The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, September 10, 2007 - 9A
'Simpsons' 10th
season hums along
By MICHAEL PASSMAN
Daily TV/New Media Editor
Every season of "The Simp-
sons" released on DVD since
season six
has been
declared "the
last great ,
Simpsons The Sm ns:
season ever" the Complete
by someone.
The 10th Tenth Season
season of
"The Simp- Fox
sons" was
released last
month; it is not the last great
"Simpsons" season ever.
The last great season was the
eighth. The last really good sea-
son was the ninth. But the tenth
is just pretty good, nothing more,
nothing less.
And by the time the show set-
tled on "prettygood," "The Simp-
sons" had already surpassed 200
episodes - far more than basical-
ly everything on television - and
cemented itself as the greatest
animated show of all time. Nine-
ty percent of all the transcendent
episodes had already been made
by this time, but the show still
resided in the upper echelon of
TV comedy.
While there are no episodes at
the level of "Rosebud" or "Marge
vs. the Monorail" here, season 10
does boast some worthy additions
to the show's catalogue. "Thirty
Minutes Over Tokyo" has the
Simpsons taking a family vaca-
tion to Japan and is one of the
better travel episodes. "Homer
Simpson in: 'Kidney Trouble' "
is another keeper, where Homer
is responsible for blowing out his
father's kidneys and has to find
him a transplant.
"Bart the Mother" is also
notable, as it features Phil Hart-
man's ("Saturday Night Live")
last appearance on the show.
Hartman, who voiced two of the
show's greatest recurring periph-
eral characters, Troy McClure
and Lionel Hutz, was killed prior
to the tenth season premier.
Neither McClure or Hutz have
been given speaking roles since,
although they do make their way
into background shots occasion-
ally.
In hindsight, the loth season
easppostbe aeenoas a tipping point
of sorts fora number of the show's
less attractive plot devices. Hom-
er's get-rich-quick schemes start
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to become all too prevalent, and
there are an inordinate amount
of unnecessary celebrity cameos.
In "When You Dish Upon a Star,"
Homer finds himself working as
an assistant for Kim Basinger and
Alec Baldwin, and it's one of the
season's worst episodes.
The special features on the
four-disk set don't vary much
from the previous nine seasons,
which isn't an altogether bad
thing. The meat of the bonus fea-
tures is the commentaries, which
cover every episode in the season.
Outside of those are the standard
deleted scenes, storyboards and
animatics; a featurette on how the
The Simpsons is
like sex. When
it's bad, it's OK.
animators createthe DVD menus;
a Bart and Moe prank phone call;
and some old ads. An animatic
of a deleted scene in last July's
"Simpsons Movie" has also been
thrown onto the disk and is more
of a tease for the film's upcoming
DVD than anything else.
Although diehards will surely
rush to pick up this most recent
"Simpsons" DVD collection, less
enthusiastic fans are better off
checking out one of the earlier
sets. Season 10 is pretty good, but
in the world of "The Simpsons,"
that's not quite good enough.
SHOOT
From page 5A
that ticket-taker's self-doubt?
I didn't know anyone who was
eager, excited or even slightly
enthused to see "Shoot 'Em Up." I
began to doubt how many people
actually read the Daily and would
genuinely be interested in my
review.
Sure enough, "Shoot 'Em Up"
was a constant flow of pointless
violence veiled by its claim to sat-
ire. Why review pointless movies
few people will even see? Review-
ing for the sake of intellectual
stimulation brings some level of
fulfillment, but surely I could have
stayed home and read a book that
would have been twice as thought
provoking as watching Paul Gia-
matti expound, "He who leads
from the rear takes it in the rear."
This applies to being a student as
well: Why are we expected to read
(in our opinion) irrelevant books,
learn outdated theories, write ana-
lytical papers or take exams about
seemingly pointless topics?
Inthislight, myself-aware quan-
dary became much more manage-
able. I put up with the downsides
of being a student and the futility
of reviewing a movie that has no
audience because someone - at
least one person, be him a profes-
sor or director - deemed the con-
tent worthwhile.
I might not appreciate a movie
on the surface or even its deeper
morals or allegories - don't get me
wrong, "Shoot 'Em Up" has noth-
ing of the like - I feel it's necessary
to ask oneself after engaging in art
or entertainment, "Why would the
artist or entertainer do that?"So,
while watching Monica Bellucci
play a lactating prostitute may
encourage you to question life's
purpose, it should also inspire
you to wonder why she chose
the role, why the screenwriter
saw the part as worthwhile, why
It's impossible to look at Giamatto and not think "I'm not drinking any fucking merlot!"
the director created this manifes-
tation of some vision and why the
producer would front the money.
With that in mind, I've settled
on an answer about why any-
one would deem "Shoot 'Em Up"
worthwhile. Despite whatever
humor may incidentally occur, the
movie wasn't made to be a comedy,
and its political messages are so
ham-fisted and underdeveloped
that the moviemakers were at best
half-heartedly aiming to make a
statement. With so much violence
and gunplay, the movie's about
action. In other terms, it's made to
entertain and to wow audiences. In
the bluntest sense, "Shoot 'Em Up"
was made for that classic consum-
erist and capitalist driving motiva-
tion: money.
I won't plead with you not to
give in and spend your money on
the movie. That's your decision,
and that's not my point. Instead,
I encourage you to think about
what you're supporting when you
give your dollar to a theater that's
screening a run-of-the-mill shoot
'em up. Think about why you're
watching a film, your reasons as
well as the filmmakers' reasons for
creating the movie.
But indulge me, if you will. If
you actually read this article or my
review of "Shoot 'Em Up," at least
e-mail me to say you did so. It's not
about debate or anything compli-
cated like that. It's simple: I need
confirmation that my endeavors
were not without purpose.
- Zwiebel did in fact review
this movie (guess the star rating
for a prize) at michigandaily.com.
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