Why I Hate The New Muppets Trailer

Muppets!
Who doesn’t love The Muppets? Nobody, that's who.
Who could possibly not be excited for a new Muppet movie? Me, that’s who.
And apparently I’m a heartless bitch for admitting it. But, honestly, the trailer makes me weep into my cereal.
A friend of mine called me a buzzkill when I told her how much I hated the preview. I wanted to defend my stance but I'm no good at arranging my thoughts into a cohesive, intelligent argument on the spot, so I made some flailing, ill-worded attempts to explain why I hated the preview and she probably shook her head and thought "Oh, Sally; you hate everything that's new." Which isn't true. I just hate most things that are new.
In this case, however, it has nothing to do with the fact that it's a Muppet movie made after The Great Muppet Caper. I love Muppet movies (I never saw Muppets From Space or The Muppets Wizard Of Oz, but that's mainly out of laziness and not wanting to believe that Gonzo is an alien) and I was genuinely looking forward to this new one, even in spite of the fact that IMDB has been threatening a Rachael Ray cameo.
But then I saw the trailer and all my optimism and excitement went down the toilet. And now that I've had time to think about it and put my thoughts into cohesive, tangible sentences I can now share with the world (or, you know, the two people who might read this) why I hate that preview.

PROBLEM # 1: The set-up is awful.
Here’s Amy Adams and Jason Segel being a cutesy couple in love. No indication is given as to what he does for a living, but she seems to be a grade school teacher, meaning Segel is doomed to forever play characters in love with redheaded grade school teachers (for those of you who don't know, that's a reference to How I Met Your Mother. For those of you who knew that, I'm sorry I explained to you something you already understood).
They go to Hollywood, he forgets their anniversary, she walks out on him, the audience stabs themselves in the eyes so they won’t have to watch this nonsense anymore. The preview has succeeded in completely turning its audience against it.
Then Kermit The Frog shows up.

PROBLEM # 2: The Muppets deserve better than this.
You have beloved, iconic characters starring in a brand new feature film. What in the name of all that is right in the world would make a marketing executive try to sell that movie with a trailer that is horrible by design?
Until I saw this preview I would have thought it was impossible to screw up an ad for a Muppet movie. In fact, if someone asked me “What’s the one way not to sell a Muppet movie?” my reply would have been “Make the audience hate you, then show them Fozzie Bear.”
Hell, a trailer of a blank background that just says “NEW MUPPET MOVIE IN NOVEMBER!” would have been boring and questionable ("Hooray! New Muppet movie! ... What's it about? ... Who cares? Muppets!") but still more effective than this nonsense ("This is bullshit. This is awful. This preview is the worst. I would never pay money to watch this crap. ... Wait, why is Kermit there? Fuck! This piece of shit is a Muppet movie? Why would they do this?!").
At least the people who designed the poster understand the minimalist approach is better in this case.



This makes me actually want to see the movie. It almost washes out the bad taste the trailer left on my brain.

PROBLEM # 3: What does this mean about the movie itself?
You’ve shown me a preview for a movie that’s purposefully terrible, you’ve thrown in characters I love (which didn't win me back over to your side like you thought it would but further angered the beast instead) and then you finished with a few quick shots of some dancing and Amy Adams making “aren’t I so adorable” faces that would be obnoxious coming from an eight-year-old, let alone a woman in her forties.
What you haven’t done is given the audience the slightest idea of what the movie’s about. If you're not going to go with the "blank screen that just says 'NEW MUPPET MOVIE' on it" approach, you have to give the people some inkling of a plot. And I'm not sure if we got one or not.
We got a fake trailer for a movie that nobody wants to see on account of its being godawful. So I really hope that's not what the movie's about. But it's the only shred of plot we're given, so maybe it is what it's about, in which case we're back to the problem of that movie being godawful and nobody wanting to see it. You've taken the easiest job in the world (sell a Muppet movie) and turned it into a catch twenty two of gimmickiness.
You know what it means when a preview uses a gimmick rather than its own merits to sell a movie? It means the movie’s not any good.
For instance, trailers for Paranormal Activity showed no footage from the movie but instead the fearful reactions of audiences full of people watching the movie (who apparently find arguments and sleeping terrifying).
This goes back to my second point, which is the fact that a Muppet movie should be the easiest thing in the world to sell. Show some Muppets, show some slapstick, throw in a couple jokes and you’re done. The fact that the marketing team instead went with a gimmick that tells us nothing about the movie implies that the movie isn't any good. And that is very sad.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

AAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!

