What Else is our Favorite Family Up To? (Matchflick column RE: Simpsons talent)

 

 

 

Spare him your euphemisms! 

 In my last column, I had the opportunity to talk about the sexy and talented Hank Azaria and his work outside of The Simpsons, which got me to thinking about the other amazing artists involved with The Simpsons but whose careers are not limited to the show. It’s hard to imagine these brilliant artists have the time and energy to do more than create our favorite show about our favorite family, but indeed they do!

For example, the people who supply some of our favorite voices have no shortage of work, such as Russi Taylor and Tress MacNeille, who work together also on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Taylor provides the voice of one of my faves, Martin Prince, and as well as Sherri & Terri, among others. MacNeille also supplies many character voices; among my faves are Jimbo, Brandine, and Agnes Skinner (quite the range, eh?)

Yeardley Smith is best known for being the voice of Lisa Simpson, but she also starred in the ever-cherished Herman’s Head, played the only likeable character in AS GOOD AS IT GETS (1997), and was Putter in THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN (1985). And sisters, if you have not seen BILLIE JEAN, do yourself a favor and put it on your queue! It’s even more feminist, provocative, and energizing now than it was back when I was a tweener, when “Fair

 

He looks sweet and mild, but don’t tick him off.

is fair” struck me as more than just an illogical catchphrase and “Invincible” by Pat Benatar was an inspiring anthem.

Harry Shearer is the voice behind many of the funniest and/or most beloved Simpsons characters, such as Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, Burns, Smithers, Otto, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny, and, of course, Scratchy (among many, many others). But with his versatile voice and terrific singing ability, Shearer has appeared in oodles of films, including his role as G. Gordon Liddy in DICK (1999) and perhaps most famously as Derek Smalls in THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984). He also shows off those pipes in A MIGHTY WIND (2003), which might be the most underrated of the Guest, et al films.

David Silverman has been with the The Simpsons since its birth on The Tracey Ullman Show as animator, producer, creative consultant (whatever that is) and director – in addition to directing many episodes of the show, Silverman brilliantly directed THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (2007). In 2005, he got in front of the camera to teach a drawing lesson (watch “Goo Goo Gai Pan” on Hulu or wherever if you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’ll thank me).

Silverman has also worked for Pixar and DreamWorks – he co-directed THE ROAD TO EL DORADO and the sassy MONSTERS,

 

I really liked her on Dharma and Greg, too.

INC. with UP and WALL-E’s Pete Docter (a fellow Minnesotan, I might add) and was storyboard artist on ROBOTS.

Clearly, Silverman’s career of the last 20 years or so is impressive, sure, but perhaps the most intriguing thing you’ll find on Silverman’s IMDb page is the head animator credit (albeit spelled incorrectly) for the short TOM WAITS FOR NO ONE. In the 1990s, other Tom Waits fans and I spoke in hushed, revered tones of this film, not knowing whether to believe those who claimed to have seen it, but being jealous of them all the same just in case it could be true. If only we’d had YouTube, like the spoiled college kids of today:
According to Variety, Silverman is slated to direct a live-action film for MGM, an adaptation of the children’s book The Facttracker. Also on his schedule, IMDb reports Silverman will be directing a Disney film called THE PET,

 

Drawin’ Krusty. Just another day at the office.

in which a group of aliens make a human their pet. Let’s just hope he’s not a businessman, which is a big responsibility. (Inside Kids in the Hall reference, which I hope you get).

If you’re not already following Silverman on Twitter*, do so now (tubatron). He’s funny, announces his groups’ appearances around LA (They are called Vaud and the Villains– hint: his handle is “tubatron” for a reason!) and likes to share the occasional photo (like the one I borrowed above). And maybe eventually he’ll share some 140-character anecdotes about his upcoming films with his followers as he sees fit (hint hint).

*If you’re not already following me on Twitter, what’s wrong with you? You can follow me (duve) and/or the awesome duo of Dr. Karma and me (Simpsonology).

Happy Father’s day, fathers!
xoxo,
Du

 

America – Great Places, Great Films (Fourth of July Matchflick column)

The iconic bridge vista in MANHATTAN

Sure, things aren’t ideal across our great land. For example, as of this week I’m out of a job, like many other hardworking, brilliant Americans, but there are many reasons to feel patriotic this year. Our country has an amazing person in the White House, Serena brought another championship home,* Sarah Palin is quitting her job before it quits her.

Overall, it’s a Happy Independence weekend! I have decided to honor America by showcasing some great American films that are named for some of our amazing places.

