Why do THE SIMPSONS suck?

Listening to the commentary tracks on the Second Season of everyone's favorite yellow family (The tracks, that appear on every single episode, are fantastic: Informative and funny.) and the realization came over me the way it has thousands of times over the years: The Simpsons haven't been funny for a LONG time.

I believe I wrote about this a million years ago on my previous site (filmjunk.blogspot.com) so I'll refrain from getting back into ranting mode, but check out this well writte n article over at FADE RESISTANT

http://www.faderesistant.com/writings/simpsons.html

One of the smartest and most interesting participatns in the commentary tracks is Al Jean. For someone that's so aware of the very minor faults in the early seasons, it's weird to note that h'es to blame for the last eight years of the series. He's been the show runner since 2001.

Shatter - U.K/Hong Kong (1974)

One of the last gasps of Britain’s HAMMER studiosm SHATTER is a fairly awkward mix of Shaw Brother’s Martial Arts and 70’s Secret Spy heroics. The overly choreographed kung-fu doesn’t gel with the gritty real world aesthetic and doesn’t help that the story plods along at a padded pace. Only grab it if you’re desperate for a decent retro experience (I stress the word ‘decent’) or are a completist of either studio. The DVD does include a jaw dropping commentary by Monte Hellman (who was fired from the film after three weeks) and the mad ravings by the seemingly delirious star of the film Stuart Whitman. Monte Hellman (with a moderator) rips the the picture to shreds and is brutally frank with his thoughts on the final product ("I probably won't watch this ever again."). Stuart Whitman (edited in from a separate session) rambles on about those crazy chinamen or ‘little people’, the real reason Bruce Lee Died and corkers like…

Stuart Whitman: Monte’s girlfriend came in here…she was delicious looking…since then…*voice turns somber* she’s dead.

It doesn’t warrant a purchase, but if you can rent it or find it for cheap, grab it for the commentary.

The Blob - USA (1988)

"Terror has no shape"

Director Chuck Russell and Screenwriter Frank Darabont (Of THE MIST fame) craft the perfect remake of the silly 1960’s drive-in classic by treating the giant mass of pink stuff as one mean mothe-fracking threat. The Blob doesn’t just roll over you like a goofy piece of jello. It will attack like lightning and will peel your skin off as you scream for death. The finely crafted big budget B-movie stars Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith (Of Saw fame) star as the trouble teens trying to outrace the damn thing and everyone else (even kids!) play the role of cannon fodder to be digested into red pulpy bits. The disgusting special effects still stand up to this day (except a few off kilter green screen effects) and it’ll be a while before you get the image of the pulsating fleshy monster out of your head(Could the Blob be any more disgusting? Nope). All I have to say to Rob Zombie’s supposed remake is this: Fuck You.

Do you like good movies too?

People find it easy to judge my film tastes by taking a quick look at my DVD collection: ZOMBIE BLOODBATH II , BLIND MIDGET V.S KILLER DWARF and theTHE MONSTER SQUAD displayed prominently. “He only likes junk” you’ll think to yourself “He obviously can’t appreciate the true power of the moving picture. He has no idea what he's talking about when he recommends something!"

Opinion is a tricky thing. I have friends that refuse to read movie reviews because they believe they only need one critic: Themselves. I’d like to think I can differentiate good film from an ‘I just wasted an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back’ bad one. I’ll never be scholarly deconstructions on the theory of film, but I can still enjoy stuff that doesn’t feature gross dismemberment. I’d be happy to discuss the work of French New Wave Director Jean Luc Godard and the really good film ‘Contempt’…but I’ll never feel a pressing need to ever watch it ever again.

Wait…What?...Didn’t I just say it was a good film? What kind of hypocritical mind game am I trying to play here? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CHILD?

CONTEMPT is boring, emotionally empty and nothing but an arrogant commentary on the nature of cinema. It’s a cold intellectual exercise. My appreciation for it didn’t arise from the film itself, but from the analysis of it I read in textbooks and the insightful DVD commentary (On the criterion disc) I’d never call CONTEMPT a piece of rollicking entertainment. Pure intellectual exercises are ‘good’ but are not entertaining. Something ‘entertaining’ CAN be ‘good’, but something ‘good’ doesn’t need to be entertaining (and vice-versa). You can watch a film for its engaging characters, creative direction, beautiful set design and gripping screenplay. Or you can watch a film because a baby punches its way through a woman’s head. I’ll watch films that are GOOD, but I’ll always lean toward something that’s ENTERTAINING.And don't confusing something entertaining as necessarily being something stupid or crass either. The best works entertainment are usually genre films created by people that are highly aware of the the world their working in. You can make something unintentionally stupid (and entertaining) and you can make something smart (and entertaining without being dull) and there's also the much misinterpreted category of stupid-smart (and entertaining). Stupid-Smart are stupid situations or characters done in a smart way (See: Dumb and Dumber) The distinction is sometimes hard to make.

Film criticism is as obvious as a simple thumb up or thumbs down. Chose your words carefully and keep an open mind next time you hand a film to someone. Ignore numbered ratings (10 STARS!!!!) and form your own opinion by the words of the critic your reading: Does the person make compelling points that he can back up? That’s t the most important thing of all when it comes to criticisms and suggestions.

Sweet! My copy of SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGADALON and LE SAMOURAI just arrived.

CINEGASM ISSUE#1

After a month of fiddling and faddling (Translation: Making up excuses to not do any work) I've finally finished the ONE PAGE ISSUE OF CINEGASM (Both sides! Ooooooo) . It's composed of a brief introduction and five reviews chosen without rhyme or reason. I've put it down on the counter of EYESORE CINEMA.

I've already figure about 1030921 things I want to do differently for the next issues (Print on a colored page, make it in a booklet format, have an article or two) I doubt even one person will pick it up, but we'll see, hopefully I'll have some kind of candy to cocer interesting to the prospective reader.

BOOK:The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Written by Stieg Larson

Published in North America (English Translated Edition) June 23, 2009

An intriguing Swedish novel that balooned into a massive bestseller, 'DRAGON TATTOO' is the story of Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced financial journalist who is hired by an ancient milionaire to sove abe thirty year old murder case of his niece Harriet. The girl with the 'Dragon Tattoo' (Lisbeth Salander) is a angyr, super smart girl that has a story that runs paralell with that of Mikael until she runs into him in the last 3rd of the book to solve the murder mystery.

Stieg takes his time to get the novel going, but keeps things going at a brisk pace. He suceeds at making the seemingly uninteresting runnings of a magazine crackle with page turning intensity. The actual murder mystery is much more interesting at first, before it devolves into an
uninteresting cinematic twist and climax that then devolves into an even more obvious audience pleasing double twist. Luckily, the two main characters are vivid enough to keep us interested.
The main story actually ends with 100 pages to go and the rest of the novel is made up of tying the loose ends presented the first act. It gives us more time with the interesting set of characters, but really leaves to be desired from a structural stand point. It could easily have been wrapped up in ten pages.

I look forward to the follow-up, but hope that Stieg learned his lesson and kept things focused in the second part, which seems unlikely, seeing that the poor man died before any of these books we're published (And possibly...edited?)

NOTE: The penguin paperback is a MASSIVE 800 + pages due to the fact that it's published in an elongated format with massive spacing and font. Is this supposed to make it slicker?