Today's Triple News: Fantastic Frozen Sex and where to find it on tape

One does not simply post news on MovieScene and walk away from it:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154803/eerste_trailer_sex_tape_online

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154770/frozen_meest_winstgevende_animatiefilm_ooit

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/154757/fantastic_beasts_and_where_to_find_them_wordt_trilogie

I gotta say, that trailer made me chuckle. That doesn't mean the movie will, as this is basically a thirteen-a-dozen raunchy studio comedy aimed at a predominantly adolescent audience, revolving about sexual (mis)conduct to get the public titillated in advance. There have been many similar movies over the last few years - among them Sex Drive, No Strings Attached, A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Hall Pass and We're the Millers, though all took a hint from American Pie (which itself hearkened back to material from the Eighties like Porky's, so it's not all a new phenomenon) - and very few of them proved even the slightest bit memorable. As always, the best jokes appear to be in the trailer and once you've seen that, there's little reason to go watch the actual movie. Sex Tape's trailer is running long just under three minutes, so don't be annoyed if you watch it first and the movie second and find there's little surprises left in the film. Or perhaps that's just overly cynical. After all, the cast list mentions Jack Black and Jolene Blalock (T'Pol!) and neither of them is featured in this preview. Maybe they're just bit parts, maybe the trailer does keep some stuff from the final movie from our prying eyes. I reckon Sex Tape is just gonna be an average sexy Hollywood comedy that makes you forget your woes for two hours and remember you have any woes as soon as the lights turn on, because none of the movie sticks to mind for very long. And it's plausible it will do very well at the box office because there's conveniently no other comedies scheduled for that time of the year. Which means we can "look forward" to a second Sex Tape in two or three years time. Just as is the case with the previous movie from this director and his two main stars, Bad Teacher, which turns out to get a sequel nobody asked for. Considering sex sells, expect a trilogy soon.

What also sells (segue!) is delightfully animated family entertainment, and Disney is back on top in that game. Pixar, under the Mouse House's wings, is continuously letting us down creatively, forced to focus on unneccessary sequels, so now the new Walt Disney Studios Animation department can fill that inspirational gap by exploring new ideas and fresh avenues. Or basically doing what Disney always did best, cannibalizing a classic fairy tale of sorts and Disneyfying the heck out of it (though in a bit more modern fashion these days, as it happens to be the 21st century). It's an age old routine that proves as effective and lucrative today as it did before, as Frozen shows. Beating Toy Story 3 from the top spot, there's your new Highest Grossing Animated Movie of All Time. For now, as such records have a tendency to be broken every odd year lately. Blame the studio's increasing insistence on 3D to raise admission costs (again). Or admit Frozen was simply a good movie, a welcome reprieve from Pixar's last few letdowns. And don't be alarmed if you see a Frozen 2 popping up somewhere in the next few years: you don't honestly think Disney can let this success slide without milking more money out of it by pushing sequels on us?

Speaking of milking (another seque! I'm on a roll here!), Harry Potter is over and done with but there's still more dough to be made from the brand name, so let the spinning-off commence! Studio Warner has J.K. Rowling's permission to do so, and even her assistance in fact, as she will pen the screenplay for the first installment of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Even though it remains to be seen whether a coherent story line as gripping as the Potter proper stories can be distilled from what was basically a fun little exploration of the Potterverse that was never intended to be made into a major motion picture, the studio is moving ahead on a trilogy of films. A cautious studio would start with a single movie and see how that works out, but as the blockbuster studio system is increasingly relying on tentpole franchises - and their various spin-offs - to keep itself going, caution isn't something they feel they can afford. So now we'll see whether a Potter movie can do without the actual Potter element, by revealing magic and monsters are enough to keep us going to theaters, or whether it was the life and times of the Boy-Who-Lived himself  that proved the quintessential compelling ingredient of the franchise, not to be omitted so easily on second attempts. If "her" movie fails, this trilogy could come crashing down like a house of cards, so Rowling will have a tough job working her magic a second time.

Bad Teacher

Rating: **/*****, or 4/10

Dull and predictable semi-raunchy comedy involving a rude and highly unqualified high school teacher (Cameron Diaz) who finds herself in a financial predicament after the guy she's been leeching money off on dumps her, after which she sets off to sleezily seduce a cute new substitute colleague (Justin Timberlake) who's also fairly wealthy, main tactic being to get a breast job done. She's continuously foiled in her scheme by another, more popular teacher who also has the hots for Timberlake, as well as a gym teacher who's actually in love with the bitchy protagonist for unfathomable reasons. The race is on, as is the attempt to squeeze in a lot of lame titty jokes and general foul language. Of course, the movie gets unsurprisingly moralistic near the climax as Diaz finds out she's a bad person and real love is just around the corner if you look close enough. Been there, done that.

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake

Directed by Jake Kasdan

USA: Columbia Pictures, 2011

Phenomenon!

The Muppets: ****/*****

I had this really bad day at work last Friday. Any Friday is bad, but this one was particularly nasty. I planned to see Hugo afterwards, but I really needed something less complex (and shorter) to take my mind of my misery. So in an almost spontaneous burst of 'whateverism' I went to see The Muppets instead. Oh my, am I glad I did... I left the theatre happy and in a positive mood (which according to my colleagues is a rarity these days).

