Some Notes From the Big Screen Squabblers Resolve
Where Film Characters Go When They Need Additional Reel Time Counseling and Guidance
Well, it is another day here at the Big Screen Squabblers Resolve. Somewhere far West of New York and East of Hollywood yet not too far South of Chicago, we serve as counselors and mediators for some of the most discombobulated or tepid fantastical film families and individuals. I’m Pearl Turqoise, the medical assistant for multiple full-time burnt-out counselors on staff. It’s that time of month to put pen to paper about some of our top clients’ progress. Though these screentime sensations have been with us for decades, their lives have never been deprived of some high level of drama and entertainment. Please do not worry about privacy violations, as these famous film families are happy their lives are open books.
First, we have the all too (In)famous McCallister family.
Everyone remembers how dysfunctional this family was when featured in the first two film installments of the Home Alone franchise. Hey, Peter and Kate couldn’t even do a proper head count of their kids while Uncle Frank had serious psychological issues. Well, they keep presenting us with enough family and emotional issues decades later.
Let’s remember that Kevin, along with his parents Peter and Kate, has been coming to us since Kevin was still a preteen. In the past few weeks, the now middling millennial has resorted to blaming his now septuagenarian parents for his not-so-ideal adult life. Kevin still lives on the third floor of his family’s mansion(it’s not too lonely because Buzz is there too). Though not the hardened criminal many theorists speculated he’d become, Kevin still displays multiple troubling devious behavioral traits. He just lost his last job as an Amazon delivery driver because he mouse-trapped the package for a routinely difficult customer(luckily no charges were filed).
Peter and Kate feel guilty enough for how their habitual negligence in the 1990s may have contributed to their son’s issues. But we have been working to ensure the elderly couple that Kevin has not been a young child for quite a while now. Plus, they at least have three other children who are quite successful in life(besides Buzz who is currently on probation himself). Megan is a corporate attorney at the top of her career while Leslie is a foreign news correspondent in Paris with her husband and grown children. Jeff actually had a brief stint as a minor league baseball player and now owns a popular sports bar in downtown Chicago with his wife and their now college-graduate son. Peter and Kate are still in shock about everything with Kevin’s life. They still do not believe all of the stories Kevin has described about his encounters with two blockhead burglars. “There was never even a dent in the house other than Buzz’s room,” Kate said recently after Kevin described bombarding the two culprits with paint cans. Peter then chimed in that he faintly remembered finding some gold object on the floor that looked like a tooth.
We have been working on a plan to help Kevin find stable work or perhaps try for alternate sources of income. The plan to apply for disability based on anxiety from nightmares about Marv and Harry is on the back burner as Kevin has reported no relapses in recent weeks after sleeping with bricks by his bed again. Kevin states that was the main reason for his most recent failed romance with Claudette, a former pyrotechnics worker who now earns a modest income from social media. Peter and Kate are relieved at the breakup, stating some of the woman’s videos featured “crazy tricks with fire” and profound misunderstandings with police and property owners over damaged mailboxes.
Now, we move on to the elegant couple of Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly.
This fantasy love couple first came to us in the late 1990s after months of a passionate yet often tumultuous romance. Everyone remembers them from You’ve Got Mail. Well, that was just the beginning of their conflicts..er..journies. We’ve helped counsel them through numerous life events — breakups, getting married, having kids, multiple estrangements, and multiple reunions. It’s not just the multi-generational family bookstore going out of business thing(long ago Joe surprised Kathleen with a whole new Shop Around the Corner children’s book publishing house). It’s the uppity up high wealthy society world of Joe clashing with the quaint, romantic, esoteric, small quiet life world of Kate. It has impacted everything from their children's names to which weekend dinner party they attend to their address.
