A worthy addition.

The Movie: The Simpsons Movie, directed by David Silverman
Recommendation: Dee
Reason: "I've been waiting for this ever since they announced that there could be a movie. We're going!"

I admit it took me a few minutes to warm up to the Big Yellow finally making it to the big screen. I was a little offput by the opening, but a few seconds after Bart impacted on the restaurant window, I was in. I don't want to write much about the actual content of the movie-I believe in being as spoiler-free as possible-so instead I'm going to talk about the conversation we had afterwards.

As we left the theater, we started talking about The Simpsons Movie, comparing it to the series. We agreed that the movie harkened back to the peak years of the cartoon, the fourth/fifth/sixth seasons. There was a bit of darkness, a little edge to the whole thing. They got to play a little with the sort of topics and scenes that can't really be pulled off on their small screen canvas. From there we started discussing South Park and the accompanying movie (the comparison is inevitable). I'm of the opinion that both Bigger, Longer and Uncut and the Simpsons movie are excellent examples of their respective series. South Park has always been about pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable humor-since the movie was released, the show has actually topped it in terms of the material they've taken on. The Simpsons may not be as edgy, but it's always been reliably sly.

Since it was launched on the Tracy Ullman show, The Simpsons has been a mainstay of television. It's definitely had its better days. I hope the movie is the return to those better days...I mean, who else should get a second (fourth) chance to jump the shark, right?

-179/365 down, 186/365 to go