This week:
- Kermit is here to save us.
- The best new movie out right now.
- Living for this Olympics story.
- A major Melania update.
- I predicted this would happen…
Make America Muppet Again
A venerable institution teeming with an uncompromising diva, incompetent scientists, a perenially failing inventor, a public speaker overreliant on groan-worthy jokes, rats everywhere you look, and an ill-equipped leader who struggles to rise to the occasion every time—and they’re all still obsessed with a band who hasn’t had a hit in decades.
The Muppets, when you think about it, are a funhouse mirror to the madcap incompetence and buffoonery happening in Washington, D.C.
That is, in many ways, incredibly depressing.
But there was also a tinge of catharsis in that realization when I tuned in to the resurrection of The Muppet Show this week, watched the Muppet gang’s frantic attempt to play the music and light the lights, and had the most delightful time. I had forgotten: tomfoolery is supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be the work of singing frogs and a blue alien on flaming roller skates, not politicians.
For 30 minutes, with Miss Piggy “hi-ya!”-ing her way through a door and the Swedish Chef unintelligibly garbling a throwaway joke, I felt nostalgia. I felt normalcy. I was actually having fun. The Muppet Show revival is the best thing to happen this year so far.
Executive produced by Seth Rogen, this special episode of The Muppet Show was, as Kermit the Frog acknowledges with a meta joke at the beginning, a test to see if bringing back the variety act in today’s pop-culture climate could work. Could there be a full season coming? As Kermit says, it’s all “depending on how tonight goes.”
There has been no shortage of attempts to make the Muppets relevant again over the last decades. They’ve all been cute and occasionally entertaining—it’s the Muppets, they’re foolproof in that way—but nothing has really stuck. That’s sad. I don’t want to live in a world where the new generation isn’t as obsessed with Miss Piggy as the rest of us old people.
This Muppet Show special, though, figured out the secret: Don’t modernize the Muppets at all. This episode, featuring Sabrina Carpenter as the celebrity guest, was a traditional Muppet Show episode in all its great gonzo glory. It was witty and campy and ritzy and fun. I don’t think I stopped giggling from the second the episode started.
And there was joy. I got goosebumps during the theme song when the camera cut to the audience, and they were singing along with beaming grins plastered on their faces as if they just won the lottery—which tracks, because if I won the lottery, one of the first things I would do is pay to stage a revival of The Muppet Show.
The episode was a blast, a masterclass in intelligent goofiness. Sabrina Carpenter did a choreographed dance to “Manchild” with an ensemble of chickens. Miss Piggy arrives dressed as Norma Desmond, stars in a Bridgerton/Downton Abbey parody called Pigs in Wigs, and then steals a duet of “Islands in the Stream” with Kermit away from Carpenter.
Gonzo had a running bit where he attempted “a deadly obstacle course on self-driving roller skates, all while reciting every Academy Award winner in the category of Best Supporting Actress.” At various points, he zooms across the stage shrieking, “Olympia Dukakis! Mo’Nique! Whoopi Goldberg!” The bit ends with him zooming by with a wail of “Dianne Wiest!” and I think I ascended to a higher plane.
The best part of The Muppet Show is its all-ages appeal, something that plainly doesn’t exist anymore. It’s family fun that isn’t childish.
Waldorf and Statler, the hecklers in the balcony, are the original trolls. Carpenter sings into a beer bottle. The end gag of the “Manchild” performance is that chickens’ feathers blow off, and they’re embarrassed to be naked. She even makes a joke to Kermit about “kinks.” But none of it is something you’d usher your kid out of the room for. You’ll just laugh a little harder along with them when Bunsen and Beaker come on with their hijinks.
I think this could really work as a full-blown, 22-episode season of TV, the primetime family alternative to Saturday Night Live that the original run provided. But it needs to be packed with A-list guests. (I saw a post on X about keeping away the usual Disney-brand filler like Meghan Trainor and Pentatonix, and couldn’t agree more.)
