Comments on: A Very Michael Caine Christmas To You

A Very Michael Caine Christmas To You

Foci for Analysis — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:15:46 -0800

Michael Caine is frank about his experiences on the set of The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Vaguely related: How Michael Caine Speaks, Michael Caine does Michael Caine

By: Snarl Furillo

Snarl Furillo — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:24:08 -0800

I feel dirty, and my childhood is destroyed.

By: Huck500

Huck500 — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:24:49 -0800

Funny, sort of, but I was really hoping it was actually Michael Caine talking about his actual experiences on the film, which is my wife's favorite holiday movie. Oh well, I'll show it to her anyway.

By: Peevish

Peevish — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:29:50 -0800

Nope. Sorry. Hi-fucking-larious.

By: laconic skeuomorph

laconic skeuomorph — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:30:57 -0800

YUAH NAGHT DEWIN IT THE WAY E SPEAKS.

By: laconic skeuomorph

laconic skeuomorph — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:33:13 -0800

Oh, yeah, it's right there in the post. Sorry.

By: Talez

Talez — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:35:57 -0800

There are two kinds of people I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch.

By: jb

jb — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:36:05 -0800

I laughed - Gonzo hates fraggles, Dr Honeydew has no eyes. So I've been trying to figure this out: I like Michael Caine, I adore the Muppets, I love almost everything the Henson workshop has ever done (Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Storyteller, Farscape) and I love The Muppets' Family Christmas so I'm not anti-holiday, but I was really disappointed when I first saw The Muppets' Christmas Carol. Maybe it was the weird mixture of human characters, established Muppet characters (Gonzo, et al), and original (and serious) puppets. Any two of the three might have worked, but all three was just messy. It was disappointing enough that I never even bothered with the Treasure Island movie (Tim Curry notwithstanding). That said, I adored Muppets from Space, which some other Muppet fans seem to abhor, so maybe it's just one of those split the fandom things.

By: Rustic Etruscan

Rustic Etruscan — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:36:16 -0800

Man, I'd forgotten Michael Caine was Scrooge in this movie.

By: emjaybee

emjaybee — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:38:41 -0800

As someone who actually does not like the Muppet Christmas Carol, I enjoyed this very much. Fank yew.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:42:49 -0800

Joint best film adaptation of A Christmas Carol with Scrooged.

By: greenhornet

greenhornet — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:48:21 -0800

love it!

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:56:05 -0800

This was funnier than I expected.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:03:01 -0800

Mr. hippybear is a huge Dickens fan, and one year we managed to catch 27 (twenty-seven) versions of A Christmas Carol over the course of the Xmas season. Muppet Christmas Carol is easily in the top 3 of all those we have seen. I'm sorry this video isn't actually Michael Caine talking about his experiences making the movie. But that video is pretty hilarious nonetheless.

By: asnider

asnider — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:10:30 -0800

Could have done without the Jew joke. And it got tired about halfway through. I was hoping this would have been Michael Caine actually talking about his experiences on set. That would have been more entertaining and, probably, a lot funnier.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:17:52 -0800

My cocaine.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:22:04 -0800

five in-ap-pro-pri-ate thoooooughts

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:30:13 -0800

Amusing, but he doesn't sound enough like Caine to really nail it.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:35:20 -0800

If you're looking for an amusing actual DVD commentary, check out John Boorman's for Zardoz. Clearly a bit embarrassed by the film, at first he does his best to try and explain what he was going for, but winds up recommending you fast-forward through parts of the film, laughing nervously at others and lamenting his own "hubris."

By: The River Ivel

The River Ivel — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:49:35 -0800

Another amusing DVD commentary is Brian Blessed's Flash Gordon track. It would be amusing anyway, even if Blessed just talked over the top, but he comes across as funny, game for a laugh, and knowledgable about the film. I found this painfully unfunny, apart from "he's got no bloody eyes". Although I don't think Jewish jokes are funny (who does, really?) and I know the difference between a Caine impression and a South African impression.

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:51:31 -0800

The guys in the second link are pretty good, though.

