The Movie: Parents (1989)
What Is It?: A brilliant fusion of period piece
(take note of the family’s last name, Laemmle, and recall the return of Universal’s
classic monster movies to late-night T.V. in the fifties), surrealism, and
live-action comic book. Parents also motors on a frightening concept: the
creeping realization that one's parents are actually monsters. Bob Balaban uses this
concept as a metaphor for the sexual secrets parents withhold from their kids
and the culture of gluttonous consumerism and consumption born in the fifties.
Why Today?: Today
is Parent’s Day.
