Celluloid Confetti

Still reeling from the horrors of Harry Potter, I decided that a bit of sympathetic magic was in order.

If a blockbuster had shaken my faith in movies, I reasoned, then perhaps TWO blockbusters might cure my malaise?

So Saturday morning was The Simpsons Movie (in 2D!). Although I came to the Simpsons late in life - I am a terrestrial TV viewer, as opposed to an extra-terrestrial with a satellite dish planted on my head - it’s an easy show to fall in love with.

Alongside Roseanne and the sublime Married With Children, The Simpsons was part of a wave of late-80s blue-collar US sitcoms, comedies which showed the lows of family life as well as the highs - and frequently got into trouble for it.

(George HW Bush famously asked that Americans should be “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons”, and was beaten up in animated effigy for his trouble)

Since then, The Simpsons has lost a little of its social consciousness, and whilst it’s frequently funny, unlike earlier episodes - such as when Lisa falls in love with her supply teacher (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) - it’s rarely, if ever, moving, and I think that’s a (crying?) shame.

I had mild hopes that The Simpsons Movie would scale down the comedic set pieces and tug on my heartstrings as well as my funnybone.

These were mild hopes, so I was only mildly disappointed when the film’s plot, which was cruising along nicely with Homer’s acquisition of an utterly charmless pet pig, suddenly jack-knifed into an epic disaster movie that saw the town of Springfield covered by what looked like a great glass cheese dish.

Hmph. Well, there’s always the sequel.

Don’t get me wrong though - the film is genuinely funny; I found myself spontaneously uttering sounds of mirth that ranged from a light chuckle to a hearty guffaw, with a strange clucking sound somewhere in-between that caused the people on either side of me to shift one seat further down the aisle.

Well, that was Saturday’s treat, so on to Sunday afternoon, where I waded down to The Dome (or the O2, or whatever it’s called) to watch Transformers.

Of course, I picked exactly the wrong day of the year to attend, because Mountain Dew, or whoever, were sponsoring some kind of aeronautical event, and the place was packed with spectators eagerly hoping to see a pilot tumble from their plane and get caught in the blades of their opponent’s propeller.

Walking around under the Dome, I felt a bit like I was in The Simpsons Movie, only people were less jaundiced, and the prices made Apu’s Kwik-E-Mart look reasonable.

Fortunately, the screens at the O2 Vue are excellent. Well, the one I sat infront of was anyway. Clear, crisp digital projection and comfortable seats, a perfect venue to enjoy two and a bit hours of large robots hitting each other.

It’s not a wretched film by any means, and I thought the coming-of-age tale of a teenager getting his first car (albeit one that turns into a robot) was rather well done.

The story felt like a welcome throwback to those 80s movies where friendly aliens lurked behind the dumpster and every wizened bookshop owner had the gateway to a land of fantastical delights tucked away in his dusty trousers.

Shia LaBeouf, who will shortly appear as Indiana Jones’ son in the forthcoming Indiana Jones and The Deathly Hallows, was excellent as the protagonist and Director Michael Bay showed that he is capable of directing people as well as helicopters.

Unfortunately, the last third of the film was shot in shakey-cam, and it became really difficult to tell which giant robot was being hit and where, which rather marred my enjoyment of the action.

So I stumbled home after my long weekend of big screen entertainment with tired eyes. Gorged on sweets and popcorn, I rested my throbbing head on my pillow and fell into a fitful sleep.

Who would have thought that in 2007 two of the biggest summer movies would be based on a cartoon and a line of toys, both from the 1980s?

And what does this mean for the future? What TV shows or toys from 2007 will we be flocking to see on the big screen 20 years from now?

My money is on Furbies. There’s something about their eyes.