• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Manhattan Digest

All you need to know about Manhattan culture and so much more...

  • LIFESTYLE
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • LGBT
  • OPINION
  • TECHNOLOGY

Amy Adams

What the Muppets Most Wanted was Time to Think

by Dane Benko

The Muppets Most Wanted poster

2011’s The Muppets came with a big question mark for most fans over whether any post-Henson treatment could be up to snuff. As it stands the movie managed to capture a closely studied and caring revival of the franchise.  The creative team behind the movie fought for the old Muppet magic against fan doubts, the financial question of a neglected franchise, and even Frank Oz’s dismissal. Nevertheless the movie not only managed to win the acceptance of fans, but also has managed its first sequel.

 

The Muppets Most Wanted poster
Crowd’em all in, we have less than two hours and several hundred feet of theatre real estate to throw every character at them.

Muppets Most Wanted returns The Muppets director James Bobin and co-writer Nicolas Stoller, and switches out the warm and quirky presences of Amy Adams and Jason Segal with slightly sharper-edged comedians Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey. Those are promising indications going into a movie that starts right out with the Muppets’ surprise and slight confusion at the metajoke that they’ve been selected for a sequel, which they sing and dance about being not as good as the original (and also take some time to remind you that many other movies came before). Whereas the Muppets have always been self-aware, this metajoke is also laced with the slight sarcasm of the costar comedians.

 

Darker hues descend as a froggy criminal mastermind named Constantine (who looks just like Kermit, save for a big mole and sour face) engineers a break-out from a wintery gulag somewhere in Siberia. This intro is madcap and frantic, and from there the movie whisks its way into a meeting between the fleece troupe and Ricky Gervais playing a one “Dominic Badguy” (the latter is pronounced ‘Bahd-gwee,’ though the character may be lying). Dominic  offers the Muppets an opportunity to go on a European tour, a trip Kermit is somewhat hesitant about but quickly drowned out by the enthusiasm of his friends.

 

Before the scene even ends Dominic is revealed to be working for Constantine on a scheme to set the Muppets up for a great heist. Dominic is Constantine’s ‘Number 2’, a status made much of and bluntly by the egomaniacal Constantine. It’s not long before Constantine manages to dispatch Kermit as himself back to the gulag, and wind his way into the troupe under the claim that his strained Russian accent is ‘a cold.’ The Muppets, too excited by the new allowances they have for their acts and the suspiciously sold-out venues on their tour, hardly notice anything is amiss, and the intricate workings of the heist begin.

 

Now it’s up to Kermit to find a way to escape passed Tina Fey’s gulag security guard with a second comical Russian accent (and a crush on Kermit), while the ever wide-eyed Walter begins to suspect Constantine and his comical Russian accented attempt at a comical Kermit accent, all while the crew is chased down by a strange partnership between Sam the Eagle, the comical American-accented CIA agent, and Jean Pierre Napoleon, the comical French-accented Interpol agent.

 

The Muppets Most Wanted still
Name the cameos, but hurry it up people, we have a lot countries to cross-cut to.

Am I going too fast for you? Because this movie goes fast.  Jaunty musical numbers cover up demolitions. Strained comical accents talk over each other. And Kermit spends most of the playtime either getting physically yanked and jerked around or yelling in frustration to be heard. After an hour and change, Muppets Most Wanted begins to make you wonder if Bobin and Stoller forgot to add the Muppets’ brand of introspection to this otherwise monotonously bombastic movie.

 

Luckily the movie eventually finds its way (possibly a little late in the game), and it’s also hilarious.  Despite its loudness, Muppets Most Wanted manages to plaster a big dopey grin on your face, and the payoff is that the frenzied antics and comical German, Spanish, Irish, and English accented location jumping eventually lead the gang to realize they should probably stop talking, settle down, and listen to each other once in a while. Eh, form follows function, possibly.

 

It’s another crowd pleaser. Hopefully, however, the next film will have a lot more breathing room and few less comical accents. And by the way, Frank Oz still thinks it sucks.

Filed Under: MOVIES Tagged With: Amy Adams, comical accents, Constantine, Dominic Badguy, England, Frank Oz, Germany, gulag, Ireland, James Bobin, Jason Segal, Muppets, Muppets Most Wanted, Nicholas Stoller, Ricky Gervais, Siberian, Spain, Tina Fey

“Her” Review- Ain’t she a beaut’?

by Peter Foy

Her2013Poster

At the relatively young age of 44, one could seriously make a case that Spike Jonze (born Adam Spiegel) has done more in his career than most film makers over 70 could ever have hoped to achieve. Starting out as a sought after music video director for his engaging contributions to musicians like the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim,  he went on to achieve great acclaim for directing Charlie Kaufman’s brilliant screenplays (Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation). He then would go on to co-create MTV’s massively popular TV series Jackass, and then take on the honor of being the first film maker to bring Maurice Sendak’s beloved Where the Wild Things Are to the big screen. An immense resume for sure, but there was perhaps one area Spike Jonze remained untested in: screenplay writing. All of his feature films had been penned by renowned names in the field (although he did have a co-writing credit on Where the Wild Things Are), but that didn’t keep us from pondering if this singular visual stylist could also be a great storyteller. Now, Spike Jonze has giving us a film, Her, that is written by him, as well as directed, and his full talents of an artist are more clear-and-present then ever in it. Her is a great film in every regard, and neck-to-neck with Before Midnight for 2013’s best film.

