Sunday, July 08, 2007

Bart goes Nude, Lisa goes Green, Homer looks for answers


The much anticipated Simpson's movie is getting closer to release and if a snippet released at a public viewing in England over the weekend is any indication everyone will find something to be offended about.


The Globe and Mail carried a report on the ten minute sneak preview which apparently features a nude skateboarding Bart, a smitten Lisa and a perpetually confused Homer looking to the bible for answers and finding it wanting. Only Marge and Maggie were left off the preview file for the British audience.

There have been a number of trailers posted to You Tube of late previewing one of this summer's must see movie, which makes its debut on July 27th ..
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Lisa goes green, Bart goes nude
MIKE COLLETT-WHITE
Reuters News Agency
July 6, 2007 at 3:53 AM EDT

LONDON — The upcoming Simpsons movie takes a typically irreverent dig at religion and environmentalists, and features a nude scene involving 'toon teen Bart that had the audience at a preview show applauding.

A 10-minute clip from The Simpsons Movie, the first time Homer, Marge, their family and friends have made it to the big screen, was shown in London late on Wednesday ahead of its release worldwide later this month.

The clip offered several clues as to the plot, suggesting that the environment and religion would be major themes.

Rock band Green Day is booed and pelted when it starts speaking about the environment to a Springfield crowd, while Homer's daughter, Lisa, is a green campaigner shunned by the town's inhabitants who simply don't care.

She may also find love, however, after she swoons upon meeting a fellow campaigner from Ireland who insists he is not the son of U2 front man and celebrity campaigner Bono.
The Simpsons also turn up late at church, where Homer's father has a seizure and warns of trouble to come.

When asked to explain this behaviour, Homer flicks through a Bible, and mutters: "This book doesn't have any answers."

Perhaps the biggest laugh was for Bart, who skateboards through town naked after being challenged by Homer.

After a series of scenes where strategically placed extras and props protect his modesty, the audience gets a full view of his private parts through a gap in a hedge.

Series creator Matt Groening, speaking to the audience after the clips were screened, said he expected complaints.

"In America, there's someone willing to pretend to be offended by everything and so we annoy people and that's part of the appeal," he said. "It's to entertain people and also to annoy a certain segment of the audience as well."

Series writer Al Jean agreed that there were big themes in the film, particularly the environment, but that the movie's makers did not obviously take sides. "They are big themes, especially the environmental theme, but we always like to approach it from both sides, so later in the film when Lisa's giving a lecture about the pollution, the label of the lecture is 'An Irritating Truth.' " (Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore inspired the Oscar-winning climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth.)

Groening said he had been thinking about making a movie based on the hit animated TV series as early as 1992, but struggled to find the time.

Asked what the main message of the movie was, Jean replied: "It's that a man should listen to his wife."

Groening added: "And it's a romantic movie. Homer falls in love with a pig."

The Simpsons Movie enters a crowded animation-movie marketplace, but Groening argued that it stood out from the majority of films in the genre.

"This really is a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation, which is basically disappearing," he said. "All the animated movies these days are computer-generated, and this is the old-fashioned, clumsy, hand-drawn ... way."

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