I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I suspect if you polled the male movie-going public, 99% of respondents, given the choice of seeing Nicole Kidman's naked derriere or Miss Piggy's--um--butt, would pick Nicole Kidman's.

The question arises because of the bizarre quirk of fate that occurred when I happened to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Muppets From Space" in the same evening.

Actually, it was not really a quirk of fate. After the tedium of "Eyes Wide Shut," I asked my husband, "How much punishment is a man willing to endure to catch a couple of glimpses of Nicole Kidman's ass?"

"Considerable," he replied, and went to bed, while I tried to wash the taste of "Eyes Wide Shut" out of my mouth.

The antidote, I decided, was a movie with no pretensions to ANYTHING. Which is how I happened on "Muppets in Space."

Watching these two movies in sequence is an eye-opening (pardonnez-moi) experience. We have here two dead directors: Stanley Kubrick and Jim Henson. Stanley Kubrick directed "Eyes Wide Shut," his last movie. Jim Henson has been dead for several years, and thus didn't direct "Muppets from Space."

Yet, surprisingly, Henson turns out to be the superior dead director.

"Eyes Wide Shut" depicts the virtually meaningless marital crisis of two rich, beautiful, shallow people with far too much time on their hands. "Muppets From Space" is a poignant story of one Muppet--a stranger in a strange land--who is longing to discover his roots, his family, his kind.

Tears spring to one's eyes when Gonzo wonders, "Is there anyone out there like me?" One's eyes sting from the effort to keep them open during the two hours and fifty minutes it takes for Kubrick to finish his career.

No way is that 99% of the lubricious male moviegoing public going to identify with or sympathize with, Tom Cruise's character. He's rich, he's a Central Park West doctor who doesn't need to accept your insurance, he's married to Nicole Kidman -- he's TOM CRUISE.

And yet, Kubrick tries to convince you, that his star is not immune from weltschmerz. One night, Nicole tells him that once she nearly slept with a man they met while the couple was on an island vacation.

She didn't sleep with him. She didn't do ANYTHING with him. But, she tells Tom, she would have if he'd asked her to. Well, hell, if Robert Redford offered me a million bucks to sleep with him, I'd have-- Oops. Sorry.

Anyway, this scene, which Nicole delivers thus:

"and . . . . .

if . . . .

he'd . . . .

asked . . . .

me . . . .

I . . . .

would . . . .

have . . . .

given . . . .

up . . . .

everything . . . .

just . . .

to . . . .

be . . . .

with . . . .

him . . . . "

Through a remarkable time warp, or because someone from the Seinfeld show tutored Nicole on how to be a "slow talker" this scene actually takes longer to play than the movie's entire running time.

Somehow, Tom manages to stay awake during Nicole's confession, and after hearing it, goes berserk. (An understandable reaction for anyone who has to sit through this scene.) The very thought that his wife contemplated consummation with another man angers and bewilders him. (After all, he's TOM CRUISE.)

He takes to the midnight streets in search of . . . I don't know what the hell he's in search of. Enlightenment? Fresh air? Revenge? Nookie?

He doesn't attain any of these. He almost Does It with a hooker, but doesn't. He manages to obtain the unlisted number of a private orgy on a Long Island estate (and somehow secures exactly the right orgy costume from an all-night costume purveyor at two a.m.)

But he is discovered, unmasked, and kicked out of the festivities before we get to see him naked and writhing.

A point of interest: There are no naked men in the orgy scene. The males are all in long, black robes, with nary a penis in sight. There are, on the other hand, many, many naked women in the scene. Full, frontally naked women. There is also no sex. A lot of posturing and posing -- but nobody is doing anything -- or anybody.

I've read that the naked men in the original cut were digitized out, in order to assure an "R" rating for the film. I don't believe it. Male directors are not interested in manipulating nude men. (Well, maybe Jon Waters would be, but he has too much class to indulge himself.)

Eventually, after a long (very long) dark night of the soul -- and no action -- Tom goes home to Nicole, where he finds the mask he wore to the orgy on his pillow.

How did Nicole find it?

I dunno.