I love They Might Be Giants.
Also, I don't care what anybody says, I'm super excited for the next Pirates Of The Caribbean movie!



Barbossa's a hero!

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Unsure On The Definition Of The Word "Influence"

There are a lot of these Above The Influence commercials, and they're all varying levels of insipidness. It's really hard to make a good "Don't Do Drugs" commercial, but I feel like the avoid-the-topic-completely method doesn't work. Especially when it cranks out ads like this:



Now, most of this commercial isn't really a problem. This girl's really into fashion but likes her own style and does all she can to make sure she doesn't follow trends. Whatever. That's her choice, good on her.
But then she has to go and end the ad with the line "Do I seem like I'm gonna let anything influence me?"
You've spent the entire commercial telling me how you make damn sure that you don't follow fashion trends; YES you sound like you let things influence you a great deal! "You're doing that? Then I'm going to do this!" That's a pretty classic example of letting something influence you.
The problem with this commercial (and, in fact, the entire campaign) is that it assumes that all influences are bad. I assume they chose "Above The Influence" because people who have taken drugs are "under the influence of drugs." Which is a trick that may even work in some of their commercials. But it doesn't work in this one because if you didn't know it's supposed to be an anti-drug commercial, you'd never know it was supposed to be an anti-drug commercial! It looks like it's an ad for trend aversion or, you know, clothes with an "I think I'm better than you" attitude.
I would also like to point out that clothing trends are not necessarily a negative influence. If there's a fashion that's trendy right now and you happen to like it, it's okay to follow it. It's when you go around following every trend mindlessly that it becomes a problem. Being above the influence of fashion is like saying you're above the influence of food trends. I'm not into the whole adding spiciness to chocolate but I've still got to eat. And, unless you're at a nudist camp, you've gotta wear clothes.
I will say I'm a big fan of the adding bacon to all foods trend. But even after the rest of the world is bored with bacon, I will still be eating it with everything. 'Cause I like bacon.
I'm above the influence of food trends. But I'm not going to be a snob about it.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Jay Sherman Speaks On My Behalf

Do you like Cinderella but wish it contained more murder?
Sunny Ella by Sally Zybert (hey, that's me!) is the classic story of Cinderella, if in the classic story Ella lost her mind after years of abuse.
The book has it all: a fairy godmother, a wicked stepmother, a handsome prince, singing mice, unnecessary surgery, stabbing and a Rapunzel vampire story thrown in for good measure.
Sunny Ella is inexpensive, not very long and took me three years to finish. I'm very proud of it. It is available for various e-readers and in classic book form. Links to all possible purchasing options can be found at www.combustoica.com.
My goal is for the book to become popular enough that Conan O'Brien will have me as a guest on his show. If it reaches Twilight-proportion popularity (you know, where people hate it without ever having read it), so much the better.
I love you.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

I Am Obsessed With This Song!

