#EverySimpsonsEver -- Day Seven

And on the seventh day, the marathon continues. A few of the episodes I've chosen are probably not entirely must-see, but within the episodes are enough moments of greatness that I don't feel they should be missed. Your mileage may vary.

And while it's not listed below, the Season 13 finale, "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge," airing at 11:30 am, features one of my favorite all-time lines, one that is just impossible for me to quote in person. In the episode Homer opens his own security firm, leading to this remark to Marge: "You know, I've had a lot of jobs -- boxer, mascot, astronaut, imitation Krusty, baby-proofer, trucker, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, grifter, bodyguard for the mayor, country/western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe and missionary -- but protecting Springfield, that gives me the best feeling of all."

MUST-SEE!

8/27 2:00 AM ET “A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love” -- Mr. Burns, responding to a fortune cookie written by Homer (one of the jobs listed above), falls in love with a meter maid played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Burns wants Homer's help in winning her heart.

8/27 3:00 AM ET “She of Little Faith” -- An accident that wrecks the church leads to Burns paying for its repair in exchange for things like ads and vibrating recliners. This leads to Lisa becoming a Buddhist.

8/27 5:00 AM ET “Half-Decent Proposal” -- Artie Ziff is now wealthy but still obsessed with Marge. You can sort of guess from the title what happens. And the ending features an adaptation of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)."

8/27 5:30 AM ET “The Bart Wants What It Wants” -- The Simpsons are going to Toronto! (Marge: "It's so clean and bland...I'm home!")

8/27 7:30 AM ET “Blame It on Lisa” -- The Simpsons are going to Brazil!

8/27 9:00 AM ET “I Am Furious Yellow” -- The Simpsons are going to...oh, sorry. Bart creates Angry Dad, a comic book character (based on Homer, duh) that is turned into an Internet cartoon.

8/27 12:00 PM ET “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation” -- Would you go to a rock-and-roll fantasy camp with instructors Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Lenny Kravitz, Brian Setzer, Tom Petty and Elvis Costello? I would. And so would Homer.

8/27 2:00 PM ET “The Great Louse Detective” -- Someone is trying to kill Homer. Chief Wiggum decides that in order to catch the criminal he needs someone who thinks like a criminal. Hence, Sideshow Bob moves in with the Simpsons. Bob to Homer: "How can one man have so many enemies?" Homer: "I'm a people person!...who...drinks."

8/27 2:30 PM ET “Special Edna” -- Probably my favorite from the latter half of the series' history. Skinner's ineptness at romancing Krabappel leads to Bart nominating her for the Teacher of the Year awards in Orlando, and the Simpsons get to go along. So many good lines.

8/27 5:00 PM ET “I’m Spelling as Fast as I Can” -- Lisa wins the school spelling bee and works her way up to the Spell-lympics, a national contest. Unfortunately, she's asked to lose on purpose.

8/27 6:00 PM ET “Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington” -- Krusty runs for Congress. Not really a realistic episode but the depictions of Fox News are perfect.

8/27 7:30 PM ET “Three Gays of the Condo” -- Going gay again. After a fight with Marge, Homer moves out of the house -- and into Springfield's gayborhood.

8/27 8:00 PM ET “Dude, Where’s My Ranch?” -- More for the beginning, which features Homer trying to write a new Christmas carol (the one Usher stole), which turns into "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders," which -- with David Byrne's production -- becomes a hit so big even Flanders and his boys are singing along.

8/27 11:30 PM ET “The President Wore Pearls” -- A takeoff on "Evita," despite the closing on-screen disclaimer.

MEH. M-E-H, MEH.

8/27 3:30 AM ET “Brawl in the Family”

8/27 4:00 AM ET “Sweets and Sour Marge”

8/27 6:00 AM ET “The Lastest Gun in the West”

8/27 8:30 AM ET “Gump Roast” -- Another clip show...although it does include the song "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons."

8/27 10:30 AM ET “The Frying Game”

8/27 1:30 PM ET “Helter Shelter”

8/27 3:00 PM ET “The Dad Who Knew Too Little”

8/27 8:30 PM ET “Old Yeller-Belly”

Quick Reviews: Miserable(s) Hobbit Guilt

Another wrapup of three movies I've recently seen. (The title format for these movie posts might become a regular thing.) Also, these and a few others will go into the 2012 summary based on their release date, not when I actually get to see them, although in these three cases I actually did see them in 2012. Warning: you might find my opinion of one of these to be controversial.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was just too long, drawn out, at times incredibly boring. The only reason to expand this story into a trilogy like its "Lord of the Rings" predecessor is money. Don't let anyone tell you differently. However, I thought it looked wonderful. I watched the 48-frames-per-second version (twice the standard rate), which caused a lot of consternation when some early footage was released, and despite the fact that I also had to endure 3D, I found it to be extremely crisp visually. My grade: C-plus.

