The Simpsons episode titles.

I was thinking about the Simpsons the other day, as I often do, and inevitably depressed myself thinking about how awful it had become. It's quite clearly not the Simpsons anymore, it's a steaming pile of shit masquerading as such. I tend to avoid watching new episodes these days, and if there are reruns on TV I check what episode it is before watching it in order to safeguard myself against sinking even further into a Simpsons-being-shit-now depression. I've noticed that even the episode titles get worse as you get into later seasons...

If you take early season episode titles, you'll generally find that they're simple, and you can get an idea of the episode's content from there, such as Marge vs. the Monorail, Homer Goes to College and Bart Gets an Elephant. On occasion you'll find a pun or pop-culture reference, such as in One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish and A Star is Burns, but still these are clever titles and still reflect the episode's content, as well as being few and far between. However, once you get to about season 9, you start to see more and more pun and pop-culture based titles, and they just get worse and worse as the seasons continue.

Let's look at the titles of the episodes of the latest full season to finish, season 22:

465. MABF21 (SI-2121 / S22E01) Elementary School Musical
466. MABF17 (SI-2117 / S22E02) Loan-a Lisa
467. MABF18 (SI-2118 / S22E03) MoneyBART
468. MABF16 (SI-2116 / S22E04) Treehouse of Horror XXI
469. MABF20 (SI-2120 / S22E05) Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life
470. NABF01 (SI-2201 / S22E06) The Fool Monty
471. NABF02 (SI-2202 / S22E07) How Munched is that Birdie in the Window?
472. MABF22 (SI-2122 / S22E08) The Fight Before Christmas
473. MABF19 (SI-2119 / S22E09) Donnie Fatso
474. NABF03 (SI-2203 / S22E10) Moms I'd Like to Forget
475. NABF04 (SI-2204 / S22E11) Flaming Moe
476. NABF05 (SI-2205 / S22E12) Homer the Father
477. NABF06 (SI-2206 / S22E13) The Blue and The Gray
478. NABF07 (SI-2207 / S22E14) Angry Dad: The Movie
479. NABF08 (SI-2208 / S22E15) The Scorpion's Tale
480. NABF09 (SI-2209 / S22E16) A Midsummer's Nice Dream
481. NABF10 (SI-2210 / S22E17) Love is a Many Strangled Thing
482. NABF11 (SI-2211 / S22E18) The Great Simpsina
483. NABF12 (SI-2212 / S22E19) The Real Housewives of Fat Tony
484. NABF13 (SI-2213 / S22E20) Homer Scissorhands
485. NABF14 (SI-2214 / S22E21) 500 Keys
486. NABF15 (SI-2215 / S22E22) The Ned-liest Catch

As you can see, pretty much three quarters of the titles are either puns or pop-culture references. As far as I can tell, the ones that aren't are Treehouse of Horror, Homer the Father, The Blue and the Gray, Angry Dad: The Movie, The Scorpion's Tale and 500 Keys, and even then I'm not 100% certain with some of them. The puns in the titles just seem to exist for the purpose of being puns, it's as if the writers think that if they can shoehorn a character name into a film/tv/book/otherpopculturething title or change it slightly it counts as a clever episode title. None of these are clever at all, and don't really give you much of an idea what's going to happen in the episode. I will concede that they are effective in conveying what you should expect from the episode, which is that it'll be an affront to everything classic Simpsons stood for, and not worth you or anyone else's time in the least.

Compare this to season 3 episode titles:

36. 7F24 (SI-224 / S03E01) Stark Raving Dad
37. 8F01 (SI-301 / S03E02) Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington
38. 7F23 (SI-223 / S03E03) When Flanders Failed
39. 8F03 (SI-303 / S03E04) Bart the Murderer
40. 8F04 (SI-304 / S03E05) Homer Defined
41. 8F05 (SI-305 / S03E06) Like Father, Like Clown
42. 8F02 (SI-302 / S03E07) Treehouse of Horror II
43. 8F06 (SI-306 / S03E08) Lisa's Pony
44. 8F07 (SI-307 / S03E09) Saturdays of Thunder
45. 8F08 (SI-308 / S03E10) Flaming Moe's
46. 8F09 (SI-309 / S03E11) Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk
47. 8F10 (SI-310 / S03E12) I Married Marge
48. 8F11 (SI-311 / S03E13) Radio Bart
49. 8F12 (SI-312 / S03E14) Lisa the Greek
50. 8F14 (SI-314 / S03E15) Homer Alone
51. 8F16 (SI-316 / S03E16) Bart the Lover
52. 8F13 (SI-313 / S03E17) Homer at the Bat
53. 8F15 (SI-315 / S03E18) Separate Vocations
54. 8F17 (SI-317 / S03E19) Dog of Death
55. 8F19 (SI-319 / S03E20) Colonel Homer
56. 8F20 (SI-320 / S03E21) Black Widower
57. 8F21 (SI-321 / S03E22) The Otto Show
58. 8F22 (SI-322 / S03E23) Bart's Friend Falls in Love
59. 8F23 (SI-323 / S03E24) Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?

