I saw The Simpsons movie. On Friday. With a friend I haven’t seen since late April since he’s been doing something productive with his non-work hours for the last few years and, um, going to law school. It’s actually nice to have a friend you catch up with every few months as opposed to every few days - it leaves plenty to talk about, and you tend to be more discerning about which news you actually share. The cream rises to the top and all that jazz.

Anyway, yes, I was one of the millions of people* who contributed their hard-earned ‘Merican moneys towards the $71 million which, I am almost certain, had some link (if only symbolic) to the deaths of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni.

I don’t mean that in a bad way. I enjoy both Bergman and Groening. A little searching actually turns up a little connective tissue. In the sixth episode of The Simpsons entitled, “Moaning Lisa”, our friends at Wikipedia (where else) inform us that:

In the script, the opening scene with Lisa looking into the mirror is called “an Ingmar Bergman moment.”

(Both writers of that episode attended Harvard… not that it’s proof positive of anything, but certain schools have certain reputations and certain cultural references are attributed to a certain educational background…)

The reason I’m mentioning the movie at all now? Because Wil Wheaton summed it up perfectly in his review on his blog.

The best part of his review, however, is the “Drawback to seeing it in the theater” section. I thought the actions he described were limited to a certain segment of boorish northern NJ audiences, so I’m almost glad to hear that it’s not the case and that people are sort of oblivious and moronic all over the place. The audience in our theatre was just distractingly annoying–which is not the norm. I suppose it is something about feeling like you’re in your living room. Well said, Mr. Wheaton.

*My estimate is about 10.1 million people, if we use an average ticket price of $7 a ticket (the 2006 stat was $6.55 from the Natl. Assoc. of Theatre Owners).