How did she know what it signified?

I dunno.

The final scene takes place in an FAO Schwarz-esque store, where the troubled couple are Christmas shopping for their daughter. (Whose presence in this movie is utterly irrelevant.)

Tom asks, "Well . . . what do we do now?"

Nicole replies, "Well, first, fuck a lot."

Ohhkay. That'll solve everything. A last line that is truly appropriate for the banality that precedes it.

A note about the musical score: It consists of two piano notes. Played over and over. Through the whole movie. The concept may be to sgnify tension. Or to save money on composers, arrangers and musicians. The effect is as numbing as the movie. CONSUMER ALERT: Don't spring for the sound track.

One of the profound differences between Kubrick's film and "Muppets from Space" is believability.

Gonzo feels alien. He alone on this planet looks like Gonzo. And, let's face it -- far more of your movie-going audience is going to relate to Gonzo than to Tom Cruise.

In a touching scene, he muses over family photos of the other Muppets. They all have relatives: Mothers, fathers, antecedents, descendants. Gonzo alone, is alone.

He looks out the window and wonders wistfully, "Where's the rest of me?" (Ooops, sorry. Wrong movie again.) "Where's the rest of the people like me?"

Gonzo lives with the Muppet clan in an overcrowded suburban house with one bathroom, bright, Brady Bunch ambiance, and a postage stamp lawn. (Pay attention! This will be a key element.) No muted, moody, puddles of amber light here. No mistaking these surroundings for Central Park West.

A spirit of communal conviviality permeates the atmosphere, inspiring cheerful morning songs about, for example, the joys of the Swedish Chef's French toast. In fact, there is a plethora of lively songs in "Muppets From Space." None is comprised of only two notes.

Despite the warmth and camaraderie of his surroundings, Gonzo is morose. Who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his forebears? Why does no one else have a nose like his?

Suddenly, mysterious messages begin to appear from outer space. "We are coming!" "Where are you?" "What is the frequency, Kenneth?" (Oops. Sorry.)

In a sly homage to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the lonely Muppet leaps on a riding mower and scrolls out, "HERE I AM!" on the postage stamp lawn.

A gung ho CIA-type at the Pentagon sees the messages at the same time Gonzo does. He decides the Muuppet must be detained, in order to attract the aliens to Washington to find him.

Meanwhile, Miss Piggy is up for a glamourous news anchor job at the local TV station -- if she can find the hot story she needs to out-anchor Andie McDowell.

When men in black converge on the TV station and abduct Gonzo, Miss Piggy has the scoop she needs, and the Muppets swing into action.

With cutting edge spy movie devices such as "Door in a Jar," the "Rubber Ducky of Invisibility" and "Eau de Forgetfulness" spray parfum, the gang set out on Gonzo's rescue mission.

In the end, of course, Gonzo is rescued. And it turns out that his "people" -- a tres cool jazz aggregation -- have been looking for him for years. In a touching sequence that reassures Gonzo that he was never really alien, or forgotten, they land on a nearby beach and welcome him back to the fold.

This is the only somewhat predictable development in the movie; a "Wizard of Oz" moment when Gonzo decides to stay on earth, with his loyal Muppet friends, where he has been "home" all along.

In a delightful coda again evoking "Close Encounters," the Pentagon alien hunter boards the spaceship as an intergalactic ambassador, to explore, with Gonzo's people, the vast reaches of the cosmos.

There you have them. One film, the Hollywood pseudo angst of the rich and cosmetically advantaged, supported by perfect lighting, perfect sets, perfect child. With a "crisis" as phony as the male orgiasts, and the emotional impact of mayonnaise.

The other, a low-budget, high-energy voyage of quest and discovery, with a thoroughly engaging portrait of a loyal and unique family. "Muppets from Space" is a celebration of diversity, a paean to the imperfect.

How could any sensitive person not empathize with Gonzo's aching need to find his place in the world?

And how could any sensitive person give a rat's ass about the Cruises' one night estrangement?

I mean, really, the problems of those two little yuppies don't matter a hill of beans in this crazy -- oops.

Well, you know what I mean.