Video Views: November 10, 2009

Only two DVD releases of any real note today, but they are two of the best films of the year, so they should definitely be rented as soon as possible.

In The Loop ****
A whip smart political satire about the run-up to an invasion to a unnamed Middle Eastern country. Tom Hollander plays a junior member of British Parliament who makes a stupid statement to the press, and continues to try and undo the damage for the rest of the movie. He and his aides travel to Washington to take part in meetings, but really get nowhere. Peter Capaldi delivers a brilliant, profane performance as the Press Secretary of the PM who explodes with anger and profanity whenever someone contradicts him. The film is smart and hilarious, and downright cynical in its view of modern politics. One of the year’s best. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/08/movie-review-in-loop.html

Up ****

Pixar has done it again. Up is an intelligent, emotional, brilliantly well animated film about an old man who after the death of his beloved wife goes on an adventure to South America in his floating house. Unbeknownst to him, he has taken along a young boy with him. The opening of the movie was enough to bring me to tears. The middle section is a glorious animated adventure in a strange land. And the ending had me crying all over again. One of the very best films of the year. For my original review please see: http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.com/2009/06/movie-review-up.html

Movie Review: Gentleman Broncos

Gentlemen Broncos **
Directed By: Jared Hess.
Written By: Jared Hess & Jerusha Hess.
Starring: Michael Angarano (Benjamin), Jemaine Clement (Chevalier), Jennifer Coolidge (Judith), Héctor Jiménez (Lonnie Donaho), Halley Feiffer (Tabatha), Sam Rockwell (Bronco/Brutus), Mike White (Dusty), Johnny Hoops (Kanaya/Kenonka), John Baker (Don Carlos), Suzanne May (Vanaya/Venonka), Edgar Oliver (Duncan/Lord Daysius).

I seem to be the only person in the world who thought that Napoleon Dynamite was a laugh free void of a movie. The film has become a huge cult hit, and at the time it was also hit a critical hit as well. Director Jared Hess followed that film up with Nacho Libre, another film that many people seemed to think was hilarious, but once again failed to make me laugh. So I am honestly not sure what to make of Gentleman Broncos, his most recent film. I cannot say that I didn’t laugh during this film - I laughed a number of times, some of them at some brilliant comedy set pieces. Yet, I still feel that the film is overall not very good. There is some sort of comic gold in this film, but Hess’ instincts seem to lead more to mockery of his characters rather than trying to build comedy from the ground up.

Benjamin (Michael Angarano) is home schooled by his mother Judith (Jennifer Coolidge), who works at a department store and makes weird dresses and nightgowns in her spare time. Benjamin’s father is dead, and he likes to wear his old clothes. His hobby is science fiction, as he devours the books of his hero Chevalier (Jemaine Clement), and writes his own stories as well about a character he has named Bronco (brought to life by Sam Rockwell is the movies dramatizes of the story). He goes off to a writer’s conference where Chevalier himself will be a speaker, as well as being a judge of the contest. Chevalier is an egomaniacal artist in the worst possible way, but he is having trouble with his publisher, who threatens to drop him if he doesn’t come up with something fast. When he reads Benjamin’s story Yeast Wars, he decides to steal it. He transforms Bronco into Brutus, and turns him from a manly man to a effeminate man, but other than that keeps the story just as it was before. Unaware of what is going on, Benjamin also sells the story to Lonnie (Hector Jimenez), someone he met on his trip to the conference who makes movies. With the help of Tabatha (Halley Feiffer), a girl who Benjamin has a crush on, and Dusty (Mike White), a former head banger who is now Benjamin’s “Guardian Angel” thanks to his mother signing him up for the program at their church, Lonnie turns Benjamin’s story into a low budget movie, but like Chevalier, he twists it to meet his own needs.

The movie starts out brilliantly. The scenes at the writer’s conference are wonderfully funny and intelligent. Chevalier teaches a seminar at the conference about naming your characters in science fiction and fantasy. All you have to do, apparently, to turn an ordinary name magical is to add suffixes like anious or anus. This is the films best scene, and is brilliantly well played by Clement, who is the best of all the actors in the film. Angarano is also quite good, and unlike the other Hess protagonists, he is actually quite sympathetic and likable.

