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Author Archives: Andrew Bloom
The Martyr
Today is the day that I will die.
And I am okay with that. I’m scared. I can’t lie about that fact, but I’m okay. The fear in my heart swells, but then it fades. It invades my thoughts in the few quiet moments I have to myself, but dulls and winnows in the times that should be the most daunting.
That’s what bothers me. They sell it you as this straight line. They tell you that everything in you will rise and rise and rise until the big moment. That you’ll just keep going up and up and up. But it doesn’t, and you don’t. It rises and falls, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, never so focused or so direct, even when it feels like you’re headed in the right direction.
But I will be a martyr.
Can Greatness Just Be Funny? – The Simpsons and “Marge on the Lam” (s05e06)
Mike Scully is, however unfairly, the bête noire of The Simpsons in the eyes of the show’s most ardent fans. Scully was the series’ showrunner for seasons 9-12, and he shoulders much of the blame for the show’s decline. One of the most frequent criticisms leveled against Scully is that he had no mind for story or character. Instead, the episodes under his watch have been slammed as nothing more than joke after joke with no deeper grounding in storytelling or consistent characterization to add color or depth to the comedy.
But Mike Scully was hired by a man who has both faced similar criticisms and presided over some of the show’s peak years. David Mirkin joined The Simpsons as the series’ showrunner for seasons 5 and 6. He brought with him a brand new staff, including Mike Scully, after the departure of most of the show’s stalwart writers from the first four seasons.
Mirkin was known for having few concerns about realism in The Simpsons. His only writing credit on the show is for “Deep Space Homer” an outlandish (and subsequently lampshaded) tale where Homer’s angry crank calls somehow lead to him joining N.A.S.A. and launching into space with Buzz Aldrin. While the show’s most devoted fans look back on Mirkin’s tenure fondly, some of those same diehards point to this lack of grounding and diminish him in comparison to other showrunners from the series history. In fact, a recurring criticism of David Mirkin is that he was merely “Mike Scully with better jokes.”
“Marge on the Lam” was the first episode produced under his watch, and it does little to contradict this narrative of Mirkin leading a “nothing but gags” administration. The episode is jam-packed with jokes, many of them pretty outrageous, and story and heart clearly take a backseat to the humor.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged David Mirkin, Mike Scully, The Simpsons Season 5
2 Comments
It’s Still a (Reasonably) Wonderful Life
Classic films tend to evoke a decidedly mixed response from me at first blush. On the one hand, I’m drawn to them. I find myself enticed to not only find out what all the fuss is about, but to consume one more piece of our national zeitgeist. Seeing a film that’s as sewn into fabric of our popular culture as It’s a Wonderful Life gives me a connection both to the scores of other people who’ve seen the film and to the America that only exists in Norman Rockwell paintings.
That connection creates a yearning for an idyllic past that never existed beyond the original celluloid. It’s perpetuated annually as families gather ’round for another holiday rebroadcast. I don’t mean this as a knock against the film. In harmony with the story of the movie itself, the viewer can see something that might have been, but never was, and use it to gain a bit of perspective. It creates a connection to the myriad individuals who find themselves reaching for that same popular myth — real people united by a shared, imaginary reference point.
Despite this, and perhaps because of this, I also watch these films with an unavoidable air of skepticism. We live in an age that thrives on and revels in the slaughter of sacred cows. Irony, sarcasm, and cynicism are the order of the day, and I am hard-pressed to resist. I do my best to keep an open mind going into these movies, but there’s a part of me that invariably has to be tamped down — a part that’s perpetually prepared to ask, “what’s the big deal?”
Posted in Classic Films, Movies
Tagged Chance, Christmas, Holiday Season, Irony, It's a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart, Uncertainty
2 Comments
A Fond Farewell to the Humble Twinkie
My cat Jasper loved Twinkies. Well…he sort of loved them. His favorite pastime was figuring out how to break into the box, wrestle out the individually wrapped twinkies, and bite at them through the plastic. At some point, my Mom had had enough. She took one out of the packaging and just gave it to Jasper. He took a few sniffs of the rounded pastry, looked at it quizzically, and went on his merry way. For Jasper, Twinkies were a chew toy, not a snack.
Maybe he was onto something. I shudder to think about the assorted sugary treats that I was shamelessly tantalized into buying as a kid. I consumed everything from Ghostbusters “Ectoplasm” Hi-C, to a dizzying assortment of candy-coated cereals, to fruit snacks that looked like my favorite cartoon characters and tasted like a cross between erasers and air fresheners. But Twinkies, if you’ll pardon the expression, took the cake.
Why I’m Secretly Kind of Excited About Hurricane Sandy
When I was a kid I used to “root” for storms.
It seems kind of crazy now, but I distinctly remember watching the crawl at the bottom of the T.V. screen anytime a storm was coming, hoping it would head my way. Growing up in Tornado Alley, this happened frequently enough to make it a regular event. I would sit there watching T.G.I.F., hear the familiar alarm clock-esque warning screech, and quickly scan the list of affected areas. Somehow, when our county was included in the latest Flash Flood Alert or “T-Storm Warning,” it was a badge of honor
It’s hard to explain why I was so excited by this. I think part of it has to do with the idea that I liked the feeling of being safe amidst the chaos. That impulse says a great deal about some of the inherent perversity that comes with privilege. I grew up with an unquestioned assumption of security. Storms were little more than exciting shows that I could watch through the back window in complete safety. Natural disasters were a terror I was aware of, but also immune from. Scenes of flooding and damage on the local news were only narrowly distinguished from thrilling clips from a disaster movie. It’s one of those early mindsets born from the ignorance of your own advantages that makes you look back and shudder.
