alexist

We watched it last night (never got to see it in the cinema). Overall very good. My main quibble is that Homer is being mean-stupid, rather than lovable-stupid. I know Homer's become increasingly dumb over the years and he's been mean before, but this seemed over the top. On the show you never doubted that under it all, Homer really loves his family and eventually will give in for them--in the film he goes too far.

Also, the film never tells you what happens to the pig! Wikipedia says that there was a deleted scene and they predicted it would be on the DVD but it wasn't. It does say that he's come back in the current series (god knows when I'll see that now that we don't have Sky!)

Some really excellent gags though and I'm surprised they stuck to one tight storyline rather than the plethora of storylines that later episodes have had--the lead-in to the main plot has taken a third of the episode in later seasons! The quality of the animation was also noticeably higher. I liked that they resisted the temptation to put in lots of celebrity voices--some of the celebrity special voices recently haven't actually done anything for the show.

I'd actually like to see an SNPP capsule review of the episode listing all the gags and references ;)

I am now, of course, watching it again in case I missed anything.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22194269/

7 years and NOW they're claiming cultural issues?? "She wouldn't eat their food" - she'd been with them since shortly after she was born; their food was all she'd ever known.

I suspect it's one of two things:

1) the wife's new pregnancy;

2) she had special needs that they couldn't/didn't want to handle.

I'm finding it hard to feel any sympathy for the couple--the child is going to have huge abandonment issues, and even if the story is more complicated they're doing themselves no favours by using such a transparently false reason. Moreover, she was as much theirs as any biological child--she'd lived with them her whole life. Would they abandon their biological child? I doubt it.

Update: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/12/diplomat_in_adoption_row_answe.php - the father says that there were ongoing attachment issues and that specialists recommended the child be removed. It still doesn't add up 100% for me - it took 7 years to get to this point?

article you might be interested in, if you haven't seen it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/business/13defib.html

from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/Jack-t.html?ref=books

"Today its equivalent as the national dish is said to be chicken tikka masala, a popular, yellow-sauced invention of Britain’s Indian restaurants."

I don't know where she's been eating but chicken tikka masala as I've seen it has a red sauce, from the tomatoes! (legend has it that the first one involved Heinz tomato soup)