But Hess’ tendency to mock his characters shows through in his portrayal of everyone else. Coolidge is playing an even more clueless version of her normal character. Tabatha is a hypocrite and a horrible person who is mocked mercilessly, as is Dusty, the former metal head with a snake. But its Hector Jimenez’s performance as Lonnie that I found particularly hateful and offensive. It is an offensive gay stereotype, and a rather hateful portrayal of a Latino man who serves no dramatic purpose in the film other than to be mocked and held up for ridicule. I’m also not sure what purpose of dramatizing the scenes from Benjamin’s book with Sam Rockwell, unless it is to prove that Benjamin has no real talent, as the story is ridiculous and stupid.

Personally, I think Gentleman Broncos is a step forward for Hess. What works in the movie works tremendously well. There are moments and scenes as funny as any movie I have seen this year. And yet, the movie never really comes together. Whenever the film seems to gaining some momentum, something comes along and completely derails it. Hess may one day make a movie I actually like. This is not that movie, but it’s closer than he had come before.

Movie Review: The Fourth Kind

The Fourth Kind *
Directed By: Olatunde Osunsanmi.
Written By: Olatunde Osunsanmi and Terry Robbins.
Starring: Milla Jovovich (Abbey Tyler), Will Patton (Sheriff August), Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Awolowa Odusami), Corey Johnson (Tommy Fisher), Elias Koteas (Abel Campos).

The Fourth Kind claims to be based on real events. And yet a quick search of the internet shows absolutely no reference to the events related in the movie except for references to the movie itself. It appears to be little more that an advertising hook to try and sell the movie. This by itself is not really a problem. After all, the Coen brothers admitted that the events in Fargo, that they claimed to be based on a true story, was fiction. And many movies that claim to be based on a true story are as fictional as any other movie. But the insistence that the movie is based on a true story hurts the film itself. The method of storytelling used in the movie is confused and garbled. Even if everything they say in the movie is true, it would be a poorly made movie.

The movie mixes “actual audio and video tapes” of the events with the reenactments that the writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi has staged. It tells the story of Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich in the reenactments) who in early October 2000 witnessed many strange things in the town of Nome, Alaska. He husband was murdered two months before, and she is continuing her work. Many people in Nome seem to having trouble sleeping, and are telling Tyler the same story of waking up between 2 and 3 am and seeing an owl outside their window that no matter what they do will not go away. Tyler puts them under hypnosis, and more memories come out. They get violent under hypnosis, and if they survive it unscathed, they snap later in the day and become violent.

The movie goes into split screen, and at times even into quadrants, so that it can show both the “real footage” as well as the reenactments at the same time. The reenactments are necessary because whenever there would be evidence of any sort of alien contact, the tape becomes obscured. All we can hear are some strange noises, that the movie claims is the ancient language known as Samarian that can not fully be translated. What we do hear is supposed to be scary.

The movie doesn’t make sense dramatically. We are treated to a lot of sound and fury about alien adductions, but nothing is ever really identified. This is because the filmmakers want us to believe what they are trying to tell us. But even before I went online and found out that the true story aspect of the movie was false, I suspected as much. You do not get the type of footage that they claim to be real without it being plastered everywhere. Much of the events of the movie do not really stand up to any real scrutiny.

I think that a good movie could have been made out of this material. If the filmmakers had made a decision, perhaps the story would have worked. If they had jettisoned the true story aspect, and simply made a high gloss alien thriller, it could have been entertaining. Had they went the other way, and made a film in the vein of The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, they could have had a low budget stunner on their hands. But the filmmakers seem to want it both ways, and the result is a completely unsatisfying, poorly made, poorly acted, ridiculous motion picture.

Movie Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats ** ½
Directed By: Grant Heslov.
Written By: Peter Straughn based on the book by Mark Ronson.
Starring: George Clooney (Lyn Cassady), Ewan McGregor (Bob Wilton), Jeff Bridges (Bill Django), Kevin Spacey (Larry Hooper), Stephen Lang (Brigadier General Dean Hopgood), Robert Patrick (Todd Nixon), Waleed Zuaiter (Mahmud Daash), Stephen Root (Gus Lacey).

There is a great story at the heart of The Men Who Stare at Goats. The book by Mark Ronson tells the story of a top secret branch of the military that during the 1980s experimenting with physic spies. A specially selected group of people were taught how to be physic and see into the future, and do other strange things like stare at goats until they stop their hearts with their minds. Amazingly, this is a true story. And it should make for a great movie. But for some reason, the movie version of the book never really comes together.

