The Muppet Movie

Songs

Reviews

The Twin Geeks

“Kermit, does this movie have socially redeeming value?“

The Muppet Movie begins and ends with cinema. It is a celebration of the magic of movies, and the power that art holds. Kermit and his cohort of felted friends sit in a Hollywood screening room and watch a film about the Muppets. A movie within a movie, wheels within wheels. The film is an origin story that shows ‘approximately how it happened’, a road movie in the style of the Crosby/Hope ‘Road To..’ movies, a takedown of big business, and a celebration of art as a vehicle to make people happy. Littered with fabulous celebrity cameos, it is apparent that Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and the rest of the production team wanted to tip their hats to those that came before them – the comedians and artists that inspired and motivated them.

What is it that draws me back to this movie, and The Muppets as a whole, again and again? Is it the vaudevillian comedic styling? Is it Paul Williams’ masterful songs? The daring and nuanced camerawork? The technicality and showmanship of the puppetry? The whimsical, wholesome nature? It’s obviously all of these things and more; but there is an earnestness to these movies that I rarely find elsewhere. An antiquated approach to spectacle and jokes, in productions that rely heavily on physical design and craft, done with nuance, care, and polish.

Cinema is a magic store, and I’ve found a home here.

Life is like a movie, write your own ending. Keep beliving, keep pretending.

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