Let's Not Listen: Film and TV reviews

The Nanny Diaries - The Invasion

We'd like this off our resumes, please

The setting is Manhattan's Upper East Side. A fresh college graduate, eager to put some sort of imprint upon the world but clueless about how to properly do so, takes a job – so easily gotten! -- as a nanny. If she squints really hard, this young woman can see the position being sorta-kinda related to anthropology, the field she eventually wants to enter. She's thrilled. Until she finds out that the exhausting, humiliating, and often just plain impossible mother-child-nanny power struggle she's now engaged in is its own circle of hell.

 

If The Nanny Diaries sounds familiar, it's because you've seen it before – only it was called The Devil Wears Prada, with a fabulous spring collection standing in for the baby that a slave-driving bitch casually bears, then orders an exasperated lackey to kill herself trying to care for it. Oh: And it was also a book, a novelized bit of composite nonfiction by former New York nannies Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. But this is Hollywood, and the book was predominantly dark and biting. So readers should prepare themselves to see the more precious, message-touting, "In a world..." version of Annie's story on the big screen. (Yes, Annie's: The character is also no longer "Nan.")

 

The shift in tone is surprising only when you consider the film's writers-directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. The pair may have 2003's witty, meta Harvey Pekar biopic American Splendor on their resumes, but their offbeat sensibility isn't much in evidence here. The movie is framed as an anthropological study – which would have been more interesting if Mean Girls hadn't taken a similar approach three years ago – of "resourceful" UES mothers who manage to juggle days full of pursuits such as shopping, pampering, and puking. And, of course, monitoring not their children, but their nannies: When Annie (a dowdied Scarlett Johansson) runs into her tiny future liege, Grayer (Nicholas Art), and his mother, Mrs. X (Laura Linney), in a park, the mother and son are together only because Mrs. X had just fired Grayer's latest nanny. Annie wasn't looking to become a sitter – she'd majored in business -- but she'd just blown a big corporate interview, and when Mrs. X mishears her name as her occupation, she begs Annie to work for her. Grayer seems sweet, and Annie needs a job, so she agrees.

 

Bergman and Pulcini at the very least still rather entertainingly eviscerate the book's main target, well-off women who are mothers in name only. The gorgeously coiffed and wardrobed Linney easily pulls off the icy, deplorable caricature that comprises the bulk of Mrs. X (the authors kept most of the characters anonymous, including Nan/Annie's love interest, "Harvard Hottie"). The woman mistreats her employees while pretending to live for haute couture, bullshit benefits, and general one-upmanship; really, though, she does care that her husband (Paul Giamatti, using his schlubbiness to dirtbag effect) is cheating on her and spends even less time with their bratty son than she does, and Linney is careful to let cracks of this show as well.

 

But even though the end of the story was changed to emphasize this damnation of absentee parenting, the alteration is really all about making the heroine look good. Annie and her adventures in babysitting are no longer part of a satire, but a feel-good fable about growing up: Annie lies to her working-class mother, whom at one point randomly insists that "no man is going to squash your dream!", about taking the lowly job and struggles with "which kind of New Yorker" she is destined to become. The angle would be more palatable if it weren't mired in sitcom humor (how else to meet the man of your dreams but locked out in a hallway with your pants down?) and treacle ("I wuv you!"). Worse, Johansson just isn't all that likable in such a comic-everywoman role, appearing stiff as she tries to flail and sputter like a more normal 22-year-olds instead of the preternaturally self-possessed one that the actress actually seems to be. One could imagine Anne Hathaway getting it right, but apparently she was busy.

 

Whatever you say, Mom. Party!

Human beings in general are under the microscope in The Invasion, the fourth film adaptation of Jack Finney's novel, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Why make a version in 2007 after it's already been done in 1956, 1978, and 1993? Iraq, of course. And Darfur. And even Hurricane Katrina. This generation's Invasion, penned by first-timers Dave Kaiganich and directed by German-born Oliver Hirschbiegel (with some help, reportedly, from The Matrix's Andy and Larry Wachowski), doesn't just hint at the allegory inherent in its story about an alien life form steathily taking over the human race, creating a world without emotion in the process. On one side, there are the converted, who naturally want to convert. On the other are the paranoid, friends and family to the outsiders who, though they can't quite put a finger on how, are pretty sure that Uncle Joe and little Jimmy just ain't right.

