Spider Pig
Bob and I went to see The Simpsons Movie yesterday at the first showing. There hasn't been one movie I was dying to see all summer except this one and when I mentioned it a month or two ago, he said he might be gone because it was a Cheese weekend. I indicated some disappointment with this and what do you know, he modified his plan.
We are huge Simpsons fans and rarely miss the show. Our favorite episode, I think the first episode we ever watched together is Bart the Daredevil which is the Springfield Gorge one. We have seen it at least 10 times and we clutch our bellies and squeeze tears out of our eyes in laughter every single time. We will stop anything we're doing to watch the last 10 minutes of that episode. One of us could sever a limb and we'd be running out the door with the cooler and a bloody stump wrapped in a towel and if the TV was on with this episode we'd pause before we rushed to the hospital. You can imagine our delight when this episode is alluded to in the movie.
I'm surprised there wasn't more Simpsons-mania. Yeah, sure the Oregonian had a cover story on the outrage that Springfield, Vermont got to host the premiere instead of Springfield, Oregon. Even Matt said he thought the Simpsons were from Springfield, Oregon. Or Beaverton. (Local humor.)
We bought our tickets in advance and arrived early and quickly found a seat in the almost empty theater. We sat through a half hour of commercials, mostly for TV shows. I hate to say it because I am desperate to cut back on my shows, but that new Bionic Woman show looks like it's going to be good. Also they had a bunch of shows that look like shows we already have. Someone with powers has to stop evil from ending the world. Some plucky woman overcomes some setback to make a new start. Is it because I'm old and have already see it all? Or is it because there are 10 trillion channels and the creative forces in the TV industry only have so many ideas?
By the time the movie started more people arrived. Mostly guys in the 20-40 range and I don't want to use the word nerdy, but let's say the kind of guys who can write computer code and watch Battlestar Galactica rather than the kind of guys who work in finance and use hair product. There were two other women in the room, both accompanying people too young to drive. Ladies, take note.
It's hard to have hope for America after sitting through a half dozen trailers for what have to be the dumbest movies ever. Daddy Day Camp? Some sort of underground ping pong movie that looked like a spoof of a spoof. A Santa Claus movie with Vince Vaughn that you could tell the trailer had the only good parts in the movie. Plus an Alvin and the Chipmunks movie that Bob was excited about. (Generational thing, no doubt.) And Horton Hears a Who which I love as a book but the trailer was not even a tiny bit appealing.
We loved the Simpsons movie. There were a very few moments where I felt my attention drifting but otherwise, they kept the energy and the laughs coming. I don't think it was a magical life-changing Simpsons, just a really long good TV episode — but I love the show so why not a big episode on the big screen? Plus you get to see Bart's doodle and Otto with his bong. When are you going to see that on TV? Two thumbs up from this household.
In other film news, I watched Howl's Moving Castle on DVD last night and it is fantastic. I also watched the first Fantastic Four movie on cable recently and it was dreadful.
Look, my first tomato, yay. I'm going to have it in my dinner salad tonight.