Many made the brainstorming list—SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE and PHILADELPHIA, for example, but I wanted choices that everyone hasn’t already seen. I jotted down KANSAS and MILWAUKEE, MINNESOTA, but figured I’d do better writing about films that I have seen. I thought of FEELING MINNESOTA, but I like you, dear readers, and no one should see that trainwreck. Hence, here is my celebration of the diversity of this land and its artful filmmaking, every one of them named for a place in one of our glorious 50 states, and each one a film I would be happy to recommend.

NIAGARA (1953)
Neglected by critics and audiences, NIAGARA is a fabulous movie! Set in Niagara Falls (as you may have guessed), this thriller stars Marilyn Monroe as Rose Loomis, who is visiting the Falls with her husband George, an unhinged WWII vet (Joseph Cotten). Rose has taken a young lover, and together they plan to use this trip to off George. NIAGARA may be Monroe’s first seriously dramatic role, and she pulls it off handsomely. The

Marilyn in that red dress

famous “walking scenes” and the essence of her in that red dress work together, under the strong direction of Arthur Hathaway, to explain why otherwise good and moral men can be persuaded to do something bad, even murder.

MANHATTAN (1979)
This terrific rom-com might be my favorite of Woody Allen’s films. Visually, it’s stunning; filmed in black and white with many memorable views of the city, and it introduced audiences to Mariel Hemingway, who received an Oscar nomination and was only 16 during the filming. As Tracy, she captures the audience’s hearts and her acting is so strong that she convinces us that a lovely, mentally healthy teenager would willingly date a neurotic 42-year-old writer who looks surprisingly like Woody Allen.

HAPPY, TEXAS (1999)
While there is actually a town in Texas called Happy, this movie was not filmed there. I forgive it for two reasons: it wasn’t filmed in, say Calgary, and it is so frakkin’ hilarious. Picture this scenario: Two straight escaped convicts arrive in a town with hopeful expectations that a gay duo they are waiting for will organize their silly little beauty pageant. The two (played by Steve Zahn and Jeremy Northam) serendipitously pose as this gay couple, but not everyone is so trusting: the town sheriff (William H. Macy) is a skeptical closeted homosexual attracted to one of the tricksters. How could hilarity not ensue?

BUFFALO ‘66 (1998)
I can think of few better

You’ll never forget the bowling alley scene in Buffalo ‘66

screenplays than the one for BUFFALO ‘66, written by, directed by, and starring Vincent Gallo. Gallo plays Billy Brown, a gambler who did hard time because he couldn’t pay his gambling debt, vowing to get his revenge on the Bills’ kicker who missed a field goal and, Billy feels, is the reason for his bad luck and incarceration. After his release, Billy kidnaps Layla (Christina Ricci) on his way to visit his parents. He forces her to pretend to be his love interest from the life that he invented in his letters home. Anjelica Huston has perhaps the best character, Billy’s mother, a horrible woman who blames Billy for all the pain that all Buffalo Bills fans have endured, starting with his birth in 1966 to the present.

KEY LARGO (1948)
Starring Lauren Bacall and her husband Humphrey Bogart, KEY LARGO was not filmed in Florida at all, but that’s kind of not the point. Bogart plays Frank McCloud, who is recently stateside after serving in WWII. He travels to Key Largo to greet Nora, the widow of his brave WWII comrade. He finds Nora (Bacall) with her wheelchair-bound father (Lionel Barrymore) in a backwater hotel that’s been taken over by some gangsters waiting for a hurricane to pass. In his state of malaise, at first McCloud is reluctant to do anything, but eventually he is motivated to act, and then it gets really good.

JERSEY GIRL (2004)
I know I’m gonna hear it about this one.

“You just like it because it’s named after a Tom Waits song!” Naysayers will suggest. “That’s only why I

How did Bogart score such a stand up babe?

first agreed to see it,” I’ll counter.

“Kevin Smith’s worst film,” you’ll say. I’ll respond with, “Oh, yeah, did you ever see MALL RATS?”

“Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in the same movie equals disaster,” you’ll note. “But she’s dead the whole movie!” I’ll defend.

“Formulaic!” you’ll say. “Yeah, a little!” I’ll retort indignantly.

