he dresses in black and is uniformly evil. Guess who?).
In this effort, Rogers (Crabbe, who also portrayed Flash Gordon) is joined by the wise and aged Dr. Heuer, (Shaw) the plucky Wilma (Moore) and an idealistic, young sidekick named George “Buddy” Wade (Moran).
The band of freedom-fighters go through a series of adventures, including an incursion into Kane’s (Warde) palace (rhymes with “Death Star“) to rescue Prince Tallen (Ahn) so the rebels can forge an alliance with Saturn against Kane.
As was the case with many of the film serials of the time, Buck Rogers was based on a syndicated newspaper comic strip. Other comic heroes of the time — Superman, Batman, Captain America, Shazam and even the forgotten-except-by-fanboys Blackhawk — were also converted into grist for the unrelenting serial mill.
Viewed through the prism of 70 years, the special effects of “Buck Rogers” don’t seem particularly special to eyes used to movies made entirely on green screens.
The spaceships are clearly models and the deserts of California’s Red Rock Canyon State Park are enlisted as stand-ins for the futuristic Earth in which Buck and Buddy find themselves after spending 500 years in suspended animation.
Despite that, the action never lets up. Whether it’s Buck staging a daring escape from Killer Kane’s headquarters or fierce, one-on-one combat, audiences were rarely let up for air for the 30 brief minutes that Buck occupied their local Bijou’s screens each week.
That, of course, was the filmmakers’ intent — to leave audience gasping for more and wondering how Buck was going to escape from that week’s seemingly inescapable danger.
Though they took their cues from earlier adventure novels such as “The Three Musketeers,” and, later, pulps like “Black Mask,” the serials were a showcase for the uniquely American conceit that, no matter how inescapable the danger, or towering the obstacle, a little Yankee ingenuity and bravery would get you through.
That idea must have been inspiring for 1930s film audiences, who were yet to escape the doldrums of The Great Depression and were eyeing nervously a growing storm in Europe.
That’s a hopelessly quaint notion for the modern filmgoer. But in these complicated times, it would be nice if Hollywood delivered that kind of action flick again, without feeling the seemingly obligatory need for tossing a wink-and-a-nod in the audience’s direction as well.
The Cineaste's Lament. 