Muppet mania, the cover song edition, plus lots more fun stuff

A free preview of the Muppets-inspired "Green Album" is indeed the highlight around here today, but before that, there's a lot of fun news out there this morning, so let's just get right to it.

To start, no one I can think of is in more need of a genuinely funny comedy than Jason Bateman. Well, to be fair, I suppose there's at least a slight chance that it's "The Change- Up," but so far I've managed to avoid that, so I'll never know.

Much more likely should be something he's just signed up for with veryfunnywoman Melissa McCarthy, who's become one of the summer's true breakout stars with her rather outrageous (and sublimely funny) performance in "Bridesmaids." The two are set to star in "The ID Theft," and all I really know so far is that Bateman will play the victim of the titular ID theft by McCarthy's character. Stay tuned for more when I find it ...

And in other movie news, if I'm not mistaken, there are at least two Jeff Buckley biopics in the works, and now one of them has found its leading man.

Actor/singer-songwriter Reeve Carney, Broadway's Peter Parker in "Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark," has signed on to play Buckley in the as-yet-untitled biopic being directed by Jake Scott. The movie would certainly have to go better than that "Spider-Man" debacle has so far, and they apparently have full rights to Buckley's memoirs and music, so here's hoping something good springs from this.

After that it's almost exclusively about TV news before we finally get to the promised Muppets goodness, starting with a taste of what's to come on "The Office," courtesy of the seriously TV-obsessed James Hibbert of Entertainment Weekly.

With Steve Carell now gone, "The Office" should probably just be shuttered for good, in my opinion, but it does at least sound like they're trying to come up with some fun stuff for when James Spader takes over as the new boss. Here's a somewhat-spoilery taste:

* An established character will be promoted from within to take over as permanent Scranton branch manager subsequent to Robert California’s (Spader) promotion to CEO.
* Dwight will build a Productivity Machine that will evolve into something of a Doomsday Device.
* Riddled with hormones thanks to a second pregnancy, Pam will grow so paranoid she will come to rely on Dwight as the only individual she can trust to be honest with her.
* The entire Scranton warehouse staff will win the lottery and quit. (Something tells me somebody forget to offer Daryl his usual stake now that he’s no longer working in the warehouse.)

The Pam and Dwight stuff in particular should be a treat, so if you're interested, tune in again to find out how this all pans out on Sept. 22.

In other TV news, it's not terribly surprising that HBO is keeping its hands on director Todd Haynes, since it always holds on to talented people and his first HBO project, "Mildred Pierce," was just an Emmy nomination magnet (and awfully entertaining, if you haven't yet seen it.)

Now it seems he's signed for a full series, and one that could possibly reunite him with Julianne Moore. "Dope," based on the novel by Sara Gran, is about a recovering heroin junkie in 1950s New York, and certainly seems like material that's suited to Haynes' usually fully trippy style.

OK, I've buried this last TV bit at the end not just because it comes full circle with Jason Bateman news, but because as with all talk of an "Arrested Development" movie, it should be believed at your own peril. Screen Rant, however, has what it says is the plot line for an "AD" movie, so here goes.

According to the site, the movie follows the Bluth clan's attempts to make their own movie about their lives to compete with one narrator Ron Howard is working on. That said, it of course perfectly matches up with where the show itself left off, so this could just be another false start. Keep hope alive ...

Whew. This really has gone long enough already, I suppose, but there's at least one very funny video out there this morning, so I'll share it with you before we finally get to The Muppets. A YouTube user with the handle of pleatedpants and clearly enough time on his or her hands to match the imagination, has created this video that compiles scenes from "25 Actors Before They Were Famous in Three Minutes." It's pretty much as fun as that title implies, and definite highlights include Sarah Jessica Parker on "3-2-1 Contact" (huzzah!) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt on "Roseanne." Enjoy.



OK, I really do have some things to do before work today (including voting and swimming), so we're almost finished. To introduce the Muppets tribute album, there's first some fresh news about something the Jim Henson Company is cooking up with reality TV pioneers Bunim/Murray. And it sounds like a heck of a lot more fun than any reality TV show I've ever heard of.

