Popcorn Kernels: Moonage Daydreams

Labyrinth

Year: 1986

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Dave Goelz

Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

When a young woman accidentally banishes her baby brother to the goblin kingdom, she must work her way through a fantastical labyrinth to save him.

Obviously, Labyrinth made its way into my screening schedule due to the untimely passing of rock icon David Bowie, but it’s also a very appropriate interlude during the midpoint of my Muppet marathon. The last feature film directed by Jim Henson, Labyrinth is one of the final puzzle pieces in a career dedicated to converting the truly bizarre into the mainstream. The narrative of Labyrinth is piecemeal, part Alice in Wonderland, part Wizard of Oz, with the linguistic cunning of The Phantom Tollbooth, but beneath the vignettes of Jennifer Connelly’s journey there’s a dark, intelligent mind pulsing, constantly bursting forth with fresh, nutty ideas.

In the broadest sense, Labyrinth is about growing up and learning to share with/care for another human being. But Labyrinth is also about the poisonous behavior of clinging to material possessions, the unreliability of the rules by which one perceives the universe, and Jim Henson showing off just how devilishly creative he could truly be. The creature designs that erupt across the screen are feverish triumphs of character creation. 

From large to small, every monster, goblin, anthropomorphic door knocker, cockney worm, etc., etc., etc. has a personality and a detailed, idiosyncratic look. My personal favorites are the lichen-covered stone “Helping Hands” that guard the oubliette, and the trash ladies who roam the dump with their prized possessions piled on their backs, but every single creature has the potential to be somebody’s favorite for any number of equally sound reasons.

Labyrinth is confidently stylish and almost irritatingly large scale. The goblin battle in the third act somehow manages to wrangle puppets, life size monster suits, Jennifer Connelly, a dog, and rolling boulders all together in a dazzling, balletic display, sometimes all in the same shot. Labyrinth’s is a sumptuously realized world that took meticulous care and boundless creativity to produce, something Henson possessed in spades.

But above all else, Labyrinth is thoroughly weird. This is kind of unavoidable that features David Bowie in a lead role and lets him do the music, but that ain’t even the half of it. It’s a brain-bubbling stew of fantasy iconography, 80’s sludge pop, spontaneous reggae numbers, and Bowie music video interludes. Just like the titular labyrinth itself, it’s impossible to predict what’s around the next corner, which is why it’s pretty much perfect for kids and their frayed attention spans. 

There are moments where I must throw my hands up and admit that I have no idea what’s going on or why (like the totally pointless, nonsensical, masterpiece of a song “Magic Dance”), but whatever the reason, it’s relentlessly captivating stuff.

Rating: 8/10

The Beyond

For our podcast episode about The Beyond (including a lengthy Bowie tribute at the beginning and end), click here.

Year: 1981

Director: Lucio Fulci

Cast: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale

Run Time: 1 hour 27 minutes

MPAA Rating: X

A young woman inherits a Louisiana hotel, only to discoer that it is built over one of the seven entrances to Hell.

If Dario Argento is Italian horror’s Steven Spielberg, Lucio Fulci is its Roland Emmerich. He’s artful in his own way, but he goes straight for the jugular instead of tooling around with wastes of time like prestige, theme, or that bane of cinema, subtlety. In The Beyond, bad things happen because it’s Hell, dammit. Why are you trying to think things through when a man’s face is being pelted with glass?

The Beyond might not have much of a way with words (Or plot. Or logic.), but as a living gallery of excruciating pain, it’s undeniable. Continuing his lifelong vendetta against the human eye (this guy must have Un Chien Andalou as his screensaver… Film student humor!), he finds ever more extravagant ways to gouge, pluck, skewer, and otherwise inconvenience that accursed white orb. And that’s just the bedrock of an elaborately layered system of gore, from bloody falls to crucifixions to freaking tarantulas devouring a face. It’s an 80’s Italian film, so the effects don’t necessarily hold up, but they’re so gruesome that they bypass your brain’s reality cortex and dive straight for the “I’m gonna throw up” lobe.

The Beyond is a breathtaking gonzo gorefest, the ultimate visceral experience that horror filmmaking can provide. Its approach to gore can be easily summed up by one of its scenes, in which a woman is dissolved by acid, a wave of fluid sending her decaying body across the floor as a viscous, red foam. The Beyond is exactly that, an implacable crimson tidal wave threating to overtake you. 