Posted in Other Art and Culture
Tagged Applecarters, Hurricanes, Noah's Ark, Storms, Weather
8 Comments
What Makes Zombies So Frightening?
The easy is answer is pretty straightforward — because they’re walking corpses who feast on human flesh. But there’s more to it than that. Movie monsters come and go. Some are corny, some are genuinely frightening, but most are fairly transient in the popular imagination. And yet zombies have been strangely and ironically durable. There’s something about the idea of the undead, something that makes zombies both unnerving and compelling, that has made them an indelible part of American horror cinema.
The Second Breakfast Podcast (from the inestimable Andy Roth and Phil DeVaul) discussed this topic in their most recent podcast. I encourage you all to watch it in its entirety:
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_IKEfizfX4″]
The Second Breakfast guys raise a number of good points about what makes zombies frightening: First, the undead multiply very quickly. Zombie movies play on our fears about a devastating outbreak and an inability to contain a quickly-spreading contagion. Part of the terror comes from the idea that the outbreak is so sudden, and so foreign, that by the time anyone realizes what’s happening, it’s already too late.
Second, you cannot outlast zombies. They’re a continually lurching horror, one that cannot be simply ignored or waited out. This longevity adds to the looming sense of dread in every zombie film. The survivors in a zombie film are not simply waiting for the storm to pass so things can return to normal. They’re trying to figure out what kind of life they can have in a world where they’re under a constant, mortal threat.
Third, they’re your friends and neighbors. There’s something inherently unsettling about having to kill something that, whatever its level of decay and depravity, still appears human. As Andy Roth describes in the above video, zombie movies often feature characters having to kill one of their close friends or family members who’ve turned. There’s an added level of horror to the idea of having to slay a monster who still looks like someone you love, and it makes the undead unique among cinematic monsters.
But I think there’s something else, something more elemental, that makes zombies not only frightening but also compelling as monsters.
The Simpsons – Moonshine River (s24e01) | The Andrew Review
“I’m not gay. I’m not anything yet.” Bart Simpson’s nerdly friend Martin said those words in a Season 16 episode and reminded us that the children of Springfield have had a surprisingly robust romantic life for a pack of eight-to-ten year olds. Very few cartoon characters age, and for most animated shows, that’s not much of a problem. But when the audience has been watching a show’s adventures for more than two decades and yet the characters technically haven’t aged a day, a certain disconnect develops.
That’s why it’s a little strange that the premise of The Simpsons Season 24 premiere, “Moonshine River,” is a wistful look back at Bart’s halcyon, prepubescent loves. We’ve seen the characters on The Simpsons have a sizable number of adventures and go through a healthy dose of character development in the 500+ episodes the show has aired so far. Yet the status quo is supposed to be roughly the same as when the series started.
Granted, the blink and you miss it cameos from Sarah Michelle Gellar (Gina from “The Wandering Juvie”), Natalie Portman (Darcy from “Little Big Girl”), Anne Hathaway (Jenny from “The Good, the Sad, and the Drugly”), and Sarah Silverman (Nikki from “Stealing First Base”) portend that this episode was not meant to be a particularly deep look back at Bart’s nascent yet prolific love life. But it’s still a bit odd to watch Bart reminisce about his collection of old flames as a wee fourth-grader.
Posted in Television, The Simpsons
Tagged Bart SImpson, New York City, Zooey Deschanel
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Monday Night Football: Packers vs. Seahawks
Posted in Sports
Tagged Green Bay Packers, NFL, Officiating, Replacement Referees, Seattle Seahawks, Whose Line Is It Anyway?
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Sean Lee and The Replacement Referees: Protecting the Head and Saving Face
If there’s one point I’ve harped on time and time again with the Dallas Cowboys, it’s penalties. Too often, these discipline-related mistakes have stalled comebacks, extended opponents’ drives, and had a big impact on the Cowboys’ chances for success.
Yet, despite this past Sunday’s miserable showing against the Seahawks, getting flagged was not a big issue for Dallas. Yes, Seattle’s vaunted 12th man caused a false start here or there, and an unfortunate facemask call took away a much needed sack, but by-and-large penalties did not change this game. That is, except for one.
In the fourth quarter, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson scrambled down the left sideline to move the team out of Seattle territory, with Sean Lee in hot pursuit. As Wilson was being chased down, an unseen Golden Tate came out of nowhere to deliver a crushing block to Lee, sending him hard to the turf. Meanwhile, fellow Dallas inside linebacker Bruce Carter pushed Wilson out of bounds to end the play. There was an audible gasp in the stadium at the punishing blow from Tate, who preened and gesticulated after the play. Lee, meanwhile, required medical attention on the field from the Cowboys’ training staff.
You can see the play here:
Posted in Sports
Tagged Dallas Cowboys, NFL, Officiating, Player Safety, Sean Lee, Seattle Seahawks
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