Alright, I’m going to make a little stand here. No, JERSEY GIRL probably didn’t change any lives. But it gave a couple hours of romantic comedy-grade entertainment. And the Sweeney Todd bit is pretty funny. Yes, JERSEY GIRL got a bad rap. People didn’t know what to make of Kevin Smith making a regular movie with crewmembers and actors outside of his regular entourage. There’s no Jay or Silent Bob in JERSEY GIRL. And when it came out, I myself asked how a Kevin Smith movie could possibly be rated PG-13. What, no snowballing? But I appreciated the fact that he branched out; that required cojones. It’s a rom-com, but it’s a strong rom-com. Liv Tyler is adorable as the video store girl, and except for voice work, this was George Carlin’s last movie role, and his role was, like the whole film, a combination of great moments of humor and underlying intelligence and sensitivity.

So, you see, the idea that liberals don’t love America is bullplop. I love my country and the beautiful art it creates. Happy Independence Day!

*At the time of this writing, the men’s Wimbledon finals hadn’t been played yet, so it’s possible that Andy Roddick brought one home for the U.S. of A., too! w00t!

Seminar Hell

I knew we were in trouble when we walked in and the conference motel smelled like a Tom Waits song, or, as John said, “cigarettes and despair.”  The closest coffee was two hallways and an elevator ride away.

There is absolutely no way this instructor had ever taught a tech writing seminar before. There’s no way he had written anything besides email in the past 10 years.  He had never heard of any software besides Word.  (His flummoxed face when John brought up Adobe Technical Suite was priceless). He had us do a cluster mapping activity, like the kind you do for brainstorming in developmental freshman composition. The PowerPoint slides were riddled with spelling errors, superfluous apostrophes, and random capitalization. But the best and most ironic error: “Proofread” was spelled “Proof Read.” Hilarity!

The instructor never asked us what we do or what kind of businesses we work for, but made sure to ask for a show of hands of those who were in management positions and who had master’s degrees. He wanted to know what he was up against, but his knowledge didn’t stop him from going on a series of anti-education tirades. His lecturing was shaky, but with ease he blasted professors. He blasted tenure. He blamed teachers for all the items on his list of disturbing (and, I suspect, completely made-up) statistics regarding graduation, shrinking vocabularies, and reading levels.

Du and Jenn at one of the many coffee & voicemail breaks.

The only other times during the day that he actually seemed comfortable was when he slid into sales mode. We were subjected to quite the book pitch. Some of the items made some sense, such as books and CDs that were related to business writing, but the longest pitch was for a money management collection.  He started by asking the class, “What is the number one cause of divorce?” I think the answer he was looking for was financial issues, but Jenn, without a pause, answered “Marriage.”  The class erupted into joyful laughter (we were due), and the instructor had a hard time getting back to the task at hand (not teaching, of course, but selling us $100 worth of money management books on CD).   

He was not pleased.

He dove into his pitch, nonetheless. It went a little bit like this:

When he wasn’t blasting educators or trying to sell us stuff,  he busied himself by making a series of racist coments. I’m not sure if this was just him or if it’s a new Southern trend, but his equivalent expression to “bless their hearts” was instead  ”no value judgment.”

You do know what I’m talking about, right?  I lived in the South for three years, and I was often charmed or disgusted (heck, sometimes impressed) by the way some people believe they can say ANYTHING about someone if it’s finished with ”bless her heart.” Examples:

1. “She got caught cheating on her husband, bless her heart.”

2. “Our neighbors don’t take care of their yard and the city threatened to clean it and then send them the bill, bless their hearts.”

3. ”He has a problem with the cocaine, bless his heart.”

The seminar instructor made sweeping generalizations about ”Asians and Orientals” and added “no value judgment.” He made similar comments about urban youths and immigrants in general. Oh, the whole day was painful. I am not proud of the cruel way I wrote in my notebook the words he mispronouned (such as “singular” &  ”jargon”), but at least I didn’t correct him.  (Okay, I kind of did, but it was only because there was no way around using the word “singular” in my response).

When it was memory map time, he referred to it as a Gantt chart.

Ellyn tells us what a Gantt chart actually is.

 

Have you seen Important Things with Demitri Martin? He starts the show with introducing the Important Thing for the evening, and on his huge sketchpad he shows a cluster map of many topics related to that Important Thing. Now, I’m no chart expert– I’m not sure I’ve ever even made a Gantt chart– but I’ve always thought that a Gantt chart was used to show project progress with graphs and timespans and such. (Not at all the same thing. He was just trying to sound fancy).  

 

 

 

The class closed with, naturally, paper airplanes: 

 

not the sexiest of paper airplanes, but they flew . . .

 

We learned from the seminar, though: a very valuable lesson– if something sounds like a good deal, it’s probably not (buy three get one free!), and under no circumstances will we ever attend one of that company’s seminars again. As Jenn said, if it’s less than a grand per person, it will probably suck.

 

Bless his heart, but was he a weird, racist little man.