Even amidst all this killing, Fulci never forgets to properly represent Italian horror, stylishly juxtaposing his kill scenes with moments of bucolic serenity, doubling down on the rapid cuts, rack focuses, and extreme close-ups so you’re incapable of forgetting which country is sponsoring this particular nightmare.

My only real issues with The Beyond are its slippery pacing and its climax. The dubiously dubbed dialogue scenes tend to drag like a 2 by 4 nailed to the back of a Hot Wheel car. There’s only so much momentum you can get out of wood. And the third act culminates in a bizarrely shoved-in, molasses-paced zombie sequence that seems like (and is) an ill thought-out studio note. Those two flaws combine with enough heft to knock The Beyond down a peg, but it’s still an exciting, revelatory, deliciously wicked motion picture.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 933

Pig In The City

Year: 1984

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz

Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

We are far from the end of our Muppet marathon, but we have hit a major milestone. 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan, the third feature film starring Jim Henson’s beloved creations, is also the final film to feature Henson himself before his untimely death in 1990. I don’t know what we’ll face in the sprawling decade of 90’s Muppetry, but at the very least it’s some comfort that his final silver screen outing was the most consistent, appealing cinematic Muppet venture yet.

Although, let’s not pretend any single moment in cinema history could beat “Rainbow Connection.”

The Muppets Take Manhattan begins like every great Muppet film should: with a dream: Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) and his friends have just graduated college and decide to head to Broadway to put on a show. Unfortunately, the big city eats apple-cheeked sentimentalism for breakfast, and they end up living out of bus station lockers and struggling to get by. The gang splits up to pursue their own destinies, but Kermit stays behind, befriending a waitress named Jenny (Juliana Donald) and teaming up to save the show and get his friends back together.

Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) also stays behind, to tail Kermit and Jenny and fly into a jealous rage whenever they hug. Hijinks ensue, involving roller skates, permed curls (never forget this was made in the 80’s), amnesia, and plenty of celebrity cameos. Half of which I recognized this time!

I might just know Elliott Gould from playing Ross and Monica’s dad on Friends, but that still counts!

With this entry, the Muppets have finally settled into the right budget range. The Muppets themselves maintain their astonishing lack of physical limitation (save a close-up of their marching feet, an unerringly disturbing sight that not even Kubrick could have gotten right), but tone down on the extravagant, showy production numbers. The Muppets are a lot of things, but they’re not shallow, and the exhausting profusion of pace-halting glitz in The Great Muppet Caper got alarmingly close to that dreaded lack of depth. But never mind that, because we’re back and we’re going to Broadway!

Since we spent so much time slamming Caper’s musical propensities, I suppose it’s prudent to explain where Manhattan goes right. The soundtrack is perhaps the most consistent of the first three films (though there is no standout like “Rainbow Connection,” it also doesn’t hit a nadir like “Couldn’t We Ride”), with each number actually servicing the plot and its themes in some way. The only time the film takes a screeching halt for a number is the playful doo-wop “I’m Gonna Always Love You,” performed by a live-action commercial for the Muppet Babies cartoon that would premiere two months hence. Fortunately, this performance is so cute that your face melts like that Nazi from Indiana Jones and you can’t be bothered to notice how indefensibly pointless it is.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

No further questions, your honor.

Another stand-out number, for obvious reasons, is the recurring motif “Together Again,” as direct a statement of the sentimental Muppetian love for the world, its inhabitants, and each other as there ever could be. It also boasts some kick-ass shoulder choreography that just shouldn’t be possible to achieve with felt hand puppets. And then there’s “Somebody’s Getting Married,” a musical theatre pastiche that bottles pure Broadway joy into a song that serves a purpose both in the show within the movie and the movie itself. Now, that’s screenwriting.

Now, Muppets Take Manhattan is not a perfect movie. It’s a consistent movie with by far the most successful narrative in the franchise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best. At times it can be altogether shaggy, especially when it splits up the core group of Muppets. We get a grab bag of sketches of varying quality describing their whereabouts, and the dutiful focus on each individual Muppet is charmingly sincere, though a bit long in the tooth. Especially in the third act, there are a lot of additional plot points that crop up just to add another wrinkle to the plot for no real reason other than extending the run time.

