Episodes on the Internet: A Barbie Story: Evil Dentist

Well honey, I’m off to work now. Bye.

(pause)

I’m off…I’m off to work. I’M OFF TO WORK.

Besides how Barbies just look, there is much to be found…uncanny in this rough-cut gem of a Youtube video (actual video attached at the end, readers; patience). From the onset, the two voice talents-slash-writers-slash-producers—slash little children who are girls—behind A Barbie Life Story: Evil Dentist (2011) demonstrate a head-scratching deftness in their ability to juggle several sophisticated storytelling tactics: rapidly escalating inter-relational dramas, elements of the classically horrific (foreshadowing, physical and psychological torture, vampires), and napkin-dab portions of the politely dry, comically solid Arrested Development dialogue (“I’m putting you in the bad girl part of the car”)—all delivered with the red-hot urgency of a 24 episode.

“We already paid the dentist, honey, WE CAN’T BACK DOWN NOW” is the show’s swarthy and, frankly, successful stab at 24‘s shrill, plot-spurring battlecry: “THERE’S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!” It’s a heightened state of urgency and agitation that is these characters’ world.

Merlan…

…whose exit is lamentably both permanent and far too early, says he’s off to work and already: he is at the end of his rope. Merlan is his own unreliable narrator, though, and there’s no assurance he does in fact “go off to work.”

After he gets chucked off-set.

…

“Set.”

Rita, the unerringly rational-as-she-is-abusive mother-figure, waits for the evocative strains of a Lenny Kravitz intro song to subside before informing her daughter, Madeline, they are going to the dentist. Poised to put her foot down, her arms are in the air, and, already, she is screaming, adamant, “Aren’t you READY YET?”

Madeline, grappling with the news and a helplessness to steer her own orthodontic destiny, mimics her mother’s stance and nasally decries the injustice that she has no say in the matter.

The oft-volatile relationship between mother and daughter is suspended in blunt, “butt”-centric insults and their dialogue—generously peppered with flustered UHNGH!s and “Whatever! MOM“—manifests as exercises in evasion and ego-thwarting non-sequiturs.

For instance:

Rita: Honey, you have to get your cavity filled today.

Madeline: Mommy, you’re so dumb.

And for instance:

Madeline: Mommy, ew, I can see your butt-crack.

Rita: It doesn’t matter, honey; we’re going to the dentist.

Though I think we can all agree that the logic in that retort is simply unfuckwithable, the narrators find it necessary to then eerily turn Rita’s face (“face”) to the camera…

…and whisper: “Going there.”

Our first in-story crumb of foreshadowing, alluding to something unsavory ahead.

It isn’t foreshadowing, however, that colors the ambient feel of Evil Dentist. Frayed nerves and impatience boil over in the narrative and are prominent motivators in practically every dynamic: from the dialogue to even the way the powers that be would rather repeatedly crash the pink convertible into walls—to shouts of WHOAA!—than simply drive the characters from point A to point B.

Even with Rita using her entire body to roughly jam Madeline under the dash of the passenger-side front seat…

…and with several titillating exchanges of insults (aforementioned “I can see your butt-crack”; “Your feet smell like butt”; etc.) simple transportation for transportation’s sake was deemed, at some point, too uneventful?

This harrowing car ride come series of collisions nonetheless results in Rita and Madeline arriving at their destination, wherein Rita just leaves her and appears to simply come loose from the plot at hand like a lost button, stepping gracefully aside like the initial, catalyst-story at the beginning of any Simpsons episode. And the setting gives way to something more sinister—a film noir-era promise the title makes good on.

As Madeline takes a seat by one of the “Patients”…

Labeling, in this instance, is almost never actually unnecessary.

…it is illuminated to her: “Legend has it, the dentist is evil.”

It would behoove Madeline to listen to Patient in Cowboy Hat…

…but instead she deflects this knowledge with a churlish “What’s she going to do to me, GET TOOTHPASTE IN MY HAIR?” followed by an inappropriately loud, disproportionate amount of laughter. In that moment, we know better and are positioned with both concern and the nail-biting weight of having been privileged—or cursed—with more information than the protagonist.

It is foreshadowing that doesn’t concern itself with subtlety—and why should it, really?—as the stereotypical waiting room scene begets scenes much more confusing and disconcerting in nature. While bearing some albeit sans-viscera resemblance to gore-porn flicks like HOSTEL (2005), what plays out once Madeline is fixed in the awkward and unaccommodating Barbie dentist seat…

Which, the fit is strange because she is a child Barbie and it does seem to be made for child Barbies?

