The Simpsons Movie

[Pozer]

[grand theft sparrow]

The beauty tragedy beauty of these trailers is that I'm not missing anything because my work computer doesn't have speakers.

[MacGuffin]

Yellow but not mellow
Pretty much all we know about 'The Simpsons Movie' is: It'll be funny.
Source: Los Angeles Times

NOT even threats of visits by Sideshow Bob or Fat Tony and the boys could wheedle many details of the upcoming "The Simpsons Movie" out of the series' powers that be. Fans can only speculate on what kind of treatment it will get — there's the bloated, inflated episode route (think "Star Trek: The Motion Picture") or the movie as extension of the series option ("The X-Files").

Specifics remain as closely guarded as the identity of the state in which Springfield is located. (Geography enthusiasts: the city has a gorge, an ocean port, a volcano and a desert.) "I can't really tell you much," said director David Silverman, "other than the Simpsons will be in it. Springfield will be in it; it's not being shot in Vancouver. Very few animals were hurt in the shooting of this film ... a couple."
 
Speaking from their sanctum sanctorum (an unremarkable writers' room with a poster of dozens of the show's characters on the wall) on the 20th Century Fox lot, executive producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and Al Jean vacillated between stoking expectations and throwing them in with the kindling.

"We're doing things we never could have done on the series," said Brooks, who won his 19th Emmy last year. "Obviously, there's that much more manpower brought into it, and hopefully we're telling a story that requires this length."

"Pixar movies are so good," said Jean, "we want to live up to that too."

"No, we're not going to look as good," Brooks hastily added with a laugh. "Don't go away thinking that!"

Although all three stressed the importance of a strong emotional component, they made clear that their intentions were still sufficiently low-falutin.

"We want to make people laugh," said "Simpsons" creator Groening. "Not that it's a role model in content, but the 'South Park' movie was proof that you could do a movie that didn't have the greatest animation but was really funny from beginning to end."

The notion of a big-screen version of America's longest-running sitcom has been around since at least its third season. But because of the talent drain caused by Hollywood's animation boom and the insistence of the show's brain trust on complete control, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that the idea gained any real traction. The show has generated billions of dollars in revenue and has become culturally iconic, to the horror of some — former President George H.W. Bush once said, "We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family, to make them more like 'The Waltons' and less like 'The Simpsons.' "

The film's release, scheduled for summer, will roughly coincide with the TV show's 400th episode and the 20th anniversary of America's favorite insanely dysfunctional family's debut on "The Tracey Ullman Show." (The show's run "is beyond my wildest dreams. And I have really wild dreams," Groening says.)

The honor and burden of directing the highly anticipated film version falls to Silverman, whose credits include some of the "Ullman" shorts and the series' first episodes as well Pixar's "Monsters, Inc."

Since Silverman was one of the only experienced animators at the show's inception, Groening said he "invented a lot of the rules on how to draw the characters. Like Bart has, I don't even know, 13 spikes or 11 spikes? And Marge's hairdo is nine eyeballs tall."

From the movie's production hub at Film Roman in Burbank, the wild-eyed, enthusiastic Silverman lacked only a lab coat and soda-bottle glasses to complete the mad-scientist persona.

"I thought it should be basically Panavision as opposed to American widescreen," he said. "If you're going to go from roughly a square format to a feature, let's really go for it, let's go for it as wide as possible."

The director also highlighted that, although the look would still be identifiably Simpsons, small additions like tone shadows would provide new dimension for these "big yellow characters."

It may just be compression madness from the upcoming deadline — culminating a year of physical production as opposed to six months for a single TV episode — but they seem almost giddy at the challenge of meeting fan expectations.

"People have had a lot of dreams of what this might be, over 18 years," said Jean in an unconvincing deadpan, "and I think it will match or exceed all of them."

"I'm not sure we can live up to our secrecy," said Brooks.

"I think it'll be a cultural experience somewhere between 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the record, and 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the movie," said Jean.

[Ravi]

"I think it'll be a cultural experience somewhere between 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the record, and 'Sgt. Pepper's,' the movie," said Jean.[/size]

The show pre-1997ish is Sgt. Pepper's the album and the movie is Sgt. Pepper's the movie.

[Ghostboy]

I had a dream last night that I saw this and it was basically a feature length version of '33 Short Films About Springfield.' The Simpsons themselves were hardly in it at all. I was disappointed by it at first, but gradually grew to really love it for its unconvential approach, and for the fact that Homer didn't spend the entire movie hurting himself. Then I woke up.

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[picolas]

this made me excited for the idea of a good movie about the simpsons that uses a bigger story/screen/score. even though it's not going to happen.