Recently, the brawl has been about their daughter Matilda’s decision to drop out of college and open a tanning salon in the suburbs. After their oldest daughter Penelope became a pediatrician and their son Charlie became a violinist with an international orchestra, Joe and Kathleen both hoped Matilda would succeed them either in the corporate book world or the children’s writing world. Joe is happy with his daughter’s decision(like in his favorite movie is at least a passing version of “Take the cannoli.” However, Kathleen feels Matilda’s phase needs to be met with extreme care so that Matilda “doesn’t make a mistake with the hat she has currently bought.”
At least the couple are still completely in love. As they approach their sixties, they agree that the “flux periods” of their relationships are mainly worked out. Kathleen’s deepest heart never stopped fluttering with joy since that day long ago when she saw her love was none other than the dashing Joe Fox. And Joe never regretted (well, most days) his efforts to court the “one person in the world who filled his heart with joy.”
Most things have stayed the same for our other older clients. Among them are several sci-fi/fantasy figures and the likes of fictional fads who have encountered angels, aliens, or dinosaurs.
Our overwhelmed office recently brought on a whole new string of clients. One of our most perplexing cases is that of Barbie Mattel.
You know, that quintessential doll turned human recently featured in the grand musical Barbie? The film may have ended with her walking into a specialized type of women’s doctor’s appointment, but those were the least of her worries. Do you think we at Big Screen Squabbler’s have what it takes to help this larger-than-life doll in human form navigate through the mental, emotional, and spiritual currents of the human experience? I mean, she needs to find employment, build more real-time friendships, try her hand out at love, and somehow consider the metaphysical implications of her journey from some fantasy-idealistic hybrid Barbieland realm to the physical universe.
And then there are those regrets about Ken. Barbie cannot just shake the guilt that she somehow left Ken alone back in Barbieland, just as shaken about his true nature as she is. What if she falls in love with a human? Will she be betraying Ken? Will Ken experience his own advanced self-awakening and also become human? There is so much to keep Barbie visiting us for what may be many decades to come.
There is one extra positive note(our work does bring countless positive long-term results).
Remember that juvenile-delinquent Sid from Toy Story? Well, he has been coming to our offices since Woody, Buzz, and Sid’s wounded toys first revealed their true nature. All of those sleepless nights and anxiety-laden days drove Sid’s mother to get him the best help around. We helped walk him through his fears and make sense of his dark experiences. Sid was able to repair all of his old toys and start salvaging lost toys from dumpsters. His mother couldn’t stand her son digging through trash cans, but was awestruck when she saw her son who once tore the arms off of his sister’s dolls restore a dilapidated action figure to full toy health.
Sid eventually grew up and went to work as a sanitation engineer for the city. Yes, you may have recognized him from his brief return in Toy Story 3. But did you know he has operated a side hustle of restoring toys from the garbage since his late teenage years? He sells many of the toys online, but also donates the majority to children’s charities.
Our counselors have now declared Sid does not need any more therapy. For years, he has now realized the magic and wonder of toys and has completely overcome the nightmares that plagued him for so many years. We hope he finds happiness and health in his future as he is now close to middle age. His future is full of unbounded possibilities.
So, these are the main notes for our Big Screen Squabblers Resolve Clinic, offering counseling services to some of the most famous characters appearing in films.
Where exactly are we located? How do we help not only the fictional worlds modeling ours but also the fantastical and animated fictional worlds completely different? And do we branch over into the “real” physical world? Well, that is a mystery even to us. There is so much magic and wonder to what we do, picking up the scene from where the big picture left off and helping characters reach some level of “happily ever after” (or at least “and life continues on”).
We meet our clients right where screenwriters, producers, actors, background crews, and viewers find them, somewhere between our physical dimension and the fictional realm that in so many ways dances in the background of our universe. Our work is never done as every ending is simply a transition to a new chapter.
Well, that’s all I have for now. I have to now update files for the descendants of Titanic’s Rose Calbert. Apparently, we must consult a risk analyst and deep sea excavation expert to try and convince them not to scope the bottom of the ocean where Rose dropped the infamous jewel. We were just over this in recent years, but the legacy of their unstoppable grandmother is just not getting through to them.