By: leslies

leslies — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:53:43 -0800

Quit at the Jewish joke - offensive and made me utterly disinterested in the rest.

By: jammy

jammy — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:01:16 -0800

This was very much not good, in pretty much every way. (I think this is the first negative comment I've ever made directly concerning a Metafilter post - generally I follow Thumper's rule here. That's how very much not good this is.)

By: jammy

jammy — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:05:01 -0800

Ok, just watched the third link: Michael Caine does Michael Caine That was damn funny.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:05:14 -0800

Best line: "He's got no bloody eyes!". The impersonation starts quitting as it goes on, worth watching for the Miss Piggy joke at the end.

By: freebird

freebird — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:07:11 -0800

The Jewish joke was indeed stupid, and also clearly failed at the intended goal of offending people and being stupid!

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:12:25 -0800

Michael Caine is an interesting exception to the British actors discussion from that other thread. No formal training (I think), but he did work in theatre. He has the exact same accent in every role, and pretty much just plays different versions of himself in each movie. But it's always fun to see him because he's got so much charisma and can really make you feel what he's feeling on the screen. He's sort of an old fashioned movie star.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:17:16 -0800

Michael Caine's Acting Masterclass A better impersonation IMHO.

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:25:14 -0800

So I've been trying to figure this out: I like Michael Caine, I adore the Muppets, I love almost everything the Henson workshop has ever done (Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Storyteller, Farscape) and I love The Muppets' Family Christmas so I'm not anti-holiday, but I was really disappointed when I first saw The Muppets' Christmas Carol. IMO (and apologies in advance to hippybear), it's very difficult to do a version of A Christmas Carol that still has a lot of impact. It seems as if every English male actor of a certain age has done their own version, there are versions set in modern times, a wacky comedy version, and, God bless us ev'ry one, a version that's basically a fantasy about Michael Moore having a conservative conversion.

By: Ursula Hitler

Ursula Hitler — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:27:13 -0800

I thought it was pretty funny, although the "my cocaine" joke freaked me out a little. Just yesterday I misheard Michael Caine as "my cocaine" and now here it is in a Youtube clip. (It's just the lattice of coincidence, my friend, don't go lookin' for answers.) (Please ignore my stupid pseudonym as you read the following paragraph. Thank you.) I don't think the Jewish joke is supposed to be genuinely anti-Semitic. I think they were just trying to make Caine say every shocking, crude, offensive joke they could think of. I mean, they have him taking drugs, having sex with pig puppets... I think there's even a bit of pedophilia in there. (Not sure how old the girl he "banged" is supposed to be.) The joke is supposed to be that Caine is an amusing terrible person, not that Jews are greedy. I think.

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:37:00 -0800

No formal training (I think), but he did work in theatre. He has the exact same accent in every role, and pretty much just plays different versions of himself in each movie. But it's always fun to see him because he's got so much charisma and can really make you feel what he's feeling on the screen. He's sort of an old fashioned movie star.

Oddly, he got his big break when Peter o'Toole dropped out of a stage play to do Laurence of Arabia - he was understudying, and took over the role for a four-month run. I think people are often dismissive of Caine's range, and there's a degree of truth - people tend to cast Michael Caine because they want Michael Caine - but I feel like he has more range, or at least more adaptability, than people give him credit for. He is also probably limited by the roles available for actors his age, and especially British actors his age. But, for example, in the 70s he was able to move from Get Carter to The Italian Job - even though he is playing a Cockney mobster in both, that's a remarkable change of tone... (I checked out at the Jews lol as well - not because I didn't understand what the comic was aiming for, but because it wasn't handled well enough to suggest that the comic was in control of his craft.)

By: Perko

Perko — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:43:12 -0800

Metafilter: In this scene, I tried to emphasize the point that I was smarter & better than everyone else. I touch people, I stare at people, I look around, I pretend I gave a shit, but I didn't gave a shat.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:50:39 -0800

Has anyone mentioned how good the current Muppet movie was? Because it was very good.

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:55:26 -0800

Has anyone mentioned how good the current Muppet movie was? Because it was very good. I saw it the other day, and it really is very good, isn't it? Although I was a little confused by the 80s robot. Was that purely a Rocky reference, or did the Muppets have a robot?