 

In 1956, Communism was the thing to be feared, yet the makers of the first film only briefly mention "what's going on in the world" to prompt viewers who wanted more than a mystery to read between the pods. Here, you *will* get the message. Current news constantly pours out of televisions, radios, newspapers, and, in case you can't read headlines, characters' mouths. The idea: Would we be better off as a society of robots, living without war and crime because we no longer feel? The answer is an altogether too positive one, at least for an otherwise dark and satisfying thriller.

 

Nicole Kidman stars as Carol Bennell, a Washington, D.C., psychiatrist who hears the infamous "My [blank] is no longer my [blank]" line from one of her patients (Veronica Cartwright, who co-starred in the 1978 movie and gives a terrific monologue here). Immediately, Carol begins noticing oddities, too – a kid who gets attacked by a dog yet isn't frightened, the people spread out neatly at a bus stop, the sudden appearance of her ex-husband, who now insists on spending time with their son, Oliver (Jackson Bond). Even though she spends her days personally quelling her clients with drugs – here's another message for you -- she's not so hot on the idea of it occurring outside of her control. With the help of her boyfriend, Ben (Daniel Craig), Carol gets a sample of some goo she found analyzed and discovered that it's a gene-mutating life form that alters its hosts when they sleep. By this time, Washington is full of replicants – well, more than usual.

 

Despite its political overobviousness, The Invasion is a taut adaptation of Finney's well-worn story. The explanation of where the body snatchers (though the term isn't used) came from and why they're a danger is more comprehensible, both in actual explanation and in feeling. These zombies aren't vacant but have menace in their eyes, and are second-Dawn of the Dead-quick to gather and zone in on creatures that aren't one of them. Whereas previous fighters against the invasion seemed to be merely living among the sleep-deprived, Carol and her small group seem in constant, claustrophobic danger of vultures out for their lives. The fear is still largely psychological, with a layer of tension added when Carol is separated from her son. But there's also an injection of action, albeit nowhere near the overload you might expect from a modern-day, Wachowski-enhanced blockbuster. (Their touch is subtle but recognizable, particularly during a darkly lit and balletically blocked car chase.) The fun ends, though, with a narrative twist that's blown up into, essentially, a giant cop-out that's completely out of character with previous versions. In the end, The Invasion is the opposite of what it should be: all emotion and no guts.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com
 

Superbad - Rocket Science

A sexy hamburger

You'd imagine that most 14-year-old boys feel the same way about sex comedies as they do about each of their battled-for baby steps toward the big deed itself – it doesn't matter if it's any good, the point is that they're getting some. About a decade ago, though, budding horndogs Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg allegedly became fed up with the subpar antics of their cinematic counterparts. Fuck this noise, they thought. We can do better, they said.

And today you have Superbad, a movie whose script started out as a seed in two boys' dirty minds. Of course, the final product has gone through polishings and fleshings-out since its first wobbly-legged drafts, informed by the writers' subsequent experience (Goldberg's penning for Da Ali G Show; Rogen's starring on such Judd Apatow productions as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up) and maturity (though a certain period joke might have been in the original).

If you're not familiar with the R-comedy magic previously created by King Apatow and his court, Superbad sounds August-unexceptional: Two high-school seniors, thus far none too popular with the ladies, try to score some alcohol for a hottie's party. They've been accepted to different colleges, so the best friends are thinking it's gonna be their last big blowout. The ultimate goal: to get laid. Duh.

But audiences who've laughed their asses off at Rogen's other work will be pleased to know that the Greg Mottola-directed Superbad is not just another teen movie. At 25, Rogen wisely deemed himself too old to star – even though he and Goldberg named the characters after themselves – but found a worthy surrogate in Jonah Hill, whose bawdy, loud-mouthed, obnoxious-if-he-weren't-so-funny turn as Seth is the '00s Bluto Blutarsky. Michael Cera's the straight man as Seth's awkward friend Evan, an extension of Cera's awkward George Michael Bluth from the celebrated but canceled television series Arrested Development.   