Quite frankly, there's an astounding difference here. It's all short and sweet, and where there are pop culture and puns, they're used cleverly, as in Stark Raving Dad and Black Widower, a play on Black Widow. Where pop culture references are used, it's in such a way that someone can understand the title and how it relates to the episode even without having seen the source material.

All I know is in 20 years time, I'll still want to watch Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington, but I'll have forgotten that The Ned-liest Catch ever existed. Well, one can dream...

Even quicker film ratings

A bunch of films I've watched in the past few months and quick ratings. Might expand on some later.

The Sting (1973) - 7/10
The Verdict (1982) - 6/10
The Goonies (1985) - 8/10
Brief Encounter (1945) - 7/10
No Country for Old Men (2007) - 7.5/10
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) - 6/10
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) - 6/10
Bad Teacher (2011) - 3/10
The Fox and the Hound (1981) - 6/10
Great Expectations (1946) - 7/10
Milk (2008) - 5/10
Jaws (1975) - 8/10
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978) - 9/10
Moon (2009) - 7.5/10
Ladykillers (1955) - 6.5/10
Zombieland (2009) - 3/10
Kes (1969) - 6/10
The Untouchables (1987) - 7/10
The Bridges of Madison County (1995) - 5/10
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) - 7/10
Super-8 (2011) - 5.5/10
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) - 5/10
The Departed (2006) - 6/10
One Day (2011) - 2/10
The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) - 5/10
Horrible Bosses (2011) - 4/10
The Lion King (1994) - 8/10
Halloween (1978) - 8/10
Escape from New York (1981) - 6/10

Quick film ratings inc. older films!

Been a while since I last updated this, but in that time I've watched more than a few films (only one in the cinema though), so I'll just say a quick word and give a quick rating to all the ones I can remember.

The Lives of Others (2006)
I thought this film was fabulous, and I think this is largely thanks to the performance of Ulrich Muhe, who plays the Stasi employee who listens in to the lives of suspected enemies of the state and ends up becoming attached to a certain couple he is spying on. It's just a film you have to see

Rating 9/10

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
This film I decided to watch because of its reputation, and I have to say I was somewhat disappointed. I very much enjoyed the courtroom segment in which Brock Peters gave a great performance as the black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman, Tom Robinson. Other than that though I felt the film somewhat dragged a bit, I wasn't really drawn into the stories of Scout and Jem's childhood, and this was the main focus of the story. Gregory Peck was very good as well, but again his character Atticus Finch wasn't the focus, Scout was, so although I'd like to have seen more of him outside of homelife, but the story didn't allow for that. All in all, not a bad film, but not anywhere near as good as I was led to believe.

Rating 6/10

The Searchers (1956)
This was another one I decided to watch on the basis of reputation, and also because I've very much enjoyed a fair few westerns I've watched but have never really watched much of John Wayne, and this is meant to be his best. Firstly, I have to say that this film looks absolutely phenomenal, I got it on Blu-Ray and was blown away by just how magnificent some of the shots look. Quite simply the film is beautifully shot, but sadly I felt the film fell down in other areas. It seemed to just drag on for me, I could never really get engaged in the story and I thought it went on longer than it had to. Once again, a film with a great reputation that's let me down.

Rating 6/10


L.A Confidential (1997)
This was another one I hadn't seen before, saw it cheap on Blu-Ray and decided to give it a bash. It wasn't a great film, but it was fairly good. I enjoyed seeing the case unravel but some parts of the story left a fair bit to be desired, like how someone could manage to cover up killing as many people as happens in the film, and I wasn't particularly a fan of Kim Basinger's role, or any of the parts with her. Danny DeVito's voice overs were fairly irritating as well.

