Every once in a while, I rewatch a Muppet movie. Doesn’t matter that I’ve seen them many times over by now. They’re still wonderful, joyous experiences. Even “Muppets From Space”, the clear weak link in the Muppet chain.

Today was The Great Muppet Caper, a criminally under-appreciated movie. The running gag of Kermit and Fozzie as identical twins (“Daddy, look! A bear!” “No, honey, that’s a frog. Bears wear hats.) is one of the funniest conceits around, “The Happiness Hotel” is a bouncy, fun musical number, and it’s always fun to go back and remind yourself that once upon a time, John Cleese was funny and not just yet another bitter old man complaining about “cancel culture”.

And you really, really have to give a special kudos to Charles Grodin, turning in a tour de force comedy villain performance. His line deliveries, his physicality, his expressiveness are all top notch, and he, more than any other performer ever, really sells the idea that he had fallen madly in love with Miss Piggy. You watch him perform with Miss Piggy, and you believe that he absolutely has it BAD for her. I don’t think we give Grodin enough credit overall. He was incredible.

And don’t forget!

If you really like https://i.gifer.com/4STA.gif, this movie gives you one of the best ever.

Matilda, the Musical was the family choice last night.

I’ve never read the book, but this has to predate Carrie and the Dark Phoenix Saga, right? Because there’s parallels.

I finished the third season of All Creatures Great and Small, courtesy of PBS. I enjoy this program, but as it is essentially a period piece about charming anecdotes that inherently lacks much tension or conflict it really is quite different than anything else I watch in the Drama category. It's basically an anti-Deadwood, if that makes sense.

I've been doing a slow re-watch of The Good Place, I just finished Season 1. It holds up... my goal is to pace myself through all of Season 3, which is the point at which it fell off my agenda.

As soon as my wife found out that Jon Hamm was in Top Gun: Maverick, it was basically only a matter of time until I sat down to watch it. And let's get this out of the way right now - giving Hamm's character any call sign other than "Madman" is just a waste. As for the movie... try to imagine a universe in which George Lucas had to create Star Wars while worrying about how it would screen in Imperial systems. That's this. The "enemy rogue nation" or whatever is totally North Korea, but the film never comes out and says it because, well, there's always the chance that the CCP will give the nod to a movie and allow it to show in China (that never did happen, but can't fault Bruckheimer for trying). The plot beyond that? I mentioned Star Wars for a reason, and in the interest of avoiding spoilers for a movie that's been out for nine months, we'll leave it at that. It was... fine. It has Jon Hamm in a uniform and Jennifer Connelly in *anything*, so the eye candy alone can sustain it for longer than you'd think.

Just rewatched Quantum of Solace (overly maligned in my book) and then saw news about the FBI guy working with the Russian oligarch and this line from M really stands out:

"When someone says "We've got people everywhere", you expect it to be hyperbole! Lots of people say that. Florists use that expression."

Since I permanently WFH, and I'm burning through podcasts, I decided to rewatch (well more like have on in the background while I work) all my physical blu-rays/DVDs in alphabetical order. Some I haven't watched in years, so it's fun to catch up.

Currently still in the blu-ray "A"s but so far have watched:

American Psycho (a lot more goofy than I remember. Also had no idea it was written/directed by a women. That adds a whole other layer to it in a good way IMO)
Ant-Man (one of my favorite Marvel flicks. Just a lot of fun)
Attack the Block (Love the alien effects in this. You can tell Boyega was destined to be a movie star)
Avengers (forgot how much Hawkeye is in this. It's over long, and dwells a little too much in "they all fight before becoming friends" but some of those end battle shots still hit like they did back in theaters)

Currently on: Avengers: Infinity War

Currently watching old Monsterpiece Theatre sketches on YouTube. If you don’t find these bits funny, I don’t know. Maybe there’s no hope for you.

Good times rewatch - Disney’s Robin Hood. How many awards did Peter Ustinov win for his performance as Prince John? None? That feels almost criminal.

The film that taught us that it's okay to think that anthropomorphic foxes are kinda hot (see also, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Zootopia).

We've watched the first 3 episodes of Severance earlier in the week, and yesterday my wife and I binge-watched the rest of the season.
It was good and though the first couple of episodes seemed a tad slow, it ramped up as the season progressed. I found it pretty entertaining.

And between Robin and Marian, no matter what, you were pretty well covered.

But it’s still just a fun, entertaining film. The writing is genuinely funny, the vocal performances sell the humor perfectly well, and it’s got top-notch action sequences. The final showdown at the castle is pretty damn fantastic in particular.

Just got down showing the oldest Willow. That movie holds up very well, especially as a DnD tribute.

I especially like that Willow goes full bore into the weirdness and achieved it in remarkable ways. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend watching Light and Magic. One of the episodes details the combination of physical puppetry and digital effects that went into the scene in which Willow, in his attempt to restore Fin Raziel to her human form turns her one after the other into a whole bunch of animals, and it is absolutely bonkers and awesome to see behind the scenes.

I’ll have to track that down.

It’s on Disney+. Really fascinating docuseries, especially if you have any interest in the behind the scenes work that has gone into SFX over the past several decades.