"History Of," which as far as I can tell has yet to find a specific TV home, would have pop culture events re-enacted by Henson puppets, not necessarily, but possibly, including Muppets. According to The Wrap, Chris Regan, a former writer for "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," has signed on to be showrunner and the show will feature surprise celebrity cameos.

Not terribly surprising, since the Muppets and their friends will be everywhere in advance of the November release of "The Muppets," the new movie starring Jason Segel, Amy Adams and all their little friends. One other arm of the marketing machine is "The Green Album," a collection of Muppets favorites covered by popular artists of the day. There are hits (Weezer's faithful but fun "Rainbow Connection" and Andrew Bird's "Bein' Green"), and a few misses, but the whole things wraps up in around a half hour, just like an episode of "The Muppet Show."

NPR is streaming the album, due for release Aug. 23, now, and I've embedded their player below. First, the track listing, followed by the streamer itself, so enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

1. Muppet Show Theme Song OK Go
2. Rainbow Connection (feat. Hayley Williams) Weezer
3. Mahna Mahna The Fray
4. Movin' Right Along Alkaline Trio
5. Our World My Morning Jacket
6. Mr. Bassman Sondre Lerche
7. Halfway Down the Stairs Amy Lee
8. Wishing Song The Airborne Toxic Event
9. Night Life Brandon Saller
10. Bein' Green Andrew Bird
11. I Hope That Something Better Comes Along Matt Nathanson
listen 12. I'm Going to Go Back There Someday Rachael Yamagata

Woody Allen's next European advenure takes final shape, plus the first big-screen Jeff Buckley

If I could be anyone in the world other than myself (though I'm usually pretty content in my own rapidly aging skin), I'd have to say it would be Woody Allen.

The septuagenarian filmmaker has made, for my money, the best movie so far this year with his City of Lights valentine "Midnight in Paris" (though Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" is a more ambitious and close second), and now comes word that he's finalized the cast for his next cinematic adventure, this time in Rome (hey, why not?).

"The Bop Decameron" will begin filming in the city July 11, and the latest additions to the cast are Greta Gerwig and Alison Pill, who played Zelda Fitzgerald in "Midnight in Paris." They join Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page and Allen himself, who will appear in one of his own films for the first time since 2006's "Scoop."

So, what's it about? Well, "The Bop Decameron" will apparently be a modern-day riff on Giovanni Boccaccio’s medieval tale "The Decameron," a collection of erotic love stories. Sounds like perfectly lascivious material for Woody Allen to play around with, and the man is on a real roll right now, so definitely go see "Midnight in Paris" if you haven't yet, and stay tuned for more on "The Bop Decameron" as soon as I can find it.

In other movie news, this solidly middle-aged man shouldn't admit that he watches "Gossip Girl," but I do, and I find it to be just the perfect, way-lighter-than-air comedown from Monday, always my longest workday of the week.

Well, for you "Gossip Girl" fans, it seems that lonely boy himself, Penn Badgley, has signed on to plays Jeff Buckley in what is apparently one of two biopics in the works about the late singer. This one, titled "Greetings from Tim Buckley," is directed by Dan Algrant and is about the days leading up to Jeff Buckley's breakthrough performance at a 1991 tribute to his father. Per the movie's press release:

"Through a romance with a young woman working at the concert, he comes to understand the father who abandoned him. Culminating in a cathartic performance of his father’s most famous songs, Jeff’s debut stuns the audience and launches his career as one of the greatest young musicians of his time."

That last bit can easily be dismissed as a bit of cinematic hyperbole, but you really can't dispute that with "Grace," Jeff Buckley did manage to record one of the all-time great rock albums during his short time on this planet, so this movie should be nothing but a treat.

And since nothing in Hollywood happens in a vacuum, director Jake Scott is currently at work on a rival Buckley biopic, to based on David Browne‘s book “Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley,” but as far as I know has yet to cast his choice to play the doomed singer.

OK, now on to one video, and then to close a word about the progress of a new movie from one of my favorite young filmmakers, Martha Stephens. First up, the video, which in a very quick and funny style wraps up the three truly convoluted but also sporadically very entertaining seasons of HBO's "True Blood" that have unspooled so far. The show definitely pales to the grandeur of "Game of Thrones," which just finished its first season in superb style, and the continuous liberties that it takes with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels can just be thoroughly maddening, but for campy TV fun it still manages to satisfy. Enjoy this three-season wrapup, and keep an eye out for the season four premiere of "True Blood" this Sunday on HBO.