By: hippybear

hippybear — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 12:56:33 -0800

IMO (and apologies in advance to hippybear), it's very difficult to do a version of A Christmas Carol that still has a lot of impact. Well, yes. And believe me, having done a pretty comprehensive survey (we've watched at least a dozen new versions of the story since our marathon those years ago), we've sort of nailed down why this is so. The stumbling blocks seem to be over-referencing the source material, lack of character development, leaving out or misplacing The Dark in the story, and failing to connect with Dickens' humor. There are many a potentially fine Christmas Carols out there which end up having their life sucked out because they fall into one or more of these traps. The Muppet Christmas Carol manages to avoid all these traps. It pays enough homage to the original material while avoiding being overly literal either with Dickens' prose or with with Leech's illustrations. It uses the Meta-ness Of Muppet and the shortcut of song to provide character development. It is appropriately dark in the right places. And it has a lot of humor, perhaps not directly Dickens humor (although much is).

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:07:06 -0800

"I think people are often dismissive of Caine's range, and there's a degree of truth - people tend to cast Michael Caine because they want Michael Caine - but I feel like he has more range, or at least more adaptability, than people give him credit for. He is also probably limited by the roles available for actors his age, and especially British actors his age. But, for example, in the 70s he was able to move from Get Carter to The Italian Job - even though he is playing a Cockney mobster in both, that's a remarkable change of tone..." Oh absolutely, Caine's a really good actor. He's there in the movie, experiencing the events going on, and not wooden or self consciously "acting." You feel it with him. But he's not like (I don't know what the technical term would be), he's not Meryl Streep dissapearing into the character. He's always a version of his own persona, just transplanted into different times and places.

By: TheWhiteSkull

TheWhiteSkull — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:45:18 -0800

five in-ap-pro-pri-ate thoooooughts *BA-DUM-BUM-BUM*

By: fallingbadgers

fallingbadgers — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:47:25 -0800

Turkeys, THOUSANDS of 'em!

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 13:52:44 -0800

The Muppet Christmas Carol is worth it for "Light the lamp, not the rat - LIGHT THE LAMP, NOT THE RAT!"

By: kenko

kenko — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:15:10 -0800

I think people are often dismissive of Caine's range, and there's a degree of truth - people tend to cast Michael Caine because they want Michael Caine - but I feel like he has more range, or at least more adaptability, than people give him credit for. See, for instance, Sleuth—the first one. It's really excellent.

By: smoke

smoke — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:33:49 -0800

I don't think the Jewish joke is supposed to be genuinely anti-Semitic. I think they were just trying to make Caine say every shocking, crude, offensive joke they could think of. Ironic racism is still racist, and doesn't belong anywhere.

By: Huck500

Huck500 — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:41:36 -0800

I thought the current Muppet movie was not that good at all, but I'm not sure why. It just didn't ring true for me. And Michael Cain's best role, IMO, is in Children of Men. It's the only time the 'pull my finger' joke makes me cry... The Muppet Christmas Carol is worth it for "Light the lamp, not the rat - LIGHT THE LAMP, NOT THE RAT!" Yes, my wife's favorite line... I hear it all year. Finally, the Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol is also pretty damn good. Marley's jaw falling open freaks me out every time.

By: gcbv

gcbv — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 14:55:42 -0800

Ironic racism is still racist, and doesn't belong anywhere. Except for in jokes, of course.

By: Strange Interlude

Strange Interlude — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 15:52:52 -0800

I was a little confused by the 80s robot. Was that purely a Rocky reference, or did the Muppets have a robot? I think it was only partially a Rocky 4 reference, and more of an overall meta-reference to '80s pop culture's tendency to shoehorn unnecessary robots into everything, from Riptide to Clash of the Titans. Since the Muppets' last true heyday was in the 1980s, it makes sense that Kermit & Piggy would spend their mad-money on a robot butler.

By: brennen

brennen — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:03:37 -0800

This came up on Ask the other day. I pretty much concur with hippybear re: The Muppet Christmas Carol and why it works. It's faithful to Dickens in the important ways and it's the right sort of musical.

