Welcome To the Dead Parade #6.5: Extremely Touch-y, Incredibly Close

I can't believe I'm doing my first decimal issue of Just the Ticket! In the tradition of SW@ Ticket classics like Hell Hath No Fury, The Heroic Journey, and Spider-Man, Then & Now, Just the Ticket and the Dead Parade will occasionally feature themed issues or issues that address media other than film, and as such will be denoted with a decimal number. Just some history and nostalgic, self-indulgent drooling I wanted to get out of the way. Mission accomplished!

"Mission accomplished? Did he really say that out loud?" - Ving Rhames, M:I-GP

Anyway, the theme this week is a common thread shared by the movie Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close and the TV series Touch, the aforementioned non-film medium. Which is the chicken and which the egg, I have yet to determine.

Whatever the case, ELIC is a long, yet sort of enjoyable yarn (uh...yarn...thread...DOH! Sorry) about a boy named Oskar who is trying to cope with both the loss of his father (Tom Hanks) to 9/11, and with his various neuroses and phobias as he tracks the origin of a mysterious key he finds in his father's room. His oblivious but supportive mother (Sandra Bullock) and a voluntarily mute man (the brilliant, and Oscar-nominated, Max von Sydow) who may or may not be Oskar's estranged grandfather come along for the ride with profound and unifying results.

I was at times put off by Oskar's increasinglyrapidlyLOUDLYDELIVEREDDIALOGUEASHECON-VEYEDHISSTORYTOPEOPLE!!!!! and I never want to see or hear or have anyone make a reference to a tambourine for the rest of my life after having seen this movie, but I otherwise enjoyed it. And if you're not down with that, I have three words for you: succotash my Balzak!

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I hate repeating myself, but Touch, the latest too-big-of-a-concept-for-TV television series from the over-caffienated, marijuana-infused mind of Heroes creator Tim Kring, is about an autistic boy named Jake who lost his mother in 9/11. He never talks to the other characters, at least not in the traditional sense, but instead leaves numbers and patterns that send his father (Kiefer Sutherland) on a goose-chase-of-the-week that ends up having profound and unifying results. Jake narrates each episode, often with emphasis on numerology, in much the same way as Oskar narrates ELIC. In last week's episode, we learned that Sutherland's character has a recurring dream in which Jake jumps off a swing into his arms. ELIC has similar content. This week's episode involves a mysterious key and an estranged relative. Speaking of thread and yarn, one of the founding ideas behind Touch is the Chinese belief in the Red Thread of Fate. And the similarities go on and on. I may harp on Touch, but it has become one of my favorite shows right now.

Unfortunately, TV shows that are released at roughly the same time as the movies they are near exact copies of don't seem to do very well.

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