…is so distinctly complex in psychological trauma that the cliché introduction is almost necessary to usher in the uncomfortably nebulous gray-area of…truly…odd…terror-and-hilarity. Something like a cross between a wincing Larry David at the dentist scene, and also The Human Centipede (2009)? Because all comedic impact aside, a small, shamed part of your soul in fact does shudder; twinge rot-black; beg a small prayer.

Primed for paranoia, Madeline issues several dire questions to the dental assistant:

“What are you gonna do to me—WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO TO ME?”

“What kind of toothpaste do you use IS IT GOING TO TURN ME INTO A VAMPIRE?”

With genuine kindness, the assistant expertly assuages all Madeline’s concerns by proceeding to brush her teeth.

It is worth noting this brief, sympathetic adult-figure is distinguished from the Evil Dentist by a description offered up by the waiting room girls, when Madeline asked, in conflated italics, “What does she even look like?”

“Well, all that we know is she’s evil.” — Patient #1

“Oh and…her hair’s in a really weird ‘do so you can barely even see her face.” — Patient with Cowboy Hat

So that when the dentist appears…

I will say this: it is a distinctive hairstyle.

…there is little doubt that this is in fact our boss battle and the preemptive description and strong visual cue lend real muscle to the ensuing “Gasp!” moment we experience.

Mrs. Lynn: “I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR THE DENTAL EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME!”

Gasp you should; the frustration that courses through the show (“show”) spews forth with volcanic effusion when hostility towards Madeline reaches its arbitrarily assigned critical mass as several items are dropped…

Including the dental exam chair itself

…and Madeline finds herself on the receiving end of humiliation (Dentist: “You dropped that with your voice NOW PICK IT UP”), skin-crawling pet-names (Madeline: “DON’T CALL ME ‘BABYCAKES’!”), what appears to be unorthodox X-ray methods…

…and a thorough, I guess, body-slamming, from the Evil Dentist.

Upon referencing Human Centipede and HOSTEL, I didn’t mean so much in the graphic nature as the essence and coloration of the particular psychological havoc, which is wreaked upon our wailing Madeline for a grueling ten-ish seconds or more. Enduring this, she is given a clean bill of dental health—except for one cavity “TO BE DRILLED.” This is the breaking point and Madeline turns on her captor via more body-slamming, screaming, “You’re a psychopath!”

We’re not shown how the Evil Dentist overturns the situation, but she evidently does and Madeline is forced back into the chair for a drilling “TWICE AS PAINFUL AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN.”

Reduced to sobs, Madeline returns to the waiting room, posing a weary, tearful question to no one:

“When’s mommy picking me up; I feel like butt.”

It’s okay if you need a hug right now.

Even though I played with my share and more of Barbies, I never played out anything like that. My Barbie was always abandoned in the middle of the forest as a child and basically was a cute and indefinite hermit who made her own cheese and rode around on her giant raccoon, Normal.…I did not have a bad childhood so I do not understand all the themes of survivalism/seclusion/abandonment. And cheese-making? This is a longer digression than I intended.

Similar to horror flick The Descent (2005) the ending in Evil Dentist is one that expertly employs climax and anti-climax in near-symphonic conjunction to drive home the notion that the horror for Madeline is that of an enduring horror, and not one sequestered by a traumatic experience. Nor one that can be neatly parenthesized by the classic/cliché horror-plot at the center of this episode. (In believing so, they have made a fool of us, all.) Instead, it prevails in the domestic, in the every-day, and Madeline’s escape from the Evil Dentist is not an actual escape: only a false husk-of-a-promise for alleviation. Madeline simply has a long, horrible life of being repeatedly head-slammed by her parents (we can assume this goes for Merlan) ahead of her, regardless. She left the cave–but she will never leave the cave.

“You were talking in your evil mom voice.”

“I just get that way when I’m upset, honey.”

Clocking in at roughly 11 minutes, it’s a safe assumption Evil Dentist was either designed with the explicit intent to be aired on Cartoon Network as a pilot episode for a series with long enough legs to stand about as long as anything happens to in the off-beat comedic empire…or that it is merely very capable of achieving as much. The only real advice I would give these children is: flesh out that Merlan character; there is real potential there.

Vide-o-Rama: I Could Tell You What Is Hilarious And Great About This Video…

…or you could just let me know when you see it.

(Hint: If you are watching the man who is quite possibly having a SHAMEgasm at :52, you have gone too far.)

