THE MUPPETS

It's a miracle!  This film is hilarious and heart-warming.  Fuck computers, puppets ain't dead yet.  Many hallmarks of Muppet humor, like meta jokes, have become much more commonplace today, thanks to shows like Family Guy, which proudly features Muppet appearances in their cutaway gags.  I don't want to ruin any jokes, so just go see the film.

~ Jason Segal co-wrote and co-stars.  I wonder if they will keep him around for any future Muppet projects.

~ Chris Cooper plays it very straight, and gets funnier at the end, when he becomes nicer but still doesn't really like the muppets, heckling them about repeating the same song for the finale.

~ Amy Adams should be in everything.  Her being the new Lois Lane is a good start.

~ The celebrity cameos are like a guide to how to use celebrity cameos.  They are short and funny, but more importantly, there are stars for everybody.  If you didn't catch Emily Blunt, maybe you'll notice Mickey Rooney.  Alan Arkin's appearance is obvious, but you might have to be paying pretty close attention to spot Feist.

~ Frank Oz, master puppeteer (Yoda, Ms Piggy, etc) and master puppet director (Little Shop Of Horrors), declined to be involved with the film after reading the script.

~ The songs, provided by Flight Of The Conchords Bret McKanzie, are catchy and funny.  I still have one of them stuck in my head.


~ Mickey Rooney's film debut was in 1927.  Let that sink in.

~ The Muppets spend much of the film's run time concerned that the world no longer cares about them.  This was a mighty risky plot choice; what if the film had been a bomb?  It would have been telling it's own story and nobody would care!

~ The villain and his plot are pretty (intentionally) generic but there is a nice subtle touch that Chris Cooper threatens to bastardize the Muppet name by licensing it all over a bunch of crap...  just like concerned Muppetologists feared would happen would Disney fully acquired the Muppets back in 2004.

~ Kids might not really get jokes about the TV show Benson.

~ "Say hello to my little friend" is one helluva cliched line at this point.  Every time you hear it spoken in a movie trailer, it's like they included it as a secret keyword denoting supreme laziness so you wouldn't bother to see the film.  Even the trailer for one on the new competing Snow White movies hass one of the dwarves spouting the line.  Groan, I say, groan I say!  But this film actually uses the line hilariously.  I didn't think it could be done.

~ I did not brush up on my Muppetology for this film.  Maybe there were more jokes for me to enjoy.

~ Jim Henson has a bittersweet photographic cameo on Kermit's wall of memories.  They don't draw any attention to it because, hey, this a kids film.