Amph The Muppets

I liked it a lot, really did.


But I wish they'd let Elmo make a cameo appearance. (Apparently there was some problem with Children's Television Workshop owning the character).

 

Why would Elmo make a cameo?!

 

I saw the film on opening day and loved it. My showing wasn't very full (probably because it was like 5pm) but I enjoyed it a ton all the same, even if I was the only one singing Rainbow Connection


EDIT: I definitely would feel the FotC influence, but I don't see how that's a bad thing. I think part of that actually is that the comedic style of The Muppets is fairly similar.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Rachel, yeah, I suspect on a second viewing it won't bother me as much. At the time it just felt a little incongruous to me and kind of took me out of the movie.

this.

 

It would have made sense, given that Sesame Street characters have made appearances in Muppet movies before.

Unfortunately Elmo is hot property these days. And by "hot", I mean "Children's Television Workshop".

 

I'm still traumatized from that conversation I had about this topic with Katana a few months ago, so I'm not even gonna go there.

 

Now that visiting family is gone I will definitely take my daughter to see this. The Fresh Air episode about it got me hyped up. I loved TM when I was a kid.

Elmo... blech, thankfully my daughter is out of her Elmo phase.

 

Disappointing. I was excited about this movie. I talked my younger one into going; I suspect I wasn't the only parent who dragged children to this horrible waste of a film to satisfy his own selfish nostalgia. I laughed a few times while my son sat in stony silence. Maybe I'm projecting, but I seemed to notice that a lot - parents laughing, silence from children in a theater filled with children.

I'm a huge fan of Jason Seagal. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a nearly perfect comedy. I know this was in large part a Jason Seagal project. He has a writing and executive producer credit, but he was completely uninteresting as a performer. I'm also a huge fan of Amy Adams, who executed such wonderful song and dance numbers in Enchanted. She was pathetic deadweight in this made for tv after school special of a movie.

I do not understand why critics gave it a pass, but I suspect it has more to do with respecting what Jason Seagal and Disney were reputedly trying to pull off -- a classic, retro Muppet effort full of practical puppet effects -- than what they actually achieved: a shoddy, half-assed, half-committed, lowball effort to shake a few more dollars out of the dying money tree that is the Muppet brand.

The-Muppets-are-Washed-Up jokes only drew attention to the essential truth that nostalgia for Muppets is too fragile a foundation for reinserting old school felt puppets into today's media stream. Little children are simultaneously too sophisticated and too impatient these days to accept either talking socks or the silly family comedy style of the 1970s.

I wish I'd listened to my son and stayed home to watch 1 1/2 hours of Sponge Bob, or even iCarly, on Nickelodeon instead.

On a personal note, among my pet peeves are movies that make a lot of lazy self-rerential "hey, we're in a movie" jokes. Every time I get stuck in a movie like that I get post-traumatic flashbacks to that one time I actually went to see "The Last Action Hero" in the theater on opening day.

 

Then surely you must hate all of the Muppet movies.

 

I couldn't disagree more, but there's no use arguing or trying to convince someone to like something that they didn't. I'm just going to state my own opinion, but please don't take it as an attempt to convince you to like it. You're never going to have a film that everyone likes.

It's worth noting that The Muppet Show was intentionally very self-referential as it was a show about putting on a show, so actually that was probably to be expected.



I will say even though I absolutely loved the movie and laughed a lot, I do agree that this isn't really a movie for kids. The Muppets were something that I personally grew up with through the films and reruns of The Muppet Show, not to mention Muppet Babies But even my boyfriend's cousin who was there at Thanksgiving and is 18 has never seen any Muppet things. Which, really, is sad. I don't really care if something is popular anymore. The humor isn't lame, nor are the puppets. They're just actually funny to me, as opposed to the incredibly lame throng of CG movies that get poor parents in the theatre every year (*ahem*Happy Feet Two).

I don't necessarily think the lack of laughter from kids is indicative of the Muppets being unfamiliar. Kids laugh at all kinds of things they aren't familiar with, things that are new to them. I also don't think it's the puppets, as it's incredibly expressive puppeteering and kids don't actually really understand that the things they're seeing are fake anyhow (whether puppets, 2D, or 3D animation). I think it has more to do with the fact that the Muppets have some aspects of humor that are just too sophisticated, meta, sarcastic, and sly for kids to get. But that's how it's always been. I liked all the Muppets stuff as a kid, but I got much more of the humor (the verbal jokes anyhow) as an adult.


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Part of the nostalgia failure for me probably comes from the efforts to mimic the original Muppet voices. Post-Henson Kermit and post-Oz Miss Piggy sound wrong. I know there's nothing to be done about it, nothing to blame but the passage of time, but I don't like the Muppets as much without those original voices.

 

The Kermit voice threw me off for a couple minutes but then I settled in and forgot about it.



-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Eh, I guess after the Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppets From Space (I never watched Treasure Island) I'm pretty used to a non-Henson Kermit.

 

Yeah, but I've seen a lot more of the Henson Kermit than those. Maybe it's just because I see Muppet Vision 3D all the time at Disneyland.


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Kermit and Piggy didn't bother me. But Fozzie sounded off.

 

**** Elmo

 

Saw it tonight. I liked it, but I can see how a lot of people might not. The Muppets have always broken the fourth wall and they've always had groan inducing humor and cheesy song and dance, and that's what I love about them. I don't want that stuff all the time, but I know what I'm getting when I watch a Muppet movie or an episode of the show. I guess I don't know what you were expecting if you didn't like The Muppets but were expecting to.


The voice thing doesn't bother me, because I watched Christmas Carol and Treasure Island well before discovering the tv show(and watched them repeatedly, I might add).

 

All in all enjoyed it, although I thought it had some flaws, including a plot that didn't make sense at points. Usually as it related to Tex Richman. I liked that I saw this at the muppet theater, though.

Agreed somewhat on Me Party. You've completely explained to me why that song seemed out of place. Granted, I disagree with you on the quality of it, though, as I really disliked that song. Which.... Flight of the Conchords rather explains that.


I wasn't really that impressed with the performances of either Jason Seagal or Amy Adams. Although I'm disagreeing with Jabbadabbado in that I think the 4th wall should be broken, and often.

See it. I consider that one to be greatly enjoyable.

 

Muppet Movie: amazing technical achievement, but a little dull

Muppets Take Manhattan: Better

Muppet Caper: I know I saw it, but I don't remember it at all

Muppet Christmas Carol: enjoyable and fun (did you notice that all Scrooge's clarks, including Kermit, are left-handed

Muppet Treasure Island: Just absolutely great all around

Muppet Wizard of Oz: Yuck

Muppets from Space: are they back on those 60s drugs again? Did the drugs mutate, get moldy, or pass their expiration date? painful

I remember another recent muppet movie that wasn't good, but not what it was.

from what I hear, the new one is closer the the magnificence of MTI than the awfulness of MfS

 

Muppet Show on DVD is great. There's a pop up videoesque option on the first season that includes a running count of Miss Piggy karate chops.

 

I'm waiting on Season 4.

 

This is the funniest **** I've seen in a long time.

Fox news accuses the Muppets of brainwashing children

 

GIVE ME MY MUPPET BABIES MOVIE