Happy Valentine's Day From Jack White

Yesterday was a great day because I got to hear Bret McKenzie talk about Muppets on NPR for maybe 20 minutes. And I got to hear him sing the chorus of Harry Nilsson's "Without You."

Today is a great day because Jack White's self-directed video for "Love Interruption" has been released and it's fantastic. It features Jack White, three lovely ladies, and a small dog.

One of these lovely ladies is Ruby Amanfu, who sings back-up vocals on the song. She's stunning. Absolutely gorgeous, and her voice is equally so.

The video itself is kind of soft focus-ish, but not entirely, and has moments of very bright, fuzzy light and then other moments of perfect crispness. It has a very sensual feel to it, and is in keeping with an aesthetic that Jack White seems to be building with Third Man. It's velvety and lush but also very simple and clear and to the point. And there's a lovely kind of old fashioned glamour going on that I (personally) really, really love.

As I wrote in my previous post about the song "Love interruption" Jack White's solo album Blunderbuss will be released on April 24th. He's also started announcing some tour dates, which has me totally on edge (but in a good a way). I am so excited to seem this man live and in person. Again.

Bret McKenzie + More Muppet Talk On NPR

I listened to yet another Muppet themed Fresh Air interview this afternoon, this time with Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords, who also wrote most of the music for the movie The Muppets.

I adore Flight of Conchords, and as you likely already know from my previous posts on the topic I'm a huge fan of the Muppets. I've loved them since I was a kid and I thought the new movie was just perfect.
McKenzie's song "Man or Muppet" (from the movie The Muppets) has been nominated for "Best Original Song" at the Academy Awards this year. The song is a duet between Jason Segel's character Gary and his Muppet brother, Walter. Both characters are trying to work out who they really are. "I reflect on my reflection and I ask myself the question, what's the right direction to go, I don't know. Am I a man, or am I Muppet?"

Unfortunately for all of us, the nominated songs will not be performed at the Academy Awards this year.

When asked about this during the interview, McKenzie said he didn't know why, but went on to describe what he might have done had he been asked to perform on stage at the Kodak Theater. His description surpassed my every imagining, bringing not only Jason Segel and Jason Segel's Muppet-self on stage, but also a background chorus of all of the Muppets. How awesome would that have been!?!

As for the song "Man or Muppet", Terry Gross (the host) very aptly (and with a surprising amount of seriousness) described the song as a "Muppet power ballad". Well, she asked McKenzie if he saw the song as a "Muppet power ballad", to which he answered in the affirmative. He said he listened to songs like "Without You" and "All By Myself" for inspiration. He even sang bits of them.

He then said something that had me practically choking on my breakfast tea, I was laughing so much. "I think that everyone's had this crisis at some point, trying to figure out whether their a man or a Muppet." I love this stuff!

Thank goodness I decided to listen to NPR this afternoon. It made my day. Or better yet, my week!

P.S. Check out this duet version of "Life's a Happy Song" by Kermit the Frog and Bret McKenzie. It's so adorable.

Jason Segel On NPR + the Muppets

On opening day of the new Muppet movie called The Muppets, I was lucky enough to catch Jason Segel and Nick Stoller on NPR's Fresh Air talking about the movie, and let me tell you...I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. This interview was absolutely priceless.

Muppets feature pretty heavily in my life. I refer to people as Muppety all the time (I've done so on this blog!) The Muppets Take Manhattan is one of my favorite movies. I have an "I Heart Kermit" lunchbox. The Muppets version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" is on my Christmas playlist. All of my siblings (I'm the youngest of 7) say "the Muppets always remind me of you" aka, me!

And so, listening to like minded Muppet fans on Fresh Air was a real treat for me. Jason Segel and Nick Stoller (of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, another one of my favorite movies) wrote and produced the movie. James Bobin (who has directed episodes of Flight of the Conchords) directed the movie. And Bret Mackenzie (one of the stars of Flight of the Conchords) wrote many of the songs featured in the movie. When talking about Bret Mackenzie and his song writing style, Jason Segel said "He's by nature very Muppety". I have to whole-heartedly agree.

The general vibe of the interview was light-hearted, humorous, and (like the movie itself) smart and very sweet. On how they went about writing the movie, they said: "we wanted to be Muppet purests". I adore the idea of Muppet purests. I really, really like/admire Jason Segel. His musical sensibilities, his sense of humor, his love of Muppets. On the character of Walter, the wide-eyed, innocent Muppet-mega fan, and star of the movie, Segel said: "he reminds me of what Kermit was, maybe, before he became famous, you know when Kermit was still living in the swamp." This cracks me up! My favorite song from the movie is called "Man or Muppet" and features Segel as Gary, a Muppet version of Gary (which apparently the studios allowed him to keep and now lives at home with Segel and his other puppets), Walter (Gary's Muppet brother), and Jim Parsons as a perfect and very funny human version of Walter. They played the song during the interview. It's awesome.

If I don't stop myself now, I'm just going to ramble on about how much I love these guys and the Muppets, and the songs from the movie, and so on and so forth. And so, I'll end by saying this: I'm so, so happy that the Muppets are back, and thank you Jason Segel and Nick Stoller for writing such a touching, funny, and perfectly wonderful movie, just in time for the holidays.

I Finally Saw the New Muppet Movie!

I saw the new Muppet movie yesterday (simply named The Muppets) and it was everything I could have hoped for, and more! It was hilarious (that kind of goes without saying!), sweet, smart, thoughtful, and clearly made with lots of love for the Muppets. I'm definitely going to see it again at least one more time while it's in theaters.

The story is fairly straight forward. The world's biggest Muppets fan and his brother (and brother's girlfriend) have to reunite the Muppets and raise $10 million or the Muppet Theater in LA is going to be torn down so that the evil Tex Richman can drill for oil.

There are some amazing musical numbers, like the movies' show stopping opener "Life's a Happy Song" and "Man or Muppet" (my personal favorite!) Most of the original music is written by Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie, so the songs are pretty hilarious and cleverly dramatic.

The movie is also chock full of celebrity cameos. Neil Patrick Harris, Feist, Zach Galifianakis, and Sarah Silverman, to name a few. Jack Black is also in the movie, but he plays more of a prominent role, as himself. It's a lot of fun!

Stay tuned for more about the Muppets! I listened to an amazing NPR interview with the movie's writers (Jason Segel and Nick Stoller), and I have some priceless tidbits to share.

The Muppets Are Back!!!

The Muppets opened today in theaters, and Jason Segel and Nick Stoller were on NPR's Fresh Air to talk about the movie and their love of Muppets. It's been a very good day!

I'll write more about the Fresh Air interview this week (there are so many little tidbits that I have to share!), but I'd like to say for the record that I have not laughed so hard and so consistently over a half-an-hour period in a very long time. Hearing these guys talk about the Muppets was sooooo hilarious. Hearing them talk about the Moopets was equally hilarious.

As you may well know, I love Muppets and have been waiting for this movie for a long time now. One of my very first posts on this blog was about a favorite movie of mine Forgetting Sarah Marshall and about how Jason Segel may or may not be bringing back the Muppets. Well, it's happened. And I am one very happy girl. Can't wait to see it!!!