… quoth Ratfinkovich.
“In 1979, Onan Goopta molted his earthly encumbrance to pursue his Selfisophical research in another dimension. That means, he died of prostate cancer.”
I.
Before watching “Schizogeny”, with its somewhat psychic and homicial orchard — one of the worst hours of ‘The X-Files‘ — we took in “Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense”, the funniest episode of ‘Millennium’ to date.
We get the return of Charles Nelson Reilly as Jose Chung, we get rather extreme Frank Black silliness — bad (great!) hair (blond-ish), the not-so-subtly disguised Frederick Blork –, various ‘X-Files’ references (Duchovny as an actor on a movie poster, a hospital named after Frank Spotnitz), and we get a plot that some have described as ‘too much’ or otherwise messy and convoluted but which I think more resembles ‘The Club Dumas’.
If you recall that rather wonderful book — though not its also entertaining cinematic adaptation, “The Ninth Gate”, with its single plot –, then you recall, too, that on the one hand it’s about said Club Dumas and on the other about a book that may have been cowritten by Lucifer. Our problem — and that of the protagonist — is in assuming that the two are related; it makes sense, though, does it not? You have a mystery-thriller, you have one book, and you have two plots … sure they must be interconnected! Here we have two series of deaths, they’re in one show, and they they intersect with Jose Chung, but they’re in some sense fundamentally unrelated. In one we have a boyfriend who has gone nuts and killed his girlfriend’s professor; he’s obsessed with Nostradamus. In the other we have an excommunicated member of a cultish religion who dies under mysterious circumstances. Frank and the Millennium Group end up on a case — that of the dead religious nut — even though (1) it’s not really their sort of material and, as Peter Warns, (2) they don’t mess with the Church of Selfosophy … they have money and will sue. Where they do belong, however, is with the Nostradamus killer, since, after all, it relates to the millennium, to prophecies, fate, crime … all that mumbo-jumbo.
Their mistake and ours is in thinking the two otherwise related.
Though in a certain sense they are, as they were put there by Darin Morgan, the writer; and in the episode a psycho from the religion, Jose Chung, and Frank Black all take on the role of writers. This creative act alone asserts that these stories go together.
There’s much more to like, such as Giebelhouse being reduced to a perverse trope (even more so than usual), the overall energy of the episode, the monologuing while moving forward, the humor. It’s not obsessed with the notion or nature of evil — or even of why people do bad things — the way other episodes of ‘Millennium’ do, but it’s still more an episode of ‘Millennium’ than of ‘The X-Files’. In that show’s Jose Chung episode it was about competing narratives and strains of truth, of experiences and misdirection; here the truth is to some extent immaterial, and the best explanations we get for some events are simply those created from whole cloth by Chung, but happiness and developing an attitude toward the world — not determining what is true or false but instead how we deal with reality — is paramount. It’s a matter of an ethos, at least.
And, finally, it’s a rather hilarious sendup of the Church of Scientology.
II.
My direct encounters with Scientology are rather limited. While living in Budapest I’d frequently run across their minions offering free personality tests. But my closest brush came by way of a roommate, who have observed my tendency toward punning and enjoying word play suggested that if I enjoy language, I might enjoy this book. By L. Ron Hubbard. Called “Dianetics“. And handed me a copy, which I politely read. I sought a fascination with language, an insight into language, and sense of wit, but found none of the above. It was easy enough to recognize as crap then and there.
In terms of pseudoscience, bunk, and the like, I found Graham Hancock’s equally ridiculous and equally self-serious “Fingerprints of the Gods” much more intriguing, but that came half a year later.
The 90s and early 00s were and were not a great time to mock and otherwise take on Scientology. The internet saw to the former, but the church’s extensive funds and predilection for, well, you know, still made it a chore. There was Operation Clambake and we were all making fun of ‘Xenu’. Then John Travolta had to go and make “Battlefield Earth”.
I’ve watched it. Twice.
Willingly.
It requires large amounts of booze, but it’s a somewhat entertaining albeit too long howler.
