A Villain! and a Bradbury

Mama Fratelli, The Goonies

(Also, please remember that I'm writing about the less iconic, less discussed and scrutinized villains here.  The mounds of mail clogging my inbox from those suggesting I'm a moron for not including the magnificence of [insert favorite villain] are missing the point.  I like wondering at the impact the less-highlighted ones had in the larger stories surrounding them.)

"The only thing we serve here is tongue.  You boys like tongue?"

Mama Fratelli served two purposes for the film: First, she was a parenting cautionary tale for many impressionable young people.  During the film's climactic escape-from-the-underground-and-freeing-of-One Eyed Willy's-spirit-and-ship sequence, we learn why the newest Goonie, Sloth, looks the way he does.  She is a negligent mother who thought the best way to parent her over-sized boy was to chain him to a basement wall, and rather than repair his broken visage, spend the money on his whiny brother Francis' toupee.  Don't treat your kids like this, children.  If you do, don't be surprised when your child tosses your frumpy arse off the plank of a derelict pirate ship.  

Second, she was a generalization of the cold, mean, unfeeling world of the adult.  Mikey spends a majority of the film lamenting the potential loss of his childhood if his family is forced to move.  He wants everything to remain as it is, his friends to remain where they are, and the giant Rube Goldberg machine entrance to his house that his parents are strangely oblivious to remain locked and loaded.  For a film about the magic of childhood, dirt, traps, pirate treasure, and the true fun we all can have with a fat kid, the equation desperately needed a polar opposite.  And mean old Mama Fratelli played along perfectly.

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Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine is yet another of the multitude of books that have sat on my shelves, untouched, for years.  I started it a few weeks ago as a literary beginning to Summer, and it has been completely perfect.  It is a semi-autobiographical story of the author's childhood in Illinois during the 1920s, and the character, feel, and joy of Summer are all immediately palpable.  Due to the tale's structure and shortened chapters, the reader can experience pieces of it here and there, all the while stopping to remember their own world of Summers past.