Highly Overrated But Still Good

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A Masterpiece!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Time Piece" is a 9-minute short film from America from the 1960s and the main reason why this is still somewhat known today is that it was made by the late Muppets creator Jim Henson. He wrote it, directed it and also played the central character. It sure is fascinating how different this is compared to all his Muppets stuff. Henson was still in his 20s when he made it and as it scored an Oscar nomination it was one of the biggest successes of Henson's career. However, I am not impressed. I am not a Muppets fan at all and this one here I don't like either, even if for completely different reasons. It is a very experimental film, there is no plot in here, no spoken language either, which is good because you don't need to understand English to see it, but honestly why would you want to see it? It's tough to find a reason in it. Maybe for the sound effects as this is the only component that was slightly memorable or at least not as forgettable as everything else and that is also only really because they were very much over the top, also in terms of volume. Maybe that's where the film should have been nominated. Anywhere I am glad it lost to the French entry in the short film category because that one is much much superior to this one here. This one here sure is packed with tons of metaphors and symbolisms, many about the subject of time and fugaciousness, but that makes it only a slightly smarter watch. Maybe it could have been a success if we heard Pink Floyd's Time while watching the visual side. But that one only came out a bit under a decade later. "Time Piece" gets a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.

It was only after "Sesame Street" debuted that Jim Henson became a household name. Of course, that wasn't his first foray into the public eye. The man who created the Muppets had been working on stuff since the '50s, but his avant-garde 1965 short "Time Piece" is also worth seeing. This film has no discernible plot. It focuses on time, whether as an abstract concept, or as the dominant force in our lives (to the extent that it imprisons us). Henson plays a man who walks to the beat of a ticking clock. A few other things happen, all set to a beat.The antics of Bert & Ernie, as well as Kermit & Piggy, showed everyone that Henson was capable of creating some far-out material. But here, he goes for the surreal. In a good way. Definitely worth seeing. Watch for a young Frank Oz (the voice of Fozzie, and the director of "The Muppets Take Manhattan", "Little Shop of Horrors", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", "What About Bob?", "In & Out", "Bowfinger" and the original "Death at a Funeral") in one scene.

I remember seeing this short in elementary school (stop doing the math!) and have loved it ever since. It was screened at the same time as "Help, My Snowman's Burning Down" and "Clay", both exemplary shorts on their own, but my favorite was always "Time Piece". The hapless subject's strange situations and his plaintive cries of "help!" (especially when his head was, literally, served up on a platter) were priceless and led to a spirited discussion of the meaning of the film. Now that I know it was done by Jim Henson, I'm not surprised it was so good! A definite must-see for its composition and the execution of the scenes as each jump-cut leads to a new, sometimes visually jarring, sometimes amusing, image.

This is a neat little film that I believe won the Academy Award for best live action short film in 1965. It is a crazy piece about the effect that time keeping have on us all. There is a lot of stop action and editing. Don't miss the dancing naked chicken!