COMING ATTRACTIONS, MEANINGLESS MILESTONES

The guy who made a whole movie about how eating a lot of mcdonalds food is bad for you is going to direct a documentary about the simpsons, who gives a shit. The real news is that it’s gonna be called “THE SIMPSONS 20th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL IN 3-D ON ICE,” which is the best name for a thing ever. [ComingSoon.net]

TORTURE LAND

Lest you think The Simpsons Archive, the holy grail of Simpsons nerdery, has been slacking (it is currently seven years behind on its encyclopedic episode capsules), contributor Tim Reardon [?!] has written an incredibly thorough 18,719- word summary, transcript, and review of The Simpsons Ride, including every line in the queue videos, the pictures on the walls, and a list of every character who appears in it. Why pay $50 to go on the ride when you can read this instead? [The Simpsons Archive]

WRITER WATCH

Former showrunner and occasional (?) Simpsons writer Mike Reiss wrote a film, My Life in Ruins, which was savaged by critics. Reiss seems most perturbed that nobody got his nerd joke:

Several critics singled me out, calling me “an idiot,” “an imbecile,” and “sub-literate.” Now, I opened the film with an allusion to Voltaire – a sign reads “Pangloss Tours: ‘The Best of All Possible Worlds’.” In Candide, Dr. Pangloss utters these optimistic words before his group sets out on an utterly disastrous journey. Just like the tourists in my film! Get it? The critics didn’t. Not one caught the allusion. Otherwise, they’d have called me a “sub-literate moron who reads Voltaire.”

[Nerd World]

SMARTLINE

New York Times senior art critic Roberta Smith wrote a blog post describing her fascination with the recently released Simpsons postage stamps:

The Simpson palette has always seemed as radical and subversive as the show’s social commentary and close in artifice to that of innovative colorists like Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney. Five amped-up hues suffice: egg-yolk yellow, magenta, Marge-Simpson’s-hair blue, darkened chartreuse and lavender, plus important bits of white (mainly eyes and teeth) and touches of red. Subtle distinctions of tonality are made. Homer’s yellow head is seen against a slightly darker yellow background. Marge’s hair is slightly darker than the blue behind Bart. Red defines only Homer’s tongue, Maggie’s pacifier, Marge’s beads and the smidgeon of Bart’s T-shirt.

Third, less is more. The “Simpsons” gestalt is boiled down to its essence and so is stampness. The images are stripped of detail except for the letters USA and the number 44 (cents, the new first class). No fussy engraved textures, no identifying names. This allows color to take over and the faces to pop out. Like a Richard Serra sculpture, only smaller and a whole lot cheaper, the stamps prove the adage that scale has nothing to do with size. They strike David-like blows against the Goliaths of American visual illiteracy.

Don’t have a Nauman! [Arts Beat]