Older fans of Homer, Marge, and the rest of the Simpsons gang have been dreading the release of The Simpsons Movie ever since it was announced a few years ago. We simply prayed it wouldn't be too terrible, although we secretly feared it would be. So now I've seen it. Here's what I thought:

The Simpsons Movie (Fox)

Its cultural impact without question and its cool factor forever tarnished by too many recent seasons of subpar, repetitive juvenile humor, The Simpsons brand didn’t need a terrible movie to further emphasize how long in the tooth it is, how distant it now is from its moment in the sun. In a sign that miracles happen – and that my most cynical, pessimistic thoughts aren’t always proven true – the movie instead turns out to be far from terrible. In fact, it’s pretty terrific – perhaps never quite reaching the inspired level of the best episodes but, astonishingly, repackaging the show’s well-worn thematic motifs with enough juice that they’re fresh for the 100th time. Plus, the subpar, repetitive juvenile humor is largely nonexistent – that has to be because they brought back the older, better writers, right? Its widescreen look is appropriately epic, and the displays of emotion totally convincing. (I had forgotten how this show in its prime could make me choke up.) The attacks on religion, politics and media are no longer shocking because the program’s core sweetness won’t allow it to stoop to the level of base meanness that’s made Family Guy a teen sensation. But sweetness is what makes The Simpsons Movie’s gags, puns, and belly laughs not just funny but endearing. And it’s got a really great dick joke, too. 

The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal)

We fans of The Bourne Supremacy have something we'd like to say to all you new fans of the Bourne series: Where ya been? Ultimatum is a pulverizing physical experience – it pounds you when it's not simply wringing you out – but those who were blown away by Supremacy (and, specifically, by its director, Paul Greengrass) may find this new installment to simply be a new iteration of what’s already been done so terrifically. Plus, I prefer Supremacy's emotional underpinnings to Ultimatum's heavy-handed political warnings that, watch out, America may kill people for no reason in the name of truth, justice, liberty, etc. I don't want to be too harsh on this movie – these are the best action films going, especially if you compare them to crap like Transformers – but I can't help but notice how other people's reviews seem to have discovered something new this time around. It was all there before, folks, and while it's all there again, it's less shockingly new.  

Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)

Tight songs, compact melodies, Britt Daniel’s always-present sneering voice. Everything’s in place – all I could ask for is one tune I unquestionably loved. After two albums of near-perfect, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (to pronounce the title correctly, say it fast) seems to be a consolidation of strengths instead of what I would have preferred: another Spoon record that becomes the bedrock for the next several months of my life. Reaching for soul, pining for someone in opaque language and even more-opaque music, going on about the merits of Airborne and a Japanese cigarette case, Daniel is still the coolest guy in the room. But never before had I noticed how much his gnomic persona requires hooks that absolutely, positively work at every single moment. An irresistible songwriter who this time around has written some resistible songs: I’ll still play Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga all year, but not nearly with as much adoration as I had hoped to.  

Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather (Virgin)

Guilty of failing to come up with another "Stacy's Mom" for their latest album, Fountains of Wayne have doomed themselves to a commercial dud of a follow-up. Not that you should care, intelligent and discriminating listener. At least half of the new record is a winner – these guys again prove they understand the common problems and small details of desperately normal lives. (And if they're being fed info from the regular people around them, at least they pay close attention and empathize.) For such beloved popmeisters, it's actually the music that hampers Traffic and Weather, keeping it from the unbelievable heights of Welcome Interstate Managers (i.e. the "Stacy's Mom" album). Like Steely Dan but kinder, they write about losers who could fall off the map at any point. And even when the songs don't connect, the lyrics – which are included – are always worth a look.  

Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (Epic)

Like his creative godfather Tom Waits, Isaac Brock has no problem making essentially the same album twice in a row. Fans of either artist will quickly counter that, really, they aren’t the same album – one’s more uptempo than the other, or some instrumentation has changed, or the world has changed during the interim. So even if Good News for People Who Love Bad News’s high level of quality isn’t quite matched by the new eight-word-album-title, it’s damn close enough. Surly even when he’s singing sweetly, Brock has reached his 30s surprisingly intact, perhaps less willfully weird but still harboring any number of grudges and fatalistic urges. This one expands on the last one’s rustic atmospherics, but it’s not like he doesn’t still indulge in his tantrums. Which, I have to say, are becoming more eloquent all the time.  

Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger (Lost Highway)

When he made an album full of straight-ahead rock 'n' roll a few years back, he was honest enough to call it Rock N Roll. Aiming for the tasteful indie-country crowd now (and maybe trying to stabilize a career that used to be volatile but currently is a wreck), he fails to name the new record Starbucks. But he does bring the tunes – at least for a while. For about four or five songs, he strikes the mother lode, merging the youthful melodrama of his Whiskeytown years and the developed songcraft of his later solo career. He goes soggy after a while, and the tunes wilt into an acoustic mush. But then he regains his form for the end. Overall, he's best – as he always has been – when he lets you know how overdramatic he behaves when love goes wrong. Easy Tiger is a career-saver because it's consistent – even the weakest tracks are short and crisp enough that you won't turn it off. You may not bother to pay attention, but you won't turn it off. 

Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings (through Sept. 2 at The Theatre @ Boston Court)

Experiencing a theater piece as viscerally overpowering as Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings is to be reminded just how terribly overrated rational thought really is when evaluating artistic work. With music and book by Eric Whitcare, this mythical tale about fallen angels left behind to wait for the return of their winged parents has all the telltale signs of a potentially disastrous mess of pretentious proportions: a techno-heavy score, post-apocalyptic undertones, Lord of the Flies seriousness, liberal helpings of post-9/11 symbolism, angels as main characters. And yet two-and-a-half-hours later, I stumbled from the 99-seat theater suitably stunned, speechless, utterly engrossed. There are dozens of potential complaints to be made about yet-another sci-fi reworking of our bedtime stories and contemporary anxieties, but the audacity of director Michael Michetti’s vision is so bold and complete that you can’t stop raving about the many, many, many things here that work so well, which includes the cast, the songs, the set design, and the well-choreographed fight scenes – not to mention the many small moments where the wrong choice would have resulted in embarrassed laughs but instead exude a confidence in taking pretentious ideas and making something of them.