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

What's next on "The Wire," and then for David Simon?

I know I promised reviews of two movies that left me more than a little cold, but I'd much rather talk about something much more exciting: the upcoming final season of "The Wire." So, I'll get the movies over with very quickly.

"We Own the Night" was one of the most disappointing movies I've seen in many years. James Gray, who showed such promise with "Little Odessa," has clearly run out of new ideas, instead choosing to pile up all the cop cliches he could find for this extremely tired tale about NYPD cops and familial ties. Despite strong performances from Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall, there's no reason at all that I can recommend anyone see this failure.

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" was more of a mixed bag. When Cate Blanchett's queen and Clive Owen's Sir Walter Raleigh share the screen for some silly flirting it is a true guilty pleasure, but when it tries to tell anything approaching a broader story it really falls apart fast. Worth a rental at best, in my opinion.

OK, now on to the good stuff. The New Yorker, in this morning's issue, has a very long (12 pages!) story about David Simon and "The Wire." I have to admit that, crunched for time, I had to stop anything but skimming at about page 7, but will go back this afternoon for the rest. Here are some highlights I garnered about the fifth and final season, coming to HBO in January:

This newest season, as has already been widely reported, will focus on the declining role of newspapers in our society. What I didn't know is that The Sun, along with letting its office be used in a few scenes, has also let its name be used in the new season.

The great Clark Johnson, pictured here and who played Meldrick on "Homicide," will be both a director of several episodes in the new season and also star as Gus Haynes, "a city editor who tries to hold the line against dwindling coverage, buyouts, and pseudo-news." Here's one excerpt that shows Simon, as he has with other aspects of Charm City in past seasons, really understand just what's going wrong with newspapers in America:

He complains about a photographer who invariably gooses the poignancy of fire scenes by positioning a charred doll somewhere amid the debris. (“I can see that cheatin’ motherfucker now, with his fucking harem of dolls, pouring lighter fluid on each one,” Haynes fumes.) And he patiently explains to a junior reporter one of those house rules which arbiters of newspaper style cling to with fierce persnicketiness: a building can be “evacuated,” he instructs, but you cannot evacuate people. “To evacuate a person is to give that person an enema,” one of the old-timers chimes in. “At the Baltimore Sun, God still resides in the details.”

Just as past seasons of "The Wire" have been populated with real drug-dealers that Simon and co-creator Ed Burns (a former Charm City cop) knew from past encounters, the new season will be packed with former reporters that Simon knew from his days as a crime reporter for The Sun.

Here's how he summed up his view of newspapers for "The New Yorker": “It’s like, find the eight-hundred-dollar toilet seat, find the contractor who’s double-billing. That’s their bread and butter. Systemic societal failure that has multiple problems — newspapers are not designed to understand it.” Sad but, I fear, true.

To read all of Margaret Talbot's fantastic reporting, click here, but remember that it will probably take a small chunk of time to read it all.

If you get far enough, you'll find Simon has also talked about what he'll be doing next, also for HBO, and it should be great. He's currently filming, or at least getting ready to film, a miniseries about the Iraq war called "Generation Kill," but after that he wants to head to the Big Easy.

Simon, who with "The Wire" has shown an acute eye for detail, has already been down there doing research for a series he hopes to produce about musicians rebuilding ther lives in post-Katrina New Orleans.

"This show will be a way of making a visual argument that cities matter," Simon told The New Yorker. " 'The Wire' has never done that. I certainly never said or wanted to say that Baltimore is not (worth) saving, or that it can't be saved. But I think some people watching the show think, Why don't they just move away?"

It's sad that the argument needs to be made that American cities are indeed great and worth protecting, but I fear he's right. And I certainly look forward to him making the case.

No respect for this "Jezebel"

When I first heralded the imminent return of "Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino to TV with "Jezebel James," several people wiser than me warned that Fox would treat this new show - as it has with many others - very poorly. Alas, they were right.

It seems that Fox has already cut the order for ASP's new show, set for a midseason replacement to debut sometime in January, from 13 episodes to seven. I'm fairly confident that, rather than this being a sign that the show isn't any good, it's instead yet further proof that Fox does indeed just suck.

For anyone who doesn't know, "Jezebel James," if it ever indeed makes it your TV, will star Parker Posey (huzzah!) and "Six Feet Under" vet Lauren Ambrose (both pictured here) as, respectively, a woman who wants to get pregnant but can't and the estranged sister who agrees to have a child for her.

I really hope this eventually gets more respect, but in news I managed to miss about a week ago, Amy Sherman-Palladino should have more luck with a big-screen project she's just signed on to write and direct. With Sarah Jessica Parker in the lead, she's adapting the chicky book ""The Late Bloomer's Revolution" by Amy Cohen, an autobiographical tale about about how Cohen, after the death of her mother, developed a bond with her father as they both tried to get on with their lives in the dating world. More than a bit too girly for me, but hopefully also extremely funny.

Fun with pictures and trailers

OK, this has already gone on a bit longer than I had planned, but I have to share two things that should make everyone smile. Every picture I see from Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" just makes me want to see the flick right now, and this latest shot, which I have to assume is a sendup of "Driving Miss Daisy," is no different.


And finally, here's a rather poor-quality but still enjoyable trailer for "Charlie Wilson's War," the Mike Nichols film coming in December. Before seeing this trailer, I hadn't been too excited for this one, even though it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin, but now you can put it right up there with "American Gangster" and "Juno" among the movies I'm most jazzed about for the rest of this year. Enjoy!