[Pubrick]

i noticed in the first teaser and more in this one, that's a lot of 3D for a supposedly non-3D film. it's Futurama level of 3D. which is ok but they should stop lying to themselves.

[MacGuffin]

From MTV:

It can be hard to get noticed amid the hustle and bustle of a red carpet — just ask Minnie Driver. "I'm in 'The Simpsons Movie'!" the Oscar-nominated actress piped up, noticing the attention given to "Dark Knight" villain Aaron Eckhart at the Independent Spirit Awards. "That trumps Batman! 'The Simpsons' is the funniest movie you will ever see." Reluctant to let plot points slip because, she said, "I could tell you about it, and then I'd literally get shot by ['Simpsons' creator] Matt Groening," Driver nevertheless revealed she'll be playing "a patronizing grievance counselor in one hilarious scene." The Simpsons memorably visited family psychiatrist Dr. Marvin Munroe in an early episode, but Driver said her character isn't nearly as supportive. "It's grown into [this]: 'Oh do shut up, Homer. Nothing's really that bad,' " the "Good Will Hunting" star divulged. The 37-year-old actress said working with the "Simpsons" team was the "the funniest afternoon" of her career. "There was maybe 12 or 13 writers in the room, and they've got funny down to a science," Driver said. "They just tell you where the cadence is that makes the line not funny. They're brilliant." "The Simpsons Movie" opens July 27.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Oh, how I wish that picture was true.

[MacGuffin]

Simpsons' Spanish Voices Angry With Film

Mexican voice-over actors who have dubbed "The Simpsons" TV series into Spanish for 15 years are threatening to boycott the cartoon's upcoming movie if they are not hired to dub it.

Gabriel Chavez, the voice of Homer Simpson's boss Mr. Burns, told the Mexican newspaper El Universal that his union's voice-over actors were told they could work on "The Simpsons Movie" to be released worldwide this summer as a condition to the end of their strike in 2005.

"Gentlemen keep their word," Chavez told the newspaper.

He said that if Mexico's National Actors Association is not allowed to dub the film into Spanish, "there will be a boycott across Latin America of the film."

Chavez did not immediately return phone calls to The Associated Press seeking comment.

In 2005, the union went on strike to demand the series only hire its voice-over actors.

Officials at Gracie Films, which produces the series, and 20th Century Fox in Mexico, which distributes the program, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The prime-time animated series created by Matt Groening is now in its 18th season.

[MacGuffin]

New International Trailer

[MacGuffin]

Biker-Boy Goes For A Ride With THE SIMPSONS MOVIE!!
Source: AICN

Merrick again...

We can keep this intro short & sweet.

Biker-Boy was gracious enough to send in this rteview of an unfinished version of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE.

When reading this, it's critical to keep in mind that the edit Biker-Boy is talking about in his write-up is still far from complete - it's very much a "work in progress" with only partial animation & is still in need of many other tweaks (like Hans Zimmer's score - Zimmer doing this filml still seems weird to me).

With this in mind...here's Biker Boy with his positive review. Is this one giganto episode of the series? An ADD hodge podge of gags and bits thrown against a big screen to see what sticks? OR, do they actually have a pretty cool movie on their hands? Read on to see what BB thinks...


Last week I was invited to see a special preview screening of The Simpsons Movie at a theatre in Portland in Oregon . I've been keeping a close eye on your site since then, and I can't believe no one else who was there has popped up here with a review, so I thought I would be the first. We were assured that we were the first in the world to see it, so this should be the first feedback for the movie as a whole. Makes me so proud.

Firstly, why Portland of all places for a world's first preview, you may ask ? Well, the reason is because of Mr. Groening himself. He went to the University of Oregon , and based the town the Simpsons live in on Portland itself, naming it after Springfield , Oregon which is a couple of hours south of the city. All this seemingly supported by the fact that the preview was held in Portland , but also that Mr. Groening (and I'm pretty damn sure James L. Brooks) attended the screening.

The film in its current form is massively unfinished; with I would guess around 30% of the film in the final hi-def, super sharp animation. The rest was divided between hand drawn storyboards, and low res, choppy colour animation. The voice soundtrack was complete, but the musical score wasn't.

All this probably means that, even if unchanged, the final print will maintain it's pacing, excitement and charm a little better than the version we saw, as 2 or 3 hand drawn storyboards don't quite manage to convey all of the things which makes The Simpsons so special. We did get a pretty good idea of what to expect though, and where the film makers are going with this big screen version.

I'd like to say at this point that I am a pretty big Simpsons fan. I've been almost consistently watching since the first episode, and while I agree with the consensus opinion (that the show has dropped off in quality a little in recent years) there is not an episode of The Simpsons which isn't worth half an hour of my life. I believe that The Simpsons is one of, if not the most significant comedy of my lifetime, spanning genres, comedy styles and age groups. So while I am not an obsessive fan boy, I do recognise and appreciate it's greatness.

