The Muppet Movie - Loved the songs, loved Kermit, thought Miss Piggy was mostly just annoying. Really didn't like the humans, except for Charles Durning, who was just right as Doc Hopper. The "comedians" were particularly unfunny. I was never much of a Mel Brooks fan, but Prof. Max Krassman was painfully bad. (I did like the part where Miss Piggy karate chops her way out of captivity.) And Steve Martin as the insolent waiter? I get how, in theory, it could be funny to have a waiter make fun of a frog and a pig on a date. ("Sparkling Muscatel, one of the finest wines of Idaho.") But it just didn't work for me.
Babel - I hated, hated, hated this movie. Not a single likable character.
Charlie Wilson's War - Based on the true story of a Democratic Congressman from Texas who led the effort to fund Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The movie stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant as Gust Avrakotos, the caustic CIA operative who armed the mujahideen. Near the end of the movie, as they are celebrating the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Avrakotos foreshadows its rocky future by telling the famous Zen story about a farmer, his son, and a horse:
Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."
Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."
Update. It might not have been clear from the above that I liked the Muppet Movie. I have this occasional tendency to focus on what I don't like about something that I like.
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