“You know who the real victim is in all of this? Milhouse.” – Marge Simpson Zombie Simpsons excels at telling the audience what is happening rather than showing them, which is the script writing equivalent of being a bricklayer who doesn’t use mortar. Show don’t tell is so fundamental to the job that you have to wonder how anyone could forget it, and the proof is in the piles of rubble that they try to pass off as finished work. Case in point from this week’s dreary “The War of Art” was Milhouse’s reaction to his parents breaking up. Thanks…
Tag: The War of Art
Behind Us Forever: The War of Art
“Oh, Kenny, look at the interplay of light and shadow. It’s so luminous and vibrant!” – Lisa Simpson “Thanks, Lisa, I painted that one. The real one’s in my garage.” – Kenny the Museum Guard If there is one topic on which Zombie Simpsons has a thorough and well practiced knowledge, it is imitating great art. That didn’t help them keep “The War of Art” from being a meandering, exposition filled wasteland, of course, but it does add a nice level of unintentional meta-irony that will help you through what passes for the third act. By the time Max von…
Sunday Preview: The War Of Art
Marge and Homer get a bargain on a painting at the Van Houten’s yard sale, and later learn that it is a masterpiece worth $100,000, so they wrestle with splitting the money with their neighbors or keeping it all. I am sure it isn’t going to be that much of the plot, but the aura of disappointment and general failure with which The Simpsons paints Kirk Van Houten used to be one of my favorite things. However, that was nearly a generation ago, and over the years it is starting to wear thin. Seriously, “A Milhouse Divided” aired in 1996.…