BEFORE: OK, I think I've found an answer to my linking crisis from yesterday - sorry for putting out the panic vibes. What I've decided to do is to put together the best possible chain for October that I can, now that "New Mutants" is off the 2019 release schedule. I believe this will require moving "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" to October, because it shares actors with four horror films that are currently on my list - "Let Me In", "The Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse", "It: Chapter Two", and let's throw "Glass" in there as well. Then what I can do is designate October as a mix of Halloween films and animated features (there are two cross-overs there, namely "Coco" and "Hotel Transylvania 3") = it's not my ideal way to run October, but it is what it is. If I'm going to try for a perfectly linked year, then I have to be a little flexible, and any horror films that don't link to anything else will have to wait.
Now, since this removes a big blockbuster film from June, that's going to leave a hole there - so I found that by flipping a certain sequence of 16 films around, I can close the resulting gap, and the best part about this is, I don't really have to tear apart the chain and put it back together again! Thankfully most movies have the ability to connect to several other films on the list, which makes this flip possible. I now have about a week before the two plans diverge, and I'll have to decide whether to follow the new plan or the old plan. This could give me time to see if there's definitely a path between "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and the movie set for October 1, and it also gives me an ending point for October, so I can try to figure out a path from there to "Star Wars: Episode IX" in December. If I can do both of these things, I've got a map to the end of a perfectly-linked year. And even if they're not possible to discern now, things might be different in July, a path to October may open up by then.
Also, the new Plan B, with my current films in a slightly different order, also has a place I could drop in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" in mid-June, so if I follow Plan B, I really have unti then to decide if I really want to sit on that film's review for four months, like I did with "X-Men: Apocalypse". If in mid-June I suddenly think of some more horror films to add, and that creates a better October line-up, I can just move the X-Men film back to June and continue on. I feel it's a little bit dishonest to not post all of my reviews right after each film was watched, but I was going to do that anyway with "New Mutants", by watching it in August and posting in October. C'est la guerre.
But also, to make the October chain work, I now have to go see three more films in the movie theater this year, in addition to the "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" films - and those are "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", "Toy Story 4" and "It: Chapter Two". So the punishment is not too bad, I think I can take it, except I don't like seeing really scary movies outside of the comforts of home, so that last one could be a bit of a challenge.
Kevin Clash carries over again from "I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story", as do many of his fellow puppeteers from Muppet-Land.
THE PLOT: The Muppet Elmo is one of the most beloved characters among children across the globe. Meet the unlikely man behind the puppet - the heart and soul of Elmo - Kevin Clash.
AFTER: There's obviously a trend here, something about how a certain percentage of people who really enjoy something - whether that's puppetry or cartoons or rock music - end up working in that field, and for them no other line of work will really do. Once you get bit by that bug, and again, it could be acting or playing guitar or telling jokes, that's all you really want to do, and a select few of those obsessive people really get to shine in that field. I remember there was a computer in my high school guidance counselor's office that helped kids find the type of career they were best suited for, and I didn't like any of the careers it suggested for me. I inquired with the computer about whether filmmaking was right for me as a career, and I got a print-out that told me I wasn't cut out for that line of work, because it required working well with other people, and I preferred to keep to myself. Well, that only made me more determined to go enroll at NYU and prove that computer wrong. It's been over 30 years and I'm still working in that field.
For Kevin Clash, puppetry was just always what he wanted to do, he would have been 9 years old when "Sesame Street" first aired, and he was fascinated by the Muppets on the show, and set right out to making his own from fabric around the house (like his father's coat lining) and then making up voices for them. A class trip to New York brought him in touch with Kermit Love, who was a master puppet-maker and a mentor to Jim Henson. After appearing with his puppets on several local Baltimore-area shows, he got the chance to work on the "Captain Kangaroo" show, then transitioned over to the Henson Studio after subbing in for the usual Cookie Monster puppeteer in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
When his other TV gigs ended, Clash got to work with Jim Henson on the film "Labyrinth" and then on Sesame Street (after previously turning down a job on "The Dark Crystal") and took over Elmo, a character that four other puppeteers had worked with, and were unable to find the right voice or attitude for (early Elmo appearances have him talking with a deeper voice, and a bit dumb, like a caveman.) But Clash's high-pitched childlike voice and free-spirited "love everyone" attitude made the character take off, and a decade later there was a veritable craze with the release of the "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls. Thousands of talk-show jokes about the true nature of the vibrating toy followed.
Clash performed several other Muppet characters, like Hoots the Owl and Clifford (the reggae-styled host of "Muppets Tonight") and the baby dinosaur on "Dinosaurs" but no other character competed with the worldwide sensation that was Elmo - geez, if you thought Big Bird connected with kids, Elmo probably went above and beyond that. This documentary ends with Clash working on Sesame Street as a director, and also traveling to train Sesame Street puppeteers in other countries. If you read between the lines, you may notice that like Caroll Spinney in yesterday's film, it seems like fellow workaholic Clash hadn't spent as much time with his own daughter as he did working and playing with puppets.
So, I guess we're not going to talk about the sexual abuse allegations? Oh, right, those came to light a year or so after this documentary was released - which admittedly raises the possibility that his accusers were just looking to get a piece of that sweet indie documentary money. I'm sorry, I know this isn't a laughing matter, but way back, 8 years ago, before Weinstein and Cosby and Charlie Rose and Kevin Spacey and Matt freakin' Lauer and Louis CK, Kevin Clash was basically outed in the press after two different men came forward and said they'd had relationships with him that began when they were underage. When it's one of those he said-he said situations, who can really say what took place? Right or wrong, Clash was forced to resign from Sesame Street and it took him years to get back into puppeteering.
In a way, that whole media firestorm was worse than the freak-out that accompanies the debate over whether Bert and Ernie are gay. The official word is "No", but come on, they live together, they share a bedroom, they both dress in stripes, and Ernie is very close friends with Bert's mother. Plus then there's the whole pigeon-keeping obsession, but that's neither here nor there. Even if the puppets were gay, so what if they were? Only they're not, because they're fictional characters that are technically asexual, and if you've seen the puppeteers performing, you'd know that neither one even has a lower half to their body. Still, it's what people obsess over and freak out about.
Also starring Joan Ganz Cooney (also carrying over from "I Am Big Bird"), Cheryl Henson (ditto), Fran Brill (ditto), Bill Barretta, Martin P. Robinson, with the voice of Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "Quincy"),and archive footage of Jim Henson, Caroll Spinney, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Steve Whitmire, Roscoe Orman, Sonia Manzano, Emilio Delgado, Bob McGrath, Will Lee (all carrying over from "I Am Big Bird"), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Rosie O'Donnell (last seen in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), Regis Philbin (last seen in "I'm Still Here"), Kathie Lee Gifford, Kofi Annan, Jack Black (last seen in "The Polka King"), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Crossfire Hurricane"), Peter Jennings, Robert Keeshan, Princess Diana, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey (also last seen in "Quincy"), Michelle Obama (ditto), Ricky Gervais (last seen in "George Michael: Freedom"), LL Cool J.
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