By: Ursula Hitler

Ursula Hitler — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:32:22 -0800

Two items of note from the IMDB trivia page for this movie: "Michael Caine considers the role of Scrooge to be one of his most memorable (to him) roles. David Hemmings, Ron Moody, David Warner, and George Carlin were among the actors who were considered for the role of Scrooge, before Michael Caine was chosen." The first note is just sort of cute, and puts this parody video in a different light. The second is a little mind-blowing. Moody, Hemmings, Warner, sure... But, George Carlin, as Scrooge? Brilliant as he was, I have a really hard time picturing him as a flinty old British guy, singing songs... I think most adaptations of the story end up being pretty good, because it's just such a solid structure with so much vivid, affecting imagery to play with. Scrooged and the Muppet version have their good points, but I'll stick with the ones that follow the original a bit more closely. The Patrick Stewart one is terrific. For my money, the saddest scene from any Christmas Carol adaptation comes from the Mr. Magoo version, amazingly enough.

By: Ghostride The Whip

Ghostride The Whip — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:05:31 -0800

I read something on Tommy Lee Jones today that said, "Nobody ever said 'There was too much Tommy Lee Jones in this movie.'" I feel the same way about Michael Caine. It's easy to stereotype him as just playing himself now that he's entered the late-era grace period we extend to awesome actors we enjoy, but some of his early work is really fantastic and less Michael-Caine-playing-Michael-Caine. Also any version of Christmas Carol without Statler and Waldorf is incomplete. "It's good to be heckling again!" "It's good to be doing anything again!"

By: floam

floam — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:27:53 -0800

Although I don't think Jewish jokes are funny (who does, really?) I have enjoyed jokes about many religions, why leave out Jewish folks? How do you even govern what you are willing to find funny ahead of time? Of course the joke in this video was terribly weak taken on its own, but the idea of Michael Caine delivering it makes me giggle a little.

By: h00py

h00py — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:41:21 -0800

Michael Caine impersonating Michael Caine sounds a lot like Sid Snot.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 21:41:39 -0800

Michael Caine on Jaws: The Revenge: "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

By: IndigoRain

IndigoRain — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 01:55:35 -0800

Did he just say looking at Beaker is like looking at a penis? Poor Beaker. Mee mee mee.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:22:33 -0800

A while back, may be a year or so, Radio 4 did a long interview with Caine, and he came over as an interesting intelligent guy with a lot of insight into his own career. And some of the anecdotes are no less bizarre than this actual vid - like deciding to marry the woman who became his second wife after seeing her once in a coffee advert. Oh and these people who think Caine always plays the same person need to do a triple bill of Alfie, Zulu and Get Carter

By: theora55

theora55 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 07:54:28 -0800

If you have never seen The Man Who Would Be King, directed by John Huston, with Michael Caine and Sean Connery, please correct this omission promptly. Bonus article about the movie, which is set in in Afghanistan though filmed in Morocco, and the US War in Afghanistan.

By: I_Love_Bananas

I_Love_Bananas — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 09:27:10 -0800

Caine is the best Scrooge on film. The fact that he delivered this performance alongside Muppets makes it even more awesome.

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 09:33:08 -0800

Caine is the best Scrooge on film. The fact that he delivered this performance alongside Muppets makes it even more awesome. That and that his performance doesn't vary one inch from where it would be if he WASN'T performing alongside muppets.

By: I_Love_Bananas

I_Love_Bananas — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 09:36:53 -0800

Artw, that is exactly what I meant. Extract his performance and nothing would indicate in any way that it was from a Muppet film. No other Scrooge, for me, delivers the goods as well.

By: Francis

Francis — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:27:43 -0800

Actually, I found that the Muppets made the Christmas Carol work better - with the muppets around you could slip straight into magical realism - meaning you could accept the ghosts as part of the world and get on with the story. So you not only have the best Scrooge on film, you have the least jarring ghosts on film.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:39:48 -0800

Alastair Sim was and always will be the best Scrooge (though the colourised version is a crime against humanity)