Quick storytime for you.
Jason Segel struggled in Hollywood for years, with big roles in not one but two TV shows cancelled after one season (Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared) before landing a role in the long-running How I Met Your Mother and, finally, the starring role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The movie did well enough to give him some hard-earned clout in the industry, and he found himself the opportunity to pitch his own movie ideas to Disney execs. So, after finally earning success after years of hard work, what pet project did he want to cash it in with?
This:
![The-Muppets-movie-poster-403x600.jpg](http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Muppets-movie-poster-403x600.jpg)
Yes, Segel pestered the right people to bring the Muppets back, co-wrote it and starred in it. Directing duties went to James Bobin, co-creator of Flight of the Conchords.
Now, the Muppets have been spinning their wheels for the last decade or two in meh project after meh project, and Disney seemingly haven't known what to do with them since they bought them in 2004. But by all accounts, the new movie (simply "The Muppets") finally brings back that old Henson magic.
So what happens in the flick? Well, Gary (Segel) and Walter (Peter Linz) are a pair of happy-go-lucky brothers. Here's the happy siblings:
![2011walter-600x317.jpg](http://beyondthemarquee.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011walter-600x317.jpg)
Now these two are the world's biggest Muppet fans, so the two of them drag Mary, Gary's long-suffering girlfriend, to a pilgrimage to visit the old Muppet Theater. Unfortunately it's a wreck, the Muppet gang has long-since broken up and moved away, and the theater's about to be purchased and demolished by Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), a stereotypical rich Texan.
So you know what that means. Road trip!
![Muppets2011Trailer01-1920_52-600x323.jpg](http://beyondthemarquee.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Muppets2011Trailer01-1920_52-600x323.jpg)
The new character is named 80's Robot, by the way. There's also fart shoes, explosions, "The Moopets," more cameos than you can count and pretty much every single damn Muppet ever. Did I mention music? Oh my yes, there's original songs that are very much in the vein of the original Muppet Movie, along with a few wonderful twists on probably the last songs you'd expect.
So far it's looking like everyone's digging the movie... as of right now it's fully 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 17 reviews.
It comes out the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So why spend a boring time with turkey, when you can have pigs and chickens and... whatever!
Posts
http://www.hulu.com/watch/302534/saturday-night-live-jason-segel-and-muppets-monologue#s-p1-sr-i1
And then they went on WWE. Yes, WWE. It actually worked:
(Looking forward to this)
and I will definitely go see this movie
Political correctness isn't exactly part of the venue.
To 98%.
This flick is out today, and I absolutely can't wait.
I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark, and guess that at least one of the negative reviews will explain about how this film doesn't meet his expectations of responsibilities in a pseudo-capitalistic society, and possibly complain about Pixar while he's at it.
So you're waiting for the Armond White review.
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...surprisingly awesome? That one was 90% fresh on RT, and that's despite the fact that it's now cool to hate the Simpsons.
Anyway, the rotten reviews. Village Voice:
Globe and Mail:
laughter.
All hail the hobo king.
A guy wrote a one paragraph essay about how much he hated it and is some how a top fucking critic. Fuck that.
Nope! As in all the best jokes are shown in the trailers and the rest is ho-hum!
Absolutely fantastic, it delivers 100%. Tons of laughs, great cameos, "Rainbow Connection" made me tear up and the telethon had me laughing so hard at one point that I could barely breathe. Everyone should go see this - you will definitely laugh. Excellent film, I wanted to go back and just watch it all again. A zillion quotable lines!
"You're ruining one of the greatest songs in history!"
Also, google maps joke when they travel to Paris!
I guess I shouldn't have expected much...the parody ads that everybody loves are about as funny as Friedberg and Seltzer's movies.
(The best Muppet movie ever is Muppet-Vision 4d.)
"The Muppet Babies" is the best version of the Muppets. It is the only Muppets I enjoy.
Come at me.
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You are wrong. Really, nothing more needs to be said. You are as wrong as a man who declares the world to be flat, or made of cookie-dough.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Also,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=jMCCxjRnZC4
I'm a massive Muppet fan. I've seen every movie, watched a ton of the Muppet Show, watched Muppet Babies as a tyke. Muppet Vision 3D is my first stop any time I get to MGM. My family watches A Muppet Christmas Carol every Christmas Eve (Gonzo and Rizzo are the best team). I love the Muppets.
I LOVED this movie. I was like a giddy kid through the whole damn thing. The songs were great, the crowd (a bit sparse as it was a 9pm showing on Thanksgiving Day) seemed really into it - lots of laughs. I loved the cameos, though I was sad NPH didn't get to sing. Coopers rap was fantastic. The little Animal subplot was a gem. All the songs fit well... except maybe Man or a Muppet which seemed a little shoehorned, but was so much fun that I didn't mind (frankly, I suspect the song was written simply because Seigel demanded to be Muppetized at some point in the film, and who can blame him?)
The only real criticism I have is the some of the voices, particularly Miss Piggy, sorely missed Frank Oz, but if the Muppets are going to be viable going forward we are going to have to accept such things - and I would murder to get a new Muppet Show on the air.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Pixar Short yet. That was a complete surprise to me, but it was a wonderful bonus. At first I thought it was going to be some little ad, but I got a free Toy Story short film!
You know, that concerned me a bit. That first act is likely to confuse the hell out of small children.
- It's a bit slow to get going. Walter is the only muppet you see for about 20 minutes, and he's kind of meh.
- For too much of the film, Kermit was low-key and depressive. It was kind of a bummer.
- I've never liked Ms. Piggy, and this film did nothing to change that. Too much of the movie revolved around the vague romantic backstory between her and Kermit, and there was nothing tangible to give it any weight.
- A little too winky-winky, especially the stuff with Adams and Segel, who are usually people I like to see.
- The finale at the telethon was kinda out of left field.
But yeah, I liked it a lot. A for effort, certainly.
god, for some reason I still absolutely loved the hell out of this movie. I can attribute like, 80% of that to nostalgia, but man, it felt good to see the Muppets again in something other then a lame parody of something else.
According to the Onion, she was murdered.
Unless I'm missing something, she never existed outside of the Muppet Babies cartoon.
And the short Toy Story film had me dying. My god, I could not stop laughing once the AA parody meeting started up.