Venture Bros: Self-Medication
"Self-Medication," in a way, removes all the subtext from The Venture Bros: this is a show about child abuse, plain and simple. Rusty was abused by his father, everyone in Rusty’s therapy group was either abused by their fathers or father-figures (even Ro-Boy reserves his rage for "big robots"), Rusty abuses his own children by putting them in the care of a pedophile. "Boy adventure" almost becomes a code-word for trauma suffered at the hands of an abusive father. The group therapist, quite eloquently, considering, explains that his patients’ behavior is what they do to keep themselves from dealing with their real problems — they are obsessed with their "boy adventures" because they can’t deal with the fact that they’re all abused children. As long as they can solve one more mystery, defeat one more bad guy, escape one more trap, they won’t have to face up to the horror of their existence: they were all abused, molested and neglected by their fathers.
Musical note
The "best of decade" lists are out. I note that I own four of the titles on The Onion’s list, and eighteen of the titles on Rolling Stone’s list.
Make of that what you will.
Mainstreaming of horror postscript
After my previous post about the mainstreaming of horror characters, where I mentioned that somehow Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula had been made into mascots for children’s breakfast cereals, I remembered that the third of the monster-mascot bunch, Boo Berry, had been presented as a Peter Lorre soundalike. Karloff, Lugosi and Lorre, who came to prominence as a child murderer in M. A reanimated corpse, a vampire and a child murderer — part of this complete breakfast!
Quarantine and the zombie narrative
I watched Quarantine last night (I know, I know, I should have watched [REC] instead, sue me). I have a soft spot in my heart for zombie movies, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately for some reason. New Moon is a smash hit, through the roof, with its vampires and werewolves. Is it possible, I wonder, that one day there will be a supernatural romance between a teenage girl and a zombie? It seems implausible, but then let’s step back and think about this for a moment.
Venture Bros: The Revenge Society
The protagonist of "The Revenge Society" is Phantom Limb, who has undergone a transformation since we last saw him. This is, of course, nothing unusual in the Venture-verse, "transformation" is one of the strongest themes of the show. Phantom Limb transforms in this episode, The Sovereign transforms several times, Red Mantle and Dragoon merge into one (with limited success). Sgt Hatred tries desperately to transform into a good father-figure for the benefit of Hank, and Rusty even continues his delicate transformation into a father-figure for Dean.
A note on Mad Men
Mad Men is the greatest show in the history of television, certainly the greatest hour-long drama.
Venture Bros: Perchance to Dean
What does D-19 want? That’s easy — D-19 wants to be Dean. He’s bound to be frustrated in his pursuit, because there’s no way he can actually become Dean. Setting aside the fact that Dean isn’t really "Dean," since "Dean" has been dead many times over.
Wait a minute.
I just realized, not only does the wicked queen order a huntsman to kill Snow White, she orders him to bring back her heart in a box. Not only does she order the huntsman to bring back Snow White’s heart in a box, she has a special fancy box built for exactly that purpose, on a moment’s notice.
I’m trying to imagine the conversation between the wicked queen and the guy she hires to construct the box:
One for the books
My son Sam (8) has informed me that I am famous! A movie I co-wrote, Antz, is now in the Guiness Book of World Records, complete with poorly-scanned, over-saturated artwork. It was, apparently, the "first film with digital water." "The first movie to use computer software to simulate the properties of water was Dreamworks’ Antz (USA, 1998)," says the text. "Prior to this, computer-generated fluid effects were drawn, frame by frame, using graphics programs. Realistic water effects require powerful, physics-based computer simulations — at the time Antz was released, the only detailed studies of fluid dynamics were being carried out by scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, USA, researching the flow of particles after a nuclear strike." If those Los Alamos boys had thought to put some talking ants in their studies they might have had something.
Some thoughts on Fantastic Mr. Fox
Surprise of surprises, it’s turning into a wonderful autumn at the movies. As a rule, I don’t enjoy Wes Anderson’s movies, but I thought Fantastic Mr. Fox was a hoot and a half. And it’s very purely a Wes Anderson movie: a quirky guy set in a neurotic milieu triumphs through his quirkiness, all presented with a dry, self-aware wit. Normally, that kind of thing rubs me the wrong way but this movie bowled me over. Anderson should make more movies about talking animals.