BRET'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!

blondesnotbombs wrote:So, there will be no performance of Man or Muppet (or that other song), but [url=Cirque du Soleil will be performing][/url].

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Seriously, Brian Grazer and Don Mischer, fuck you in the face.

[size=150:335243ac]The Muppets Make It to the Oscars
Published: February 17, 2012 @ 9:45 am
By Steve Pond

The Muppets may not be singing on the Oscar show, but they will be in the house.

And Brad and Angelina will now have some stiff red-carpet competition in the form of a frog and a pig.

Although the Oscar producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer have decided not to include onstage performances of the two nominated songs, including "
Man or Muppet,"
they have booked the Muppets to be presenters on the show, ABC and the Academy announced on Friday.

Miss Piggy and Kermit the FrogBut the new Muppet Walter, who sings the Bret McKenzie song "
Man or Muppet"
with Jason Segel, was snubbed again: According to the press release, the Muppets power couple of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will be handling the Oscar presenting chores.

This marks the first announcement of Oscar-show presenters to be made first by ABC rather than by the Academy. The release itself is a joint release, also a first.

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Company, which released "
The Muppets."


The decision to omit the nominated songs from the Oscar show had led to an online petition to let the Muppets participate. As of Friday, the petition had received more than 62,000 signatures.

[size=150:1sweyjgy]Cirque du Soleil to perform at Oscars, yet still no Muppets...who would YOU rather see? -- Poll
by Lanford Beard

The Academy announced today that producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer have invited Cirque du Soleil to return to the Oscars. Their last visit to the main stage was in 2002, when their performance was so well received they spun it into a standalone show, IRIS: A Journey through the World of Cinema. Danny Elfman composed the music for that program, and he will also create the score for this year’s program, which, according to an AMPAS release, “will feature the largest Cirque cast ever assembled for a single act.”

Though Kermit and Piggy will be presenting at the Oscars, reports have been circulating that this year’s Best Song nominees (from The Muppets and Rio) will not be performing during the Feb. 26 telecast. This news is a mixed blessing. Certainly Cirque du Soleil’s 50-person cinematic spectacular will be stunning. But in this case, Guy Laliberte’s gain appears to be Walter’s loss.

The Muppets strong box office shows that they still have a strong pull on audiences nearly 36 years after The Muppet Show debuted on TV. And that’s without mentioning the undoubtedly undulating carnival Rio‘s bossa nova king Sergio Mendes would bring to the mix. For all Cirque’s thrills, there are some underlying issues with this move. First and foremost, their kind of performance is viscerally more exciting in person. Will it have the impact on television audiences around the world? Muppets songwriter Bret McKenzie has teased a “drum battle” red challenge to Mendes. Could a Cirque performance deliver the au courant excitement of an old-versus-new, McKenzie-versus-Mendes face-off? Or will it inevitably devolve into a glitzier riff on yet another film-history montage (which the Oscars have increasingly shoehorned into the ceremony in recent years, over live content)?

What do you think, PopWatchers? Are you excited about the Cirque performance, or would you rather see Walter and a swiveling pack of samba dancers take the stage at the (soon-to-be-renamed) Kodak Theater? [url=Vote below][/url]!

blondesnotbombs wrote:Seriously, Brian Grazer and Don Mischer, fuck you in the face.

Amily wrote:I hope that whenever they're out in public, people will heckle them.

emira wrote:

Amily wrote:I hope that whenever they're out in public, people will heckle them.

"
Hey Brian and Don! Are you men or Muppets?"

emira wrote:

blondesnotbombs wrote:Bret did an interview with NPR this morning. A preview will be posted [url=here][/url] later this evening. The whole thing will be available next week.

[size=150:3hbst28z]Bret McKenzie: A Manly Muppet And A Muppet Of A Man

Audio for this story from Fresh Air from WHYY will be available at approx. 5:00 p.m. ET

[url=http:
//entertainment.
ca.
msn.
com/movies/oscars/video.
aspx?cp-documentid=3402b729-3a74-4261-8fac-200e16cdfc71:1cl4n4ke][size=150:1cl4n4ke]Video: Bret Mckenzie talks Muppets, Oscar nom[/url:1cl4n4ke]

The Flight of the Conchords star talks to MNS about his work on the Oscar nominated song "
Mar or Muppet"

[size=150:1cl4n4ke]Bret, You Got it Going On
[size=130:1cl4n4ke]We chat with the Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie about his Oscar chances, "
The Muppets"
and who he'd cast with Tom Waits and Lady Gaga

Posted by Noah Walden Tuesday, February 21, 2012

One of the year’s most well received films, “The Muppets” earned praise from critics and audiences alike for revitalizing the fanciful felt franchise without selling out the essential innocence the Muppets made their name with. Nothing has defined the multi-decade success of the Muppets more than the music, so when they went in search of the next “Rainbow Connection,” they turned, naturally, to Bret McKenzie, one half of New Zealand’s fantastic comedy rock duo Flight of the Conchords. Bret took a few minutes to chat with us about getting nominated for an Oscar (for the song “Man or Muppet”), working on “The Muppets,” what’s next for Flight of the Conchords and more.

