Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: The Simpsons Movie (on the big screen!) ::
by William the Bloody
Hey, it's everyone's favourite TV family The Simpsons of Springfield with a big screen adventure! The main plot points of this one is that Lake Springfield has been terribly polluted for years, and Lisa starts a campaign to clean it up. The whole town pitches in and gets the lake sparkling clean again, only Homer needs to dispose of some waste post haste, and rather than wait in line at the hazardous waste dumping facility, he pitches it into the lake. The lake is now more polluted than ever, so much so that the EPA has to step in with some drastic measures, namely, cut off the entire town from the outside world via a giant glass dome. Not to miss out on a wide screen format opportunity, a pitch fork and torch baring mob takes to the streets to string up The Simpson family for ruining their lives yet again. The Simpsons manage to narrowly escape the mob and the town through a hidden exit no one knows about and seek to start their lives anew. Springfield meanwhile, is faced with an even worse fate than already upon them as the EPA realizes too late that their dome idea was wrong and are about to implement a permanent means of cover up. The Simpsons find out about this evil plot and are faced with the question: attempt to rescue the town which wanted them dead, or stay put and enjoy their new happy lives abroad?
The Good: Hey, it's the Simpsons, okay? Same humour you've grown to know and love for years only bigger and broader. They did up the ante on the animation a bit, like adding shadows and more detailed backgrounds, which was a huge plus. Many of the jokes and gags were genuinely funny and had me laughing just as much as the series, if not a teeny bit more. There are slews of great Homer moments, not the least of which is "Spider-Pig" which is already classic as far as I'm concerned. The other family members do get their screen time and plot lines, so if you're a Lisa fan or whatever, they do get face time. I like all of the end credit stuff. I'm glad they showed character images next to the voice talent names as I'm sure quite a few people will be surprised to see just how many regular characters the voicing staff like Harry Shearer (15) and Dan Castelleneta (20) actually do.
The Bad: The film opens with and "Itchy & Scratchy" bit, and I felt gypped because there was NO BLOODLETTING! I have a feeling that exactly the same routine on television would have been bloody as all get out, but I have a feeling that the film ratings people were wagging their fingers at it for some reason. There were a few points which I felt had "been done" such as Marge questioning her acceptance of Homer despite his crazily destructive behaviour and Bart looking for a positive father figure. Haven't we seen these? Also for a film touting it's old fashioned 2-D animation, it had quite a few more than obvious 3-D computer generated assistances. For shame. I was a tad disappointed that aliens Kang and Kodos did not appear! I was so hoping they'd get worked in somehow. It really grated on me that they got their male youth stand by voice artist Tress MacNeille to do the voice of Lisa's new boy crush for this movie. I mean, come on, couldn't you get a cool sounding celebrity guest voice or at the very least a MALE voice artist to do a young male character? I'm sorry, but Tress, while very talented, is so very obviously over used in the Simpsons young male department that they nearly all sound the same, only with slightly different accents.
All in all, if you like the Simpsons (and I do), then you'll like this, basically. It's like watching one giant long episode, only a bit grander. It's humour only the Simpsons can provide, and easily one of the funniest films of the summer.
A-