Book Rogen, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Lady Gaga, Amy Poehler, Channing Tatum, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Glen Powell, Zendaya, The Rock…the people who are going to get us to tune in and who are going to genuinely have fun.
I keep hearing all about the desire to make things “great again.” There is no one I trust more in that endeavor than Kermit the Frog.
The Sweetest BDSM Romance You’ll Ever See
Late last year, I heard rumblings about this movie in which Alexander Skarsgård plays a gay biker who is into BDSM and has lots of kinky sex, and I thought, “Well, that sounds hot.” I mean, this is Alexander Skarsgård, after all.
But then I saw Pillion, and was blown away. Yes, it is kinky, explicit, and shocking—even upsetting at some points. What I wasn’t prepared for was to, as the running time ticked on and the dominant-subservient relationship between Skarsgård’s Ray and co-star Harry Melling’s Colin developed, to find myself swooning.
It’s a movie about desire and worth in a relationship, an interplay that is amplified and complicated when there’s a BDSM power dynamic and an understanding of those “rules” involved. But as Ray and Colin navigate and compromise, something achingly romantic pierces through this arrangement that, because of our prejudices, we may have initially judged or even been horrified by.
There’s a moment where Skarsgård looks at Melling with so much wide-eyed, vulnerable tenderness and yearning that I swear I heard my entire theater yelp in unison.
Pillion is an awards player over in Europe at the BAFTAs, but Skarsgård, who should have been a Best Supporting Actor contender here, was ignored—probably because we’re all a buncha prudes. It’s a shame. You should check out Pillion and find out why.
Let the Minion Skate!
Without a doubt, my favorite story of the week is the saga of the Minion Olympic figure skater.
Those are a series of words that surprised me, too, when I first read them. But it is a real thing.
Spanish figure skater Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate has been the delight of the circuit, performing a routine set to music from the Minions movie while dressed as one of the yellow cartoon creatures.
On the eve of the Olympics, however, he learned that Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, the entities behind the Minions franchise, denied the licensing request for the music, meaning he wouldn’t be able to perform his routine.
The internet was outraged; let the Minion skate! So widespread was the uproar that Universal and Imagine were effectively bullied into changing their minds. Justice, for once, is served.
The Only Fun Melania News
Amazon Studios pulled the Melania documentary from a theater in Oregon (good for the people of Oregon!) after becoming angry about cheeky advertisements on the cinema’s marquee mocking the movie.
According to Variety, those trolling messages included, “Does Melania wear Prada? Find out Friday!” and — quoting Sun Tzu — “To defeat your enemy. You must know them. Melania.”
Opens in new windowAfter the movie was pulled, the theater changed its marquee to, hilariously, read, “Amazon called. Our marquee made them mad. All Melania showings cancelled. Show your support at Whole Foods instead. Join Amazon Prime for Free Two-Day Shipping.”
It’s All Happening
When the Beckham family wedding scandal broke, I predicted that this was all going to end with a big swing of crisis-PR deflection, like a Spice Girls reunion concert.
Based on this new video of four of the girls singing “Viva Forever” together, I think I may not be wrong.
Opens in new windowMore From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
I spoke to Summer House star Carl Radke, and I’m not exaggerating, it was my favorite conversation ever with a reality star. Read more.
St. Denis Medical is my go-to comedy recommendation, and I interviewed its star, Allison Tolma,n about it. Read more.
This is a fascinating look inside the year’s most heart-stopping Oscar-nominated movie. Read more.
What to Watch This Week:
Pillion: It’s sexy and it’s sweet, and it’s got Skarsgård. (Now in theaters)
The Muppet Show: If you love yourself, you’ll watch it. (Now on Disney+)
Sirât: This Oscar nominee for Best International Film is one you’ll want to seek out. Trust me. (Now in theaters)
What to Skip This Week:
The ‘Burbs: Maybe streamers need to stop remaking good movies. (Now on Peacock)
Dracula: Not even a two-time Oscar winner can resurrect this undead icon. (Now in theaters)
