Share and Enjoy [?] Maybe it was the pink doughnut. Maybe it was the clever homemade video or small-town charm.
Maybe Homer just figured it was time to go green. Whatever the reason, this much is true: Tiny Springfield, Vt., beat out 13 other like-named cities Tuesday for the right to host the premiere of “The Simpsons Movie,” winning an online poll it wasn’t even invited to participate in.
Tennessee’s Springfield came in eighth. On July 21, the town’s 100-seat movie theater will play host to the movie, which opens July 27. Vermont got 15,367 votes, edging out Springfield, Ill.
, with 14,634. Vermont’s Springfield has a bowling alley, a pub, a prison and a nuclear power plant just down the road. Jim Douglas congratulated the town.
“This is an exciting, exhilarating moment for Vermonters,” he said. “To all the other Springfields, I say ‘Don't have a cow, man.’ ” Actor and director Mel Gibson met with Costa Rica’s president to discuss making a financial donation to help the Central American nation’s Indians.
“He wants to help the indigenous population here and wants to know how to channel the funds,” President Oscar Arias told reporters. Arias said Gibson would return to Costa Rica in a month to arrange how much money he would donate and to which organization. Gibson has avoided the press in prior trips to Costa Rica but spent a few minutes answering questions from reporters.
Asked about Arias, the winner of the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on a peace deal that ended Central America’s civil wars, Gibson said: “I’m a fan.” A kitschy landmark that made a cameo in the movie “Wayne’s World” will be dismantled to make way for a pharmacy in Berwyn, Ill. The towering sculpture of eight cars impaled by a massive steel pipe became famous for its appearance in the 1992 comedy starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey.
Despite years of rust and layers of bird droppings, the Spindle — also known as the “Car Kabob” and the “Eight Car Pileup” — continues to draw movie fans to a shopping center parking lot in this suburb west of Chicago. “From a marketing standpoint, I like the Spindle,” said Berwyn Mayor Michael O’Connor. “It has definitely been a plus for the community.
” Still, he said, the quirky sculpture will be removed this summer to make way for a Walgreens pharmacy. It could be moved elsewhere, though the cost of doing so would likely be high. California artist Dustin Shuler, who built the piece in 1989, calls the dismantling “painful” and “a loss for Chicago.
” “Personally, I would have moved the Walgreens and left the Spindle where it is,” he said. Please read our and Comparison Shop for Share and Enjoy [?
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