Review 4: "The Muppets", by James Bobin

Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Kermit, Rowlf, Janice, Scooter, Animal, Miss Poogy, Sgt. Floyd Pepper, Gonzo, the Swedish Chef, Sam the Eagle, Lew Zealand, Fozzie Bear, Dr. Teeth, Dr. Bunsen and Walter in The Muppets. © Disney.

The Muppets, EUA, 2011. Comedy, Family, Musical. 103 minutes. Directed by: James Bobin. Written By: Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller. Cast: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Peter Linz, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, Jack Black. Rating: PG.

I was pretty excited about The Muppets' DVD release, for several reasons. First, critics loved the movie, which earned a 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the second most critically acclaimed wide release of 2011. Second, I had never had any contact with the Muppets before (except for the Mahna Manha video on Youtube), and everyone loves the muppets, and I really wanted to know why. Third, it's a musical, and I'm one of those strange people who actually like musicals. For such reasons, I went and watched it as soon as it became avaliable in stores, and I wasn't disappointed. It was, possibly, the bast family film of the year.

It opens in style: a fun musical number at the fictional city of Smalltown, in which Gary (Jason Segel) and his brother, the man-muppet Walter (voiced by Peter Linz), live. Gary is a huge fan of the Muppets and doesn't hide his excitement over an upcoming trip to Los Angeles with his brother and sister-in-law Mary (Amy Adams), during which he intends to visit their studio. There, a disappointment: the place is falling to pieces, the Muppets are no longer there and you can count the visitors on one hand. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Walter ends up witnessing Statler and Waldorf selling the Muppets' theater to oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), who, once alone with his henchmen Bobo and Uncle Deadly (also Muppets!), reveals his intention to bring it all down to dig for oil. There is a loophole in the contract, of course: if the Muppets manage to raise 10 million dollars within two weeks, the theater will be theirs again. Desperate, Walter insists to go after Kermit the Frog and they end up deciding to get all the Muppets back together to host a telethon and try to raise the money.

In the process, it becomes clear that the movie possesses many of the characteristics that made the Muppets so popular: with help from Kermit's hysterical butler, the "'80s Robot," they go after each Muppet, starting with Fozzie Bear, who's now working as the lead singer in a Muppets cover band, the "Moopets." All the former members of The Muppet Show have moved on; however, the collective nostalgia and the esteem they hold for the theater (and for what it meant in their lives, one concludes) brings them all together, and, at the end of a montage filled with references to the characters' past, they are all inside the same car, heading to Paris ("by map," in one of the many hard-to-explain jokes that populate the hilarious script) to try and persuade the sassy Miss Piggy, now a plus-size editor of Parisian Vogue, to join them. She refuses to; her life is great, she promised herself not to look back, and she still hasn't forgiven her ex, Kermit, for something unclear (as far as it can be understood, he bailed on their engagement years ago). It doesn't matter: in her place comes Miss Poggy, her mannish "Moopet" version. The Muppets move forward with the idea, and after a series of noes from leading networks -- nobody cares about the Muppets anymore, says the executive played by Rashida Jones --, they end up getting a slot in the schedule of the fictional CDE thanks to the unexpected cancellation of popular show Punch Teacher (one of the movie's many satiric jabs). But there's one condition: they must come up with a special guest star.

With the conflict established, the movie becomes what it's poised to be: nothing but laughs. Everything you can expect from a good Muppet movie is there: the countless, super funny cameos -- Emily Blunt, Mickey Rooney, Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Alan Arkin, Kristen Schaal, Neil Patrick Harris, Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Jim Parsons and Ken Jeong, to name a few --; the great songs, written by Flight of the Conchords' co-creator and co-star Bret McKenzie; reboots of classic songs like Rainbow Connection and Mahna Mahna; witty self-references (younger guest actors don't know who the Muppets are) and large, very welcome doses of meta-humor (i.e., when a character says something like "Wow, that was such an expensive looking explosion! I can't believe we had that in the budget!"). There is even a point where an amusing Jack Black appears as himself, kidnapped and forced to be the show's "special guest star." It is interesting, too, to notice how the movie strives to be offbeat; unlike others of its kind, this one has characters recognize they have just taken part in musical numbers.

Laughs aside, though, The Muppets' greatest merit is in the fact that it never goes the easy route, as is common practice in comedies and family films these days. The characters are tridimensional, they have conflicts -- granted, superficial ones at that, but then again it's a Muppet movie -- and we can relate to them, to an extent: Mary is upset that Gary still hasn't proposed to her after ten years (!) together; both Gary and Walter, at a certain point, go through identity crisis and can't figure out whether they're men or muppets (the song where this existential conflict is resolved won the movie's sole Oscar, the only one ever won by a Muppet movie); villain Tex Richman's sidekicks are also Muppets and end up conflicted about betraying their own, and so on. In short: it's a good movie, even setting aside the nostalgic, humorous references that ought to delight longtime fans. The cast is sharp and the cameos complement it superbly. The pacing is great, with laughs all throughout. There is a good message (albeit one some labeled as communist) for the younger kids. Add to that the fact that we're dealing with the MUPPETS, and it becomes impossible not to like the movie. Congratulations to actor/screenwriter/fan Jason Segel, who took the initiative to make a movie with Jim Henson's creations over a decade after they had last hit the big screen. Thanks to said initiative, we can now safely profess that the Muppets are back.