Rating 7/10

Apocalypse Now (1979)
I had seen this film before but it was a good few years ago, so watching it again was like watching it for the first time since I had forgotten nearly everything about it. I thought the film was good first time round, and better the second. Some of the sequences look truly breathtaking, like real war-zones. The acting performances are also good, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando put in very good performances, but Robert Duvall does the best job as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, delivering his famous "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" line. The only character I didn't like was the surfer character, Lance Johnson, who seemed to serve no purpose but to irritate me with his idiocy. Although the film lasts over 2 hours it's not one that'll lose your interest, it's paced well and engaging to the end.

Rating 8/10

Updates: The Hangover Part Two, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and more

I've a few updates to make over the next few days, I've watched a fair few more films and haven't written about them yet. In this post I'll just give my thoughts on two films I saw in the cinema in the past week: Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides and The Hangover Part Two.

Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides

The 4th in the series of Pirates of the Caribbean films, On Stranger Tides' focus is Captain Jack Sparrow's quest to reach the fountain of youth, which is also the object of three other parties' desire. The Spanish, the British (whose expedition is captained by Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbossa character) and Blackbeard (played by Ian McShane).

I'll admit that I had higher hopes for this film than I did the past two sequels, as this film promised to be, like the first, a self-contained story that will be resolved by the films end rather than the 5 hour mash of storylines and subplots PotC 2 and 3 were, which were a load of old bollocks.

Sadly, while this film is better than the other sequels, it still falls well short of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, which remains the only good film in the franchise. The problem I found with this film is that I simply did not find it at all engaging. I quickly grew tired of drawn out action sequences involving Jack Sparrow escaping from numerous perils, and some of the choices made my characters in the film made absolutely no sense. For example, in the first scene on Blackbeard's ship it's quickly established that his crew are barely more than slaves, and detest working under him, and yet later in the film they are quite willing to put their lives at stake fighting for him. The mermaid subplot made absolutely no sense either, and once again there were invulnerable henchmen, and silly magical powers.

Really it's not worth seeing this film, I never will again.

4/10 (for the purposes of comparison, I would rate the first PotC as 7/10, and the others as 3/10)

The Hangover Part Two

If you're wondering what the plot of the Hangover Part Two is, just think of the first one but change "fucked up in Las Vegas" to "fucked up in Bangkok". It is exactly the same, save for a change in location, a change in who is getting married, and a change in who they manage to lose. So it's Stuart (Ed Helms, the bespectacled dentist) who's getting married this time, and ends up getting accidently fucked up with Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Alan (weird beardy man Zach Galifianakis), and losing his bride-to-be's younger brother Teddy.

The film is watchable, but fairly boring and predictable, especially if you've seen the first. The ending was fairly bollocks as well, at least the part about Stuart's father-in-law-to-be deciding he doesn't hate him anymore, which, given the past 48 hours in the film, would see any doctor declaring him legally insane.

All in all, it's exactly the same as the first film, just in a different place and not as funny.

5/10 (first film would be 7/10)




There are a few other films I've watched as part of the 30 Day Film Challenge that I haven't gotten around to writing about yet, these are:

3. Das Leben der Anderen (the Lives of Others) (2006)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
5. The Searchers (1956)

2. Network

Sidney Lumet's 1976 film Network follows a fictional television network called UBS and its quest for ratings and profitability. It focuses on its upturn in fortunes thanks to soon-to-be fired newsreader Howard Beale (Peter Finch) and his outbursts on his news show. At first the network seeks to punish Beale for his indiscretions but the public take to his ranting and tune in in great numbers to see more.

I think the film shows very well the ruthlessness of its TV executive characters, who will stop at nothing to get higher ratings and earn more money. However, I wasn't particularly impressed with all the overblown, shouty speeches in the film. Every character seems to have one each. It makes sense with Beale's character, since he has clearly lost his mind and is prone to ranting, but it was tiring listening to the weighty rhetoric routinely delivered throughout the film by all and sundry. It was an interesting film, but I was very disappointed.

6.5/10

30 Day Film Challenge

I'll be away for the weekend, but afterwards I plan on continuing the 30 Day Film Challenge proper. Second film will probably be Network (1976). Stay tuned!

Paths of Glory

1. Paths of Glory

I haven't really got the will to write a proper review here, the film is about 3 soldiers in the French Army during World War I who have been charged with cowardice after an impossible attack has failed, and their commanding officer who tries to defend them in court. The film was very good, I found the generals to be detestable, and the anti-war message was very powerful. Still though, I wasn't as impressed by it as some seem to be. A very good film yes, but I didn't feel it merits the level of praise it has gathered.

8/10

Not sure what the next film will be, maybe Solaris.