Ewan McGregor is Bob Wilton a reporter for a small town newspaper whose wife leaves him for his editor. Wanting to prove his manhood, he heads over to Iraq to become a war correspondent. The problem is that he cannot get into the country and spends weeks on end in Kuwait waiting for clearance. This is where he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Bob has heard his name before. Recently he was sent to interview a many who claims to be physic who told Bob about his military training during the 1980s where he learned from Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) and how a man named Lyn Cassady was the best physic he ever saw. Bob dismissed the man as a nut, but when he comes face to face with Lyn, he decides to explore the story. It helps that Lyn can get Bob into Iraq. On the road trip, Lyn tells the story of what happened in the 1980s. In flashbacks, we see him and the rest of the men train under Django, who went on a spiritual journey on the military’s dime, and came back a changed man. He embraced a philosophy of creating “Jedi” warriors. Ones who could fight the enemy without killing. It is an interesting story - the flashback segments of the movie actually work - and the performances by Clooney, Bridges and Kevin Spacey, as Larry Hooper who is jealous of Django are excellent.

The problem is the segment that takes place in Iraq. Clooney, who is excellent in the flashback sequence, here is completely unhinged. It is impossible to believe that anyone - particularly someone who up until then had been presented as intelligent like Bob - would take Lyn seriously, and put themselves into his hands. Everything that happens in Iraq becomes increasingly silly and hard to believe, and the performances get more crazy as they go along. By the time we get to the big reveal at the end of the film - that brings together the past and present - we have completely stopped believing the movie.

I think this could be because director Grant Heslov and writer Peter Straughn go too far with the Iraq section. Everything we see in the flashbacks is based upon Ronson’s book, and is just crazy enough to be believed. There is an air of believability to it, because it is something so crazy that no one could really come up with it on their own. On the other hand, the stuff in Iraq is practically all fiction, and is just the imagination of the filmmakers running away with them. To a certain extent, I think they tried to recreate the craziness of the flashbacks, and at the same time make it a little more believable. They failed. Because the movie flashes back and forth in time, and until the end there is seemingly no real connection or reason to use this kind of storytelling, the movie is at times a disjointed mess.

It must be said that the performances in the movie are really quite good. McGregor has the unglamorous straight man role - the calm at the eye of the storm, and if the Iraq scenes have any credibility it is because he grounds the movie in his reality (until the ill advised final scene anyway). Clooney is good at playing this unhinged character, yet it is not the type of role that he normally excels at. Clooney is a movie star, and is excellent in movie star roles. As a character actor, he isn’t quite as believable. I enjoyed Jeff Bridges performance as Django, but it is essentially a repeat of his performance as The Big Lebowski with less complexity. Spacey is very good as Hooper, but his performance masks the fact that his role is underwritten.

There is a lot of great stuff in The Men Who Stares at Goats, but it doesn’t really add up to anything. The movie tries to tie together everything from Vietnam to Iraq, and comes up well short. The whole of the movie is much less than the sum of its parts.

Movie Review: The Box

The Box ** ½
Directed By: Richard Kelly.
Written By: Richard Kelly based on the short story by Richard Matheson.
Starring: Cameron Diaz (Norma Lewis), James Marsden (Arthur Lewis), Frank Langella (Arlington Steward), James Rebhorn (Norm Cahill), Holmes Osborne (Dick Burns), Sam Oz Stone (Walter Lewis), Gillian Jacobs (Dana), Celia Weston (Lana Burns), Deborah Rush (Clymene Steward).

With his third feature, director Richard Kelly has proven that he can make a mainstream film without compromising his vision. Like his first two films, Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, The Box is an interesting film, that takes twists and turns that take the audience to places we didn’t expect when the movie started. But like his last film, Southland Tales, The Box’s reach exceeds its grasp. It is an ambitious film by a director who is trying to do something different. But he tries perhaps too hard, and forces the movie to go places that it probably shouldn’t. And because this is a mainstream film, it is also means he has to wrap itself in a way that will be satisfying to a mass audience. With Southland Tales he went way over the top, and did it brilliantly in places and not so brilliantly in others, but I admired the film’s audaciousness. I admire The Box to a lesser extent.

Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) are a couple living paycheck to paycheck in the 1970s. She is a part time teacher and he works at NASA whose dreams of being an astronaut have just been dashed. The bills are piling up, and they do not know what to do. Then one day, a strange package is delivered to their door. The box contains a wooden podium with a giant red button on top. It also contains a note that tells them that Mr. Steward will visit them at 5:00 that night. True to his word, Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) shows up that night. He is a hideous facial deformity that is impossible not to stare at. Norma feels sympathy for him - she has a deformed foot, and is self conscious enough about that. If she had to go through life with it on her face, she does not know what she would do. Mr. Steward makes them Norma an offer. If she presses the button in the next 24 hours, he will give them $1 million tax free. The catch is that if they press the button, someone in the world they do not know will die.

Based on a short story by Richard Matheson, the film poses an interesting moral question. Can you press the button knowing that if you do someone will die? Does it matter that it is someone who you do not know? It could be a murderer, child molester or an old person who has already lived a full life. Then again, it could be an innocent child or someone else who doesn’t deserve to die. But then again, the money could certainly help anyone out. $1 million is a lot money now, but imagine just how much that would be in 1976 dollars. Can you resist the temptation?

The Matheson story is brilliant in its simplicity. It is short, makes its point, and ends all within about 20 pages. Out of necessity, the movie needs to expand on the story. The film essentially takes the short story and uses it as its first act (minus the brutally effective ending), and then goes from there. Unlike the story, the movie feels the need to explain the secrets of the movie, the origin of the box and the everything else in the movie. Audiences expect this from movies, and I’m sure The Box will be more satisfying to many audiences than Donnie Darko or Southland Tales did, but for me, explaining away the secrets make the movie far less interesting. Not only does it take the mystery out of the film, but the explanation that Kelly comes up with, makes it less interesting. The film’s final act is a mess of special effects and heady explanations, and its when I started to tune out.

It must be said the cast is uniformly solid. Diaz has certainly grown from the time where she was cast as simple eye candy, and turned herself into a real actress. She is the one with the biggest moral question thrust upon her, and she handles that, and the rest of the movie with intelligence. Even as the movie spirals out of control, she remains a constant. James Marsden has also improved drastically since he was the most boring X-Men. He has become one of the most dependable actors around. And Frank Langella is wonderful as Steward. He is mysterious and frightening, and as the movie goes along, he becomes more complex. It is a great role that starts off villainously, and moves on from there.

The film is also well made by Kelly. He effortlessly recreates the 1970s, and gives the film a wonderful dark look. Even if the last act is full of special effects, he integrates them well into the fabric of the rest of the visual look.
But The Box is not quite as good as it should have been. Had Kelly perhaps stuck by his guns a little more, and kept the film a little more mysterious, then the film could have been one of the best thrillers of the year. As it stands, it is still a decent thriller, with some wonderful elements. But unlike Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, The Box is a film that only needs to be seen once. The mystery just isn’t there.

Movie Review: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol ** ½
Directed By: Robert Zemeckis.
Written By: Robert Zemeckis based on the story by Charles Dickens.
Starring: Jim Carrey (Scrooge/Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come), Gary Oldman (Bob Cratchit/Marley/Tiny Tim), Colin Firth (Fred), Robin Wright Penn (Fan/Belle), Bob Hoskins (Mr. Fezziwig/Old Joe), Jacquie Barnbrook (Mrs. Fezziwig/Fred’s Sister-in-Law/Well-Dressed Caroler), Lesley Manville (Mrs. Cratchit), Cary Elwes (Portly Gentleman #1/Dick Wilkins/Mad Fiddler/Guest #2/Business Man #1).

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol has been turned into a movie so many times that it is almost pointless to try and do it all again. According to Wikipedia, this is the 21st film version of the story. It has inspired many different retellings and reinterpretations. In the past year for example we had two horrendous versions - An American Carol, a right wing screed about the dawning realization of a liberal filmmaker that he is an idiot, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a terrible romantic comedy about a playboy played by Matthew McConaghey, realizing he has lost his way. The best version is probably the 1951 version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge, but the version I have watched the most is undoubtedly A Muppet Christmas Carol with Michael Caine. So any version of the story that is going to come out has to do something at least a little bit different.

Robert Zemeckis’ version continues the same style he used to make The Polar Express and Beowulf. He essentially animated over top of real actors performing their roles. It is a mixture of live action and animation, and yields a film that is visually masterful. I have often found that the new trend of 3-D is simply a gimmick to get more money out of people, but when Zemeckis does it, the 3-D simply adds to the texture of the film itself. It makes it even more involving. A Christmas Carol is no exception. You cannot fault the movie for taking liberties with the original text. This is perhaps the most faithful adaptation yet of the story. The film even uses much of the same dialogue just as Dickens wrote it.

