It's More of a Supper Club

Last night I subjected my roommate to The Great Muppet Caper, and watching her flip out over the cameos was nearly as enjoyable as watching the movie itself. She recognized most of them on her own. I've got a swell roommate.

And what a swell film. Every character gets at least one moment to shine and at least one wacky one-liner (Lew Zealand repeatedly offering up his paper towels makes no sense, but always earns a laugh.) The Muppets triumph over adversity by means of genuine weirdness and tremendous song-and-dance numbers. The songs themselves range from rockin' Muppety funk, to sweet Muppety innocence, to monumental theatrical extravaganzas. And in spite of all this, Charles Grodin steals the show every dang time. He can't even do anything about it; he's too distraught by the ketchup on his cummerbund.

Everything looks terrific. The over-the-top, purportedly high-fashion costumes are ridiculous - culminating in the perfect teeny-weeny hat. Miss Piggy looks fantastic throughout; I wish someone would pay as much attention to her overall look now as someone was obviously paying to each individual outfit (and each wig, and each pair of heels) she wore in GMC. And the Dubonnet Club set, with its mirrored walls and lit floors, provides the perfect showcase for her to let loose with her mad tap-dancing prowess.

That's the most satisfying aspect of this movie. It may not be set in a theater, but the Muppets are playing themselves, filling in for the roles in a musical comedy that belongs to a grander era, which proves to be the ultimate venue for their talents. Naturally, in a setting like that, both the romantic leads deserve (and fully avail themselves of) showstopping tap-dance breaks; our imaginary 1940s audience expects it.

Furthermore, in a movie like this, all of Miss Piggy's delusions of divahood can come to pass. In this half-fanciful, half-real universe, everyone comes to see Piggy as the the star she's always known herself to be, in the scenes (and couture) that she so thoroughly deserves. She starts as a mere wannabe in Lady Holiday's office, but she carries herself through the farce so spectacularly (and dresses so smartly; I cannot emphasize this enough) that after the scenes at the nightclub, at the fashion show, and in her very own water ballet, Nicky's battle for Piggy's affections can simultaneously be deliciously absurd, and make perfect sense.

And my goodness, words can't fully do justice to Frank Oz's acting. Miss Piggy's "I don't need this lousy duck pond" scene is one of my favorites in Muppetdom, but Fozzie, too, is (in Piggy's words) playing eight hundred different emotions. Fozzie is devoted to Kermit to the end: his passion shows in his motivational speech to the gang; his fervor and naivete come through in his conviction that he'll accompany Kermit to his night on the town; he even gives a lovely, wistfully quiet sigh as he watches Kermit and Piggy dance.

Plus, Muppets on bicycles! They always, always make the sun shine.

Great; Now I'm the Bad Guy

My roommate and I saw Tangled last night, and we both absolutely loved it. We loved the characters, the animation, and everything related to the mother-daughter relationship. Of course, we were both afraid to go to sleep afterwards, for fear that our nightmares about our respective mothers chasing us might return.

The mother's character was stunningly developed; she was so nuanced a villain that she could have been real. Her lines were pitch-perfect for an overbearing mother with a psychological stranglehold on her daughter (and all the quick cuts with Rapunzel waffling between running off and moaning about how she's a horrible daughter were perfect, too), the animation for "Mother Knows Best" was marvelous, and Donna Murphy was fantastic.

I did have a couple of gripes with the writing (there's no reason for fairy-tale characters, even those speaking in contemporary colloquialisms, to use "like" the way Rapunzel did; that's just lazy) and with the animation (Rapunzel still did look like a Barbie doll, and her design hasn't veered even slightly from the old "no room for a womb" standard of animated female characters).

And all in all, it's very much a Disney movie. The women characters were a witch and a clueless pixie with magical powers. The heroine only discovers herself and reaches maturity with the aid of a love interest. There's still a princess, and still a happily-ever-after.

Within that framework, however, Disney did everything they could to take this movie in a progressive direction. Everything that the writing for "Princess and the Frog" had gotten wrong by telling and not showing, this movie did right. Rapunzel may not have been worldly-wise, but as a heroine she was smart, brave, resourceful, and did all the rescuing on her own, and nobody made a big deal about it.

Oh, and the male chorus and Maximus the horse deserve huzzahs all their own.

Honestly, my biggest difficulty with this movie was suppressing the urge to take the cue from my favorite incarnation of the Rapunzel story at every call of "Let down your hair!" and shout, "My haiah?!" You're welcome, fellow moviegoers.

O Brother, What in Tarnation Art Thou?

Having listened to the soundtrack a handful of times, at least now I can match the songs to their cinematic sequences. Other than no longer having to come up with excuses, though, I can’t think of a more compelling reason that I’m pleased to have finally watched O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Sure, I enjoyed the movie; it made me laugh, it told a story that captured my attention, and it painted vivid portraits of its setting (Depression-era Mississippi) and of distinctive characters (Charles Durning stands out as the cavalier Governor “Pappy” O’Daniel). Even George Clooney’s portrayal of Ulysses, who grated dangerously on my nerves for the first few minutes, earned my favor by the end.

At the film’s conclusion, though, I found myself more frustrated than satisfied by its ambiguities. Who was chasing our heroes: the law or the Devil? What made Clooney’s character so vastly different – in his accent, his education, and his superstitions – from his contemporaries? And how could his wife be so obdurate as to demand that he fish out her wedding ring from the bottom of a lake?

Too many elements of the sometimes-real, sometimes-absurd, and sometimes-overwrought story made me feel that the filmmakers were toying with me. If they aim to spin a fairy tale, I’d expect more boldly whimsical storytelling throughout – not token overt mythological references at the beginning, middle and end. If they want my sympathy with the main character, I need a deeper glimpse into his backstory. And if the Coens ask me to take their somewhat jarring approach on faith, I expect more of a payoff: a satisfying conclusion, or at least more consistency in style.

Perhaps I’d have been more forgiving had I reviewed The Odyssey at the outset; perhaps I hadn’t seen enough Coen Brothers movies to know what I was getting into; perhaps the backdrop of chain gangs and lynch mobs put me in the wrong mindset for a quirky caper flick. But when Clooney conned his cohorts into setting out on his quest, he brought me along for the ride. And after blindly following him everywhere he led me, I still can’t make heads or tails of where we’ve gone.