But fast-forward to 2012, and Scientology no longer seems quite as invincible, quite as dangerous as an institution. There are a number of good, recent books on/about it, such as:
- “Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology” (2013) by Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of church leader David Miscavige … and I’m reminded of the relatives of Fred Phelps (e.g. Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter) leaving the Westboro Baptist Church and providing tell-alls.
- “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief” (2012) by Lawrence Wright, a relatively well received, researched, and balanced account.
- “Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion” (2011) by Janet Reitman
In the mid-late 80s there was a huge book sale at the old Smiths grocery store at Overland and Five Mile. I picked up lots of bad fantasy novels there, many of which I never bothered reading (see also: lots of David Eddings). They also had numerous copies of “The Invader’s Plan” (1985), volume 1 (of 10) of the ‘Mission Earth‘ series. I never bothered reading it; I only picked it up because it was $0.25. At that time I had no idea who Hubbard was.
Years later I got around not to reading Hubbard but to reading his contemporary Heinlein. I’ve retained over the years a soft spot for R.A.H., but recent attempts to return to his fiction have left me uninspired.
We all move on.
III.
In the near future Ms. S. and I will probably get around to watching “The Master” (2012).
I first became aware of the movie before its release because (1) it was by Paul Thomas Anderson and because (2) it was purportedly a thinly-veiled take on Scientology. I think some of us latched on to this latter interpretation by incorrectly applying some overlap; a while back Paul Haggis (“Crash”, 2004) left the church (actor Jason Beghe was another defection), and I kept thinking “award-winning writer-director leaves Scientology; award-winning writer-director makes movie about cult-founder …”
Ms. S. and I both seem to love most of what P. T. Anderson does … I was introduced via “Magnolia” years ago, and later went to see “There Will Be Blood” about the same time I watched “No Country For Old Men” … two such different takes on ‘the West’. It wasn’t until Ms. S. came along, though, that I saw “Boogie Nights. And one of the things I love about Anderson is that — so I suggest — much like Steven Soderbergh he never makes the same movie twice … in terms of narrative, approach, filming and the like he’s always moving on, even though there’s something distinctively “him” about his movies, but not in the way that all Wes Anderson movies feel alike (or the way that Paul W. S. Anderson’s movies feel alike!).
But I digress.
We haven’t seen “The Master”, and since its release, since the critical focus more on J. Phoenix than on P. S. Hoffman, it’s become less a movie about a Scientology-esque cult, and that’s okay. That perhaps makes it more interesting.
Likewise “Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense” is a hilarious spoof of Scientology, their methods and mythology, but that’s actually the least interesting part of the episode.
IV. Epilog
A. Ah, I spoke too soon … in a sense. The young child upstairs is back and as prone as ever to stomping around. The other day I went to the main office to talk about two things: (1) getting the bulb replaced in our oven and (2) the noise from upstairs. Today Larry came by and fixed the former. Nothing has been done yet about the latter. But it’s not an overly pressing issue at the moment.
B. There are plenty of sequels that are better than their predecessors. Sometimes this is a matter of getting exposition out of the way, other times its about experience and getting in the groove of things, and sometimes it’s about having a bigger budget. Many argue that “The Godfather, Part 2” is better than the first; almost everyone (everyone reasonable, that is!) agrees that “The Empire Strikes Back” is superior to “Star Wars”, and in the realm of more recent movies it’s pretty clear that the second ‘X-Men’ movie was better than the first, the second ‘Spider-Man’ is at least more polished than the first. But there are also plenty of sequels worse than what they follow, and it’s pretty rare for things to get better and better … for the second to be better than the first, the third better than the second.
But among the few, the proud, the movies fitting that description would have to be the three ‘Toy Story’ entries. This afternoon we watched the third, which was new to both of us, I believe, and it was the only one of the three that could, in the right setting, move me to tears. Not “Bolt”-like tears, mind you, but dampened eyes, nonetheless.
C. It’s nearly 9; that child still ‘plays’ … I have other things to do.
