The Muppets has a new trailer out, and it’s pretty much two and a half minutes of sunshine and Beach Boys songs and Baby Goose knitting a scorpion jacket for Patches. Nothing against CGI, and there are plenty of CG-animated movies I love (most of the Pixar catalog), but for sheer cuddliness it still can’t touch puppets. There’s just something inexplicably endearing about them. I’m convinced there’s some correlation between tactile fuzziness and empathy that can explain our love of muppets, puppies, and Robin Williams’ career.

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Variety today reports that Kevin Kline has been added to the cast of Charlie Kaufman’s Frank or Francis, alongside Steve Carell, Jack Black, and Nic Cage. That’s great, because I’ve been waiting for Kevin Kline’s return to the comedic brilliance of A Fish Called Wanda since 1988. But, and perhaps more importantly, it gives us an opportunity to examine Kaufman’s latest, and what it’s about. The folks at ThePlaylist have had a chance to read the script, and holy Meryl Streep’s tits does it ever sound nutty.  Here’s the overview:

“Frank or Francis,” in our estimation, feels like a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry, not only, the graffiti-with-punctuation bloggers, but the entire machine: fatuous filmmakers, vapid PR people, self-absorbed writers, blowhard actors, and last but not least it serves up a jiujitsu-like takedown on the ego-driven, vacuous meat-parade that is the Academy Awards. No stone is left unturned nor is there much of any kind of hero in the story as everyone is as equally moronic and narcissistic as the other. Still, as Kaufman denotes, it also says a lot of things about society, culture, human nature (and race) and human behavior—albeit some of it in his patently strange and sometimes baffling way.

Yay, jiu-jitsu and meat parades are my favorite things! Anyway, the main arc tells three parallel stories, of…

• Frank Arder (Steve Carell, presumably), a pretentious auteur whose film You, in which he plays all the characters, some in blackface, gets nominated for 29 Academy Awards.
• Francis (Jack Black), a “self-important, arrogant film blog commenter”, and…
• Alan Modell (Nic Cage), “a comedian with a faltering career who is known for his wildly popular, immensely moronic ‘Fat Dad’ roles.”

And then it gets even better (and waaay weirder) in some of the details. These might be spoilers, but you probably won’t understand them anyway (*covers soy chai with latest issue of The Atlantic*):

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Airborne is very likely the most 1990s movie ever made. I know that’s a mighty bold claim to make, especially considering I am aware of the existence of the film Surf Ninjas, and that the trailer for that movie starts (STARTS) with a record scratch. But while Surf Ninjas only combined the 90s plot devices of, well, surfing and ninja, Airborne is stuffed to the gills with all things 90s. We’ve got: surfing, rollerblading, street sports, no less than four separate montages (including one, I sh*t you not, to the song “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred), bullies, an intense rivalry decided by a race, and tons of wailing guitars. Really, all you need for a 90s time capsule is this movie, a picture of Kelly Kapowski, and a Spin Doctors CD. Oh, also, the picture at right? That’s how Seth Green’s character looks when we’re introduced to him. Yeah.

The scene I’ll be breaking down is the climactic race at the end of the movie. It’s not like I had much of a choice. The scene takes up almost 18 minutes of the film’s 91-minute run time. Because if there’s one thing they teach you in Intro to Film for Non-Majors (A-, nbd), it’s that devoting 20% of your movie to a scene that was never foreshadowed, is never really explained, and features next to no dialogue, well that’s just a solid bit of filmmaking.

Strap on your rollerblades. We’re off.

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As we learned a few days ago when the poster broke, nothing says pointed, 18th-century satire like Jack Black, 3D, and awful puns.  Now we have the full Gulliver’s Travels trailer.  The original Jonathan Swift book had four parts — In part one, Gulliver landed on the island of Liliput, a land of warlike, tiny people one twelfth the size of regular humans.  In part two, he goes to Brobdingnag, a place of enormous, peaceful folk.  Part three is the flying island of Laputa, “a kingdom devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but utterly unable to use these for practical ends,” (and Danny Trejo’s favorite thing).  In part four he goes to a place where wise horses rule over “Yahoos”, base, repulsive humanoids.

As far as we can tell from the trailer, Jack Black’s modern-day Gulliver (shockingly, he plays a slobbish man-child) only gets as far as Liliput.  From there, he parties with the little people and teaches them the customs of his land, like Black Knight meets Fred Claus, but with less elf rapping.  Oh God.  Please let there be no elf rapping.  To be honest, it doesn’t look as horrible as the tagline might suggest.  And yet there it is again, thrown down at the end of the trailer it’s the ace of spades.  Really, you guys?  “BLACK IS THE NEW BIG?”  That’s what you got?  “This summer, Jack Black redefines the concept of size.”  Please tell me someone’s favorite niece came up with that.

I’ve been in a locker room before.  Black is the old big.

(Guhhhh-liver’s Travels)

FINALLY, Swiftian, 18th century political critique is coming to the big screen… IN 3D!  Haha, I love you, 20th Century Fox.  Gulliver’s Travels opens in December, with direction from Rob Letterman (Monsters vs. Aliens) and a screenplay by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Yes Men, Get Him to the Greek) and Joseph Stillman (Shrek, Shrek 2, Planet 51).

Jack Black takes on the title role of Lemuel Gulliver, a free-spirited travel writer who, on an assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, suddenly finds himself a giant among men when he washes ashore on the hidden island of Liliput, home to a population of industrious, yet tiny, people. [ComingSoon]

So basically, Fred Claus meets Alvin and the Chipmunks with Jack Black.  (*RECORD SCRATCH*) (*dog covers eyes with paws*)

Tagline: Black is the new big.  And I guarantee no less than 10 people had to sign off on that, probably 20. See, now THAT’S a Jonathan Swift story.