The Simpsons finally hit the big screen in 2007 and although it really wasn't worth the nearly 20 year wait, it was still one of the funnier films I saw that year. The show is nowhere near as good as it use to be and that's okay, it's hard to keep that amazing high quality going past a decade. With the movie, Matt Groening and company showed that spark the series had in it's early years...in sizeable chunks. There are some pretty good bits like Bart's nude skateboarding sequence, the family's conversation about Grandpa's vision, and Homer's relationship with Spider-Pig/Harry Plopper. There were even some pretty good inside jokes about the television series.
I did feel that the movie was kinda crushed under the weight of the series though. Although they did a good job of creating an interesting and larger scale storyline, it still feels a bit less "epic" than some of the stories from the series and the plot treads the same old "Homer screws up and has to fix it" story that show has run into the ground at this point. And while I'm on the subject of Homer, one has to wonder how many times he can just about completely destroy his friendships and his marriage before he finds a way to save them at the last second.
Oh well, the movie is pretty good, easily ranking in with episodes from the 8th or 9th season. The movie is unusually short, which I found odd considering how long they were working on this. It's a shame that the episodes made after the movie went right back to the usual mediocre rut it was in before, but whatcha gonna do?
Yep, The Simpsons are still doing their usual thing every Sunday night. And as usual I'm there to watch it when there isn't anything better on. The 21st season is ,of course, just more of the same. While it's a no brainier that the season is no where near as good as the show's early runs, I'd have to say overall this was one of the shows slightly stronger years. Some of better episodes this year saw Bart getting his teacher fired and getting a younger, more modern teacher as a replacement, Marge entering the Ultimate Punch Kick and Choke Championships in an attempt to get it to end, and Homer wins a million dollars through the lottery but can't tell Marge because he ditched her at a wedding reception to get the ticket. The strongest episodes appeared at the end of the season, among which, was an admittedly touching episode where Lisa tries to save a beached whale and a Sideshow Bob episode that was a huge improvement over the last episode to feature my favorite villain (which was over 2 years ago, I need more Sideshow Bob, please...). Sadly, the season ends on a pretty weak American Idol parody that continues the shows tradition of wasting their celebrity guests. Oh well, the show's neither purely hilarious nor incredibly terrible at this point. It's just middle of the road, but it has just enough going for it that its never too much trouble to check out what the Simpsons are up to.