Finally today, I was one of five or so people lucky enough to catch the screening of Martha Stephens' "Passenger Pigeons" at the 2010 Macon Film Festival, and I'm certainly glad I did. That movie, a multi-layered drama that centers on the death of a coal miner in Eastern Kentucky, is a quiet winner, and if I ever see it out on video, I'll certainly spread the word.

And this morning, I woke up to find in my g-mail box word from producer Nick Case about the progress of Stephens' next movie, "Pilgrim Song." Also set in coal country, this new movie is about a teacher who gets pink-slipped and sets out to walk Kentucky's Sheltowee Trace Trail. Filming is set to begin July 6, which is very exciting news indeed. Below is a fundraising pitch from Stephens and producer Adam Tate that tells you more about "Pilgrim Song," and to learn even more, visit the movie's site here. Enjoy the clip, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.



http://www.indiegogo.com/PILGRIM-SONG

Jeff Buckley biopic in the works (and I even resisted saying "hallelujah")

Actually, there's even better news out there, so why not start there?

If you haven't seen "Black Dynamite," there are few rentals I can recommend higher. A spoof that, rather than simply compiling a string of barely related jokes, instead serves a lovingly rude tribute to the blaxpoitation films that inspired it, it's just fall-down funny from start to finish.

And now it seems the movie will live on, sort of, as an animated offering on Adult Swim (yes, please!) The animated series is being developed by Carl Jones of "The Boondocks" (not one of my favorite shows, but this is something quite different), and it will feature the voices of "Black Dynamite" stars Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite himself), Tommy Davidson, Kym Whitley and Byron Minns. No word yet on when this will debut, but you'll know as soon as I do.

But today was supposed to start with news of a potentially great music biopic in the works, so here it is. Now that we're fairly removed from the glut of them led by "Ray and "Walk the Line," I've kind of got a hankering for one again, and certainly for one about the great Jeff Buckley.

Before drowning in a harbor in Tennessee way, way, way too early, Buckley managed to create one amazing album with "Grace," which I still listen to all the time. The only question I had when I first saw this (at Deadline) was why his story hasn't been told until now.

The man taking up the charge is Jake Scott, son of one Ridley, who has directed "Welcome to the Rileys" (which I haven't seen) and music videos for the likes of R.E.M., Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins. Nothing but good news there, so I'll just leave you with my favorite Buckley song, "Lilac Wine," performed live, before a closing shot from Jon Stewart



It's not a shock either that Jon Stewart would devote an entire episode of "The Daily Show" to the departing (huzzah!) Glenn Beck, or that it would be extremely funny. It's so good, in fact, that if he bothered to watch it, I think even Mr. Beck would have to admit he enjoyed it (except, perhaps, when he was compared to mononucleosis). Enjoy this excerpt, and have a great weekend. As for me, I'm off to do so some swimming, and then hopefully for an entertaining double feature of "Your Highness" and then "Hanna." Peace out.

The Daily Show - Glenn Beck Announces His Departure
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Should you watch the "Watchmen"? A conditional vote for yes

Before I get into any of that, I just wanted to say that it's simply nice to see that Andrés Galarraga, a k a the Big Cat, is still alive and looking very healthy. He was always easily one of my favorite Major League Baseball players, and was diagnosed with cancer way back in 2000, so it was just great to see him on the bench managing the Venezuelan team in the World Baseball Classic (and thank God for baseball of any kind!)

OK, enough of that. Here today, as it has been for much of the past month, it's all about Zack Snyder's "Watchmen." And now, after having sat on this since about 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon and let it stew around in my mind, I'm ready to call it at least a qualified success (despite its rather underwhelming $55 million opening.)