Why turned the experience out to be so uplifting? Because the Muppets are plain simple fun! There's nothing more to them, and nothing less. And this attitude has kept them popular and alive for well over thirty years, despite their notable absence in the last decade. Now that they're back, it's surprising to see how much they've stayed the same, despite the passing of creator Jim Henson and Frank Oz' unwillingness to participate in their latest venture. They're still puppets (and the occasional man in a suit) performed by puppeteers and tireless craftsmen that make them feel fully alive, without the almost obligatory use of CGI which rules Hollywood animation today.

Even in terms of plot nothing much has changed. Bottom line is a variety show needs to be put up and despite the usual setbacks the old team succeeds perfectly. Of course, the necessity for the show is a bit more severe this time, considering the old Muppet studio is being threatened by a deliciously stereotypical greedy oil baron by the name of Tex Richman (played with an abundance of maniacal laughs by Chris Cooper) who plans to tear it all down and drill for oil, while at the same time acquiring the Muppets' name with the intent to exploit it solely for profit, resulting in his creation of the Moopets, a team of 'harsh and cynical Muppets (consisting of minorities and New Jersey type puppets) for a harsh and cynical world'. Of course, you can question the political agenda the film makers had with this villain and his minions, which right wing America – thanks to the Fox channel – certainly has done, outing the Muppets as 'Marxist puppets', but in the end it could have been any type of greedy, sleazy character in his place. How about a wealthy and overly powerful, conservative, Rupert Murdoch type media tycoon next time? The negativity brought by the bad guy is of no consequence, and neither are his sinister goals: it's the cheerful attitude displayed by the good old Muppets that sticks with us for days.

Of course the story has to start with one Muppet, and it's not Kermit this time. Enter Walter, a rather generic Muppet who has grown up with his human brother Gary (a likeable Jason Segel) watching and loving The Muppet Show. (The concept of a Muppet and a human being actually related by blood is a bit uncomfortable and raises intriguing but disturbing questions about Muppet procreation, but we're not supposed to consider this at all, and certainly kids won't. After all, the idea of a pig falling for and even marrying a frog with the full intent to 'raise tadpoles' is equally alienating, but few children would even stop to think about this for more than a few seconds. If adults see this as disgusting, it's their own sense of reading too much into these things that gets the better of them.) Gary has the problem of not being able to choose between maintaining his relationship with Walter, or moving on with his girlfriend Mary (a 'too cute to be true' kind of Amy Adams). Walter is blind for this and only cares about the Muppets, which eventually results in both brothers having to decide where their allegiances lie: are they men or Muppets? This naturally also deslves into the typical 'believe in yourself' and 'follow your heart' type of memes being thrown out all over the place in the second half of the movie, but despite these life lessons being cliché ridden they don't get in the way of the real fun, which is the only thing the movie really strives to be, at which it succeeds wonderfully.

When Walter discovers the old Muppet facilities are in grave danger he seeks out Kermit who, Kermit being Kermit, is immediately willing and able to help. In a string of scenes we see Kermit and Walter getting the old team of our most beloved Muppets together, resulting in a hilarious montage of characters being re-recruited in rapid succession, with the intention of not ruining the pace of the movie. It's clear from such comments the Muppets are as self aware of their being in a movie as ever, which is exactly the way we like them. When the final obstacle, which turns out to be Miss Piggy's obsessive love for Kermit that hasn't made her able to get over her separation with her little green friend, is out of the way, the challenge of putting up a show that brings the Muppets back into the audience's collective conscience is on, resulting in the usual silly sketches and situations, all the while being sabotaged by Richman and his band of nefarious anti-Muppets. But even the bad Muppets eventually take the side of the real Muppets. It would be impossible for anyone not to do so.

Of course the human element has not been forgotten. In fact, on occasion it's awkwardly dominating, especially in the scenes with Gary or Mary singing and dancing with other humans while there's not a Muppet in sight. Fortunately these scenes work well enough to make us care enough about the human actors not to see them as getting in the way of our true heroes, and their respective song and dance numbers are merry enough to make us roll with them. But the film sees its greatest moments of strengths whenever it's just a bunch of Muppets goofing around, preferably mockingly making fun and play of a celebrity in a cameo role, of which there are plenty (the most memorable ones being provided by Jim Parsons, Emily Blunt and Zach Galifianakis).

In their struggle to find network backing, the Muppets come against a cynical network executive who claims the Muppets are 'not relevant anymore' in the modern world. And she's damn right! There's no real point being made by these Muppets (unless you go with the anti-capitalist messages, which the movie doesn't encourage you to do), other than us being provided with uncomplicated merriment. 'Bringing laughter' is the Muppets' grand gift, this movie claims on more than one occasion, and since the film completely entertains both kids and adults alike, it's proven to be right. This is fun in its most basic shape and it never pretends to be more than that. Despite the dreaded move of the Muppet franchise to the Disney corporation (parallels to which can also be attributed to the Richman character), the Muppet phenomenon successfully enters the 21^st century by being what it has always been: good spirited entertainment for all. And it's not even in 3-D, because 'the Muppets are as one-dimensional as they've always been' (Waldorf's words, not mine). Thankfully!