My letter to Matt Groening

[Meowster]

Well that really couldn't be further from the truth.

[ildu]

I fully agree with Meowster, and having actually seen the movie, I feel I have the unusual insight to do so.

[Ghost]

I think Thomas' "letter" seems very tongue in cheek, and I doubt if he was being serious at all when he wrote it.

I bet you he was.



Saw the movie. It was, well, material for maybe two episodes made into a movie. It was- to me- Simpsons all the way, with some added political incorrectness that (as has been said) might've been considered a bit over the top for TV. I wasn't so keen on the cellshade they used, though it fits the cartoon style quite well. It was a bit too long, part of it seemed to be included just to get some more runtime, but overall I wasn't exactly disappointed. It had the tongue-in-cheek, it had the catchphrases, heck, it was Simpsons.
As Mr. Simpson himself tells the audience, if you go into cinema to see something you can get for free on TV... 

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I thought Die Hard 4 would be bollocks and I was right.

And in your opinion that may be true; I, however, enjoyed the movie immensely and found it far superior to Die Hard 3.  The interesting thing is that like you I was dreading it, though I half-expected them to throw in McClane's son to be his successor.  Man am I glad that didn't happen.

Also, I don't think it's stupid to form opinions about a movie based on the information that is out there about it.  Hollywood and random morons on the internet sometimes circulate false rumors though, so you have to be a bit discerning about what to listen to and what to ignore. 

If I have any beef with Indy 4 it's that Harrison Ford looks and is simply too damn old now.  As far as the Simpsons goes I never really liked it so I doubt the movie would impress me.

[ildu]

Everyone is blowing this penis thing way out of proportion. If you haven't seen the film, you won't understand the context and you don't really have a place telling us how your virgin eyes will explode if you see three curved lines of cartoon. I don't really care about spoilers, because this has gone along for too long.

This is what happens in the porn scene of the movie: Homer and Bart are playing dare. Homer dares bart to skateboard to the kwik-e-mart and back totally naked. What ensues is a long and very funny sequence where bart skateboards along having everything possible coincidentally covering his genitalia (very similar to the Johnson-scene in Austin Powers). So after a while of genitalia-covering mayhem, Bart passes a bush that covers everything else than his genitalia. His penis is shown for a fraction of a second, end of story.

So yeah, if that kind of thing makes you die inside, go check out something you can rely not to have such violent acts of porn. Perhaps the new Harry Potter? Oh no, that's not good, Harry kisses a girl in that. Hmm, maybe you should just avoid cinemas and stay indoors. I'm just left to wonder how you manage through diaper commercials on TV.

[space boy]

This is what happens in the porn scene of the movie: Homer and Bart are playing dare. Homer dares bart to skateboard to the kwik-e-mart and back totally naked. What ensues is a long and very funny sequence where bart skateboards along having everything possible coincidentally covering his genitalia (very similar to the Johnson-scene in Austin Powers). So after a while of genitalia-covering mayhem, Bart passes a bush that covers everything else than his genitalia. His penis is shown for a fraction of a second, end of story.

Only reading that made me laugh.(and i havent watched the movie) That's what all the fuss is about? Negro, por favor!

[Steel Drummer]

Everyone is blowing this penis thing way out of proportion. If you haven't seen the film, you won't understand the context and you don't really have a place telling us how your virgin eyes will explode if you see three curved lines of cartoon. I don't really care about spoilers, because this has gone along for too long.

This is what happens in the porn scene of the movie: Homer and Bart are playing dare. Homer dares bart to skateboard to the kwik-e-mart and back totally naked. What ensues is a long and very funny sequence where bart skateboards along having everything possible coincidentally covering his genitalia (very similar to the Johnson-scene in Austin Powers). So after a while of genitalia-covering mayhem, Bart passes a bush that covers everything else than his genitalia. His penis is shown for a fraction of a second, end of story.

