Thursday, January 08, 2009

Grim fairy tales and Simpsons movie

Ten gruesome tales described like they were originally, before they were sanitized by modern squeamishness.

Like the cop says in the Simpsons Movie when he shoots at Bart for being naked in public: "Stop! In the name of American squeamishness!"

I've just re-watched that movie by the way, this time on blu-ray, and I'm a little stunned. It's hard to think of films where you'd less expect to find visual richness than a Simpsons movie, but it really has it. It's just full of landscapes and sceneries which just glow in High Definition. Beautiful artwork. It makes me want to do more drawing.
And many of those wonderfully detailed pictures are only on the screen for one second or two. They really did not spare any effort with this movie.
(By the way, the movie looks a lot better on my HD tv than it appears to do on the photo below that I took of the screen, it's amazingly crisp. It seems screens always appear lousy in photos, interference patterns etc.) (TC points to these high res pics from the film.)


The movie is hilarious too.
I hear hints that some old fans think the Simpsons is not as funny as it was in the early years. I don't get that, I only thought it got really good after the first few years. I guess it's like with David Bowie: if you were a fan in the early years, you're likely to think he lost it later. Not sure why. Maybe it's just not what you expect anymore. Or maybe you changed yourself. I only started with the Simpsons after the millennium, on DVDs, so it didn't happen to me.

One of my favorite jokes in the movie is when something appears in the sky over the town which is so big it blots out most of the sky. A crowd of people come out of the church and a crowd comes out from the bar next door. The all stare in horror upwards, and then mortal fear sets in, and the bar crowd run into the church... and the church crowd runs into the bar.
It's funny because it's true, isn't it? We all have a solution to life, and then when that one is dramatically being shown not to work, we suddenly change to a new solution which surely must work.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

They really did not spare any effort with this movie.

If only the writing had lived up to the visuals. There aren't too many laughs.

Btw I'm glad American squeamishness protects me from seeing naked 10-year-old boys skateboarding around town.

Alex said...

Btw I'm glad American squeamishness protects me from seeing naked 10-year-old boys skateboarding around town.

Ah, but that's only because of the obesity issues in the US.

(Only kidding, most 10yr old I know are still pretty trim.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Personally I thought the film was totally hil.

Johnnie Walker said...

Personally I thought the film was totally hil.

I can't remember how many times I laughed but it wasn't often. As wit the south park movie it seemed like a regular show stretched out.

Johnnie Walker said...

Btw I was looking at some of those originl versions of the fairy tales and in some cases I approve of the modern changes. That Pied Piper was a real shit.

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Obesity would safely protect you from seeing anything "squeamishogenic" if the boy was naked.
I wonder when was the last time Homer was able to see his OWN a-hem-hem. Even standing on a mirror floor probably wouldn't be enough.