I don't think the video really lives up to the song, but it's better than nothing.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Possibly Not A Bright Idea

So this blog is basically the written equivalent of thinking out loud in a fangirly way. I may wake up tomorrow and be hideously embarrassed by what I've written. But we won't know that for sure until it's too late.
So here goes. As usual, the reason I can't sleep is because of my current fangirly obsession (they come and go in waves (or phases, if you prefer) and they all take turns, but usually when I'm a fan of something, I stay a fan forever. For example, my current obsession is someone I've been a fan of for about sixteen years.)
This month's topic of interest: Patrick McGoohan.
Okay, first of all, this is all speculation based on the various things I've read, a lot of which contained conflicting information. I'm basically writing all of this out because I was pondering so hard I couldn't fall asleep. My brain wanted me to get all this thought process gumbo out into the ether, so that's what I'm doing.
Today I saw online a blurb about an upcoming biography about Patrick McGoohan, but all the blurb said was, essentially, "Why didn't he ever do romantic scenes?" and the word "puritanical" was used.
Now, I reiterate, I wasn't there, I didn't know the guy, this is just how I see things:
I think people have taken the following three facts about Patrick McGoohan:
1) he was Catholic
2) he didn't like doing onscreen romance
3) he liked to keep his personal life private
and have combined them into one fact:
1) he was a nutjob
and I don't think that one fact is true. (Except on the level that I think Patrick McGoohan was a genius and on some level all geniuses are crazy. But I don't think he was crazy in the way everybody thinks he was.)
Honestly, I think people read way too much into the lack of onscreen romance thing. I think the only reason for it was that he wasn't comfortable with it. The end. So the guy didn't like making out with ladies who weren't his wife. I don't see what the big deal is.
And, yeah, I'd be lying if I said I don't have a crush on the guy. When Scott and Ivy first showed my family The Prisoner I was twelve, I'd never heard of Patrick McGoohan before and I pretty much fell in love with him immediately. It got to the point where I looked forward to Prisoner Night not only to see the next episode but to see him in it.
So, yeah, I kind of wish, for my own shallow fangirly reasons, that he had done more onscreen romance. I openly admit when I saw pictures of him being all swarthy and bearded in The Gypsy And The Gentleman it shot to the top of my Movies To Get list. (The fact that there are a couple kissing scenes in that movie helped, too.)
But I do think people blow the fact that he eventually decided to opt out of playing romantic leads way out of proportion. I think it was a creative choice or a comfort issue. (And it's not like he never did onscreen romance, it was just all near the beginning of his career and everybody ignores it so they can make him seem like a prudish wackjob or something.)
And, come on, "puritanical"? People act like he didn't know what sex was at all. He was married for, like, fifty years and had three kids. That's all I'm going to say about that.
The other thing my brain won't shut up about is the "who should get credit for creating The Prisoner?" drama that I've read about all over the place.
It's absolutely fair to say that George Markstein should get credit for coming up with the premise and being script supervisor and for playing the guy who gets resigned at in the opening sequence. But based on things I've read, Markstein wasn't happy with the show because McGoohan took over and turned it into what he wanted rather than what Markstein originally envisioned.
And I feel bad for George Markstein about that. I really do. However, if that hadn't happened the show wouldn't have been as good. It wouldn't be my favorite television show in the history of ever.
It's hard to figure out the proper way to word how I feel about this, but here goes:
Regardless of what anybody says, I think Patrick McGoohan cared about it more. I think The Prisoner became something that was so important to him that he usurped the concept, warped it to fit his own devices, took over practically everybody else's jobs (writing, directing, editing, running the camera, for all I know he fired all the gofers and brought everybody coffee himself ... okay, probably not that last one) and, according to legend, worked his way through several nervous breakdowns and nearly killed Leo McKern. That takes fucking conviction! I've never been that passionate about anything ever!
And the fact that he was that passionate about it ... dude, step aside and let him have it. I think he wanted it more.
That being said, I think Patrick McGoohan might have hated me a little bit if he met me, if for no other reason than I take everything that happens in The Prisoner at face value (also the fact that I'd probably be rendered speechless and would just stare at him with giant eyes and dropped jaw probably wouldn't help; it's probably a good thing I never had the chance to meet him). Even (especially?) the really weirdass, unexplainable stuff. He wanted it to be an allegory and I'm not smart enough to find meaning in things or draw my own conclusions, so I just go for the ride as it is. And I love every moment of it.
I'm obsessed with the show; the pennyfarthing was my first tattoo, I own four books about the series (and I know of at least two more I'm itching to get my hands on), which I read fairly often (one of them I read at least once a year; the coffee table book gets the least wear because it's poorly edited. A few paragraphs stop in the middle, never to be heard from again and some paragraphs shove their way into later paragraphs after they've already had their turn. Also, typos. But the pictures are great!), and I love hearing other people's theories about various episodes and the show as a whole. I'd rather listen to those theories (whether I agree with them or not) than talk about my own, though. Because I only have one theory:
1) Number Six is not John Drake.
I've clung to that theory since I was about fourteen (which was when I first found out that Patrick McGoohan had been the star of a spy series in the 1960s and that some people thought the character from that show was Number Six). And I originally clung to that theory because, well, I'd never seen Danger Man, I'd never even heard of Danger Man until now and I love The Prisoner, damn it! I don't love that other show! So he can't possibly be playing the same guy because I am a headstrong teenager.
Now I'm older and it turns out I actually do love Danger Man, but I still don't think Number Six is John Drake because if he were, McGoohan would've played them the same. And he didn't. I think John Drake is probably a nicer guy than Number Six. I'd go out to lunch with John Drake, but I think Number Six might shout at the waiter. Or punch him.
'Cause, much as McGoohan was quoted as saying that he hated violence and that The Prisoner was a pacifistic show and Number Six only fought when provoked, I'm not entirely buying it. I'm rewatching the series with Joanna right now (she's never seen it and I've never had the chance to show it to someone for the first time before; I'm really relishing the experience) and when he's stealing that boat in Free For All, Number Six totally throws the first punch. I'm just saying.
I love that there's a bunch of things in the show that I do not understand. I'll just keep on watching until I either become smarter and start to draw conclusions, or until I don't.
In other words, I'll just keep on watching.

