Counterforce

“Is it me or does like every Nazi want to clone Hitler?”

Mad Men wasn’t the only fantastic bit of TV on Sunday night. Thankfully we had the fourth season premiere of brilliant Johnny Quest riff that is Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros. to put us to bed.

from here.

I feel like this show, which seems to only get more colorfully brilliant and more fun by the moment, is still criminally unheard of and even more of a shame, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to distill the Sunday episode, entitled “Blood Of The Father, Heart Of Steel” into easy to digest soundnuggets for you.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest jumping on point in a narrative with about 20 of it’s recurring characters making apperances, and in fact, it was considered pretty confusing by quite a few of the long time fans because of it’s breakneck pace, it’s nonlinear storytelling method, and the fact that it asks you to just hold on and stay with it. Patience and intelligence are rewarded handsomely.

For any out there confused by the episode, which you can view on the Adult Swim website thankfully, I’ll just say that the somewhat Memento-esque structure is easy to follow once you hear Henchman 24′s line about the monetary value and CGC rating of his issue of Marvel Comics #1 (you can follow the ratings/value and title cards from there) and just remember: All the Brock stuff moves forward in time.

Because Brock always keep moving forward, like a shark, but on land. Or, more like a Swedish murder machine.

But some highlights: Brock Sampson, the mulleted bodyguard of the Venture twins makes good on his decision to quit, but a nasty bit of shrapnel derails his plans for revenge. Dr. Venture, meanwhile, has to find himself a new bodyguard and settles for the new “socially adjusted” Sgt. Hatred. Hank and Dean, now sans their clone safety nets are starting to grow up, and change their appearances. “I am full on Charles In Charge of you!” Bigfoot and the Six Million Dollar Man are big on art therapy. OSI is operating on the invisible man in their helicarrier and there’s more than meets the eye going on with Molotov Cocktail and the newly female Hunter Gathers. Oh, and a bunch of Nazis have somehow put the evil spirit of their fuhrer into the body of a pitbull.

“I can cross ‘Stab Hitler to death’ off my list of cool crap I thought I’d never get to do.”

Unrelated, while I was very much against it originally, having finally just watched Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, I have to say that a sick part of me absolutely loved it. This is old school Raimi, free from the campy musical theater soap opera hijinks that the Spiderman series faded into and back into just plain campy horror and gross fluids mode. And speaking of gross fluids, I have never before (outside of porn) seen a movie with such an oral fixation. Any and all chances to put something disgusting into the lovely Alison Lohman’s mouth are happily pounced upon.

That, or tearing her hair out, literally and figuratively.

You can always tell that Raimi the filmmaker is happiest when he’s literally torturing his “protagonists,” who, if you look back at his oeuvre, I think you’ll find he’s always least fond of.

Thankfully, it’s not just B-horror porn about gypsy curses and fiendish demons from Hell, especially when you take into account the very subtle thread (or maybe not so subtle) dealing with food and the fear of it.

Supposedly Raimi is going to take his newfound creative juice (and critical success) from Drag Me To Hell into the upcoming Spiderman 4, taking the series “back to basics.” Personally, I have to wonder: Who really gives a shit? But even still, it’s always nice to see where an excited director can go with themselves.

Speaking of excited directors who may or may not be in league with the infernal…

You should totally wish Benjamin Light a happy birthday today, especially since he’s so lucky to have been born on the same day that the new Transformers movie would come out on DVD. You just know he couldn’t be more thrilled.