Not filmed in 3D or 48 frames per second, The Guilt Trip will cause no consternation or controversy whatsoever. As a mother-and-son duo making a cross-country trip we're given a phoning-it-in Barbra Streisand and a neutered-for-PG13 Seth Rogen. There are a few mild laughs but there's nothing new or innovative about this at all. It's basically harmless. My grade: C.

Let be me honest: I walked out of Les Miserables early. I saw over an hour, but that was enough. I am not against musicals, even musicals with virtually no spoken dialogue whatsoever. I like musicals. But this one just sounded like everyone sang the same loooooooooooooong song. Even as one scene bleeds into another, even as the film jumps years ahead to continue the story, the songs were virtually indistinguishable. (Compare it to "Evita," which also has very little speaking and also has a couple of time jumps, but at least there's variety and clarity.) The only things that snapped me out of my stupor: Anne Hathaway's passion in singing "I Dreamed A Dream" and woefully-miscast Russell Crowe's painful vocals on whatever song or songs he sang. As it went on, and as more characters were introduced, I became increasingly disinterested. This was an absolute mess in every way (except the aforementioned Hathaway bit). Finally, I could take no more. And I even I managed to sit through all of "Rock of Ages." Still, I'm giving it a better grade than "Rock of Ages" just because of "I Dreamed A Dream." So, it's got that going for it, which is nice. My grade: D-minus.

The Sun Sets On Manhattan

I'm going to try and get caught up on posting my photo albums from my various trips. This slideshow has most of the photos from my trip to New York City at the end of July. (I posted pics from my visit to the 9/11 Memorial separately, you may recall.)

I arrived on Sunday afternoon and, after checking into my hotel (Comfort Inn on the Upper West Side -- I got a nice rate but it wasn't so great -- refer to the first picture in the slideshow) I went for a walk and discovered a street festival on Columbus Avenue. After I had a margarita and a huge burrito for dinner (not planned, but it started to rain and the place was right there) I took the subway to Brooklyn, and walked around the riverfront park, eventually arriving at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Then I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. Some of the pics I took during this time of the skyline are among my favorites of all the pictures I've ever taken.

Hashtag NBCFAIL

I have so much to write about that I'm backlogged again. Let's see: two movies, my recent trip to New York (seeing Ricky Martin in Evita, seeing the new Yankee Stadium, etc.), I bought some comic books that aren't Simpsons or Futurama, posting my photos and videos from Bastille Day at Eastern State, not to mention the latest crop of Daily News Sexy Singles.

So why am I writing about NBC?

First, they've made me lose interest in the Summer Olympics. Between the chopped-up tape-delayed events, the near-constant athlete profiles and inane features, the mere presence of Ryan Seacrest, the butchering of the Opening Ceremony, their massive hype about having so many events live online (some of the biggest events weren't actually available online and there have been quite a few complaints about screens freezing and lots of buffering -- and besides, I personally don't want to watch sports on a computer, I WANT TO WATCH THEM ON MY HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION), and above all, their arrogant insistence that critics of their coverage must be wrong because the TV ratings are so high, when I actually do have the Olympics on, it's mostly just in the background with me barely paying attention.

(By the way, Blogger doesn't let me put a pound sign in a post title, which is why this post isn't called  #NBCFAIL. I think that's a #BloggerFAIL, to be honest. Or a #GoogleFAIL, since they own it.)

But that's not all.

NYC: Yotel, High Line

I make a quick one-day trip to New York City about three weeks ago. I met up with my friend Mark, visiting from Toronto, and we saw a new off-Broadway musical called "Dogfight," which is based on a movie starring River Phoenix (which was not a musical). I recommend it if you're in NYC. Here's a review from the New York Times.

After the show we met up with locals Steve and Pat, had dinner at the restaurant at Mark's hotel and then we all visited the High Line -- the elevated freight railroad tracks turned into a public park. Very cool. (There are people who want to create a similar park in Philly, on a stretch known as the Reading Viaduct. Money and politics and local infighting will probably keep this from happening for a while.) On Sunday I'm going back to NYC and spending three nights (seeing Ricky Martin in "Evita" is my only firm plan right now), and I may visit the High Line again.

I took lots of pictures of the park and the surrounding buildings, some skyline shots, various art installations in the park, etc. I also have some pictures of the hotel -- it's this very futuristic place called Yotel. Among other things, it's got an automated bag storage system just inside the front door.

Robot arm!

Too Long For Twitter: Stand Back, Philadelphia...

...because you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me: just a little touch of star quality!

Yep, the Evita song "Buenos Aires" is stuck in my head this morning. (The classic Patti LuPone Broadway original, that is, not the Madonna movie version or that "Glee" thing the other night.) And this, on a little more than 3 hours' sleep after having a rather tough week. This could be an interesting day.

Speaking of star quality, my friend Kurt was fantastic last night in his featured role in the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus holiday concert, "Nutcracker: A Tale of Sugar Plum Fairies." There are two more shows, this afternoon and tonight. Go see it.

I hope to see a movie today, and if so, tell you about it more promptly than I did with the ones I saw recently.

For now, I leave you with this: Justin Timberlake's musical comeback hit has already been written for him...