Damon Art VIII

Mattality

-or-

Please Finish Him #6

There’s No “I” In Meme — SHAME

To christen the shamelessly simple meme generator app I’ve got on my stupid-expensive, brand new iPhone 4S (Siri calls me “Jack Bauer,” by the way), and having recently watched in silent, ravaged awe Steve McQueen’s brilliant Shame, I decided to begin my own series of Shame-based memes. It’s funny!: I conjure up content with little effort or literary brainpower and substitute it for erstwhile valid blog entries. This is like the “Joey Greco Looks Like…” of Michael Fassbender cum-face pictures.

You don’t mind, DO YA LADIES??

The main problem in setting out upon my journey of meme-dom (yes, pun intended) was the total lack of Michael Fassbender cum-face screenshots readily Googleable. What’s worse: how do you search for something like that? I had a clear moment in my mind, that of Fassbender’s Brandon bruised, bottom-barrelled, pummeling away at two prostitutes during the climax (yes) of the movie, his face contorting violently as his brain connects with the reality of what he’s doing, sublimates that reality, goes distant, comes back, and resolves itself with the sensation of whatever it is that’s about to escape him—not all necessarily in that order.

So I sought Kaylen’s help. Having just watched Shame herself, she suggested the following search phrases to help me in my quest:

“orgasms that have just ruined classical piano music”

“orgasms that make you want to follow around ice cream trucks, just so you can listen to the music for awhile”

“orgasms that make you want to do anything but have an orgasm right now…or ever again”

“orgasms that make you immediately leave your apartment in search of a kid drawing a gigantic sunshine in chalk on the sidewalk”

“orgasms that make you wish you’d just watched Second Hand Lions instead”

“orgasms that make you google image search ‘Haley Joel’ because his face is the closest thing to a big sunshine drawn in chalk on a sidewalk”

“orgasms that make you propose to your girlfriend immediately”

“orgasms that make you feel like you need to go do volunteer work at animal shelters”

None of which came up with anything besides ultimately disturbing Haley Joel Osment pictures.

In the end, Kaylen just pulled some screenshots for me. So, here we go.

And of course:

There’s No “I” In Meme — 4/29/12

Last night, based on an idea Phil pitched me while we were drinking at Dig A Pony (which, apparently, is where all attractive bartenders go to listen to the Black Keys while racking up tips), Phil and I walked across the Burnside Bridge to get this picture. It felt like a mildly prescient and vaguely symbolic experience. And this is only the first of what could be so many. I mean, obviously.

THERE’S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN: The Tropes of 24 (pt. 4)

Previously, on “The Tropes of 24“…

Dom: Now that I’m re-watching the whole series, I’m embarrassed I haven’t previously written about the heavyweights who graced the kind-of goofy first season.

Adam: Like who?

Dom: Dennis Hopper for one.

Kaylen: He’ll do anything for money…God rest his wrinkled soul.

Dom: Also? The guy who played La Bamba.

Kaylen: You mean Ritchie Valens.

Dom: No no. That’s not his name.

Kaylen: I mean, the character’s name is Ritchie Valens. La Bamba is a biopic where Lou Diamond Philips plays Ritchie Valens.

Dom: …

Kaylen: …?

Adam: Dom, it’s probably time I tell you: I hate 24.

18. Any actor who attempts an accent will do so terribly. From Dennis Hopper’s laughable Serbian brogue to Doug Hutchison’s (oh, you know, that disgusting shell of a man who married that 16-year-old black hole of silicone and sensible human behavior) Harrison-Fordian Russian parody in Season 8, the melting pot of 24‘s America is more like a chowder one would order from a Red Lobster: a steaming facsimile of what actually comes from 70% of planet earth, and then some delicious cheddar biscuits to distract you.

But perhaps the worst offender is Kiefer himself. Jack Bauer may be a gun-toting god, but his disguises are about as convincing as Val Kilmer’s in The Saint. Coincidentally, Jack almost always sounds like this guy:

It's too early...you guys want to get zum coffee or zumzeeng??

Listen!: http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=mglbbtgmll
Too early

19. Joel Surnow has no idea how to write children, adolescents, or teenagers. In fact, the whole show seems utterly clueless as to the doings of your typical unremarkable young person. Of course, Surnow’s deficiencies as a screenwriter are easily forgotten when Jack’s daughter Kim (the unrepentantly hot Elisha Cuthbert) looks the way she does and talks to everyone as if they’re stupider, less mature, and uglier than her, but more obvious is the show’s choice of music used as diegetic cues to represent a place where young people sleep, hang out, or defy their parent’s rules.

