The Conical Glass: Animation sensations

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Animation sensations

Back in the spring, when all the summer movie preview articles were starting to appear in magazines & newspapers, I looked through the list and declared that there was only one film I was interested in seeing -- "The Simpsons Movie." I'm one of those "Simpsons" devotees who quotes the show incessantly and owns many of the seasons on DVD. Out of the 400+ episodes, I would estimate that I've seen more than 395 of them. (I missed a couple back in Seasons 16 & 17, but I'm sure I'll catch them eventually.)

Like most old school "Simpsons" fans, I believe that the show is a few years removed from its finest era, but even the most blah episode has at least a couple good gags. Besides, an all-star team of the show's finest writers had come on board to script the film, so I figured it couldn't lose. I had to be there the day it opened! (I would have been at the first matinee, but decided to wait a few hours, since Joe has that pesky job to go to during the day.)

Obviously there are a lot of folks who feel the way I do, since the movie did amazing business, "exceed[ing] even the most optimistic expectations as it grossed an estimated $72.9 million." That's a lot of doughnuts.

But is it any good? I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in, but it turns out that instead of going in a bold new direction a la the "South Park" movie, "The Simpsons" basically delivers a super-sized episode of the TV program, with only a couple celebrity cameos. Amazingly, though, it never lagged during its 90-minute running time, although the jokes are come at a much more fast & furious rate during the first half. I don't think any "Simpsons" fan will be disappointed; indeed, IMDB users have already voted the film into the site's top 250 (though I'm a little dubious about its position above classics like the original "Manchurian Candidate," "Annie Hall" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"). It's fun to see a wide-screen Springfield, and there's a little PG-13-rated humor that the writers could never get past standards & practices.

We decided to make it an animation twofer and go see "Ratatouille," despite my earlier reservations about the whole rat thing, because so many people were saying it was a really excellent movie. I was happy that I was able to overcome my squeamishness about the rat cooking -- Remy does most of his work hiding under a chef's toque, controlling the inept cook Linguini through an elaborate system of hair-pulling -- until one scene near the end of the movie, when a meal at Linguini's restaurant is prepared by an entire army of rats. The film makes a point of showing that the rats are steam-cleaned before they begin to cook, but still! YUCK! Ultimately, I think one rat can be cute, but an infestation of rats is just horrifying. Of course, being Pixar, the film looks positively gorgeous and has a heartwarming ending. But I don't think I'd take anyone with a rodent phobia to see it.

"Ratatouille" did make me feel kind of sad about the fact that I dislike cooking so much. I would love to run around the kitchen tossing sprigs of chervil into a saucepan and creating delectable meals, but even when I do cook, I'm hopeless unless I have a recipe to follow. I eat way too much mediocre food. You know, maybe I would let a rat into my kitchen, as long as he kept his paws clean and could whip up a mean souffle au fromage.

posted by 125records @ 9:13 PM

1 Comments:

At 7:53 PM, yellojkt said…

You obviously need to be Simpsonized. I'll catch the rat movie on DVD. We did see No Reservations which is a so-so chick flick but full of food pr0n.