I can see why so many folks in the American movie biz have both admiration and affection for The Artist as well as why it's received almost universal acclaim from critics. While it does drag a bit in the middle, I found the movie a delight on the whole — and I love the fact that the audience clapped at the end.
Applause when a movie concludes, based on the unscientific sampling that is my own theatergoing experience, is much rarer today than it was when I was a kid. I'm not sure if that's because people are more used to watching movies at home (in smaller parties and/or alone) or because there are fewer films that rouse an audience to applause than there used to be; either way, it's one of the fun, communal aspects of seeing a flick on the big screen in a packed house. The Artist is definitely one to savor in such a setting, surrounded by fellow film buffs in near-darkness with the smell of popcorn in the air.
I won't spoil anything here.
Screencap © 2012 Worldwide Pants Inc.
David Letterman has been having fun with Twitter for a while now. He acts more befuddled than he actually is — mistaking the 17 feeds that the official Late Show Twitter account is following for how many followers it has, for example, when the latter number is actually over 150,000 at this writing, or literally typing in the words "hash tag" (which he's at least amended to "#HashTag").
I said at the end of yesterday's post that any write-up of this year's Golden Globes telecast would be short and scattershot. Here's me trying to make good on that claim. For a more in-depth reflection on many of the Globes' quirks, see my write-up from last year.
Overall, Ricky Gervais as host was once again fine but not stellar. Most of his barbs didn't have the bite that I think he wanted them to, as he — and NBC, and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association — seemed to promote his return this year as a go-for-broke train wreck waiting to happen, which is rather a silly thing. Gervais was, y'know, invited back. Of course he comes with a certain amount of edginess, but he's a professional and there were negotiations and he knows how far he can push it. This isn't an accidentally "tweeted" nude photo; it's three hours of prime-time network programming on a Sunday night. We can all feign anticipated shock only so far.
Photo from Talking Funny © 2011 Home Box Office, Inc.
Ricky Gervais is hosting the Golden Globes ceremony again after all.
Last year there was foofaraw from some quarters — including The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which runs the Globes and was one of Gervais's targets — about his barbs being distastefully sharp. Many of the Western world's most prominent humorists rose up to defend him. I was in the minority position, expressed in my writeup of last year's telecast, of not minding the acerbity of the jokes but feeling a lack in their overall quality and even quantity; Gervais didn't seem as sharp to me as usual (in terms of keenness of delivery, not pointedness of content) and he was AWOL for long stretches.
I get a kick out of seeing what searches lead folks here. While I'm always curious to see the Posts listing in the Stats provided by Blogger, I find how people are landing on certain pages of the blog — and as much why as one can hypothesize from the how — even more interesting than what those pages are.
Very often, I have little to no idea how a given search relates to what Google turns up, like so:
Midnight in Paris came out on home video a couple of weeks ago. I caught it in theatrical release last summer and came away with mixed feelings. Upshot? I'd probably recommend it as a rental for the enjoyable execution of the premise; I only wish that the present-day cast was half as compelling as that populating the scenes set in the 1920s.
Hello! Are you looking for this?
Photo detail © 2010 CBS.
I've kinda rigged the question by providing that photo, since Alex Carter's name was the most searched-for string leading folks to Blam's Blog last year according to Blogger's stats analysis.
So Anderson Cooper was kidnapped by the Broadway version of The Green Goblin last night in Times Square. And Spider-Man rescued him. The whole thing was on CNN.
I'm usually watching ABC's Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, at least in the background, on New Year's Eve. Frankly it's more habit than tradition, since I grew up in the days where it was just about the only (and certainly the most popular) thing on the air broadcasting the ol' ball drop.
Last night, though, CNN was the channel of choice. I had heard good things about Cooper's bizarre annual pairing with Kathy Griffin, and they do indeed make a curious duo:
Exactly one year has passed since I mentioned on this blog the impending launch of Nikki Stafford's Great Buffy Rewatch over at her blog, Nik at Nite. The exercise in entertainment and insight ended this past week, as our group viewing of and conversations about the seven seasons of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer — including, for some of us, the first four of five seasons of spinoff series Angel — drew to a close.
Why can't the X-Men use Twitter?
Because you're limited to 140 characters.
I've been holding onto that one at least since the X-Men: First Class movie came out.
And if anyone knows a better graphic to run here than the above stuffed-but-not-stuffed-enough shot that looks to have been drawn by Carlos Pacheco (inker, colorist, and source unknown), they're more than welcome to tip me off to it.
Image copyright year of production, and featuring characters who are trademarks of, Marvel Comics.
When these posts began their avowed purpose was to make sure the blog had some content while my attention was mostly directed elsewhere, stoking my own and hopefully my readers' enthusiasm for the new Muppet movie.
Of course these past few months have ended up being among the busiest on the blog, not only in terms of posts posted but viewers viewing them — which is one reason why I decided to keep the new content flowing with more than just Muppet Monday stuff, but that too, even after the movie opened. I'll share some further thoughts on bloggy business in a couple of weeks; right now I'm wrapping up this volley of Muppet Monday with one last round of links.
Here's a list of seven sites for Muppet lovers interested in further exploration, most official and most mentioned on the blog before.
Christmas is here. As always, I wish you a day of peace — and family, and tradition, and fun. My grab-bag of goodies is especially full of music this year.
I heard a very clever parody of The B-52s' "Love Shack" called "Toy Sack" on WXPN the other day. Bob Rivers apparently wrote and recorded the ditty for his 1997 album More Twisted Christmas. His version is on Vimeo set to holiday lights at the preceding link.
photo © 2011 Brian Saner Lamken
This year the winter holidays have been a bit different for my family. We had a bunch of cousins move up here to the Philadelphia suburbs from South Florida this past summer, bringing with them an annual tradition of doing Christmas big, whereas usually I either try to visit my father in New Jersey or hang out with friends if I'm able to get out at all. Last weekend there were almost twenty of us decorating cookies; the menorah with the blue background at the bottom of the photo up there and the Christmas tree right above it are both mine, paying homage to my interfaith heritage.
Gelt is the Yiddish word for money. You almost exclusively hear it today in the context of "Chanukah gelt" — unless you know people who routinely speak Yiddish and talk about money. In older times, parents and wealthy community members might give money to children at Chanukah, but now kids mostly get presents and Chanukah gelt mostly comes in the form of foil-wrapped, coin-shaped chocolate.
My Chanukah this year, as you can see above, has been full of melt.
The last three movies I saw were about movies. And one of the next ones I see probably will be too, as The Artist is opening soon at my local art-house theater. I came to this realization walking out of a screening of My Week with Marilyn the other day, my last cinematic indulgences having been Hugo and The Muppets.
Right in time for Chanukah...
I'm not gonna say it's a miracle. Over the past couple of days, though, I was finally able to get up some blog posts that I've been trying to publish properly since the start of the month. So, y'know, it's no oil lasting in the Temple for eight days, but I'm happy about it.
Jimmy Fallon returned to Saturday Night Live this weekend — and so did Horatio Sanz, Tracy Morgan, and Chris Kattan, to help him close out 2011 with a rendition of their old standard "Christmas Is Number One".
Screencap © 2004 NBCUniversal.
The last time the song was performed on the show, seven years ago, Sanz was the only one of the four still in the cast, and stopped the tune almost before it had begun when he realized there was nobody to back him up. Until, that is, Kermit the Frog popped up to tell Horatio that his friends would happy to join in... Here's the video from this past Saturday, to jog your memory, and the 2004 clip with the Muppets.
Screencap © 2011 Disney.
Given that last week's installment was another long one — also that I've had trouble posting, with both that and this going up late — I thought I'd keep today's Muppet Monday brief. A music video for the song "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets (performed by the new Muppet, Walter, and Jason Segel as his human brother Gary) has been released with clips from other parts of the film interspersed with the song's scene in the movie. For those who've seen The Muppets, the song is a treat to revisit, but for those who haven't seen it and plan to there are some surprises spoiled — like what's probably the funniest cameo in the film, even if like me you don't actually watch the show that made the actor in question famous.