Jim Carrey takes on numerous roles in the film. He plays Ebenezer Scrooge himself, along with the three ghosts who come to visit him. He makes each character unique. His Scrooge is a crotchety old man, and is thankfully free from too much of Carrey’s characteristic overacting. He plays the role straight, and does a fine job. The Ghost of Christmas Past is the most visually interesting of the three ghosts - basically just a floating head and light, but Carrey perhaps plays the role too quietly, too subtly. Each line reading seems to be extended beyond the amount of time it should take. His Ghost of Christmas Present is a huge, jolly man with a love of life that is contagious. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is truly frightening. I know some kids at the screening I went to were scared of the ghost so be warned. Gary Oldman is the other major actor in the movie, playing Bob Crachit, Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim himself. Again, he plays all three roles straight, not going over the top at all. In fact, he is kind of lifeless in all three roles.

And therein lies the problem with the movie as a whole. No matter how visually interesting the film is, and no matter how faithful a rendition of the classic tale this is, the movie itself is pretty dull. I have seen this story so many times, and yet every time I pop either the 1951 version or A Muppet Christmas Carol into the DVD player, I never fail to get swept up into the story, the performances, the music and everything else about the film. With this version, there just isn’t much there to sink your teeth into. I am glad I saw the film in a theater, where the 3-D effects makes the movies amazing visuals pop, but this time the story just seemed to sit there on screen.

Top Ten Simpsons Episodes of All Time

Our look at The Simpsons ends with my ten favorite episodes. In a way it slightly saddens me that all 10 episodes come from seasons 3-8. I wasn’t surprised that none of the episodes from the first two seasons made it – they were still finding their stride in the early years. But I cannot believe that it has been 13 years since the last of my absolute favorites came out. Of course, when you have a show that 445 episodes and counting, it’s tough to come up with 10, but I did and here they are.

10. Homer at the Bat (Season 3)
What is there not to love about this episode? From Homer’s flashback to the night of the thunderstorm when he made Wonderbat (“Grabbing a large piece of sheet metal, I took cover under the largest tree I could find”), to eight of the nine ringers meeting some sort disaster which keeps them out of the big game (I love Ken Griffey Jr’s enlarged head, Roger Clemens squawking like a chicken, and Wade Boggs getting into a fight over who England’s greatest Prime Minister was with Barney best of all). Daryl Strawberry of course was the star of the show, getting to play a squeaky clean version of himself that everyone but Homer loves. The tear running down his check as Bart and Lisa taunt him is classic. Great references to classic movies The Natural and The Pride of the Yankees were also spot on. The Simpsons have done many episodes based around a sport (Bart in Pee-Wee football and Little League, Bart and Lisa going head to head in hockey), but this is the best of the bunch. Sing it with me know “We’re talking softball…”

9. Bart of Darkness (Season 6)
Season 6’s Season Premier was this twisted, hilarious send up of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Bart and Lisa convinces Homer to get them a pool, and while Lisa becomes popular because of it, Bart breaks his leg and becomes increasingly withdrawn and scary, writing his own, and staring out the window with his telescope. He hears a woman scream next door and then sees Ned Flanders act suspiciously, eventually crying out “I’m a mur-diddily – urdler”. Sending Lisa to investigate, leads to consequences as Flanders comes home and starts stalking through the house with an axe, as Bart tries to get to her, and winds up dragging half the things he encounters on the way with him. The homage to Hitchcock is brilliant, using the same musical cues as the master’s film, and the episode even features a Jimmy Stewart caricature trapped in his wheelchair with a camera looking at Bart. While most of the best Simpsons episodes have a series of memorable quotes, this one doesn’t really have one that stands out (although I do love it when Homer sounds sarcastic at the end of the episode, or when he says “Doh-eth” when the Amish guy correctly tells him that they built a barn and not a pool. Instead, this episode is all about storytelling, and on that level, it has rarely been topped in The Simpsons cannon.