MSN Movies: What does it mean to you to be part of the Muppets’ long history?

Bret McKenzie: It’s a huge honor to be amongst the list of great song writers. I mean, Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher set an amazing bar, really, and I was very intimidated going on the job because of that, but I guess it worked out OK.

Were the Muppets a big influence on you as a kid?

Yeah, I loved the Muppets growing up, and actually my school did a performance of the musical “Bugsy Malone,” which Paul Williams wrote. We did a stage show of that and I played Bugsy Malone when I was about 16. So I was very familiar with Paul Williams’ songs. He’s a great tunesmith.

What did you think when you heard you’d been nominated?

I knew there was a small chance because we were on the list. There were like 39 songs, so I was hopeful. When I woke up in New Zealand and found out I was amazed. And then when I found out there were only two songs I thought there’d been a mistake (“Real in Rio” from “Rio” is the other song nominated). And then I thought, ‘The chances of me winning an Oscar could never be better.’
Does that increase or decrease the pressure?

I think it possibly increases the pressure. I’m closer. It’s been a very surreal couple of weeks.

Are the Oscars on the radar in New Zealand? Is there more interest this year with a native son being nominated?

Yeah, the Oscars get played in New Zealand. Especially when “The Lord of the Rings” is involved. But yeah, I think New Zealand will be picking it up. My family are going to be watching.

How was working on “The Hobbit”?

It was just a small cameo part. I did it in the middle of last year.

You’re playing a different elf from the one you played in “Lord of the Rings.”

A different elf, yes. This one is more three dimensional. My ears will come floating across the crowd. My pointy ears.

How is it different writing for the Muppets than for the Conchords?

It was actually very similar. It’s a similar process, except that the Muppets’ songs had to be cleaner, obviously. I had to take out lines about, for example, mother-froggers. And instead of writing for myself to sing I was writing for other people. That was probably the biggest difference. Like writing a rap for Chris Cooper. And writing songs for Miss Piggy and trying to figure out where she can sing. A lot of them tend to have limited ranges. If Miss Piggy goes too high she sounds like a little squeaky mouse, and if she goes too low she sounds like a dude.

Which, in fact, she is.

Which she is. She sounds like the dude that she is.

What’s coming up for the Conchords?

We’re planning to tour the south. Not the south of America but the south of the world. So New Zealand, Australia. Maybe Chile.

What about a movie?

We’d like to make a movie but we haven’t started yet. It’s in the very first piece of pipe.

You play fictionalized versions of yourselves in the series, but your life experience has changed over the past few years with getting married and having kids. How does that change things?

That was one of the challenges, because most of the Conchords show we drew on our own lives, touring around. If we were to continue that than our experience would be more Los Angeles based. The show might have ended up being a bit more like a budget “Entourage” … I dunno, that sort of implies that my life is like “Entourage,” which is completely false. I’m more about herbal teas.

Our lives have changed, we’ve both had children, and we don’t have as much time, which is one of the things that you really need to make a TV show. We would literally work on the Conchords for 100 days straight. Now we’ve got children to go and look after.

That cuts into your writing time.

Yeah, what I’ve found is that the best writing comes from when you can spend enough time that you get bored together. You have enough time that you’re doing nothing — then the ideas start to come. It’s very hard to do between naps. Between the baby’s schedule. It’s about clearing your mind, which is hard to do with kids. But lots of people have done it. One of the classic ways is to just forget about your family. That’s the traditional way for artists to keep working when they’ve got kids … is to abandon them (laughs). It’s a challenge.

Tell us about your upcoming film “Two Little Boys.”

It’s a New Zealand film I did that comes out this year, and it’s an incredibly dark comedy. I’m pretty excited about it because it’s just so different. I’d liken it to a Coen Brothers’ film, it’s probably darker. Well, not darker. It’s very disturbing. It’s a harrowing comedy. It’s not as dark as the one with Javier Bardem and that weird air compressor that he killed people with. Until they did that one it was darker than their stuff.

It’s a really unusual film, and it was fun for me because I was just an actor on it. It’s a different job for me, just doing what you’re told. It was good, but I probably prefer being one of the creators because you’ve got more control.

You’re a versatile performer and you’re showing that you can be taken seriously as a musician and not just as a novelty act. Are there musicians you’d like to work with?

I do want to do some more musical films. It would be fun to do something using singers as the actors rather than actors as singers. I’d love to get Tom Waits, David Bowie and Lady Gaga into a scene. And Elton John! That’s my cast. That’s my dream cast for my next movie.

[size=150:3fl9hzkg]Bret's McKenzie's biggest fans
Conchord made school 'more special'
Last updated 16:30 23/02/2012



Before he was an Oscar nominee, a young Bret McKenzie starred in self-written productions at Wellington's Clifton Terrace Model School - and today's pupils love him for it.

Wanting to let old boy McKenzie know their thoughts were with him, the 65 pupils at the school emailed McKenzie a photograph of themselves with a giant "
good luck"
banner, hoping it will make him feel supported ahead of the award ceremony on Monday.