So yeah, if that kind of thing makes you die inside, go check out something you can rely not to have such violent acts of porn. Perhaps the new Harry Potter? Oh no, that's not good, Harry kisses a girl in that. Hmm, maybe you should just avoid cinemas and stay indoors. I'm just left to wonder how you manage through diaper commercials on TV.

So the penis shot is kind of one of 'blink and you miss it' moments?

[Hammerite]

Not if the film is paused.

[ManicMatt]

If you want to pause it when it comes out on DVD and get a good look at his penis then feel free. 

[Andail]

I remember the bits in Fight Club where they show a penis for a tenth of a second.
I saw it with a friend of mine and my father when it was first released on DVD, quite unknowingly about this "special" feature. In the final scene, we could detect that odd frame but not make out any details, so, curious as to what it was, my father tracked back and paused. So there it was, a huge full front close up. Luckily, my father isn't easily embarassed, and we could laugh it off.

Hm...sorry to sidetrack! I'm going to see the Simpson movie some day next week.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I bet every child molestor will appreciate this movie!

Obviously, this is overreacting.

You go into the movie theater expecting some intelligent jokes and what do you get?
Two policemen making out with each other! (Because homosexuality is so abnormal and therefore funny.)

Funny, that was just a single gag in the entire film. Why did it stay burned in your memory like that? Plus, the sentence between brackets is your own, not even the film made a big deal of it.

I was somewhat disappointed with the art in places, they had some very nice animations but it seemed a lot of them just had a tonne of unnecessary frames chucked in.

And the line art of characters, objects etc in places was very poor and inconsistent. I noticed a lot of uneven (too fat, too thin) line art, almost to the same effect as double pixels in pixel art.

Heh, I wouldn't have known how to put it, but something about the art did strike me as odd as well, especially during the start of the lynching-mob scene. Glad to see it wasn't just me.

Last thing before my opinion: if people made such a fuss about this, wonder why they didn't pick on "Black is the most evil colour!". It would have been pretty much the same line of reasoning. Maybe people are not yet quite as comfortable with sexual issues as with racism, our good old standby? There's a thought.

I just came from the movie. I went in with not many expectations at all - my take on the Simpsons has always been "criticising the typical American family", and even when they expanded on making fun of other things and (")developing(") the characters, that remained my take on it. So I guess I did have an expectation, after all - I expected many, many things to be made fun of, satirized, and to see some good old standbies like the "wonderful" relationship Homer/Bart. I went in with less-than-extensive Simpson knowledge - I just wanted to have a good time.

You know what? I had a GREAT time. The only real qualm I have is that their depiction of Schwarznegger really couldn't be further from the truth, he seems to have been a very competent, attentive and politically-minded governor (ok, so my only source here is an interview I saw of him on Jay Leno. Crucify me). Other than that, I loved it.

I keep reading about the plot being terrible, but it just looks very Simpson-esque to me. Anyway, who goes to the Simpson expecting a realistic plot? It's one of those things, you have to take it all in your stride.

I even cried at the middle of the film (y'all probably know where). Dunno why, that scene really touched me, and it was surprisingly honest.

Basically, I loved it. Not on my best-film-evah!!!1!ONE! list, but I left the theater feeling good. And nothing seemed stale at all... but then again, I have only a passing knowledge of the Simpsons, must have watched a total of 30 episodes in my life so far (and the real total is probably a lot less). So maybe this film is for "non-Simpsonites"?

EDIT - Incidently, the "penis gag" is more funny that offensive -

Spoiler

from the beginning of the gag, it ostensively hides his genitalia, stretches the "this leaf and this flying seagul and all these things are here to hide the naughty bits!" as far as it can go, close to breaking point, always coming up with new ways to do it so that by this time there's not even the slightest pretense of suspension of disbelief - the film goes "we're doing our best, folks, we're keeping it decent - oh, will you look at that, you left that bush with that HOLE there?!".

[close]

Really, in context, the fact that there's a child's genitalia involved is a mere detail.