(See, that is exactly what I am talking about. Gryffendors are always going “Look at me, I’m so brave and strong.” They’re a bunch of arrogant twats, that’s what they are. As my fellow Ravenclaw (and former Princeton basketball coach) Pete Carrill once put it, “The strong take from the weak. The smart take from the strong.”)
I’m one of those people who just seems to collect nicknames. In B-School I was alternately known as either EC (short for Engineer Chris) or Red Dragon (in reference to the movie, which is not something I’m entirely proud of though the nickname is awesome.) Along with everyone else in my family, I’ve had the nickname of Nickel or some variation on that theme at numerous points in my life. And for a reason that would take me two pages to explain, I was given the nickname of Bart in high school back in those fun filled days of 1988. That last one wouldn’t be too memorable except that when Bart Simpson became an icon in 1990 I suddenly found myself well ahead of the coolness curve. I was a fan out of necessity.
So with that in mind I just came back from a sneak preview of the Simpsons movie. Got tickets thanks to my trivia knowledge as I have not yet been able to consistently claim that my blogging makes me press. Given that this event was hosted by noted Kansas City film reviewer Shawn Edwards I can’t see that being given a press pass to be all that difficult. (Seriously, ever film that Shawn sees gets a 4 out of 5). I was hyped to see the movie, concerned because I had to go north of the river to see it and completely flummoxed by the fact that I am almost certain that a girl I went out with a few times was seated about five seats down from me. So maybe this review isn’t being written from the right mindset…
But I’ll start with the good news, the movie doesn’t suck. That was a big fear going into it as the past few seasons have been rather dreadful. On terms of expansions of existing franchises it was better than Hitchhiker’s Guide but doesn’t touch the thrill of the original Spider-Man. There were a couple of just brilliant jokes that I won’t spoil but were true laugh out loud moments. It’s definitely not the best.movie.ever but far from the worst.movie.ever. Plus, it is nice to see what the Simpsons would look like if they every actually put some money into animating it.
The plot, well, that suffers the same affliction as most of the episodes of the past decade. It’s Homer as Captain Wacky dooming the town and the family. It’s Marge talking about relationships. It’s Bart joining up with the Flanderses (Flanderi?) though that goes against everything in Bart’s character. And it’s Lisa…Lisa…it’s giving Lisa a stupid sub-plot to get her off-screen for a while. At times it looks like certain plot points were added in with a staple gun.
But that’s not really the point, is it? The entire point of the movie is to see all of these characters on a huge screen. It’s to see nearly every character in the history of the show make an appearance at one point or another. There are more in jokes and references than you could ever imagine. It’s the type of movie where you should probably order the DVD now because it’s going to take viewing after viewing to get all of the jokes. If you are a fan of the show, if you use the word “cromulent” in a sentence on a weekly basis, and if, like me, you are just about to make your way to the good old flower shop, you really need to see this movie.
Just try not to sit five seats away from someone you used to date when you do. Seriously, how the hell does this always happen to me?
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