The main complaint I've heard about Snyder's work is that he stuck way too close to the comic book script and really just made a paint-by-numbers version for the big screen, but I don't really buy it. With "300" he certainly took all of Frank Miller's palate and tone to tell the tale of the battle of Thermopylae, but given the revered nature of what he was working with here and the big input of "Watchmen" co-creator Dave Gibbons on the set, I thought he really put his own pop sensibility on this story. AND PLEASE, BE WARNED, I WILL BE UNABLE TO DO THIS WITHOUT MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS, SO IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FLICK YET OR JUST DON'T WANT TO KNOW, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

It starts out right away with the deliriously entertaining opening credits, set to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changing." I laughed out loud when Silhouette stole that V-J Day kiss and reeled from the sucker punch of her murder only seconds later. For me at least, this spell lasted throughout the flick, even as the other facet of Snyder's style, the need to spatter as much blood as David Cronenberg at his bloodiest, came to the fore.

And it's certainly true that one of the many directors who have circled this project through the years, Terry Gilliam, probably would have taken more chances with this, but I'd have to imagine that's exactly why he and others failed to follow through on it to the finish. Just as the "Watchmen" comic book was all about the good and bad consequences of compromise, so is the movie itself, and it comes down mostly on the good side of things in my book.

What transferred my love of the comic most directly to the big screen is that the movie handled two of my favorite sequences just about perfectly. The first is Dr. Manhattan's TV interview and subsequent trip to Mars. Snyder doesn't have the space to play all the time games that Moore did in the comic, but he still manages to make it hit hard when Janey Slater pulls off that wig and makes the desolate Mars scape the ultimate spot for Dr. Manhattan's intentional isolation. It certainly helps that, as he tells the hero's tale, Billy Crudup manages to capture all the soul hidden behind that vacant stare (even as he does, be warned, dangle his blue wang-dang-doodle quite a bit.)

The second thing it nailed just about perfectly was also driven by spot-on performances by Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and - to a lesser extent - the always-welcome Danny Woodburn as the diminutive Big Figure. Haley just simmers with all the right snarling rage once he's unmasked as Walter Kovacs, and I just had to smile the first time that Woodburn (a k a Kramer's tiny co-conspirator Mickey Abbott on "Seinfeld") came around the corner to confront him in his cell.

So then, what didn't work? Well, for me, it was mainly one scene Snyder left in but botched and two that he almost entirely left out (and in the second case just should have altogether.)

The first, and the single worst scene of the entire movie, was the almost completely passion-free love scene between Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) and Silk Specter II (Malin Ackerman.) Given the amount of skin it shows (and yes, as the Comedian might say, it certainly does prove in Ms. Ackerman's case that those are some good genes), it's a curiously joyless affair, made all the worse by the attachment of a version of Leonard Cohen's great song "Hallelujah" to it. Just an all-around travesty.

And the most glaring omission would have to be the death of Hollis Mason, a moving moment in the comic book that's replaced in the flick by a random encounter between Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II and a street gang. But the most grating of all was the inclusion of the newsstand owner and comic book reader for just a split second before they are obliterated. The two of them offer a running commentary on the end of the world that drives a good portion of Moore's tale, so to waste them in such a way on screen was just a total spit in the face.

So, given all that, what tipped the scales to make this one at least a conditional winner in my book? Well, Alan Moore fans can squawk all they want, but for me it was the ending (AND ONCE AGAIN, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT, PLEASE DO NOT READ ON AND THEN TRY TO BLAME ME LATER.)

To me, it kept all of Moore's big ideas about compromise vs. absolutism intact while just improving on the overall story. Sure, it would have been fun to see the giant squid appear, but would you really want to add another 45 minutes to the flick while Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) explained just how he managed to cook that up? As it is, having the attacks instead mirror the energy of Dr. Manhattan just perfectly amplifies the God vs. man angle, and makes that fact that it's the good Dr. who finally has to encounter Rorschach all the more compelling.

In the end, I'm glad that in this case Snyder's compromises won out over Moore's absolutism so this movie could be made in the first place, and with my Grand/Amstar Cinemas Mystery Shopper pass in hand I'll probably go see it again this coming weekend (since there seems to just be nothing of any merit at all opening.) And in a rather tangential closing, here's a clip of the only performance of "Hallelujah" that can even come close to rivaling Jeff Buckley's, by the singer/songwriter Allison Crowe. Enjoy, have a perfectly passable Monday, and please let me know if you think I'm just all wrong about Snyder's flick. Peace out.