And I suppose there’s no better place than here to bring up an issue I’ve had with the Muppets since day one. It’s controversial, so viewer discretion is advised. I’m not a fan of Kermit and Miss Piggy’s relationship. I get the sitcom “take my wife, please” act, but I don’t ever feel for more than a minute at a time throughout any of these movies that Kermit cares about Piggy or wants to commit to her in any way. Her unfiltered devotion compared to his slightly alarmed ambivalence gives me angina. Piggy pushes and pushes him about getting married after he sells the show, much to his seeming consternation. So when the musical finale concludes in a showstopping wedding, it doesn’t feel earned at all, making the entire ending a little abrupt and clunky.

So there you have it. Brennan hates love.

But damn it all to hell, this is a Muppets feature. It’s silly, it’s fun, and Miss Piggy bends iron with her kung fu grip. You’re never not having a good time when you’re watching The Muppets Take Manhattan. The cameos are a little lax this time around, but having a roller skating Gregory Hines ask “You gave Jenny the huggies?” pretty much makes up for any deficiencies in that regard.

This is the first Muppet feature to never break the fourth wall, but it’s also the first to be an actual, bona fide movie. With Frank Oz, the Muppeteer with perhaps the broadest extracurricular experience (Yoda! Little Shop of Horrors! The man’s an icon.), at the helm, the movie finds its way to the finish line with fleet footing. Or is that hoofing? Webbing? At any rate, it’s even more fun to watch the Muppets take Manhattan than Jason Voorhees, and you know how much I adore that big lug.

TL;DR: The Muppet Take Manhattan is a little ditsy, but effervescently fun.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1031
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)

Movin' Right Along

Year: 1981

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

The second stop on our tour of theatrical Muppet features is The Great Muppet Caper, which elbowed its way into theaters in 1981 amid the greatest slasher boom of the 20th century. It actually debuted on the same day as Road Games, sandwiched right on in between Final Exam and Student Bodies as a family friendly alternative toall those psychopathic murder sprees. Film history is weird.

The feature film follow-up to The Muppet Movie two years earlier, The Great Muppet Caper debuted after The Muppet Show finally closed its doors. It netted almost twice the budget of its predecessor, carving a new path for the future of Jim Henson’s Muppets. And who better to direct this next chapter than Henson himself? Taking over from the anonymous James Frawley, his work would be much more idiosyncratic, though perhaps not quite so coherent.

I’m just saying, maybe the guy who invented these guys didn’t have his head screwed on totally straight.

In The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) and Fozzie Bear (Frank Oz) are twin brother reporters and Gonzo (Dave Goelz) is their intrepid cameraman. In order to save their jobs, they travel to England to investigate the theft of Lady Holiday’s (Bond girl Diana Rigg) diamonds. Kermit mistakes secretary Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) for Lady Holiday and they fall in love, because apparently their romance is going to respawn every time like it got blown up in Call of Duty. Lucky us.

When Miss Piggy is framed for the theft, Kermit and the others team up to catch the real criminal, the Lady’s brother Nicky (Charles Grodin) before he and his team of models steal the Baseball Diamond from the Mallory Gallery.

Yes, this movie was made for children, why do you ask?

Summing up The Great Muppet Caper is a thorny task. The ways in which it improves on the uneven, vignette-driven Muppet Movie are almost exactly equal to the ways it utterly fails to match up to the giddy, warm-hearted heights of that film. Let’s open with some positive remarks, because I don’t want you to go around thinking there’s a bad Muppet movie floating around out there somewhere.

First off, this film marries its Muppetian antics to a wonderfully intelligible plot. With actual conflict, story beats, and a recognizable three-act structure, Caper is driven by an intentionality that The Muppet Movie totally lacked. Second, Henson has an eye for composition that isn’t exactly Wellesian, but certainly outpaces Frawley’s frantic fumbling without breaking a sweat. My single favorite visual moment is when a lurking model drifts behind a mirrored pillar, drawing attention to another model across the room and creating the uncanny sense of being surrounded. His use of the camera in his storytelling is simple, but nevertheless whimsical and fun.

But you know what this movie doesn’t have? “Rainbow Connection.” The score is overloaded with original compositions, but none have the sweet resonance of Kermit’s swamp serenade, or even Gonzo’s terrifically earnest “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday.” The opening song “Hey a Movie!” captures some of the exuberant joy of creating entertainment and boasts a dazzling, intricately choreographed display on a city street utilizing dozens of dancers and even moving cars, but most of the other tracks (of which there are a staggering profusion) call to mind that dreaded word… Filler.