So what did I, a Simpsons appreciator of long standing, think of the movie ? It's excellent. Is it mind blowingly awesome ? No, not quite. Almost, but not quite. At least not in it's current form.

In deference to the multi-page non-disclosure agreement I was forced to sign before being let in (and also of course to keep this free of spoilers), I am going to avoid being too specific in this review, and instead give my overall impressions of the film, so you wont get quotes, descriptions of scenes or anything which I feel might compromise the completion of the filmmaking process. However, I'll still try to make this write-up worthwhile.

The first thing to say is, it's too short. I didn't time it exactly, but the movie is something like an hour and a quarter in length. It's over in a heartbeat. Because (I would guess) of this short running time we come up against the first of the films little problems... Not nearly enough screen time is given to any one of the multitude of surrounding characters. Not one of them. We have the main Simpsons family taking centre stage, and a couple of new characters to be introduced to, but aside from that any of the other people who populate Springfield are reduced to one line (or at least sub-5 second) cameos. I feel they have wasted their best resource by simply omitting them. The trailers assertion that 'the gangs all here' is pretty misleading, since with a couple of exceptions (who get a few short minutes each) we don't get to spend any time with any of the surrounding cast. It's a crying shame.

The easiest way to describe the film is by way of it's three acts. They roughly split up into; the first half hour, the second half hour, and the final quarter hour-ish of climax.

The first half hour of the Simpsons movie is hysterical genius. It's classic. It's old school. It's violent. It's slapstick. It's clever. It's everything you could ever want it to be. There's a gag every couple of seconds (sometimes several going on in the background), and pretty much all of them hit the mark with confidence and accuracy. I haven't laughed so hard in ages (definitely not since Hot Fuzz). Seriously. My head almost fell off.

It's here we see scenes like Homer fixing his roof with Bart from the most recent trailer. It's day to day life stuff, and is The Simpsons at it's best. The 'plot' of this first act reflects back to several classic episodes, and puts the family in situations that are familiar to all of us. Here we do of course meet all our favourite characters (albeit, as I said, too briefly), and get some marvellously funny set pieces.

You might even say that the first act of the Simpsons movie is the Best. Episode. Ever. (sorry).

The second half hour is a problem. Here we are attempting to further the plot, and add some conflict and exposition. It's not that it's bad, just that it isn't really as good. The gag rate drops right off, and (shockingly for such a short movie) it feels a little slow. There's some good moments in there of course, but it just seems to lose it's zap and it's zing. Here we could have done with branching off from the main story line and returning to perhaps some of the supporting characters for some laughs, some fun-poking, and some humour for humour's sake. Padding if you will.

There is one stand out scene in this middle section which is utterly inspired, and where you get to see Bart at his comedy best, but even if I wanted to describe it I couldn't do so and maintain the humour. You'll just have to go see it wontcha?

The final short act, where the climax is played out, and everyone learns a valuable lesson, is exciting, clever and extremely satisfying. It definitely ends well, if a little abruptly. It all wraps up pretty neatly, and the animation here is superb, mixing high quality 2D and 3D to outstanding effect.

To ensure they get a brief mention, the voice acting is typically faultless, and the music was adequate – even though unfinished.

People keep asking me: "so is it any good, or is it just like a longer episode?". I say, if you pick some of the truly classic episodes, then a longer version is exactly what we wanted. What we got feels like they weren't quite sure how to create a 90 minute episode, so they did one episode for comedy, one for plot, and one for the ending. I say we got three episodes back to back, and they all feel slightly different.

Non of this of course means that the movie is bad. It isn't. It's The Simpsons. It's funny, charming, exciting, familiar and is peppered with delightfully loving references to all our favourite events in the Simpsons family history (one in particular will have you whooping with joy in your seat if you're a Simpsons fan).

I'd recommend the movie, yes - in its current state, to anyone who enjoys watching the show, and anyone who enjoys a laugh in general. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am looking forward to seeing it again.

I just hope, somewhere in the back of my mind, that they read and pay attention to my comment card, and fill out the middle section with some more snap, crackle and pop. If they do, they could have an all time classic on their hands, which sadly the version I saw falls ever so slightly short of.

[hedwig]

thank you biker boy and minnie driver, i am surprised and hopeful.

[picolas]

minnie driver surprises me, but this review makes me suspect the worst.

there is not an episode of The Simpsons which isn't worth half an hour of my life.

It's here we see scenes like Homer fixing his roof with Bart from the most recent trailer ... [it's] The Simpsons at it's best.

invalidated.

There's a gag every couple of seconds (sometimes several going on in the background)

the problem with the current simpsons.