Just the opening minutes of "The Simpsons Movie."

I had gone to the 20th Century Theatre to escape the madness. A man only has so much rope until his buoy disappears under the surface forever, and all this talk about all-terrain vehicle parks and $19.8 million in general obligation bonds for a Mendenhall Valley pool had left me teetering on a rocky shelf.

Springfield seemed saner. The town had pressing concerns. The lake was polluted. The Lard Lad was closing. It all seemed so tangible, so real.

But, of course, when Homer and family were roosted from the cryogenically sealed Superfund dome by an angry torch-wielding mob, the Simpsons made the same decision as so many Douglas Island transplants before them.

They chose to hide in Alaska.

"Alaska!" Homer says. "Where you can never be too fat or too drunk, and where no one ever asks, 'Where's your high school equivalency?'"

Amen. You take away that percent of the population, and this may as well be New Hampshire.

Rarely had the state's vast, windswept majesty been so eloquently encapsulated by the powers of Hollywood. I thought of "The Love Boat" and "Baywatch" as two examples of casts that had stopped for a visit, swung and grounded out weakly back to the pitcher.

As Bart clapped from a snowy promontory, triggering an avalanche that buried Homer alive, the audience chuckled knowingly. We've all pulled that prank. And for once, I was glad I didn't illegally download the movie off the Internet.

It's true, what a friend told me. You need to be with other Alaskans as you watch Homer play "Grand Theft Walrus" in a Fairbanks-style saloon. To do otherwise would be like passing up the chance to watch "Escape from New York" in Manhattan, or "Airplane II" on the moon.

Really, what is the essential nature of cinema? It is both mirror and prism - reflecting, refracting, casting crystalline colors, shades of candy DOTS onto celluloid.

We watched Homer embark on a vision quest with the help of a kindly Inuit. And we thought, "Yes, I too, have become confused and disoriented while looking for pasta sauce among the bright lights of the new Fred Meyer."

• Korry Keeker can be reached at 523-2268 or korry.keeker@juneauempire.com.