My Parents Remind Me How Cool They Are

So, as part of an early Mother’s Day celebration (they’re gonna be out of town this weekend), I treated my folks to “Spider-Man 3.” And in the process of doing so, I learned two things: One, I really should do a re-review of Spidey as an addendum to the one I wrote last week, as there was a lot I unjustly left uncovered in my write-up that I’d like to discuss. And two, my folks are more knowledgeable in pop culture than I ever knew.

First, when the French concierge appeared early in the movie, my father began laughing quite loudly before a line was even spoken. He turned to my puzzled mom and said, “That’s Bruce Campbell!”

I was floored. My dad KNOWS who Bruce Campbell is? And knows him well enough to laugh in appropriately giddy anticipation when he appears? Color me happily surprised. In a post-movie conversation, it turns out Dad had first noticed him in “Sky High” as the gym teacher, and had picked up on his career ever since. Tres cool.

But my mom surprised me even more. I will spoil as little of the film as I can in describing this, but when a major transformation occurs and the movie’s third villain begins to take shape, my mom, completely wrapped up in the story, gasped, “Oh, no, it’s Venom!”

MY MOM KNOWS WHO VENOM IS?!?!?! My mother has never expressed even the slightest interest in comics in her life. *I* was a big Spidey fan as a kid, sure, but I had stopped reading before the Venom storyline had begun, so it couldn’t have been that. And, compared to Spidey and other iconic characters, Venom is not exactly a household name outside of the comic book universe. So how could she have ever heard of the character before seeing this movie?

I don’t know. I never asked her afterward. And at some level, maybe I don’t want to. Better to leave it as one of those unanswered questions, and as a gentle reminder that, no matter how long you have known someone (in this case, my whole life), they can still find a way to surprise you.