Martin's Musings

In the new film Young Adult, screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Jason Reitman, and star Charlize Theron have created one of my favorite movie characters in recent memory.

Mavis Gray is the girl you totally hated in high school but secretly wanted to be, and who surely hated you too (even if she barely knew you existed).

She’s the pretty girl who dated the hottest guy.

The one who told you she was going to leave town the second graduation happened, and did.

The one who got the big job as a writer — excuse me, author — and the condo in the big city (i.e., Minneapolis).

The one who ruled the school and made your life a living hell. Continue reading →

Here’s what I know about Tom Cruise: You just can’t count the guy out.

He’ll make an awful movie like Knight and Day, and you’ll be tempted to say his career is over, but then he’ll make a movie like Tropic Thunder that is so entertaining, and he’ll be back without even skipping a beat.

After Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the latter is true again.

The film — a big improvement over the third Mission Impossible film — finds Cruise back at the top of his action hero game, effortlessly saving the world again, and looking like he’s actually enjoying himself in the process. Continue reading →

In 1956, Marilyn Monroe, then the most wanted woman on the planet, flew to England to make a film with Laurence Olivier called The Prince and the Showgirl.

The hope was that the film would give Marilyn some credibility, but she was an insecure, nervous wreck and didn’t feel up to the task.

Reliant on drugs, dependent on her acting coach, and getting little support from her new, third husband (Arthur Miller), Marilyn frustrated Olivier and the crew, and nearly derailed the film entirely.

That is, until she struck up a friendship with a production assistant named Colin Clark. The story of Clark’s relationship with Marilyn, brief though it may have been, is the basis of the new film My Week with Marilyn. Continue reading →

It may not be easy being green, but according to the new documentary Being Elmo, red isn’t such a bad color.

The film, a look at the man behind the second-most popular Sesame Street character of all time (after Kermit, of course), tells the story of how Kevin Clash grew up in Baltimore dreaming of being a professional puppeteer, and eventually made his dreams come true when he got a gig working on Sesame Street under the tutelage of Jim Henson and Kermit Love.

Being Elmo uses archival footage and photography to show how Clash’s skill and ambition were evident early on, and how he gained recognition working first on local television and later on Captain Kangaroo and other films before moving on to the Street.

Like the show Clash works on, Being Elmo presents a cleaned up version of what is likely a more difficult story.

For example, it’s glossed over that Clash sacrificed his relationship with his own daughter to instead be a friend to millions of children around the world. Here, that’s treated as dedication to his craft rather than irony. And it’s spin like that that prevents Being Elmo from being a truly insightful film.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is a completely enjoyable portrait of the man who took Elmo from random puppet to multimillion dollar enterprise, and one of the most valuable and beloved properties in the entire Children’s Television Workshop family.

It’s a local boy makes good story that will have you smiling, and will make you appreciate Elmo as a character and an achievement in puppetry even more.

Actually, I found Being Elmo to be more enjoyable than The Muppets movie itself. Now that is irony.

I’m giving Being Elmo a B+.

True story: I grew up next door to Jim Henson.

One day, after I was scared by his family’s cat (no kidding), a teenage Brian Henson “rescued me,” and decided to cheer me up by bringing me next door to see some of his father’s things.

I don’t remember everything I saw, but I do remember a giant Ernie in the living room. To a child as small as I was, Ernie was literally larger than life, and I was so excited.

The experience made this Muppet fan an even greater one.

But you didn’t have to have an experience like I did to grow up a fan of the Muppets. You just had to be a kid once (though it would help if it was in the 1970s and 80s when Jim Henson was around, when The Muppet Show was a TV staple and The Muppet Movie was brand new).

And that’s why so many of us (and the Walt Disney Company, too) are excited about Kermit, Gonzo, and the rest of the gang’s return to the big screen in The Muppets.

Alas, I hate to break it to you, but the movie is ultimately a disappointment.

(I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?) Continue reading →