Be seeing you.
-Sally

Stupid Mouse. (Oh, Shut Up, It's Not The Mouse's Fault!)

Movies-wise I'm pretty hard to scare. That's not cockiness, it's just a fact. Even if I'm scared in the moment, as soon as the movie's over the fear goes away.
Right now I am awake after maybe four hours of sleep. My mouse was causing loud, metallic pounding on his cage that felt like it was right by my head. I'm a light sleeper, always have been, but general nighttime mousiness is something my brain has trained itself to ignore.
Not tonight (or, rather, this morning), though.
Insidious got me, people. It's all I dreamed about and, when that damn metallic pounding woke me up, I laid in bed for half an hour, too afraid to open my eyes. Logically I knew it was the mouse, but why did it sound like it was coming from right next to my head?!
So my mind was filled with images from the movie, conveniently inserted into my own life for my fear convenience.
What's funny was one of my dreams was me telling someone that Joe Bishara, who plays one of the (for lack of a better word) monsters in the movie (and wrote the music!), is a nice guy in life. Which is true. I've met him a few times and I like him quite a lot. I'm not sure why I haven't tried friending him on Facebook, actually.
But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter one bit. I am up at six thirty in the morning because Insidious scared me. A lot.
Even after I saw The Collector and The Strangers (the last two movies I remember really scaring me) I still got a full night's sleep with unmemorable dreams (or, at least, no dreams where the logic part of my brain tried to calm down the scared part of my brain with talk of what actors are like as people).
I even watched an episode of Danger Man before going to sleep last night (and debated watching a second, but I really was tired) to distract me. Maybe I should've watched that second one after all. Don't know if it would've helped, but at least I'd have only gotten three hours of sleep.
Wait ... No, that's not helpful.
I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. I really, really liked Insidious. I loved it, in fact. James Wan is an amazing director, Leigh Whannell is a great writer (and his American accent is getting better). And I am up at six thirty, talking up a movie to epic proportions, practically guaranteeing that anybody who reads this and then sees Insidious will be bitterly disappointed.
Which is the opposite of my intentions. I want people to go see it and love it and be just as scared as I am.
It's worth it.

Be seeing you.
-Sally