The Simpsons Movie (2007)

2008 #1
David Silverman | 83 mins | DVD | PG / PG-13

The Simpsons MovieAnd so 2008 begins with one of last summer’s biggest hits: the long-awaited big screen debut of America’s most well-known family. I’m not a big Simpsons fan, unlike many film critics it would seem — I like the show, undoubtedly, but I’ve never watched it regularly and haven’t sat through a whole episode for years (not even the recent-ish Ricky Gervais or Kiefer Sutherland ones).

This might explain why the movie didn’t feel tired to me, as some have described it. It might not be laugh-a-minute, and there are some sections where the plot has taken precedence (not always with good reason), but the gag count is nonetheless high and some are genuinely excellent. The plot is suitably epic, mostly justifying the need to be on a big screen at feature length. Some of the subplots feel like episodes of the show, but that’s fairly inevitable when converting a format such as this. Everything looks bigger; the quality of the animation is high; and while I’m sure the events will have no lasting impact on the characters, it does feel like a simple TV episode or two wouldn’t do it justice.

It may be that The Simpsons Movie wasn’t the ground-breaking best-comedy-ever that it needed to be to impress some. But it made me laugh, and often; at least as much as any other recent comedy, if not more so. That makes it a success in my book.

4 out of 5

Here we go again…

With 2007 finally finished, it’s time to begin all over again for 2008. I outlined some of the changes to the format previously, though not necessarily very well… or very interestingly…

Anyway, you’ll see those in effect very shortly: as with last year, I’ve actually seen a film on New Year’s Day! Hurrah! Though this year it wasn’t a new release. And it was at 2am, almost leading to it being included in last year’s list — it would’ve made for a nice round 130. But no, honesty prevails. And a desire to get going on the new quest.

So here we go again: one down, 99 to go…

2007 | Weeks 49-50 (2008 Preview)

It’s the last month of the year! The winter holidays have started! There’s only a week (and a bit) ’til Christmas! And, after the fourteen-film craziness of the last entry, in the past two weeks I’ve only watched… well, NO films!

Yet there is still an entry. Why? Well, I resolved that, regardless of how many films I watched, I’d post double-week entries for both this one and the next. And I haven’t watched any films, so there’s none here. A silly resolution, obviously. Incidentally, this all means you can expect the final chapter of my 2007 quest to appear on Monday December 31st. How very appropriate.

So instead of film reviews, but in light of the fact I’m posting this anyway, I’ve decided to share with you some of the changes I have planned for 2008. I’m sure there’s nothing mind-blowingly exciting here, but maybe it’ll be of vague interest.

2008 Preview

The most notable change to the blog will be that, instead of large week-spanning multi-film round-ups, I’ll be posting reviews individually. The weekly format is a hold-over from the blog’s deviantART origins and obviously isn’t as blog-like as individual entries will be.

In a similar vein, there’ll be a few more details beyond the current year/director/format selection — for example, the running time, or the BBFC classification (perhaps the MPAA one too). These things are hardly integral to the content, I know, but it might make the whole thing feel a bit more well-informed.

In the unlikely event anyone particularly enjoys my little introductions and updates, something like these will crop up from time to time in a new format — expect ‘editorials’ scattered amongst the film reviews at imprecise intervals.

I had also considered adding in reviews of other things, such as re-watched films and TV shows, in a similar way to the editorials. I decided this would dilute the focus and clutter the blog, however… but be sure to check out my new sister blog, Smaller Screens, which will cover those things with a broadly similar ‘voice’ to this blog.

Finally, I might actually start using keywords. I tried initially for this year, but it seemed a little pointless. I’ll try to keep them general and helpful, rather than bogging them down with one-off things like the film’s title. Information like the director, the genre, the year of production, the format, and so forth, will likely go in the keywords, to create some sort of browsable thingamie on the sidebar.

Maybe one day I’ll go back and mix some of these changes into how the 2007 posts are organised, just to streamline the whole thing. But don’t count on it. [2015 note: Hahaha! Dear God, the number of times I’ve re-posted and re-formatted the 2007 entries now…]

Next Time

It’s the final entry of the year! And then two more… You’ll see.

See you on New Year’s Eve…