It Takes Guts to Make a Movie Like The Muppets

When was the last time you saw a film and thought: "it takes guts to make a movie like that."

The most recent example I can think of is Shame. I still haven't seen the film, but there seems to be a never-ending chorus of people singing the praises of how gutsy this film is. How it chose to explore sex addiction. How Michael Fassbender had to put everything on the line. It's true, it would take guts to make a movie like that, especially with how it wore it's NC-17 badge out and proud.

We live in a cinematic world where we praise how brave movies can be if they show already extreme things in a more extreme way. We all seem to like the cold hard truth. If things don't appear to be realistic, we instantly start bashing it. If things are too happy, we think they aren't that realistic. Look at this way: the latest teen hyped movie is all about young people killing each other. When we see people getting killed on screen it isn't a big deal. Curse words can make it into a kids movie without a second thought. Hell, kids movies have to be laced with adult humour, violence, even killing of people just to be deemed 'entertaining'.

Apparently, that's what we call 'being gutsy'.

At the beginning of the week, I rewatched The Muppets. Here's a movie where everything is so out and proud. And by that, I don't mean that the puppets all kill each other and one comes out as the felt creation standing.

AAN: It Is All Over. And This is My 800th Post.

I only watched half of the Oscars. I decided not to go home 'sick' after all and I managed to not get my phone taken off me in class even though I checked it at least 20 times for winners. In fact, today has been an exciting day. In my English class, the teacher decided to ask the class for the 24 categories at the Oscars. Me being me, I knew all of them. As soon as the bell rung, I bolted out the door - and then the fire alarm went off, which was weird. I got home, found an online stream, but that got taken down. Luckily, a link I'd saved for last year's show worked this year. My life does not get more exciting than this.

All in all, even though I wasn't as excited this year, I was still jumping for joy all day at school. I'm sad it is over. I cried during the montage, because I'm going to miss the films like War Horse breaking my heart. Now, I will go through my year catching up on all of the films I missed - The Artist, A Separation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy...I can't wait until May when they start rolling out all of the awards season movies on DVD. While I felt that last year was better, at least it wasn't The King's Speech fronting this year of film.

My thoughts on the winners:

-We all knew that The Artist was going to win Best Picture. But I was doubtful, considering how strong Hugo was at the start of the show. Hopefully the win will speed up The Artist's expansion in NZ.

-I AM SO UNBELIEVABLY PISSED THAT VIOLA DAVIS DID NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS. I wanted Rooney Mara to win (and what a clip they showed of her), but this was the year for Viola. Anyway, Meryl Streep is a goddess. I loved what Colin Firth said to her. I miss him winning things.
-Even though I haven't seen The Artist, I am so glad that Jean Dujardin won. Anyone but George Clooney. I loved Jean's speech, too, I learned a thing or two from that.

"Life is a happy song."

Film: The Muppets
Year: 2011
Director James Bobin
Written by: Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel. 
Running time: 103 min.

I feel like sort of an outcast. I didn't really watch the Muppets much when I was a child, in fact, I didn't watch or do much of what any normal child did. For me, I was more content riding and caring for horses than I was with anything that happened on screen. That's what I love about cinema: it is constantly introducing me to all of these things that I have missed, which I'm happy that I've found. You've really got to hand it to Jason Segel and his co-writer Nicholas Stoller, who have dragged the felt favourites up from under what seems like a celluloid rock and brought the Muppets to our world and our times. Still, they remain the same as they ever were, realising that perhaps their world doesn't transfer so well to our world. And that is the beauty of The Muppets.