In Season 1, Kim finds her way over to bruised hoodlum-with-a-heart-of-gold Rick’s pad, all this soundtracked to Yo La Tengo, Sigur Ros…and then sometimes Drowning Pool or Disturbed. Similarly, shots of Kim’s bedroom glimpse a Linkin Park poster abutting a Built To Spill promotional dealie. The juxtaposition isn’t entirely unbelievable, but what makes more sense is believing the music supervisors and set dressers on 24 were just aiming for whatever it is the kids are into these days.

20. Just as Jack is tortured quite often, so does Jack torture lots and lots of people. I mean: lots. He tortures practically everybody. And just as one can sense a dispensable character’s impending doom as if a flower had somehow set pollen on the breeze, directing it past one’s unknowing nose, or as if one intuits a TV being on in the other room, there’s a certain, slight change of pressure in the atmosphere when Jack’s about to torture someone.

Which is when I get to stand up and yell at my television: “OH SHIT JACK’S ABOUT TO TORTURE THE MOTHERFUCKEN PRESIDENT”

Tune in for Part Five, when Dennis Hopper finally learns to love Heineken, but dies before he can proclaim it to the world.

FUCK THAT SHIT! PABST! BLUE! RIBBON!

Joey Greco Looks Like… 4th Edition

(With special thanks, yet again, from Phil Nelson.)

…Michael Douglas, famous ornithologist, secretly lactose intolerant.

…white Montel Williams.

…white Yoko Ono.

…Kevin Costner’s side bitch.

…whomever Mariah Carey’s talking to in “Obsessed.”

…Cirque du Soleil Moon Frye.

…Gucci Mane’s publicist/hairdresser.

…the Phantom of Steve’s Basement (where $1 gets you unlimited PBRs and a night’s worth of local, underage bands).

…PBR tastes.

…Skrillex’s canker sore, which isn’t responding to medication.

…Harry Potter in tube socks and a worn-out cardigan at the end of the series addressing his son with his son’s full name, and then explaining what the kid’s name means, even though the kid undoubtedly knows his own fucking name and where it came from.

…Crispin Glover’s mom.

…both his favorite band and favorite liqueur are called “Puddle of Mudd.”

…his dry cleaner fucking hates him.

…his chin really misses that soul patch.

…how Hoobastank sounds.

…Encyclopedia Mauve.

…he can only cum if he’s choking you…with your household cat’s entrails.

…a forehead doing an impression of a real human man.

…a real human man doing an impression of a forehead.

…Invisalign: Before.

…he pronounces it “soo-doo-koh.”

…a box turtle working nights as a Tom Hanks impersonator. Whatever pays the bills, right? Hollywood’s rough.

…he’d be an OK guy to spend time with if he would just shut the fuck up about his kids for a minute.

…Miss Piggy’s understudy.

…an incomplete crossword puzzle.

…he’s explaining, “…so I posed as an underage frog on Craigslist and invited him to my house. My parents were out of town.”

…he wears the bathing suit pictured below in the gym showers.

Yep, that's John Mayer. We're not surprised either.

…he takes dating tips from John Mayer.

…erotica makes him cry.

…a colonoscopy addict (his friends tell him “everything in moderation,” and he just scoffs, all the while bleeding from his anus).

…he says “acrosst” and looks at you funny when you point that out.

…the inventor and only owner of the “Dick-hole Bidet.”

There’s No “I” In “Meme — 4/11/12

Thanks again to Phil Nelson, who actually takes some pretty wonderful Instagram photos, though they’re mostly of his guitars and feet…rarely together. Find him at philnelsonphilnelson.

Ya feel me? Holla.

Damon Art VII

THERE’S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN: The Tropes of 24 (pt. 3)

Previously, on “The Tropes of 24“…

Dom: I finished all eight seasons of 24, including the made-for-TV movie.

Adam: So now what?

Dom: I started over from the beginning. It’s a part of me now.

Kaylen: Maybe you should move on. I think it’s time.

Dom: That sounds like something a character with a soul patch would say.

12. All bad guys on 24 will, once revealed as despicable, transform almost instantaneously into a loathsome, inhuman, hunch-backed psychopath.

