In the past month I’ve watched quite a bit, so I thought I’d do a review-summary kind of thing. To recommend some of these things to the two people (wishful thinking) who read this blog. So, without further ado, here we go. Reviews after the jump.
The Muppets
In the same way that dry sarcasm was taught to me by Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Muppets taught me about musical comedy and how absurdist humor can be the best kind of humor. I’ve devoured all of the Muppet shows that we have on DVD, have seen all but one of their movies, and the new Muppet movie coming out a week after my birthday was just a sign. Here’s the trailer, just in case you somehow managed to miss it.
I wanted to love it, because the Muppets returning is something that would make these turbulent times special. And so I, and my significant other, filed into the movie theater to be entertained. And entertained we certainly were!
The movie follows the classic Muppet theme. Celebrity cameos, outrageous pop musical numbers, a breaking of the “fourth wall,” and a sweet earnestness that was missing from the previous Muppet movie (for me, at least). Every inch of it was magical. It cemented itself as “fantastic” in my head because the theater we were in was packed to the gills with children, and they remained completely silent–completely enraptured–the entire movie.
Go see it. I can’t type it strongly enough!
Stephen Fry in America
This recommendation is actually belated, since SFiA came to America several years ago now. I watched it then, and I loved it, but there was no way of introducing it to the rest of my family. I’d had to watch it on Youtube, fractured apart in many different videos. But there is hope! Netflix Instant just added it to its library. And I was thrilled to see it.
For those of you who don’t know, Stephen Fry is one of Britain’s greatest living comic treasures. He starred with Hugh Laurie (who is now known as Dr. Gregory House) on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and in Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster. He also hosts a show called QI (Quite Interesting), a show that abolishes ignorance in the world around us, which is wretchedly hard for Americans to watch; I have to get my fix via Youtube.
In SFiA, he travels to each of the 50 states, bringing a different perspective to viewing the USA. He finds different spots than are usually looked at in these documentaries, and visits historical sites with a delicate touch. On the whole, as I did the first day I watched the first episode some years back, I highly recommend SFiA.
Disneynature’s “Oceans”
Nature documentaries are what Disney did so well just fifty or forty years ago. And, thankfully, they’ve decided to go back to it, first with “Earth” and now “African Cats” and “Oceans.” Oceans is what I watched most recently, yet again over Netflix Instant.
Though the compression over Instant wasn’t kind, Oceans was still a very beautiful and different kind of experience. The narrative weaves between understanding how the ocean works and how we relate to the ocean, making it easier for kids to see the ways that we are connected. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, it touched on the more majestic–and the more bizarre–denizens of the deep, such as Blanket Octopus and the massive Blue Whale. If you love looking at sea life and learning about how it all connects, and if you love seeing the sometimes unreal-looking visuals of the deep, Oceans is definitely for you.
