Bobcat Goldthwait, returns with the third film in his darker side of America trilogy after Sleeping Dogs (2006) and The World's Greatest Dad (2009)
The first film dealt with the subject of bestiality (a typical taboo subject), the latter film starring Robin Williams had him as a would be author who is having to suffer a job in a high school. After his son's death, he writes his son's suicide note and the beauty of the words allows him to be the celebrated writer he always wanted to be. At the conclusion, the writer gets a change of heart and comes clean. Goldthwait may write dark but at least he has the conscience.
In his new film, he explores the polluting influence of television and celebrity, and how it is destabilising American society. Goldthwait uses a surrogate in the form of Frank (Joel Murray), a man who has a humdrum office job and spends his evenings watching awful television whilst his child lives with his ex-wife and new husband. Frank believes in honesty, integrity and good manners in life will get you rewards, in contrast to the mean-spirited individuals who are celebrated for being nothing more than being good to look at - 'Its a type of freak show that appears when a civilisation is collapsing'.
Frank would wish he had the cajones to do something about society and change it for the better, and his initial dream sequences of shooting people he hates in his office are quite entertaining - then he is hit by the news that he has an inoperable brain tumour he decides to go out on a vigilante rampage of revenge against all the social cyphers he despises.
Frank comes into contact with 16 year old Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) and together they embark on this road trip culminating in the shootout on American Superstars; a Pop Idol/X-Factor show that is the main target.
Part of the problem with the film is the mixture of tone; whilst the start has Frank giving off monologues and dialogue that is quite explicit in his beliefs - 'I live next door to a couple of neanderthals, who instead of giving birth to a baby gave birth to a nocturnal civil defense air raid siren'. However, once the violent streak begins with Roxy in tow, the targets become all too easy - Twitter, gossiping, lack of original thoughts - and whilst the targets are mentioned by real name to give a sense of reality, the non-stop violence and obvious buckets of blood are quite unnecessary.
It is quite hypocritical to suggest that Frank hates all the television shows, when he is watching them in the first place, although maybe this is Goldthwait's point; there is nothing but constant crap on television. This is a shame as at times Murray, clearly a surrogate for Goldthwait in the lead role, is quite believable as the hound dog Frank.
Murray has been appearing on American TV for years most notably Dharma and Greg and Mad Men; yet it is the role of Roxy that is quite disconcerting - a role that is unfortunately too zany for the film and too off the rails in comparison to Frank. Frank is beyond medical help, Roxy is beyond any perhaps.
The film might have worked better if Frank was a lone crusader, a distant cousin of Michael Douglas' D-Fens in Falling Down (1993), one man who is just simply having a bad time of things and wants to make the world a little bit more polite and gracious.
The problem with tone is a common problem with Goldthwait who never goes all the way with his satire, and has to come round to normality; a shame as some of the ideas Frank speaks for him in the first 20 minutes had laid the foundation for something more memorable.
God Bless America is out from StudioCanal on Wednesday 4th July (Independence Day) and is available on DVD on Monday 9th July
Showing posts with label Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Violence. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Monday, 26 March 2012
The Doom Generation
Released today on DVD is Gregg Araki's 1995 teenage road movie The Doom Generation starring Rose McGowan, James Duval and Jonathon Schaech.
Following in the footsteps of Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia, the film follows would be femme fatale Amy Blue (McGowan) with her doe-eyed boyfriend Jordan White (Duval), who get wound up with a psychopath Xavier Red (Schaech), who kills people and end up as accomplices on a road trip from hell across the Californian state highways.
Araki, is a huge film fan, but a director who in spite of his ability has never had the huge crossover hit, and watching this film you can see why. Araki sometimes has too many ideas going on at one time, or he has too many influences running through his head and the wish to embrace and appraise said influences sometimes does a disservice to the film as a whole.
Not to say it is bad for end of the millenium directors to have influences, yet Araki does join Tarantino and Eli Roth as directors who cut and paste films based on their film viewing without having a distinctive authorial voice. Whilst Tarantino has the uncanny ability to whip out five pages of memorable dialogue, this foregoes the lack of visual flair; and Roth falls back on the ability of shock and awe to enhance his failure to write good dialogue.
Araki has the ability to have his finger on the pulse of an ever-changing youth culture; when we first encounter Jordan and Amy it is whilst Jordan is in a moshpit and Amy is telling some guy to f off who asks her for some drugs.
Yet you never get the impression that these drifters are apparently drifting, or they will eventually drift back to normality once Xavier is out of their lives. Araki's penchant for a mixture of sexual exploration for the characters, combined with a healthy dose of gore does go hand in hand - in recent films post-Millenium, Araki has explored the notion of sexual politics in the youth culture from both hetero- and homosexual stances, as he did in Kaboom (2010).
This does not make the film Doom Generation, a bad one there are enough to keep you interested and it does have some great set pieces of violence in the vein of Stone's masterpiece, Natural Born Killers, yet it is very much a case of a director trying to do too much in a very short space of time. Whereas those killers were very violent and knew that they were inherently evil, these ones are a little too reflexive and unaware of their actions.
The Doom Generation is out today from Second Sight Films courtesy of Aim Publicity
Following in the footsteps of Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia, the film follows would be femme fatale Amy Blue (McGowan) with her doe-eyed boyfriend Jordan White (Duval), who get wound up with a psychopath Xavier Red (Schaech), who kills people and end up as accomplices on a road trip from hell across the Californian state highways.
Araki, is a huge film fan, but a director who in spite of his ability has never had the huge crossover hit, and watching this film you can see why. Araki sometimes has too many ideas going on at one time, or he has too many influences running through his head and the wish to embrace and appraise said influences sometimes does a disservice to the film as a whole.
