We return from winter hiatus to these glorious words: "The Muppets are here!" ---
The Muppets comes to second-run theaters this week, and if you missed out the first time around, you now have no excuse. Co-writer/star Jason Segel and his writing partner Nicholas Stoller have crafted something that is both an unapologetic love letter to Jim Henson's fuzzy creations and an endlessly charming musical entertainment in its own right. Plus, it's not in 3-D.
Joining The Muppets as the week's only new bargain-theater debut is Machine Gun Preacher, the plodding true-life story of a badass biker (played by Gerard Butler) who devotes his life to building -- and defending -- an orphanage in war-ravaged Sudan. Hard to decide which is more formulaic: the parade of atrocity images, or the "you care more about [fill-in-the-blank] than you do about us" family dynamics.