Seth and Evan spend most of their time moaning about their lack of action – Evan pines over one particular sweetheart, Becca (Martha MacIsaac), while Seth is happy to fixate on girls in general, especially ones who "look like they can take a dick." So when the sexy Jules (Emma Stone) improbably invites Seth to her party, he's determined to become the booze-bringing life of it. Enter Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who's so nerdy that even Seth considers him "the fucking anti-poon." But, he's got a fake I.D., and even though it's a terrible one (stating that Fogell is actually the one-named, 25-year-old Hawaii resident "McLovin"), it'll have to do. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't.

Superbad tosses its hopeless antiheroes into some fantastically ridiculous situations as they make their way to said party, including Fogell's adventures with a couple of cops (Rogen and Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader) and Seth and Evan's rather more disturbing run-in with a potential pedophile ("So, you guys on MySpace?") and his psychotic but alcohol-holding friends. Together, the main characters riff on typical Apatow topics – the production values of porn, say, or how unfair it is that women can show off their boobs but guys have to hide their boners. The dialogue is at times overwhelmingly hyperactive -- though Hill's wild-eyed and -haired mania is more difficult to settle in to than Cera's dry, soft-spoken Bob Newhart-isms -- but for every moment that blows there are 10 that'll make you piss yourself laughing.

As with any solid teen comedy, Superbad isn't just about getting loaded and lucky, with Seth and Evan's friendship and impending separation – because of school, and, God willing, just maybe because of girlfriends – anchoring the story. Admittedly, the filmmakers don't always handle the material's tonal transitions smoothly, especially the friends' abrupt if inevitable blowup. But then they offer yet another inspired dick joke -- and as any 14-year-old will tell you, sometimes that's what really counts.

 

Blitz: Stop me before I annoy the shit out of someone again

 

To anyone thinking about writing, directing, starring in, or providing catering for a movie: Please, enough with Napoleon Dynamite Syndrome already. Nerd stories may have been around since the birth of nerds, but there's a difference between focusing on the unpopular – like Superbad – and "celebrating" the just plain weird. Rocket Science, unsurprisingly a Sundance favorite, falls into the latter category, this time propping up a high-school stutterer and his odd family and friends for evisceration/good fun.

To his credit, first-time feature writer-director Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound) doesn't make his central character, Hal Hefner (what an ironic name!), a colorful idiot. (Don't worry, though, there are plenty of those here anyway.) Instead, Hal (Reece Thompson) is a smart if shy New Jersey kid with a speech impediment, one so bad that he practices his lunch order on the bus ride to school. His parents just split up – loudly and unexpectedly – and his brother, Earl (Vincent Piazza), is a bullying thief. Hal isn't totally friendless, though: There's his neighbor and classmate, Heston (Aaron Yoo), an Asian who does nothing but smilingly, creepily leer at whatever's going on and, it's implied, is sexually confused. (His dad, "Judge Pete," isn't, however, as he's banging Hal and Earl's mom.) And eventually there's Lewis (Josh Kay), an 11-year-old who invites Hal in for 7-Up after questioning Hal's right to ride his bike in front of Lewis' house. (Lewis' parents – you'll love this – are always shown playing "Blister in the Sun" on the cello and piano as part of their marital therapy.) 

The reason Hal begins lurking on Lewis' street to begin with is Ginny (Anna Kendrick), a cute but ruthless senior who's a star on the debate team. Ginny used to be paired with another sharp talker, the slick, good-looking Ben (Nicholas D'Agosto). On the night of an important debate, however – the very night Hal and Earl's father walks out! -- Ben falls silent in the middle of his argument and drops out of school. And so Ginny recruits Hal to replace Ben, impolitely reasoning that "deformed people are the best – maybe because they have a deep reserve of anger."