A word that instantly strikes fear into the heart of any devoted completist.

I really get the sense that The Great Muppet Caper was written after the songs were composed, because the story does some truly impressive Linda Blair contortions to shoehorn in production numbers. The entire second act feels like a prime time TV show with too many commercial breaks. Whenever we get an inch of plot, a mile of singing quickly unravels after it.

The actual conflict doesn’t kick in until about an hour into the movie, because of the film’s uncanny dedication to lushly staged but frustratingly pointless numbers like “Piggy’s Fantasy” (a lavish pool sequence that calls to mind Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) or “Night Life” (a wordless, tedious New Wave noodle that drags like a dead body – Electric Mayhem strikes again). By the time the meandering “Couldn’t We Ride” interrupts one of the longest sustained plot points (about a minute and a half, by my count), you begin to wonder if this movie dearly wants to punish viewers who have a less than thorough knowledge of Busby Berkeley. I mean, I like musicals, but this is like banging your head into a piano.

The unsuitably boring middle third of the film is also marred by what can only be described as a scathingly awful performance from Mssr. Charles Grodin, who certainly can act but even more certainly does no such thing here. If he was shooting for “unfathomably drunk,” he undeniably succeeded, but his unmotivated dialogue is exacerbated by the sense that he doesn’t seem to know what room he’s in half the time.

Sorry, dude. Love the sideburns.

But take every negative feeling generated by that section of the movie and flip it the hell around, because the first and third acts feature the madcap Muppets at their finest. From the adorable, fourth wall shattering opening credits to the litany of jovial jokes (which aren’t quite as dopey as The Muppet Movie, but just as silly and vaudevillian), The Great Muppet Caper is a very lovable, extremely fun watch for the young, the old, and the furry.

Utilizing its gargantuan budget (methinks the lady’s diamonds might have been stolen to fund this movie), Caper performs incredible feats of visual splendor that the Muppets were wholly incapable of pulling off before. The opening number and the closing heist thrum with vibrant creativity that plays with the darkness of the crime genre in a safe, effortlessly exuberant environment. 

For all that I kind of despise a good third of The Great Muppet Caper, everything else is a more than suitable ointment for my pain. These are still the Muppets, and they still put on a good show. It’s their job and they do it well. With Henson at the wheel, they brim with cheery sentiment and unforgettable charm that goes an extremely long way.

TL;DR: The Great Muppet Caper is an effervescent family comedy that suffers from an extremely bloated second act.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1078
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)

We Know That It's Probably Magic

Year: 1979

Director: James Frawley

Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: G

I just made the best decision of my life. Because I’m a huge fan of the Muppets and their new TV show on ABC is just unlawfully good, I decided to drag myself and Sergio through a marathon of their 8 theatrical features, only three of which I have previously seen (and just one of which – Muppets Most Wanted – I have previously reviewed).

Jim Henson’s Muppets have withstood the test of time with grace and flair, bringing their enterprisingly meta comedy to the masses for over half a century. Although The Muppet Movie is not where they got their start (they debuted on Sam and Friends in the ancient year of 1955 and were already three seasons deep in The Muppet Show by the time the movie was released in 1979 – totally incidentally, the same year that Mad Max injected fuel into the engine of action cinema), it’s nevertheless a great place to start: their origin story.

It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, but only slightly less violent.

The Muppet Movie opens on the World Wide Studios lot, where the Muppets (including Kermit’s terrifyingly waifish nephew) have gathered for a screening of their first film, depicting how the felt-covered crew came into being.

The film rolls and we’re immediately plunged into the single best scene in the history of children’s entertainment: Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) sits on a log, strumming a banjo and wistfully crooning the Willliams & Ascher tune “Rainbow Connection,” the ethereal paean to following your dreams that has landed at number 74 on AFI’s 100 Best Movie Songs list, been covered dozens of times by artists including The Carpenters, Weezer, Justin Timberlake, and Kenny Loggins, and caused more teary eyes than a century’s worth of animal dander. “Rainbow Connection” is a goddamn perfect song. This film was, is, and always will be “Rainbow Connection,” and thus can be forgiven if nothing to follow ever adequately reaches those heady heights.