8. Duffless (Season 4)
If The Simpsons has always been a marriage between the more anarchic spirit of Matt Groening, and the sentimentality of James L. Brooks, then Duffless is one of the episodes that get the balance perfectly. Homer goes on a tour of the Duff Brewery with Barney, and then gets busted for drinking and driving. He agrees to go to AA meetings, and give up beer for a month for Marge. Meanwhile, Lisa uses Bart as her science experiment wondering if he is any smarter than a hamster. The episode is full of classic homages to films – Bart reaching for the cupcakes is a reference to A Clockwork Orange, Moe’s final dialogue where he points at the camera comes from Reefer Madness, the Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head sequence comes from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Bart stroking the hamster is a reference to the classic Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofield. The film also has many classic moments, like Homer riding Lisa’s bike, and Ned Flanders confession that he was more animal than man when he drank that raspberry schnapps and called Ann Landers a “boring old biddy”, Chief Wiggum rolling down the hill in a giant beer stein, and later mixing up DOA and DWI. The ending of the episode, where Homer chooses Marge over beer, and the two go on a bike ride together is one of the most beautiful moments in the shows history. In lesser hands, it would have been overly sentimental, but here it is just about perfect.

7. Rosebud (Season 5)
In this classic homage to “the greatest movie ever made”, Citizen Kane, all Mr. Burns wants is his cherished childhood bear Bobo, that has found its way into Maggie’s possession. The film brilliantly plays off the legendary movie, with Burns and Smithers walking around in Burns’ own personal Xanadu, with his cherished possessions, including “King Arthur’s Excalibur, a nude photo of Mark Twain and that rare first draft of the constitution with the word suckers in it”. The episode also features a memorable cameo by The Ramones, who rattle Burns so much that he order Smithers to have the Rolling Stones killed. My favorite quote is Apu’s when Bart tells him that there is a head in the bag of ice and he replies “Oh, a head bag. Those are chock full of… heady goodness”, although Homer saying he’ll never wag his ass in public again, and Lisa’s response “I’d like to believe that this time, I really would”, is a close second. Rosebud does what The Simpsons does best – mixing intelligent references with stupidity and coming up with comic gold.

6. I Love Lisa (Season 4)
I cannot help but love Ralph Wiggum. He is so gloriously clueless, that almost every word out of his mouth is comedy gold. This is far and away the best “Ralph” episode. Lisa, feeling sorry for Ralph on Valentine’s Day gives him a Valentine when no one else did, making Ralph fall in love with her. She then breaks his heart on national TV (Bart relishes watching it in slow motion where “you can pinpoint the exact moment when his heart rips in half”). Then Ralph and Lisa have to do a school play where they play George and Martha Washington. So many great lines in this episode – Ralph’s “The doctor said I would have less nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there”, Miss Hoover’s line to Bart “Do you want to act like a madman, or do you want to play John Wilkes Booth”. There are other classic moments – Skinner’s Apocalypse Now inspired Vietnam flashback, Chief Wiggum chasing a duck to try and get his badge back, Skinner making Willie water down the orange and of course the DJs on the radio constantly playing Monster Mash by mistake on every holiday. I Love Lisa is a perfect Simpsons episode, as it combines everything that is great about the show in one episode.

5. Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadassss Song (Season 5)
I choose this episode for a spot on my top 10 list for one simple reason – it has my favorite Simpsons quote in history. Bart gets Skinner fired accidentally, and Flanders is hired to replace him. The place quickly turns chaotic as Flanders refuses to discipline the students, but Superintendant Chalmers doesn’t really care – that is until Flanders goes on the PA system to thank the lord for a another beautiful school day. That is when Chalmers utters the line “That sounded like a prayer. A prayer in a public school. God has no place within these walls, just like facts have no place within organized religion”. Best. Line. Ever. The rest of the episode is also great with Groundskeeper Willie ripping off his shirt and telling the lunch lady to “Grease me up, woman” so he can squeeze into the air ducts, and Skinner’s response to Bart’s suggestion of making a pass at his commanding officer to get out of the army. “Done and done. And I mean done”. The brilliant Aliens homage in the air ducts, Skinner’s confession that he was shot in the back in Vietnam at a USO show trying “to get Joey Heatherton to put some pants on”, and his idea for a novel that sounds suspiciously like Jurassic Park called “Billy and the Cloneosauras” that Apu rants on and on about. In short, the producers made the right decision to make this the 100th episode, even if my favorite character Homer is barely in it.

