The Simpsons, Tsotsi, Reign Over Me

The Simpsons Movie - 3.0 I'll start off by saying I'm not a huge fan of The Simpsons - I haven't watched it regularly in years. I was intrigued by the prospect of a movie, especially when I saw it was around 90% on rottentomatoes. While there were some funny moments (mostly provided by Homer), the overall product was disappointing. It was essentially a normal episode, only 4 times longer. Whereas the South Park franchise successfully used its movie to stretch the boundaries and do things that weren't possible on a cable TV show, it seems like the producers of The Simpsons were happy to just make the movie essentially the same as the TV show, undoubtedly knowing that they would be making a ton of money either way. The funniest part might have been the opening sequence where a bunch of people in Springfield are watching the new Itchy and Scratchy movie and Homer stands up and asks why the hell did you pay to see something you could see for free. It was the same thought I had after this movie had ended. Tsotsi - 6.0 This South African film won the best foreign language category at the Academy Awards two years ago. It tells a coming of age story of a young criminal living in a Johannesburg slum. Overall, it's relatively effective in getting the viewer to identify with and feel sympathy for the main character as the plot moves along. It is a pretty good, small film and to his credit, the writer/director Gavin Hood, seemed to realize this and not go overboard with broader and more ambitious goals. This is both its strength and weakness - strength because as it was, it was a pretty good movie and if it had tried to do more it probably would have failed. However, this was also its weakness because unlike a movie like City of God it never really had a chance to be great. Reign Over Me - 4.0 If I had written this review right after seeing this movie, I would've probably given it a better rating. But as time has passed, I realize it was pretty ordinary and not really memorable at all. Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler both give strong performances, which is pretty much the comprehensive list of the things this movie did well. The rest of the movie was unexceptional at best, and contrived (Sandler's character beginning a relationship with the random psycho hot girl who wanted to get with Cheadle earlier in the movie) and poorly acted (Liv Tyler sucks) at worst.