Final Rating:
Academy Awards: Best Original Song, "Man or Muppet"

Review 3: "50/50", by Jonathan Levine

Joseph Gordon-Levitt AND Anna Kendrick in 50/50. © Summit Entertainment.

USA, 2011. Dramedy. 100 minutes. Directed by: Jonathan Levine. Written by: Will Reiser. Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Anjelica Huston, Bryce Dallas Howard, Matt Frewer, Philip Baker Hall, Serge Houde. Rating: R.

Many have considered it the indie movie of 2011, and, although it was shut out at the Oscars, 50/50 does have the credentials. Based on the life story of first-time screenwriter Will Reiser and produced by co-star Seth Rogen, his friend in real life, the movie is, aesthetically speaking, a typical indie flick, with the song-based score, the cold, delicate cinematography, and the wintry urban landscape of Seattle as the backdrop, and it drew everyone's attention for switching between drama and comedy continuously.

For starters, the movie starts pretty indie-ish-ly: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a sweatshirt runs next to a river in Seattle, gets home, takes a shower, talks to his girlfriend Bryce Dallas Howard, and enters his best friend Seth Rogen's car to go to work. This is Adam Lerner, a good-guy journalist who doesn't smoke, doesn't drink and doesn't drive. What is his surprise, then, when a doctor tells him that he has a malignant tumor on the spine, and will need to undergo chemo. The reactions of his peers are alternately funny and dense, like the rest of the movie will be: Kyle, the best friend, drops a lot of F-bombs (it's Seth Rogen, after all, pretty much playing himself), the overprotective mother (Anjelica Huston), who already has to look after her husband with Alzheimer's, gets into her head that she should move in with her son so she can care for him, and the girlfriend refuses Adam's generous offer to end things and claims, reluctantly, that she can deal with that. Adam tries to learn more about his condition, and we discover the meaning of the title -- he has a 50/50 chance to survive.

Factors, of course, start to gather and give the movie a psychological background, factors that at first seem like comic relief but later on will contribute to the protagonist's psychological degradation, as he tries at all costs to maintain composure amid the hell that is cancer treatment. Cue a young, inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick) who doesn't seem to know exactly what she's doing while trying to help Adam keep his head together, which makes him even more skeptical, and two old men who are also undergoing chemotherapy (the excellent Matt Frewer and Philip Baker Hall) and give Adam lessons on life, love etc. in between sessions. Furthermore, his friend Kyle provides comic relief, trying to help Adam remain optimistic and enjoy life while simultaneously taking advantage of his disease to get a girlfriend.

At a certain moment in the film, everything seems fine -- Adam has two new friends to unburden himself, his therapist grows closer and closer to him even outside her office, and he insists to everyone that the's perfectly fine despite cancer. However, an unfortunate event involving his girlfriend unchains a series of curves, and things finally begin to sink into Adam. The factors that thus far had been helping him keep a cool head change so radically and suddenly, he loses it. Of a sudden, the way everyone insists that things are going to be fine annoys him; he is sure he's going to die.

It is at that moment, final and definitely, that the movie goes from a comedy with dramatic undertones to a drama -- with comedic undertones, okay --, but such a transition is made with enough delicacy that the viewer, by this point, is way too immersed in the story to notice. Delicacy is, no doubt, one of the film's biggest merits, precisely because it deals with such a heavy theme. The best scenes are the most delicate ones -- like the one in which, by reason of Adam's insistence that he's fine, the therapist doesn't know how to proceed --; the musical score, penned by acclaimed composer Michael Giacchino, doesn't acquire the grandiose nuances of previous works of his such as Up and Lost, but is rather subtle, overshadowed by songs; Jonathan Levine's direction proves fluid and intimate, boosting the work of his actors -- and the cast, perhaps, is what's best about the movie, from the subtle yet vigorous performances of veterans such as Anjelica Huston to the efficiency of the younger Bryce Dallas Howard, Seth Rogen (surely in the best cinematographic performance of his career) and Anna Kendrick, an Oscar nominee for Up in the Air a few years ago.