Following his sojourn into unadulterated joy, Kermit meets Bernie (Dom DeLuise), a Hollywood agent who tells him of an upcoming audition for frogs, wanting the opportunity to make millions of people happy, he takes a trip from the swamp to sunny California, making friends along the way and taking them with him. These fine furry folks include failed comedian Fozzie Bear (Frank Oz), traveling plumber Gonzo (Dave Goelz), down-home beauty queen miss Piggy (Frank Oz), and the band Electric Mayhem, of whom the only one that matters is Animal (Frank Oz, who I hope got a dozen different paychecks for this).

There’s a lot of hippy-ish free love ride sharing going on, but the gang is pursued by the very un-New Age Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), a fried frog legs magnate who will stop at nothing to make Kermit the spokesfrog for his restaurant chain, even if I means killing and stuffing him.

Kiddie flicks used to be DARK, man.

Now, this is a movie from the 70’s, and it more than betrays its vintage. Of the dozen or so cameos that pack this film, today’s kids would only recognize two – Steve Martin and Big Bird. And Sergio and I hardly fared much better, though we at least had heard of everybody featured. Between that and the older, more threadbare puppet designs, The Muppet Movie doesn’t quite bridge the gap to the modern age, though it really doesn’t need to with its universal themes and cheery humor.

The real trouble with The Muppet Movie is that it never truly tells a cohesive story. It’s more a loose string of vignettes with the same broad theme, a problem endemic to many road trip movies (except, oddly, Bride of Chucky). There are some hazardously dull patches on the rocky road from point A to point B, especially any scene featuring Electric Mayhem, who I must admit I’ve never cared for except as an Animal delivery system. This story structure also allows some self-indulgent breaks from tone, like a bizarre and pointless Western interlude (which is almost made up for by the hyperbolically adorable sight of Kermit in spurs and a ten-gallon hat).

The soundtrack has its equal set of rough patches. I know that comparing any song to “Rainbow Connection” is like comparing a glass of water to the Pacific Ocean, but Piggy’s “Never Before, Never Again” is still a bit wan, pepped up only by Frank Oz’s gonzo performance (pun not intended, with all due respect to Dave Goelz). And I think if I badmouth Electric Mayhem one more time, I’ll be run off this blog with torches and pitchforks, so I’ll just say that I wish they’d ended along with the 70’s.

Unfortunately, puppets hardly ever have contract disputes, so we’re stuck with ‘em.

But for all that The Muppet Movie isn’t the greatest film ever made, it’s still an unimpeachably fun motion picture. While the broad-as-a-barn vaudeville comedy stylings might not be everybody’s cup of tea, the humor is so sweet and gentle that it’s impossible to dislike. Plus, several of the cameo performers are downright uproarious, including Mel Brooks in an explosive turn as a sublimely evil German doctor and Steve Martin as an uncouth waiter. Any time they’re pulling their absurdist antics onscreen, the only way you’ll stop laughing is if your lungs fall out.

The real core of The Muppet Movie is its earnest desire for you to have a good time, a goal which it indubitably accomplishes. It has no higher purpose than creating smiles, the simple compositions and unchallenging plot line serving only as a means to an end. But, oh, what an end. Jim Henson’s Muppets have always had an uncanny level of emotional life thanks to their mind-bogglingly terrific puppeteers, but the earnest and sentimental approach to storytelling here is uncannily effective.

From the heartstring thresher that is “Rainbow Connection” to the open-faced, generous enthusiasm with which Kermit chases his Hollywood dream, The Muppet Movie very frequently taps directly into the human soul. Perhaps no scene is more potently sincere than Gonzo’s solo song “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday,” a piece that is literally about him wanting to be a stuntman but rings with percussive emotion about optimism, passion, and reaching for he stars. I’d say it’s inhumanly powerful, and I’d be right. It’s muppetly powerful. That unfettered sappiness which never ever feels dishonest is the reason that this film is a classic.

It never hurts to feel like a kid again.

Soon, just like the film’s jaunty recurring theme, we’ll be “Moving Right Along” to later, occasionally better Muppet pictures. But let us never forget the sacrosanct pleasure of watching these good friends get together, even if there were some bumps in the road.

MVP (Most Valuable Puppet): Kermit the Frog

Kermit is usually the straight man (well, straight frog) among his zany friends: but this movie is his and his alone. His earnest desire to make people happy drives this occasionally uneven film with all the Jim Henson sentimentalism he can muster.

TL;DR: The Muppet Movie has its rough patches, but is unfailingly earnest and sentimental.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1207
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)