Movatterモバイル変換

[0]ホーム
URL:

Skip to main content
Archive Home
Get Archive Access
Sign in

Article clipped from Daily News

'Muppets' a delight; 'Event' a tasty trifle UST WHEN WE'VE HAD IT up to here with ripoffs, remakes, part twos, sequels, prequels and all the other imitations of movie art, along come the Muppets and their adorable Technicolor musical, entitled (what else?) The Muppet Movie, which is neither animal, vegetable nor mineral but a delicious combination of all three, and uniquely original. The Muppets move into the Ziegfeld today and it promises to be a happy home for all who visit there in the summer ahead, for this is the most delightful little movie in town. Children and adults, too, are in for a treat, for as the goony Lilliputians meet and match wits with real-life guests like *Orson Welles, Bob Hope, Mel Brooks and even Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy along the way, the whole thing takes on the aura of one of he old Crosby-Hope-Lamour "Road" movies. Needless to say, the rag-and -styrofoam Muppets created by Jim Henson seem more human (and humane) than some of the flesh-and-blood humanoids they encounter on their journey to Hollywood. The Muppet Movie begins in a screening room where all of the creatures are assembled to view their big film debut. Through flashbacks, we get the story of how it all came about, with Kermit the Frog being lured from his log in a lazy Southern swamp by talent scout Dom DeLuise via an ad in Variety for frog auditions. On his way to Tinsel Town, he picks up other Muppets as they all try to escape the clutches of Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), a quick-food entrepreneur who wants Kermit to do TV .commercials for deep-fried frogs legs. At the Sleezo Cafe, Kermit and Fozzie Bear start a riot with bouncer Telly Savalas. A cream pie on a billboard detaches itself to splatter enemy windshields. A fork in the road is exactly that a giant fork engaged as a sign• post. At a gala where Bob Hope sells ice cream, Kermit meets Miss Piggy, whose porcine splendor is judged the star of the talent contest by none other than the father of puppetry, Edgar Bergen, who died shortly after his scene was completed and to whom the movie is fondly dedicated. MISS PIGGY, in her outrageous costumes with her Mae West purr and her Streisand cackle, is the sex kitten of the film, a barnyard Sue Mengers ("Hi there, short green and handsome,", she snorts at Kermit, winking her sequined eyelashes and licking her snout suggestively) who must have that man (and a career besides). There's even a wicked parody of Claude Lelouch's A Man and A Woman as she and Kermit fall in love in a soft-focus haze of lush romantic music. In fact, discerning moviegoers will detect and relish a number of injokes and cheeky parodies if they look sharp. There's a thrill around every corner, Though The Muppet Movie is more than an elongated 30-minute TV show, most of the- gang is on hand to provide entertainment for every Muppet fan: Lotsa laughs in McLure's one-acters "The Muppet Movie" stars: Kermit the Frog and the divine Miss Piggy. REX REED Rowlf the dog philosopher bangs the ivories and howls about the pain of love, Sweetums the eight-foot lion is already halfway toward becoming a bathroom rug, the Great Ginzo, Monster, and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, who is the spitting image of the film's financial saviour, Lord Lew Grade, make notable confrontations. Statler and Waldorf, the New York tycoons, are cynical throughout ("Pri vate screening, eh? • •Must be afraid to show it publicly") and at the end Monster. growls hysterically at the audience and screams, "Go home!" But my favorite moment comes when the group is chugging toward Hollywood in a wooden station wagon. Big Bird, hitchhiking in the opposite direction, refuses a free ride, gurgling: "I'm on my way to New York City to break into educational television!" Invading the Hollywood studios of Lew Lord (Orson Welles) the unruly group demands to be made "rich and famous", so he orders his aide (Cloris Leachman, who is allergic to the Mup- cough up $300,000 in a hurry. The only alternative is to make something profitable out of her only asset, and Eddie "Kid Natural" Scanlon fights her all the way. He lives in a custom-built house the shape of a boxing glove, but he's no Rocky, and she's as inept a manager as he is a fighter. Bandaging his hands for the gloves, she bandages her own hand in the tape as well. Seeing his first opponent in the ring, a Neanderthal gorilla, she moans: "I've heard of fighting outta your class, but not outta your species." She breaks her Streisand fire-and-ice fingernails in the ring and he breaks his head. Her philosophy is "Hit him more often than he hits you and you'll win." The jokes are mild but the performances are engaging. Streisand is less strident than usual and her comic timing is bulletproof and critic-proof. Ryan is more animated than usual. Together, they are charming. The funniest stuff occurs at the training camp in the snow, with Barbra roughing it in the bunkhouse with the other guys while Ryan soaks it up luxuriously in a rustic cabin with a roaring fireplace. "I thought you said you went to camp as a child," he says. "I did," she quips, "but it was a very exclusive camp - we never. went outside!" Yelling at him, hanging on the ropes, pouring ice down his trunks, she drives him crazy. Naturally, they fall in love, and the movie falls apart in the cop-out ending. Streisand, who has been winning our hearts with her stubborn independence and good-natured liberated individuality, surrenders the championship and the money that will save her life in order to get her man. Somehow it doesn't wash. The movie is one of the ugliest to look at in years. Everything has been photographed by Mario Tosi in a nasty strain that makes the whole movie look like boiled rhubarb. Still, there are likeable things in the Main Event and the Streisand-O'Neal teamwork delivers a right hook to the audience's funnybone. Not a bad summer trifle if you're looking for an air-conditioned escape hatch; not bad at all. pets' shedding feathers and fur coats) to "get out the standard rich and famous contract" and the Muppet movie goes into production. Rich and famous they are, too, and if there's any doubt, The Muppet Movie will make believers and fans out of the worst pessimists. These lovable charac•ters are so real and so endearing that I was never aware of the human hands making them work from mysterious hiding places. The Muppets made a wideeyed, child out of me, and I hope they continue to do so until I'm in my wheelchair. THE MAIN EVENT has Barbra Strei- sand suffering comical whiplash from a California business manager who has fled with all of her money, leaving her with a bankrupt perfume company and not enough loot left to pay for her disco exercise class. After the debts are tallied against her negotiable assets, all she's got is a prizefighter (Ryan O'Neal) she once acquired in a business deal for a tax writeoff. She can't go up, she can't go down, but she will go to jail unless she can FOR TOTAL HILARITY, investigate Lone Star and Pvt. Wars, two superb one-act plays by a startlingly refreshing new playright named James McLure at the Century, 235 W. 46 St. Lone Star, the best of the two, will have you rolling in the aisles with its accurate ear to the way two Texas brothers, hell-raisers and good ol' boys right down to the taco juice on their cowboy boots, talk, rant, rail and "hook 'em horns" in the Aggie salute. Life is awful in a beer joint on a hot summer night in Maynard, Texas (I've been there and I know) but these goons know that even when it all falls apart there's optimism in the fact that they're not in Oklahoma, where things might be even worse. Really first rate theater, and marvelously well-acted by Powers Boothe, Leo Burmester and Clifford Fetters, who you'll swear were born and raised in the shadow of the LBJ hitching post.
Article from 22 Jun 1979Daily News(New York, NY)
•
CLIPPED BY
JesseCoffey100498

Topics to Browse:

Get started searching Newspapers by searching a keyword, name, or phrase…

PeopleTopicsLocationsOther
View All Clippings
[8]ページ先頭
©2009-2025 Movatter.jp