best bit = green day

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

boo the simps movies suXoRed a bit :(

i. beavis and butthead had LESBIAN SEAGUL and the savage pencil PEYOTE SEQUENCE
ii. South Park had all those songs and a real OMG WTF drive to the silly beyond
iii. it just felt like it was colouring within the lines the whole time

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok here is what felt off to me:
i. yes it didn't go off towards the other characters remotely enough
ii. but when it did it felt like it didn't EARN their little dance of shtick
iii. ie in this regard it was always pimping off set-ups from the show, like students repeating monty python sketches
iv. but what else could/would it do? and why does this feel wrong?
v. this is a POLITICS OF FORM question but i haven't worked out the answer
vi. it relates to the sanctity of family but i'm not sure how yet
vii. it was kind of like no more than a rather long ordinary ep, but maybe it would have worked better if it was MORE like that

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

well my comment to C was vii. and she said 'but that's what all the reviews said' so my habit of not reading reviews in advance of films I def. know I'm going to see set me up for a fall! I think it was definitely 'safer' ideology-wise and yes vi. is surely key, since this was very much pushing the 'we're dysfunctional but we still love each other' line (hopeful metaphor for entire nation??). Disappointing because as you say other TV->movie transformations have taken an opportunity to push their boundaries out, whereas this was playing on our familiarity 'America's best-loved family and all their crazy pals'. Which ended up as cosy. Also, however suspicious of the EPA etc. this was still a lame-o environment as neutral substitute for political issues plot.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Don't the Simpsons always fall back on this line though? Admittedly I don't think I've watched an episode since the 6th or 7th season - but it's never struck me as something they've tried to get away from (it's the point-of-difference things like Family Guy and American Dad - both of which I find unwatchable - turn on)

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Yes but overall it's balanced by other lines, some of which are much more destructive. Some individual eps. (i.e. I guess my favourites, although I can't think of any right now!) seem to resolve more on the side of chaos, less on the side of order.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i think the issue here is more the sanctity of the "wider family" -- ie the whole of springfield is now in play as the "group we know we love, ultimately, and are bound to"

nothing can happen (or be allowed to happen?) to introduce even the symbolic threat of chaos, or escape, or "something beyond the franchise"

related: each character's shtick was kept in its own little revered niche, there was no atttempt to build or tangle or rewire anything

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Ahh OK - yes I can imagine exactly what you're getting at.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i spose what i'm imagining could have been done -- at a micro or a macro level -- is some retconning, to take account of and/or use the clash of formal demands, ie gags that weren't just oneliners without consequences, or non-politically-specific satire

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

"ie gags that weren't just oneliners without consequences"

What was so great about the very best eps (those 50-60 or so that from the early-to-mid 90s) of the Simpsons were all those gags without consequences. Whole eps of it! With only a skeleton of a story (so all the more remarkable how some eps would manage to carry such an emotional charge as well). The South Park film succeded partly as it ws a musical - if Groening tried to go for a genre to flesh it a bit instead of a long ep...he should've made that Itchy and Scratchy film instead!

This is thinking out loud as (like nicolars) I'm 99% certain I wouldn't enjoy it, unless my brother (who loves American Dad and the Simpsons and South Park and every comedy ever, I think, drags me along)

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I also felt there was less, hem hem, intertextuality than we have come to expect from po-mo pop-cult i.e., but more references back in and out of the Simpsons world inc. TV episodes. So it felt like more a 'reward' for 'ver fans' than an expansion. This would fit the big-family reading.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is the balancing act any franchise film walks - reward for fans vs doing its own thang. Generally though the fanbase who might get rewarded is way smaller than the potential film audience, so the balance is naturally tilted to 'own thang' (which often means worse but can mean better) and the fans get easter eggs and in-jokes and goodwill. But with The Simpsons (and Harry P actually) the existing fanbase is HUGE already so the safe option is to just give them exactly what they expect.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

"of course the real fans haven't bought it"

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

but their intertextuality has been so shit forever! maybe they were just shying back for fear of making a bad movie

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

American Dad really is the worst cartoon ever.

[koganbot]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.