Her is a love story, and science-fiction tale that manages to be equally adept at both. Set in a near-future Los Angeles, it focuses on Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a highly intelligent yet introverted writer, who is under a great depression. He’s been seperated from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) for almost a year now, and it appears that their divorce is all but imminent. Drudging through life with a continued sense of melancholy, Theodore finally receives a ray of hope when he discovers a new technology that allow AI-automated Operational Systems to communicate with humans. After filling out a questionnaire, he forms the female AI known as Samantha, and the two quickly form a bond that turns into romance.

The idea of man falling in love with machine is certainly a sci-fi trope that’s been used for generations now, but Her still feels immediately fresh. Jonze vision of the future is both inherent to his style, as well as perfectly plausible in light of the way things currently look. Throughout the film we see futuristic interpretations of how we’ll read our email, listen to music (“put on a melancholy song.”) and play video games. These interpretations are often hilarious (Amy Adams character is programming a video game where the objective is to be the best mom ever!), and always whimsical and completely organic. It’s a vision that would make Philip K. Dick proud, and George Orwell reassess what a dystopia actually is. Add in a fantastic score from indie-rock gods Arcade Fire, and you have the most distinct and appealing vision of the future in a very long.

Her: Top 10 Films of 2013

Perhaps of even more importance to Her’s quality, however, is that the film’s face is so human. Theodore and Samantha’s relationship grows more complex throughout the film, especially when they start to realize how doomed it all is, but they still go through things that regular couples do. They argue about things that seem huge at the moment, yet petty in retrospect, as well as experiment with new scenarios to show their appreciation. The interactions that Theodore and Sam have tend to be sexy, endearing, and ultimately heartbreaking. Her is a resounding example of how powerful the science-fiction genre can be, when handled with proper care, and a proper focus on reality. Because of this, I can easily say that Her has one of the most bittersweet and effective endings in recent American cinema.

The one area of Her that’s the most dicey, however, actually stems from the film’s delivery of subtext. Don’t get me wrong, Spike Jonze is a brilliant director, and he and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema always make the film a pleasure to look at. It’s just…it’s no secret as to why Theodore dresses like a walking, talking Valentine’s Day card. Spike Jonze isn’t exactly the most subtle when it comes to visual cues with several shots coming off as fully blatant in their intended reading (one scene that comes to mind is a shot where a particularly distraught Theodore sits in front of a large video-screen as a falcon swoops down upon his figure), the film is just so pretty and majestic that it’s hard to complain if the film’s subtext is too obvious. After-all, this is a movie that is trying to communicate directly with contemporary audiences about how the line between romance and technology is becoming continuously blurred, so it doesn’t exactly hurt that the film is more honest than suggestive.

Her also probably has the best cast of the year (with all respect to American Hustle), and not just because of the two Oscar-worthy performances that are the center-pieces to the love story. Phoenix once again delivers a flawless performance that also seems to be exactly what his career had been building up to at this point. In recent years the actor has often been cast as a tortured romantic, and it’s easy to see why, as he has the perfect balance for making his characters sweet, flawed and fully human as well, and it’s unbelievable the chemistry that he has with Scarlett Johansen’s voice. It’s already been widely publicized that Spike Jonze recast the role of Samantha after he found that Samantha Morton’s original voice over wasn’t quite working during the editing process, but it’s very plausible to think that it only took a few line readings to convince Jonze that Johansen would be the ideal replacement. The young actress is perfectly soulful as this humanized machine, and it’s really hard to imagine that Phoenix couldn’t have listened to her performance at all during the filming. Another standout comes from the wonderful Amy Adams, proving once again that there’s little she can’t do, here playing the frizzy-haired…Amy, Theodore’s confiding friend and platonic soul-mate. Clever casting for the bit parts too, such as Kristin Wigg as a phone sex date and the lovable Chris Pratt as Theodore’s spirited boss, only contemplate the experience, and let viewers know that they’re really watching a movie that might very well have everything in it.

During the ending credits for Her, there’s a section that reads that the film is dedicated to the memories of James Gandolfini, Maurice Sendak, Harris Savides and Adam Yaunch. All four of these men had worked with Jonze over his career, and it really says something about how widespread his work has been if he’s worked with both Tony Soprano and MCA of The Beastie Boys during his relatively brief directorial career. Her is undoubtedly a culmination and destination point for the director, and you can tell that it’s the sort of film he’s waited his whole lifetime to bring to life. Here’s hoping that this film will act as a sort of a rebirth for Jonze, and that he will only continue to put out works of pop-art that only grow more marvelous.

i.2.s-joaquin-phoenix-her

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES Tagged With: Amy Adams, art, Her, Joaquin Phoenix, near-future, romance, sci-fi, Spike Jonze

Primary Sidebar

Navigation

  • HOME
  • OPINION
    • REVIEWS
  • BUSINESS
  • LGBT
  • ENTERTAINMENT
    • ARTS
    • MOVIES
    • MUSIC
    • TELEVISION
    • THEATRE
  • LIFESTYLE
    • TRAVEL
    • FASHION
    • HEALTH
    • FOODIE
    • STYLE
  • POLITICS
  • SCIENCE
  • SPORTS
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • U.S.
    • NEW YORK

Footer

  • ADVERTISE
  • TERMS OF SERVICE
  • CAREERS
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Legal

Copyright © 2023 · ManhattanDigest.com is run by Fun & Joy, LLC an Ohio company · Log in

 

Loading Comments...