Not to say it is bad for end of the millenium directors to have influences, yet Araki does join Tarantino and Eli Roth as directors who cut and paste films based on their film viewing without having a distinctive authorial voice. Whilst Tarantino has the uncanny ability to whip out five pages of memorable dialogue, this foregoes the lack of visual flair; and Roth falls back on the ability of shock and awe to enhance his failure to write good dialogue.
Araki has the ability to have his finger on the pulse of an ever-changing youth culture; when we first encounter Jordan and Amy it is whilst Jordan is in a moshpit and Amy is telling some guy to f off who asks her for some drugs.
Yet you never get the impression that these drifters are apparently drifting, or they will eventually drift back to normality once Xavier is out of their lives. Araki's penchant for a mixture of sexual exploration for the characters, combined with a healthy dose of gore does go hand in hand - in recent films post-Millenium, Araki has explored the notion of sexual politics in the youth culture from both hetero- and homosexual stances, as he did in Kaboom (2010).
This does not make the film Doom Generation, a bad one there are enough to keep you interested and it does have some great set pieces of violence in the vein of Stone's masterpiece, Natural Born Killers, yet it is very much a case of a director trying to do too much in a very short space of time. Whereas those killers were very violent and knew that they were inherently evil, these ones are a little too reflexive and unaware of their actions.
The Doom Generation is out today from Second Sight Films courtesy of Aim Publicity
Thursday, 18 August 2011
In A Better World
In spite of other competing more notable films, Biutiful for instance, In A Better World won the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film at this years Academy Awards surprising many people.
The film now gets its English release, from Axiom Films, and it is a compelling picture full of ideas and theories about violence and pacifism.
Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) works for Medecins Sans Frontieres in a war-torn country of Africa, where he regularly treats pregnant women who are mutilated by a warlord who bets on the sex of the foetus before birth. When said warlord himself becomes injured, should the good doctor treat a man who has killed a woman he could not save. Such moral dilemmas abound in this film.
Our good doctor is currently separated from his beautiful wife, Marianne (Trine Dyrholm) yet remains close to his children. His youngest, Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being bullied at school and only finds refuge through the friendship of the new boy, Christian (William Johnk Nielsen) who confronts and stands up to the bully.
Anton then encounters a local ruffian who slaps him in front of the children. His passivity to the attack, and his argument that if he fights back he is but merely the equal of this lout, serves notice to the children. And yet here is where the films message becomes hazy - violence begets violence, and the case is made clear by young Christian's actions where the innocent get injured.
However, for all the moral quandry and minefield of social troubles, the film remains a brilliantly acted film by a sterling cast who although spending a lot of the time in humdrum poses do exhibit a warmth when required. Susanne Bier constructs a telling observation of the slowly decaying nuclear family - all of the characters are touched by abandonment, divorce and/or death, and yet Bier has a track record in deconstructing family relationships - After The Wedding (2006), Brothers (2004)
The cinematography by Morten Soborg of both the harsh desert in Africa and the lush countryside of suburbia in Denmark is shot expertly and gives a real stillness to proceedings in contrast to the many questions abounding on screen.
Given greater credence following the tragic events in the neighbouring Scandanavian country of Norway, In A Better World shows that violence may well get results but ultimately it is the last resort when communication breaks down, or violence is a sign of weakness of the socially inept.
The original title of the film Haeven may look like Heaven, but is in fact 'Revenge', the filmmakers cleverly chose a better English-language title - as the sheer optimism of its title means an audience familiar with Bier's oeuvre will guarantee an arthouse audience.
The film now gets its English release, from Axiom Films, and it is a compelling picture full of ideas and theories about violence and pacifism.
Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) works for Medecins Sans Frontieres in a war-torn country of Africa, where he regularly treats pregnant women who are mutilated by a warlord who bets on the sex of the foetus before birth. When said warlord himself becomes injured, should the good doctor treat a man who has killed a woman he could not save. Such moral dilemmas abound in this film.
Our good doctor is currently separated from his beautiful wife, Marianne (Trine Dyrholm) yet remains close to his children. His youngest, Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being bullied at school and only finds refuge through the friendship of the new boy, Christian (William Johnk Nielsen) who confronts and stands up to the bully.
Anton then encounters a local ruffian who slaps him in front of the children. His passivity to the attack, and his argument that if he fights back he is but merely the equal of this lout, serves notice to the children. And yet here is where the films message becomes hazy - violence begets violence, and the case is made clear by young Christian's actions where the innocent get injured.
However, for all the moral quandry and minefield of social troubles, the film remains a brilliantly acted film by a sterling cast who although spending a lot of the time in humdrum poses do exhibit a warmth when required. Susanne Bier constructs a telling observation of the slowly decaying nuclear family - all of the characters are touched by abandonment, divorce and/or death, and yet Bier has a track record in deconstructing family relationships - After The Wedding (2006), Brothers (2004)
The cinematography by Morten Soborg of both the harsh desert in Africa and the lush countryside of suburbia in Denmark is shot expertly and gives a real stillness to proceedings in contrast to the many questions abounding on screen.
Given greater credence following the tragic events in the neighbouring Scandanavian country of Norway, In A Better World shows that violence may well get results but ultimately it is the last resort when communication breaks down, or violence is a sign of weakness of the socially inept.
The original title of the film Haeven may look like Heaven, but is in fact 'Revenge', the filmmakers cleverly chose a better English-language title - as the sheer optimism of its title means an audience familiar with Bier's oeuvre will guarantee an arthouse audience.
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