“Muppets Most Wanted” Most Enjoyable
Mar 26th
“Most Enjoyable”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
MUPPETS MOST WANTED reminded me of that old vaudeville saying, “a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants,” as the Muppets once again do what they do best: act silly and be entertaining during the course of a story that brings them all together.
All your favorite Muppets are back, and many of your favorite human entertainers appear in surprising cameos or as major characters advancing the story.
The cameos include such entertainers as Tony Bennett, Hugh Bonneville, Sean Combs, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Salma Hayek, Frank Langella, Ray Liotta, Usher, Stanley Tucci, and Christoph Waltz, who in fine Muppet tradition dances the waltz onstage during a performance in Berlin.
The story has the Muppets reuniting and being convinced to go on a world tour by Dominic Badguy, played by Ricky Gervais, who promises them houses that will be sold out and worldwide adoration if they will hire him to be their manager.
Dominic says, “Kermit, how about the Muppets go on a world tour?” and says that his last name is pronounced “Badgee” even though it looks like “Badguy,” because it is French and actually means “Good guy.”
Meanwhile, Constantine, the World’s Most Dangerous Frog, breaks out of a gulag prison in Russia and becomes an integral part of the story, because he looks just like Kermit, except that he has a dark mole above his lip.
Well, Dominic has a dastardly plan for the cities he picks for the world tour, and, sure enough, Constantine replaces Kermit on the tour, and Kermit is arrested as Constantine and sent back to the Russian gulag, whose commandant is Nadya, played by Tina Fey.
After a museum robbery in Berlin engineered by Dominic and Constantine, Interpol sends Jean Pierre Napoleon, played by Ty Burrell, and Sam Eagle from the CIA shows up to solve the case, but after interviewing all the Muppets, they conclude that the Muppets are too stupid to be behind the robberies, which now include another museum robbery in Madrid.
Meanwhile, back at the gulag, Nadya has ordered Kermit to be in charge of the annual musical review, and she has started to have fond feelings for Kermit.
Incidentally, stay for the end and Nadya’s solo, which is priceless.
MUPPETS MOST WANTED of course contains a major marriage subplot with Miss Piggy.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Muppets Most Wanted – Movie Trailer
Mar 25th
Disney’s “Muppets Most Wanted” takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine-the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit the Frog-and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two, portrayed by Ricky Gervais. The film stars Tina Fey as Nadya, a feisty prison guard, and Ty Burrell as Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon.
“Tim’s Vermeer” Fascinating
Mar 19th
“Fascinating”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
TIM’S VERMEER is an absolutely fascinating documentary of how Tim Jenison went to all the time, trouble, and expense of investigating and eventually reproducing one of the works of art of 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.
Vermeer was not widely appreciated in his own time, and authorities have proclaimed that he painted only between 30 and 35 works, but also that he was one of the greatest painters of all time because of his microscopic observation of objects and meticulous depiction of gradation of daylight on varied shapes and surfaces.
His paintings show details and perspectives found in photographs, and Jenison believes that Vermeer could have used a camera obscura to make his paintings, which is Latin for “dark chamber” and is a darkened enclosure with a pinhole on one side through which light enters to form an image of the outside objects on the opposite surface.
Jenison asks, “How did Vermeer do it?” and decides that he is going to paint a Vermeer even though it seems impossible and Jenison is not a painter, but is an inventor.
So, Jenison went around the world to study Vermeer’s paintings, which he says was a “revelation,” and he realized that Vermeer could have used a small mirror to paint his pictures, which allowed him to match colors perfectly.
Jenison demonstrates his theory to Martin Mull, an entertainer and artist in his own right, and Mull is impressed with what Jenison demonstrates.
Then Jenison decides to reproduce a painting by Vermeer called “The Music Lesson,” which is owned by Queen Elizabeth in England, saying that the process is objective and any painter who uses it would get the same result.
He built the room in the painting himself in 213 working days in a warehouse and says that he wasn’t trying to make the painting look like a Vermeer, but it was looking like a Vermeer.
We see Jenison at work day by day, and he says that the project is a lot like watching paint dry, which implies that it is boring, but watching this documentary is anything but boring.
At one point Jenison was ready to quit, but because a film was being made, he completed the painting.
TIM’S VERMEER, written and narrated by Penn Jillette, directed by partner Teller, is magic to watch.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