Ginny's strategy continually and painfully proves to be a bad idea, yet she persists in trying to mold Hal – and he, naturally in love, improbably continues to let her despite his multiple failures. It turns out that some sort of scheme is involved, but it doesn't make much sense. Then again, nothing besides Hal's stutter and the deep hurt it causes him feels real here. Thompson will make you ache – though not over Hal's alleged crush on the baby-faced beeyotch, who, even if her debate skills are impressive, is not for one moment likable. But Thompson makes his character's emotional wounds palpable as he tries to speak the words so clearly being bullhorned inside his head. Blitz is trying to communicate worthy messages, predominantly about finding one's own voice and taking chances, but they're so bogged down in preciousness that you can't see the intentions beneath the quirks.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com
 

Stardust

De Niro, Danes, Pfeiffer, and...some kid

Stardust's plot is as crammed as Interview's is minimal. The PG-13 fairy tale, directed and co-written by Layer Cake helmer Matthew Vaughn, is very Princess Bride in its tongue-in-cheek telling of swashbucklers and enchanted lands. No doubt, though, that audiences of all ages – the movie's intended demographic isn't exactly clear – will instantly compare it to the more recent adventures of a certain beloved boy wizard named Potter.

 

Both share obvious elements – witches, magic, good vs. evil, the idea that Mugg...regular people live in one realm, largely unaware of the magical world that exists under their unbewitched noses. Stardust takes place in Wall, an area between England and the supernatural kingdom of Stormhold. Now, try to keep up with me: Stormhold's king (Peter O'Toole) is dying and is expected to name one of his three still-living sons successor. The king is proud that he murdered his own brothers to obtain his crown, though, so he encourages his spawn to do the same. Not only does the successor have to be the last one standing, however; the king has taken a ruby pendant, drained it of its color, and thrown it out into the sky (with great whooshes, light, and general fanfare). The new king must find the pendant and restore its color to win the crown.

 

Meanwhile, in Wall, a young, motherless peasant named Tristan (Charlie Cox) is trying to woo the beautiful and popular Victoria (Sienna Miller again). She pretty much laughs at him, but when they spot a shooting star (accompanied by great whooshes, light, and general fanfare), she agrees to marry him if he finds the star and brings it to her within a week. This means crossing into Stormhold, which normal folk aren't allowed to do, though Tristan's father once managed to bypass the guard and create a little magic himself there some 18 years back, if you know what I mean. The "star" is actually the ruby, which is actually a woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes doing a Gwyneth Paltrow impersonation in terms of both looks and awkward British accent). Also after Yvaine is Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), an evil, aged witch who needs the star's heart so she and her equally hideous sisters can be young again. Lamia turns back the clock temporarily in order to go undercover in her hunt, though she ages whenever she uses magic (whooshes, light, fanfare).

 

This web has been extracted from a mere 250-page novel by Neil Gaiman, which underscores the big difference between Stardust and any of the Potter films: Whereas the latter movies have been whittled from books many times that size, their stories have been at once smarter and easier to digest. (Then again, this isn't much of a surprise coming from Vaughn, whose Layer Cake was also visually impressive if narratively cloudy.) Still, Stardust has its, uh, charms. Its humor, though sometimes forced, is smile- if not guffaw-inducing, with highlights including a ghostly Greek chorus of the king's dead sons and a typically droll cameo by Ricky Gervais as a fence. (Less successful – OK, weird and sorta offensive – is Robert De Niro's turn as the "wopsie" captain of a flying pirate ship. The term will define itself.)

 

Out of the all-star cast, Pfeiffer is the ace here. Fresh off her somewhat limited role as a ruthless stage mom in Hairspray, she's allowed to run away with this movie, taking cackling glee in her character's witchly schemes and gamely stealing the spotlight even when Lamia is increasingly resembling the crypt keeper. The love story itself – naturally, the affair that began the story isn't the one that concludes it – exists merely as an excuse for lots of special effects (though some are cheesy) and scheming (much more satisfying). Still, once you're more at home with the basic plot and can relax as it unfolds, Stardust ends up being a lovely little fairy tale – it may even fulfill the jonesing that the Summer of Harry has no doubt left in its wake.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com

Interview

Funny, my interviews never end up like this...

During the course of the compact, 83-minute Interview, variations on the line "Do you realize that you're unpleasant?" are spoken approximately 216 times. Possibly, some of those sentiments are actually just bouncing around your brain, a natural consequence of watching two actors exercise their chops so strenuously that you're the one who'll feel exhausted afterward.

 

Steve Buscemi's Interview is a remake of a 2003 film of the same name by slain Dutch director Theo van Gogh. Buscemi, who adapted the original script with first-time writer David Schechter, also plays Pierre Peders, a political journalist who has been relegated to doing a celebrity profile for his magazine. His subject is Katya (Sienna Miller), a starlet with a Sex and the City-like show on TV and loads of mass-appeal movies in the can. Though Pierre is itching to get out of it so he can cover a breaking Washington scandal, he's scheduled to meet Katya a restaurant one night. She's an hour late; we see her telling a friend earlier that she "thinks she has to be somewhere." When she finally arrives, the privileges Katya enjoys are obvious: No one balks as she talks on her phone in the cell-free restaurant, and the people already sitting at her favorite table cheerily scoot to another one.

 

Pierre hardly disguises his disgust – if not exactly at Katya, at what she represents – and proceeds to conduct a half-assed interview. It's clear that he hasn't bothered to prepare. When Katya calls him on it, they both forget about trying to be civilized and decide to just get the hell away from each other. Doesn't work: Pierre ends up in a cab with a driver who's too busy harassing the on-foot Katya to avoid hitting a parked van. Katya suddenly feels bad about her behavior and brings Pierre, who's got a gash on his forehead, back to her loft for first-aid, booze, cigarettes, and lots of mood-cycling and conversational jousting.

   

Interview is at once captivating and infuriating. It's theatrical in its spareness – there aren't any time jumps, costume changes, or even much of a plot, just Pierre, Katya, and lots of soundtrack-free talk. Buscemi and Miller are sharp in their portrayals of, respectively, the jaded journo and misunderstood ingenue who quickly drop professional pretense and try to get to know one another more casually. The problem is that the characters are too mercurial to even come across as believably nuts. It's not much fun watching, say, Katya talk Pierre into letting her kiss him, only to wriggle free from the embrace and shout, "God, I hate you!" Or listening to him meltingly say how beautiful she is one moment, then offer a bitter armchair-psychologist analysis about her lack of talent: "You're good at lying, but mostly to yourself."

The whole spectacle – and with the two characters going hot and cold on each other every few minutes, answering questions with questions and "playing games," it is a spectacle – is fashioned as some kind of ridiculous power struggle, an attempt by each to intellectually and emotionally one-up the other. Unsurprisingly, all of their back-and-forth about their careers, families, ideas about love, etc. are merely steps on the way to the Big Reveals, the kind that seem to come to light only during such encounters involving late hours, drink, and a love-hate dynamic. Interview's whiplash turns may make it a dream addition to an acting- or scriptwriting-class syllabus. But by the halfway point of the film, viewers will more likely sympathize with one of Katya's pained questions to Pierre: "Haven't you got enough already?"

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com

Hot Rod

Dick on a bike

Hot Rod's Rod Kimble is a moped-driving stuntman, but he may as well be figure-skating while reading a teleprompter and wearing a "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt. Saturday Night Live comic Andy Samberg's amalgam of Napoleon Dynamite and every Will Ferrell character to grace the big screen overestimates his talents, his appeal, his friends – and does much of it while wearing a thick fake mustache and occasionally making noises reminiscent of a barking walrus.

Rod is your go-to loser, a petulant college-age kid who doesn't work, still lives at home, and had a vaguely triangular haircut. He butts heads – quite literally – with his stepdad, Frank (Deadwood's Ian McShane), attempting to win his respect by challenging the old man to fights. These battles are put on hiatus, however, when Rod's mother (Sissy Spacek, embarrassingly filling the Julie Hagerty space-mom role) tells him that Frank has a heart problem and will likely die soon because they can't afford a transplant. So Rod decides he's going to put his stuntman skills to use to raise funds: "I'm going to get you better," he seethes to Frank, "then I'm going to BEAT YOU TO DEATH!"

Hot Rod is the misfit brain child of Samberg's comedy trio the Lonely Island (also comprising director Akiva Schaffer and co-star Jorma Taccone), best known for creating SNL digital shorts such as "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box." Though some of its basics are derivative, the movie still manages to add new color to the stupidity rainbow. Really, you can't go wrong with the elements thrown together here – Samberg's gangliness, a terrible hair-metal soundtrack, and completely random gags such as a character (Chester Tam) who seems to exist only to thrust-dance in various scenes are reflexive laugh-inducers despite the resistance your brain will inevitably put up.

It's way less consistent than such top Ferrell vehicles as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. But the silly genius of, say, an extended scene of Rod falling down a hill that's made up of obviously separate takes are just enough to compensate for awkward misfires, including many moments with a wasted Isla Fisher, who as Rod's love interest mostly has to look uncomfortably confused.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com

The Bourne Ultimatum

I said I don't know anyone named Ben Affleck!

"Moscow, Russia." Uh oh: The dateline-for-dummies announcement on the very opening scene of The Bourne Ultimatum doesn't bode well for the third installment of the action franchise. And, yes, sequences set in "Paris, France" and "London, England" are to follow. The Ultimatum's predecessors, 2002's The Bourne Identity and 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, were already much like their titular amnesiac's life – exciting but forgettable. Did returning director Paul Greengrass and two new scripters (along with Tony Gilroy, who penned the previous films based on Robert Ludlow's novels) decide to further water down Jason Bourne's allegedly final adventure, just in case the audience's wits were as weak as the superspy's memory? 

Well, sort of. In addition to the obvious placards, Gilroy and co-writers Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi aren't aces when it comes to dialogue, which makes Ultimatum sound a lot dumber than it is. Bourne himself (Matt Damon) isn't much affected, considering that most of what he's asked to do is run, run, run as he dodges his former employer, the CIA, while trying to figure out his true identity – all he knows about his life is that he's a killing machine, his girlfriend was murdered, and people who tend to have weapons think he's dangerous. More problematic are the cliche-spouting supporting characters, particularly David Strathairn's barky agency head, Noah Vosen. Vosen, slickly dressed, frequently pacing, and often shot from low angles, couldn't look any more impressive. But then he opens his mouth: "Where is he, people?" he demands of his furiously tapping surveillance crew. "We can't afford to lose this guy, people!" "I pay you people to find people, people!"

 

OK, I made that last one up, but it'd fit right in with the rest of Vosen's ridiculous spiels as he struggles to find Bourne, whom he believes is either "the source" -- of something bad, presumably -- "or after the source like we are." Vosen is determined to kill Bourne if he has to, to the alarm of Agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who tussled with the spy in Supremacy but now believes he's a good guy who doesn't like it when violent strangers chase him. Also on his side is Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), another CIA operative who's targeted for guilt by association when it appears that she's helping Bourne.

 

Despite a few other tired details (why do spies always break into the homes of whomever they're visiting, for example?) and a bit of melodrama (Bourne's memories are laughably always accompanied by hyperventilation and, often, the addled guy falling to his knees), though, The Bourne Ultimatum is as consistently gripping a thriller as you'll see all summer. What the filmmakers do best is what's most important – crafting nonstop cat-and-mouse scenes spiked with breathtaking, original action. Greengrass relies on the irritating shaky-cam significantly less this time around, using it just enough to add grit as the spy is pursued throughout tight, colorful global locales (the money chase scene consists of Bourne dashing through the alleys of Tangier on a moped) while accompanied by a heart-thumping tribal soundtrack. Ultimatum is a satisfying – and, ultimately, smart – finale to the sleeper franchise. But its success is dubious. When Bourne, about to discover what he's been running after this whole time, intones, "This is where it ends," you may be thinking, for the first time this summer, that a threequel is no longer enough.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com

The Simpsons Movie

The Pope of Chilitown

Just because Eddie Punchclock and Sally Housecoat have managed to keep The Simpsons on the air for 18 years doesn't mean that it's still worth tuning in to. The past few seasons have become increasingly painful to watch, with forced, out-of-character antics and jokes being shamelessly recycled like so many stapled-together Krusty Burgers. So for loyal, longtime fans, the prospect of The Simpsons Movie was as worrisome as it was exciting: A failed big-screen adaptation of the beloved series would be the unfortunate, unequivocal sign that it was time to release the hounds on the clan for good.

 

What a relief, then, that it doesn't suck. Creator Matt Groening gathered a veteran series director, David Silverman, and plenty of back-in-the-day writers to create a zippy, 87-minute mega-episode, one that doesn't quite rank among the best but is far from the worst. The story returns to Simpsons-save-the-day basics and reverses a couple of recently developed bad habits along the way – most egregiously, the morphing of Homer from cranky buffoon to enraged jerk.

 

Of course, he still screws up, and this time it's a big one that potentially dooms not only his marriage but all of Springfield. The no-state town is in denial about its toxic lake, despite attempts by Lisa (Yeardley Smith) to environmentally school her neighbors by preaching about pollution door-to-door and hosting a conference, An Irritating Truth. Lisa convinces the residents to stop dumping, but eventually doughnuts speak louder than words: When Homer (Dan Castellaneta) hears that Lard Lad is giving out free goodies, he decides that he doesn't have time to properly dispose of a silo filled with the waste of his new pet pig. So into Lake Springfield it slides. Immediately, the waters burble into an ominous green and a skull appears, growling "Eeeevil!" Soon after, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (Albert Brooks) seals off the whole dirty city in an impenetrable – or is it? -- dome.

 

The literally and figuratively sharply drawn Simpsons Movie doesn't show off with an onslaught of celebrity cameos (Green Day and Tom Hanks being the quick exceptions), and, in fact, even many favorite secondary characters are restricted to populating crowd scenes or spouting a line or two. The latter is somewhat unfortunate – no episode has suffered because of too much Principal Skinner or Mr. Burns – but the writers' decision to focus on the family doesn't backfire. (The choice to include a "President Schwarzenegger" instead of the show's Ahrnold stand-in, Rainier Wolfcastle? More puzzling.) It's not only Homer that's been de-caricaturized: Marge (Julie Kavner) and Lisa are once again do-gooders who are funny instead of annoying and Bart (Nancy Cartwright), though arguably the character who's stayed the truest throughout the years, is a troublemaker who's entertainingly rebellious (two words: skateboarding sequence) without coming off like a brat.

 

Homer, though, is the center of this universe, and the script effortlessly laces a story of government corruption with lessons geared toward the bumbling patriarch on maintaining a good marriage and thinking of people other than yourself. Still, this isn't a Hallmark special: Sly humor and subversion are what have won The Simpsons fans for the past two decades, and the movie continues that tradition by including mischief such as drunkenness, nudity, slams on cultural icons, and social commentary that will offend sensitive sensibilities. A wide canvas gave the animators ample opportunity to fill the screen to bursting with gags you'll likely need the DVD to catch, including credit-crawls of fake names. Turning out a film worthy of 18 years' of anticipation couldn't have been easy – but cheers to Groening for not taking Homer's legendary advice to never try.

copyright 2007 letsnotlisten.com
 

No End in Sight

There's no shortage of statistics, analysis, and eloquent opinions in No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson's prizewinning documentary about the United States' occupation of Iraq. But in terms of tidiness, none of the film's interview subjects expresses concern about the administration's decisions better than retired Army Col. Paul Hughes: "Common sense tells me, You don't do that." Hughes, who was part of the transition team after the "Mission Accomplished"–anointed taking of Baghdad in May 2003, is speaking specifically about the move to disband the Iraqi military, but the remark could apply to the whole litany of missteps chronicled here—and it'll feel like a tiny, triumphant moment of high-rank candor to anyone who's spent the past four years figuratively smacking his forehead as the situation has disintegrated.

Inarguably, No End in Sight piles on, adding to the onslaught of criticism—filmic and otherwise—against the Iraq invasion, and sitting through yet another round of battering may sound wearisome. But for a comprehensive, comprehensible account of what's gone wrong, you can't find much better. Ferguson is a first-rate lecturer whose most impressive talent is the ability to speak to the layman without resorting to Michael Moore–isms such as jokes, ironic pop songs, and general hammerings-home. Instead, he looks at a series of problems—from a slapped-together reconstruction organization sent to work minus little things like computers and a staff, to a tight circle of upper-level policymakers who'd never set foot in Iraq—while presenting some basic information (courtesy of narrator Campbell Scott), and letting people such as Hughes tell the story of what went wrong. (The film isn't completely free of cheap shots: There are a few subtly critical images of George Bush in shirt sleeves, for example, and, more frequently, footage of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld making an ass of himself, such as infamously retorting "Stuff happens!" in response to questions about the looting of Iraqi artifacts.)

Ferguson, above all, is meticulous in his chronological combing of each and seemingly every government mishap. By the time No End in Sight gets to a late chapter titled "Things Fall Apart," you'll believe that call could have been made a long time ago.

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