Tag: The Simpsons

Straight Outta Springfield | Pegg Legs It.

In the trailer bin today, Homer and family are ready for their close-up in the third preview for The Simpsons Movie, due out this summer. And Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz‘s Simon Pegg embarks on a ruthless fitness regime, tiny shorts and all, in the new You-tubed teaser for Run, Fatboy, Run.

Slaughter, Infidelity, Donuts.

In the movie bin, Homer J. Simpson gets stuck between a rock (Iraq?) and a hard place in the trailer for The (long-awaited) Simpsons Movie; Edward Norton (brandishing a surprisingly lousy accent) and Naomi Watts struggle with a loveless marriage by way of W. Somerset Maugham in the trailer for The Painted Veil (also with Liev Schrieber, Toby Jones, and the always lovely Dame Diana Rigg); and Wilbur the pig picks up a “spin” doctor with a way with words in a new Internet-only teaser for Charlotte’s Web (Between Julia and Buscemi, it seems like the voice-work is going to be really distracting.)

Thems Kinfolk!

Kevin Bacon Game alert: The TNT midnight movie after Thursday’s NBA marquee match-up of Dallas versus San Antonio — it’s on in the background right now — is Next of Kin (1989), a rednecks-versus-the-mob Patrick Swayze vehicle that’s surprisingly chock-full of stars. Husband to Helen Hunt and brother to Cletus-ish psycho Liam Neeson, Swayze’s a cop out to discover who killed his other brother, Bill Paxton. And whodunnit? Mob thugs Adam Baldwin and Ben Stiller in the opening moments, both of whom report to mafiosi Andreas Katsulas (R.I.P.) and Del Close. Swayze notwithstanding, I wonder if this is on any of their resumes these days.

Freedom of…D’oh!

Here’s a depressing civics poll: While one in five Americans (22%, doesn’t that seem low?) could name the five members of the Simpsons family (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie…but you knew that), only 1 in 1000 could name the five rights protected in the First Amendment (religion, speech, press, assembly, petition), and only a measly 8% could name even three of them. I got all five in both, but, then again, in the inimitable words of Marge Simpson: “Don’t make fun of grad students, Bart. They just made a poor life decision.“

Mr. Burns & Mr. Brent.

“He caught our tone exactly, and then added his own Ricky Gervais/David Brent patheticness.” By way of Plasticbag, The Office and Extras mastermind Ricky Gervais has written and will star in a forthcoming Simpsons episode, and Matt Groening wants more. “[Gervais] moves into The Simpson household with Marge as the family take part in an episode of Wife Swap, while Homer moves in with his wife.”

And Homer Makes Six.

“We’ve gotta crack open your head and scoop out those DVDs.” So, I picked up the Simpsons Season Six set today (along with Farscape Starburst 5, Sin City, and Layer Cake), and while normally I’m obliged to speak ill of Fox, I must admit they’ve done an admirable job in keeping the Simpsons fanboys (such as myself) happy with their Alternative Packaging Program. For only $2.95, they’ll mail you a standard Season Six box to replace the plastic Homer Head it currently comes in.

Fanboy Post-Mortems.

Some pop culture quotes that, applicable or not, have been flitting about my head the past few days:

“And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.“
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“Where is the horse and the rider?
Where is the horn that was blowing?
They’ve passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow.

The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow.”
– Theoden, The Two Towers

“Ladies and gentlemen, er, we’ve just lost the picture, but, uh, what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over — ‘conquered’, if you will — by a master race of giant space ants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.”
– Kent Brockman, “Deep Space Homer” (This last one birddogged, after much mutual quoting, by Mark at Nofeblog.)