McKenzie, one half of comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords, wrote "
Man or Muppet,"
one of the two songs up for Best Original Song at the 84th Annual Academy Award.

McKenzie attended Clifton Terrace school between 1982 and 1987, impressing other pupils and teachers with his musical skills and skits at the school's talent quest.

He returned to his old school last year to judge the talent quest, naming eight-year-old Sol Little the winner for his hip-hop moves.

"
It was pretty exciting,"
Sol said. "
My dad said I wouldn't really win because I won the year before, but I did. [Bret] told me it was really good making up a dance and I was really good at dancing. It made me feel pretty happy because he is like really cool."


Pupils Annie Daucer, 11, Ruby Gardner, 12, and Edward Nolan, 12, thought McKenzie stood a really good chance of winning.

"
He's really talented, the way he can write all his own songs,"
Annie said. "
I think it makes the school even more special, because he turned out famous and stuff."


Aspiring comedian Edward said he and Bret had the same brand of comedy.

"
I'm a very funny person, and his sense of comedy is exactly like mine."


He would wear a tuxedo if he went to the Oscars.

"
I'd be really nervous, but Bret won't have to be because he's awesome."

[size=150:3664f9bg]Family's Oscar hopes for Conchords star
By Yvonne Tahana
5:30 AM Monday Feb 27, 2012



Bret McKenzie is hoping for Oscar success today and will be cheered on by his mother, who has swapped windy Wellington for the bright lights of Hollywood.

Deirdre Tarrant reckons she'll be having her own celebration with her grandchildren regardless of whether her Conchord brings home an award this afternoon.

Ms Tarrant is in Hollywood with her son's wife, Hannah, and infant children Vita and Leo. But unfortunately, when McKenzie heads to the ceremony, Ms Tarrant will be on baby-sitting duty.

McKenzie, 36, is nominated for best original song for Man or Muppet, from The Muppets film. It is up against one other song, Real in Rio, from animated film Rio.

"
We're pretty happy that he's here,"
said Ms Tarrant. "
It is pretty spectacular whichever way it goes. The children and I are going to have our own after-party."


Ms Tarrant said she was having a great time in Los Angeles - and sang a few lines from another of her son's Muppet ditties, Life's a Happy Song, to prove it - as the town prepared for the US film industry's biggest night.

But there had been some strange moments, with McKenzie being recognised by a tour-bus operator as the family were out driving.

"
They just pulled up at the lights and said, 'On our left is Oscar nominee Bret McKenzie',"
Ms Tarrant said.

"
Bret is constantly recognised, so it's quite surreal. [It's] all go, and the town is glammed up ..."


In Wellington, McKenzie's father, Peter, and brothers Jonathan and Justin are planning to go to the Roxy Cinema to watch the Academy Awards broadcast.

Peter McKenzie said hopefully there would be a few cocktails around to celebrate double success for the "
Weta boys"
and his son.

Despite Bret already having won a Grammy award with his Flight of the Conchords partner Jemaine Clement, his father expected there still to be "
butterflies and anxiety"
as the hours ticked down to the award.

He said he was proud that his son had carved out a unique path.

"
He's always loved music. His grandmother gave him a set of drums at an early age, just to terrorise Deirdre, I think,"
he joked.

"
Our rule of thumb for [all of his sons] was do what you want to do and we'll be here for you.

"
He followed his own beat."


McKenzie has a film, Two Little Boys, set for New Zealand release this year and is a member of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra.

blondesnotbombs wrote:I'll just be here for the day, waiting to change the title of the thread to "
BRET'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!"
.

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Best friends. Me and Bret McKenzie who's nominated for an Oscar tonight.

Oscar nominees, from left, Brett McKenzie, Ludovic Bource, Sergio Mednes, Siedah Garrett and Alberto Iglesias chat before offical photographs are taken as the annual Society of Composers and Lyricists pre-Oscar party.

Coincidentally two of this year's nominees will leave L.A. for New Zealand the day after the ceremony. Howard Shore heads back to work with Peter Jackson on "
The Hobbit"
and song nominee McKenzie returns home to begin rehearsals on a Flight of the Conchords tour of New Zealand and Australia this summer.

blondesnotbombs wrote:I'll just be here for the day, waiting to change the title of the thread to "
BRET'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!"
.

[align=center:2gphpalw]:#cheer#: :#cheer#: :#cheer#: [/align:2gphpalw]

Amily wrote:

blondesnotbombs wrote:I'll just be here for the day, waiting to change the title of the thread to "
BRET'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!"
.

[align=center:2fc0220g]#cheer# :#cheer#: :#cheer#: [/align:2fc0220g]

:#haha#: :#glomp#: :#buttrock#:

blondesnotbombs wrote:I'll just be here for the day, waiting to change the title of the thread to "
BRET'S AN OSCAR WINNER!!!"
.

[align=center:38oaoys4]:#cheer#: :#cheer#: :#cheer#: [/align:38oaoys4]

Amily wrote: