Weekly Weblinks: Spidey, Scots, and Rocker Snots

It’s Friday morning, and so it’s time for another dose of the Weekly Weblinks. This week’s blog posts include another take on Brave, a review of a film that is coming out soon, and a few reviews of films that range from a year old to a 1960s classic.

In the news, an unlikely TV adaptation, a prog metal group’s demise, Keanu Reeve’s next big thing, and yet more puppet film news. So read on for a Weekly Weblinks that is surprisingly heavy in the Scottish influence. (I swear I don’t plan these things.)

Favorite Films: The Muppet Movie

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows,
and what’s on the other side?”

In 1979, the Muppets were at the peak of their popularity. The Muppet Show had been running since 1976, and children and adults both regularly tuned in to watch the silly, surreal antics of Kermit the Frog and his cast of performers attempt to put on a show every week. The time was ripe for Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and the rest of the Muppet performers to take the characters to the next level, to produce a movie: The Muppet Movie. The feature-length format allowed them to tell a complete story, the story of how the Muppets first came together. “Well, it’s sort of approximately how it happened,” as Kermit tells his nephew Robin. The movie starts out with the Muppets attending the private screening of their own film, and that subversive meta-humor peppers the entirety of the movie. The movie is filled with lots of other kinds of humor as well, from character humor, pop culture references, situational irony, running gags and hilariously bad puns. It also throws in some sentimentality, some excitement, some music, and a whole herd of guest stars.

Weekly Weblinks: First Feature

This morning I’m starting a new feature here on Morgan on Media, the Weekly Weblinks. I’ve been seeing a few other bloggers start up various “Follow Friday” features, or other ways to share readers around the net, and I felt like this would be a good way to do my part. Each Weekly Weblinks feature will include several links to specific blog posts that I have enjoyed reading, and think are worth sharing. It will also include various news tidbits that I felt like saying a few words on, but which didn’t warrant a full post on their own (news pieces where I do have more to say will remain as their own posts under Media News). And it’ll often have another item just for the fun of it.

Because these are articles that I’m finding as I go along the week, the exact nature and number of the links will vary from week to week. Bloggers who I follow are likely to have a greater representation — I wouldn’t be following them if I didn’t like what they write, after all — but other posts I come across can and will show up as well. If any of the posts sound interesting to you, check them out; that’s what it’s all about.

News: Puppet Noir?

Bleeding Cool reports that Jim Henson Studios are working on The Happytime Murders, a detective film featuring puppets as second-class citizens in a world they share with humans. The main character will be puppet private eye and ex-cop Phil Philips (pictured at left in concept art), who is tracking down a serial killer who murdered his brother and is targeting the former stars of a children’s television show. Katherine Heigl reportedly has a role in the film, which is speculated to be as Phil’s human partner.

Speculation based on early concept art and script snippets is that the movie will be rated “R”. I don’t know… I can certainly see how that would be the case from what’s shown so far, but I think it would be box office suicide to push it as hard as they initially appear to be. They describe what is basically an octopus-cow sex scene, and that’d be pretty out there even for a normal film… a few deviants aside, I don’t think the general public is looking for that in a puppet film. And I’m certain they’re not looking for it in something from Jim Henson Studios, with very Muppetesque characters (side note: since Disney owns the Muppets, I believe Jim Henson Studios is unable to use the name for this project or any other; the division of Jim Henson projects after his death has some peculiar ramifications). Go for the PG-13, guys. Don’t squick people out, and you might be the next Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Prospective Pilots: Puppets and Booster Gold?!

NBC Universal is taking some interesting chances with upcoming pilots, according to the Hollywood Reporter. First up, for their main network, they have ordered a script for The New Nabors from Jim Henson Studios. In this sitcom, a Palm Springs family is surprised to discover that their new next-door neighbors are a gang of puppets. 30 Rock executive producer John Riggi is writing, along with John Hoffman (exactly which of the two-dozen John Hoffmans on IMDb, I’m not sure, and none of them really seem like solid sells to me.) It’s not a new Muppet Show, but it might be interesting. And at the very least, it’s something different, which NBC really needs if they want to pull themselves off the bottom of the heap.

The other interesting pilot news out of NBC Universal is that they’ve ordered a pilot for a series featuring DC Comics’ Booster Gold for Syfy.