4. Homer’s Phobia (Season 8)
In this episode, a trip to the mall leads to The Simpsons meeting John (John Waters), who loves campy things who Homer takes an immediate liking to. That is until he finds out that John is gay, and then worries that hanging around him will turn Bart gay as well. Homer hilarious takes Bart around trying to do manly things – making him stare at a billboard of two scantily clad women having a pillow fight and smoking, and then taking him to a steel plant, only to find out that the entire steel industry has gone gay (“There’s a spark in your hair”, “Get it out, get it out!”) The episode culminates with a hunting trip, that goes awry, and Homer, Moe and Barney taking Bart to Santa’s village to kill a reindeer, only to be saved by John. The best line in the episode is Moe’s (“Saved by a sissy. Looks like it’s suicide again for me”). Along with being one of the funniest episodes the series ever made, this was also quite a daring look at homophobia, a subject that remains taboo all these years later. This one is pure genius.

3. Last Exit to Springfield (Season 4)
“Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “Lisa needs braces.” “Dental Plan.” “If we give up our dental plan, I’ll have to pay for Lisa’s braces!” That is one of classic bits in Simpsons history, as it shows just how slow Homer’s thought processes really are. But this episode is far more than just one brilliant joke. Last Exit to Springfield combines The Simpsons gift for lowbrow humor, with its incredible intelligence. The episode is a brilliant send up of labor unions, and has too many classic scenes and lines to mention them all. I love Lisa’s visit to her horrible dentist (who was supposed to be played by Anthony Perkins, before he got sick and died), the negotiations between Burns and Homer, where first Homer thinks Burns is coming on to him, and then later contains the most intelligent urine joke ever written. Grampa’s story about onions that goes nowhere is another highlight, as is the flashback where a young guy tells Burn’s grandfather that if they’re not careful the Japanese will overtake them to which he replies “The Japanese? Those sandal wearing goldfish tenders? Haha! Bosh! Filmshaw” (I like it, because I’m pretty sure that’s the only time I have ever heard the word Filmshaw). This episode is absolute genius.

2. Homer’s Enemy (Season 8)
One of the worst kept secrets in Springfield is that Homer is incompetent and lazy, but no one ever seems to mind or notice. That is until Frank “Grimey” Grimes gets hired at the power plant, and is amazed at just how stupid Homer really is. Grimey becomes more and more infuriated at Homer’s incompetence, even as Homer tries to win him over. But a trip to the family house only makes Grimey angrier, as Homer lives in a nice house, while Grimes lives in an apartment above a “bowling alley and below another bowling alley”. Finally snapping, after Homer enters a contest for children and wins (“Homer beat their brains out”), Grimey goes on a rampage through the power plant, eventually killing himself. Everything about this episode is absolute perfection. Hank Azaria’s brilliant work as Grimes, Homer eating like a duck and even the subplot about Bart owning a factory downtown that eventually collapses (“I was watching. First it start to fall over. Then it fell over” Milhous tells him). I particularly loved the scene when Grimes comes over to the Simpson house and is amazed by all the stuff Homer has done. Also love that Homer doesn’t know what a 513 is and keeps checking his watch, or Homer admitting he didn’t even know what a “nuclear paner plant was”. Homer is the most lovable oaf in television history, but I loved this episode where someone finally called him out on being an idiot.

1. Cape Feare (Season 5)
At its best, The Simpsons is the best show in television history for poking fun at pop culture. Nowhere did they do this better then in this brilliant send-up of the Martin Scorsese remake of the classic thriller, Cape Fear, which is much better than either movie version. In his third appearance on the show, Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob starts sending Bart threatening letters written in blood from jail. When he gets out, he starts stalking the Simpsons – going to movies with him and laughing hysterically at the latest Ernest movie, or lying in the middle of the street, just before a parade comes by. The episode ends as Bob tracks the Simpsons down on their new houseboat and tries to kill Bart. There is hardly a scene in the episode, or a line that isn’t a classic. Homer not understanding the FBI agents when they tell him he’ll have a new name in witness protection, Sideshow Bob wanting Marge to repeat her last line because he came up with a better response, the drive through the cactus patch, The Simpsons singing the Mikado, Bob singing HMS Pinafore, and then being captured by the police because they drifted by a brothel. Chief Wiggum telling Lou and Eddie to “Bake away toys”, or the parole board asking Bob to change his wording from “urine soaked hellhole” to “pee-pee soaked heckhole” before concluding that “No one who speaks German can be evil”. All of this would be enough to put this episode high on the list of the best in history. But we all know what puts the episode over the top, and vaults it into my number 1 spot. The rakes. Never have a seen a more gloriously stupid, or hilarious gag, then Sideshow Bob getting out from under The Simpsons car and stepping on rake after rake then grimacing. Pure, unadulterated genius.