I have never watched The Simpons TV series on a regular basis, but I’ve seen enough episodes over the years to get the basic premise of the show. I’ve always thought the show was pretty funny, so when I heard about The Simpsons Movie release over the summer, all I could do was wonder what took so long. I knew I would see the film at some point, and that happened over the weekend when I finally rented the DVD. It turned out to be similar to all the episodes I’ve seen: a few decent laughs, a couple of chuckles, and plenty of entertaining moments.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The plot for this movie was very straightforward, which I guess is a good thing since I’m sure a lot of younger kids wanted to see this. As the film opens, we see that Lake Springfield has become nothing more than a dumping ground for industrial waste, chemicals, and all kinds of other pollutants. After the band Green Day dies in the lake, Lisa Simpson decides that it’s time to take some action. With the help of an Irish boy named Colin, Lisa convinces the Springfield residents to stop dumping waste in the lake.
This works for a while, but then Homer gets a pet pig. At first, Homer just put the pig’s waste in a silo in the backyard; however, it begins to smell so bad that Marge demands that he remove it at once. On his way to the town dump, Homer learns that the donut shop is giving away freebies, so he decides to toss the silo into the lake to save time (and get to the donuts that much quicker).
The pig waste brings the lake’s pollution level to the breaking point. Mutant animals start appearing, which causes the federal government to get involved. An EPA official named Cargill decides to drop a huge glass dome over Springfield to seal in the residents and their problems. When everyone learns that Homer was cause of their domed existence, they form a mob and storm the Simpson home. The clan escapes through a sinkhole in the backyard, make it to the other side of the dome, and decide to move to Alaska to start over.
The rest of the film then deals with the the various mishaps that the family gets into on the way to Alaska, as well as Homer’s attempt to get back into Marge’s good graces and save Springfield.
My Reaction: I’m not sure how the hardcore fans reacted to this film, but to me it felt more like an extended TV episode than anything else. Yes, there were a couple of things thrown in there to remind me that I wasn’t watching FOX (like that shot of Bart’s penis or Marge saying “God damn”, but otherwise, there was very little difference from what they do every weekend. I guess it didn’t help that I watched this at home on a Sunday night instead of at the theater!
I have to say that I was disappointed that some of my favorite characters didn’t make it into the movie. I can’t believe the writers didn’t give Apu anything to do! And how hard could it have been to give Mayor Quimby a speech or two? After all, the pollution directly affected the town, so wouldn’t it be natural for the mayor to have something to say about the issue?
I really don’t have any comments about the plot because it was highly outlandish, as is usually the case with The Simpsons. At least it moved along pretty quickly, and at just about 80 minutes to the credits, there wasn’t much time to get bored.
Overall, I thought The Simpsons Movie was a decent film for a bit of mindless entertainment, so I give it 6.0 stars overall.
In order to have fresh content for this blog, I have to consume a lot of media. I always have 2-3 books going at any given time, watch at least two hours of primetime TV series (on DVD right now) per day, and try to take in at least half of a movie every day so I can have materials to review. Every once in a while, get tired of taking notes while I watch TV or movies, so I kick back with an old favorite, grab a bowl of popcorn, and just enjoy the show. Recently, I had a chance to watch
Despite the fact that it just opened on Christmas Day, there’s already been a lot of Oscar buzz about Denzel Washington’s new movie The Great Debaters. I’ve been hearing about this film for more than a month now, and when all the positive reviews started rolling in, I decided that I’d go see it in theaters. Obviously, there’s always the chance that a film generating this much hype would be a disappointment in the end, but that didn’t happen here. 
I like to have audiobooks on my iPod to help me pass the time when I’m driving or exercising. However, I don’t buy audiobooks because they’re relatively expensive and I’d never listen to anything more than once, so I have to rely on free stuff from Librivox, my friends, or the public library. Free is great, of course, but the selection is extremely limited. I guess this is a good thing, in a way, because it forces me to branch out and try stuff that I ordinarily wouldn’t even consider. That’s precisely why I picked up The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun.
I am pretty much indifferent to Pixar films. I don’t go out of my way to see them, but neither do I actively try to avoid them as some people do. My five-year-old son apparently feels the same way, as he never asked to see Ratatouille until this past weekend, even though we’ve been walking by the DVD cases at Blockbuster for months now.
Even though I like watching movies based on true stories, I’ve been wary of A Mighty Heart ever since it was released earlier this year. I was definitely interested in getting some new insight into what happened behind the scenes of the Daniel Pearl kidnapping; but at the same time, I’d heard about all the mixed reviews this movie received, with some of the more cynical critics deriding it as a showcase for star Angelina Jolie to get an Oscar nomination. This was enough to put me off for a while, but I finally gave in and rented the DVD over the weekend. I should have just stayed away.
Back in 1987, I was just beginning to go to movies without my parents. On Friday nights, they’d drop me off at the local theater so I could meet my friends, and then they’d pick me up again after the movie ended. I clearly remember that one of the first films I wanted to see with my friends was The Monster Squad. I had a major crush on the lead actor André Gower, and couldn’t wait to see him in this.
There are a lot of new movie releases that I want to see in theaters right now, so it was very difficult to settle on just one when my husband and I went to the cineplex last night. However, since my husband was in the mood to see something light and entertaining, we finally selected National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the sequel to the 2004 hit National Treasure, which grossed more than $173 million at the box office. I really enjoyed the first film, and was looking forward to seeing this second one. Unfortunately, the formula that worked so well three years ago came off as being, well, formulaic this time. The result was a film that was flat and boring, with none of the excitement or wonder of the original.
I’ve been meaning to see Bug ever since it came out in theaters over the summer, but because it was going up against Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and Spider-Man 3, I managed to miss it. Then I kind of forgot about it until I started seeing the DVD case at Blockbuster, and finally got around to renting it a couple weeks ago.