The Muppets (2011)

Jack wanted to see this the minute he saw the trailer and he loved the movie, as expected. I'm not as big a fan as he but there is plenty to entertain grandparents on down to toddlers in this update co-written by Nicholas Stoller and co-starring/co-written by Jason Segal, who said Disney was understandably skeptical of the team since in their first movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Segal showed his penis (they also worked together on the raunchy Get Him to the Greek, though Segal doesn't appear in that; after I covered him in I Love You, Man, he was in Bad Teacher). In the same NPR interview Segal also commented that the way these Muppet guys can form facial expressions with only one hand is amazing. James Bobin makes his feature directorial debut here after similarly less-than-Disney-clean experience on 11 episodes each of Da Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords (he was a creator of the latter and writer on all episodes). Surprising.

Segal as Gary and Amy Adams (after I wrote about her in Julie & Julia, she was in The Fighter, which earned her her third Oscar nomination--this won't be number four) as his girlfriend Mary, plus villain oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper, covered in some detail in The Company Men) are the main humans and they all sing and dance--Cooper's number is very funny, and Gary has a muppet-like brother Walter, to whom he is devoted. There are more celebrity sightings than you'll be able to count, including Rashida Jones who appears several times, Micky Rooney and Alan Arkin a couple of times, Sarah Silverman, Rico Rodriguez (Manny on Modern Family), and many, many more (take a look at the cast). Also, the beautiful Los Angeles Theatre was used for the interiors (details in this article) and for the exterior of it  they used El Capitan, which is owned by Disney, on Hollywood Boulevard, and closed down that main thoroughfare for at least two nights to shoot the finale!

Composer Christophe Beck is a known entity, but his music isn't featured on the soundtrack (you can listen to clips on the amazon page, but the "Artist" listed for each song isn't accurate and some of the songs are more fun if you don't know they're coming, so I consider the list there and here as spoilers, so view at your own discretion). What you'll hear are covers, licensed songs, and new material by Bret McKenzie, half of the Conchords (here's a song from their brilliant HBO series). Here is McKenzie singing a duet with Kermit of the movie's opening song.

Good fun and lots of laughs, especially if you're a fan. There were a couple of kids in the room with us, but mostly adults, including Sally and Mike, who laughed, too. And, by the way, Jack's favorite Muppet character was the Swedish Chef. And I think he would like me to mention that this movie has a 97% rating on rottentomatoes.