A perfect example is Charles Logan, who in Season 4 becomes the reluctant U.S. President after a missile attack on Air Force One incapacitates the current President and blows to smithereens his all-American towheaded son. Logan of course is a total sniveling pussy, but by Season 5 he’s brokering a major anti-terrorism defense treaty with the Russians and is inevitably involved in the government conspiracy that led to David Palmer’s assassination and Michelle Dessler’s death, single-handedly signing off on/orchestrating all of Christopher Henderson’s nefarious deeds, as well as the release of the Sentox nerve gas and the framing of Jack Bauer for Palmer’s murder. Once the audience understands just how deep the conspiracy goes, Logan perceptibly slumps in his chair and places the tips of his fingers together in an upside-down “V,” his jowls suddenly slackening, going all jelly. He talks in low, smoky interjections, makes overenunciated demands for “status updates” on “where Jack is,” evilly smirking like a fucking chump when his wife compliments him on a “magnificent” day. His neck cranes so that his whole upper torso becomes an evil tortoise shell. His manifestation as Richard Nixon draws to a close. His pate shines like Mr. Burns’. Oh the weight of such world-eating subterfuge.

"This lip gloss stings!!"

See also: Jack’s father; Katee Sackhoff’s CTU double-agent; Nina Meyers; Tony Almeida (who, in my rewatching of Season 1, has always sported a terrible soul patch, and so it was only a matter of time before he went crazy bonkers evil)

"I also had a vague Mexican accent I dropped for subsequent seasons. Wasn't 2001 a crazy time, America?"

13. Nothing is ever easy. Nothing. If something can possibly go wrong, not only will it, but it will be in direct response to something nice or optimistic that just occurred. This is similar to trope #10, admittedly, but is more Newtonian.

Take Jack’s attempt to tell Secretary Heller about President Logan’s involvement in the conspiracy, from Season 5:

INT. SOME DARK WAREHOUSE, ABANDONED? MEH.

Secretary Heller: I WISH I COULD SAY I’M SURPRISED BUT I CAN’T. I WATCHED CHARLES LOGAN RISE ON THE TIDE OF HIS OWN AMBITION. I WAS TERRIFIED WHEN HE TOOK THE OATH.

Relieved her dad understands, Audrey leans into Jack, sighs.

Audrey: Jack, everything’s going to be OK now.

Quick smooch, so innocent and full of hope.

And then Heller does what we knew he’d do and…

Karate chops Jack in the adam’s apple?

14. Everyone is always reminding everyone else what they should be doing, like your mom reminding you to take a scarf while you’re pulling a scarf out of the hall closet. Like: thanks for paying attention and respecting my intelligence, mom.

Audrey: Jack, make sure you get that recording.

Jack: I will.

This is after Jack is expressly leaving, which he tells everyone, to go get the fucking recording. This also emphasizes Audrey Raines’ overwhelming uselessness.

…and the audience pretty much just shuts off all higher brain function.

Here’s another exchange between Jack and Chloe; what’s funny is how Jack responds, because it may the first time his voice actually resonates with annoyance at the show’s belabored plot synopses:

Chloe: And Jack? I don’t mean to put any added pressure on you, but if you don’t have a confession by then, we’ll all be arrested and charged with treason.

Jack: Yeah. I know.

Oh, he knows, Chloe. He knows.

15. Jack Bauer is tortured quite often. I suppose it’s what happens when the drug cartel you betrayed, the Chinese, the Russians, your father, your brother, your ex-lover/partner, or even your own government typically want you dead. Sometimes Jack is sitting down when he’s tortured, and sometimes he’s hanging from a meat hook. Sometimes he’s wearing a shirt, and sometimes not. Usually he spits blood on the floor.

But there isn’t a torture situation Jack can’t get out of, which is a fact because Jack always escapes the same way:

1) Jack endures for a while, but then passes out.

2) The torturer takes this as a perfect moment to switch up torture tools and maybe sharpen a scalpel, maybe wipe off a wrench, maybe prepare a solution to inject into Jack’s blood, causing excruciating pain. The torturer turns his back to Jack and hunches over his torture tool tray.

3) Jack slowly raises one eyelid. He’s faking it!

4) The torturer, emboldened by Jack’s unconsciousness, lets down his guard and leans forward to administer an injection or strap Jack in a bit tighter.

5) And… Jack awakens suddenly! He breaks the torturer’s neck with his thighs, say, or…

"You taste like a burger. I don't like you anymore."

…rips the guy’s throat out with his teeth.

16. Characters love to declare that the day, and the day’s trying situation, is finally over.

Audrey: So it’s over.

Jack: Yeah.

Of course it isn’t.

17. There is always someone on the inside.

That’s what she said?

If any character ever says, “…Someone on the inside,” take a drink.

Tune in for Part Four, when we’ll just stare into Wayne Palmer’s eyes for a while.

The state of the union is strong…

…if by “union” you mean my weiner.