But the highlight is, obviously, protagonist Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Despite playing a similar character to the one he played in the also indie (and also great) (500) Days of Summer), he gives into the part so much that he brings profound interest and relatability to a character who, if played by some other actor (like James McAvoy, who had been initially cast to play Adam but declined), could be a little bland, given his do-gooder ethos. 2012 is all set to be Levitt's year, for, besides co-staring the sci-fi Looper, he will be in the biographical drama Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg, in the shores of the legendary president's son. Therefore, pay attention to him. If his history so far -- besides 50/50 and (500) Days of Summer, he starred in the similarly acclaimed The Lookout and Inception -- serves as a reference, other great parts are yet to come for him. And pay attention as well to screenwriter Will Reiser, who here has debuted in the best possible way: with a human, touching, often hilarious dramedy that showcases his notable ability to deal with characters.


Final rating:

Note: This review was originally published on March 23, 2012, so please disregard the anachronisms.

Review 2: "Hugo", by Martin Scorsese

Asa Butterfield and Chlöe Grace Moretz in Hugo. © Paramount.

USA, 2011. Adventure/Family. 126 minutes. Directed by: Martin Scorsese. Written by: John Logan. Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helen McCrory, Christopher Lee, Jude Law. Rating: PG.

Taxi Driver. Raging Bull. The Last Temptation of Christ. Goodfellas. Gangs of New York. The Aviator. The Departed. Shutter Island. After a sequence like that, a family adventure film would be the last thing to expect from Martin Scorsese. And yet there is Hugo, the third film in history to be nominated for all technical categories at the Oscars. It is also the director's first experience with 3D, and it can be safely said that no other picture has made better use of the resource in the history of film. (That includes, like James Cameron himself said, Avatar.)

That becomes evident in the first minutes, in an astonishing sequence at the train station where the movie will take place. We are in Paris, 1931. Behind the clocks, a boy observes the buzz in the station. Right after that, he attempts to steal mechanical pieces from one of the shops and is caught by the elderly owner, who, after an earful, takes a notepad away from his hands, and, stunned by its content, says he'll burn it as soon as he gets home. You can tell, by the boy's despair, that the notepad is more important than it seemed. At night, the boy, who turns out to be the titular Hugo Cabret, goes to the old man's house and asks a girl -- presumably his daughter -- for help retrieving the notepad. She hesitates, but, in light of Hugo's insistence, promises to do what it takes to keep the old man from burning it.

Back at home, Hugo stares gloomily at a human-like robot, which we had previously seen as a drawing on the notepad, and with the scene are interleaved flashbacks that show us that the robot is a broken automaton brought from a museum by the boy's father. Both tried to fix it, until Hugo's father died in a fire and he went to the custody of his alcoholic uncle, who since then has made him help him with the maintenance of the station's clocks. The next day, Hugo gets a deal with the old man: he will have his notepad back if he works for him until he settles the losses he caused to the shop.

In the meantime, Hugo manages to repair the automaton, little by little. While he grows closer to the old man's adoptive daughter, the savant and adorable Isabelle, the director's intention to pay homage to the beginnings of cinema is made clear: both kids watch a silent film -- in secret, for the old man for some reason doesn't allow the girl to go to the movies --, Hugo tells Isabelle about how he and his father used to go to the movies together etc. Simultaneously, they begin to unveil the mystery surrounding the automaton, and soon it's clear that it has some connection to the old man. They go to Isabelle's house for information, and end up discovering a secret box where tens, possibly hundreds of drawings and annotations hide -- and, when they spread out across the room in an unfortunate accident, right when the old man enters home, it is noted that the drawings match scenes from the nearly 500 silent films made by the celebrated Georges Méliès, a pioneer of narrative films. Yes, they will find out: the girl's father is the man, presumed dead in World War II and whose body of work was reduced by time to a single negative. Confronted, and with his heart softened after re-watching his anthological A Trip to the Mooon thanks to a scholar's visit, Méliès ends up telling the whole truth, and then the image that he had struggled to hide surfaces, that of the bankrupt, renegade filmmaker who had been forced to sell his negatives as scrap.

Amid such revelations, the movie walks the path of a masterpiece, not only for the intriguing, moving plot, adapted from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, but for the details: the delicious score, the breathtaking visuals, the nostalgic aura, the great cast -- headlined by the promising Asa Butterfield and Chlöe Grace Moretz -- and, most of all, the 3D. Scorsese doesn't make it a recreational resource, as is oh-so-increasingly-costumary: the 3D is used to highlight the character's expressions, the beautiful Parisian landscapes, an exhibition of A Trip to the Moon, the art department's superb work. And it is so well-used it becomes ingrained in the film, to the point that I presume it will be a strange experience to watch it again in 2D. Nearing his 70s, Scorsese is in the autumn of his career -- and yet he doesn't seem to be past his prime. With Hugo, he not only proves he's not a director restricted to the serious, violent films he's known for, but he also pays a passionate tribute to his craft and one of its precursors, as masterfully as only a director his size would be capable of.


Final rating:
Academy Awards: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects. Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay (John Logan), Best Film Editing, Best Original Score (Howard Shore) and Best Costume Design