Tag: god bless america

Geekscape Roundtable: Reasons For Living in a Post-Avengers World

by GeekscapeStaff

The Avengers has come and gone, having assembled close to a billion dollars worldwide. What’s your reason for living now? Geekscape’s writers have a few reasons to survive at least through the end of the summer. Spoiler alert: It’s Prometheus.

Matt Blackwood: Indies and Gingers

After The Avengers, I am most looking forward to a couple indies. I know that sounds pretentious, and I certainly don’t want to impugn the inherent buzz of this summer’s blockbusters, but these two particular films each have something about which I’m even more excited. The first is God Bless America, Bobcat Goldthwait’s bloody indictment of reality TV’s subjects. Goldthwait’s previous two comedies, Sleeping Dogs Lie and World’s Greatest Dad, began with sick, over-the-top premises and ended up transcending their genre trappings and becoming beautiful messages of hope. The other film is Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz. I’m not proud of the reason I’m excited about this one, but I’ll show up for Sarah Silverman’s rumored full frontal and stay for the nuanced drama Polley has become known for.

I’m also pretty hopeful about Prometheus. I love Alien; hell, I even love Alien Resurrection! A new horror/sci-fi set in that universe, with Damon Lindelof involved? I’m intrigued. Plus, according to the Gambler’s Fallacy, Ridley Scott is due to make the greatest movie of all time by now.

Finally, there’s Pixar’s Brave. Pixar probably has a better critical batting average than any studio in history, the sad bunt that was Cars 2 notwithstanding, but I usually don’t make an effort to see them. If you have ANY children in your life- cousins, students, illegitimate offspring- you WILL see them whether you want to or not. They are inevitable. I haven’t tried to see one since The Incredibles, and yet I’ve caught them all. But Brave, the tale of a young Scottish girl following her dream of being a highland warrior, is a story I’ll make a trip to the theater to see.

Haterz Gonna Hate

Jae Renfrow: Aliens Resurrected 

So now you’re aimless wandering around, wondering what you’ll do now that you’ve finally gotten to see Thor and Hulk square off on the big screen. Why don’t you come hop aboard the Prometheus train with me? We’re invited(….or are we?) to a far off planet where we’ll get to witness Ridley Scott direct a sort-of prequel to one of the greatest horror films of all time, Alien.

Prometheus has had one of the best ad-campaigns in a long time. Instead of over exposing you with TV spots, 10 minute scene clips and Japanese trailers, they’re dropping wacked out viral clips of futuristic TED talks, and Michael Fassbender showing more range as a soulless robot than Jeremy Renner did as Hawkeye. I’m just sayin’… he didn’t have much to do, did he?

I still don’t know what the hell is gonna happen in this movie, but what I can guarantee is that whatever aliens are in this movie, they’ll be 100% more menacing then those wussy Chitauri and their Jet Motos.

Scott Alminiana: Cock Push Ups

Now that The Avengers has decimated the box office I can now look forward to a few other things. The first thing that I’m looking forward to is the new album from Tenacious D: The Rize of The Fenix. It’s the first album from Tenacious D since The Pick of Destiny movie and album crashed and burned six years ago. To promote the album The D has released two videos so far that prove that Tenacious D is back in fine form and ready to rock our socks off. They will also be touring in concert to coincide with the album release and you can bet I’ve got my tickets already!

The other thing I’m looking forward to is Prometheus, the long awaited return to sci-fi from Ridley Scott. What isn’t there to look forward to from this flick?! From Ridley’s return to the genre that he helped to redefine, to a script from Damon Lindelof that looks to explore some very big unanswered questions from Alien. If the trailers that have been released are any indication of what’s in store for us, then it looks like Prometheus could be one hell of a movie. I’ll be waiting in line opening night for sure.

Heidi Hilliker: It’ll end better than The Dark Tower

Locke & Key Clockworks #6 (of 6)! This last story arc of my beloved series has been epic… And epic might even be an understatement! There’s been so much back story revealed about the drowning caves, the Omega Key, the Black Door, how keys are made, Rendell Locke and the mysteriously evil Dodge. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez never cease to surprise me with inventive and fascinating information. I can’t wait to see how this chapter concludes and how they set up for the final story arc of the series.

I’m having such a double edge sword of emotions about this titles conclusion. I hate to see this book come to a close but I love the nervous excitement of finding out how it ends! The release date for issue #6 is June 27th. I hope that is pretty spot on. IDW has been known to come in late on Locke & Key’s release dates. I’ll be biting my nails until I get to visually devour this issue so it better be released on time or else I’m going to end up with hobbit fingers.

Molly Mahan: Queen of the Browncoats

The next flick I’m looking forward to is Snow White & The Huntsman. Though I’m not a big fan of K-Stew, I do love me some deconstructionist fairy tales! Also, I am hoping to see Chris Hemsworth be interesting in a movie again. After two weeks of his performances boring me to tears, I am hoping he’ll return to his Star Trek roots and give an emotional performance that I know he’s more than capable of. Or at least hack some Wicked Queen’s men to pieces with an axe. Either way, I’ll be satisfied.

Matt  Kelly: King of Logic

Look, I know everyone has been excited for Avengers and Spiderman and Batman. And with good reason- they look like great movies. They’re everything a geek has dreamed of one day seeing on the silver screen. But I’m not one of those people. Sure I’m going to see all three of those films in theater, but the movie this summer that I can not wait to experience is the sequel to the best 3D film in the last decade. I’m talking about Piranha 3DD. This movie is promising plenty of gore, boobage, laugh out loud comedy and over the top in your face 3D action… Sign me the fuck up.

The Chitauri are coming!

SXSW 2012 Review: God Bless America

by Brent Moore

Much has been said about the strange career trajectory of Bobcat Goldthwait, the funny-voiced comedian who seem destined to be a relic of the 80’s, so I won’t waste too much time telling his story again. I love the story though. I love the idea that a respectable career grew from the least likely of places. At least, I’d like to be able to love the idea. As it stands, I have no idea how Goldthwait has garnered all the praise that he has. Is he being given a pass because people want to love the story as well?

I find Goldthwait’s movies painfully juvenile in the way he presents his angry diatribes about modern civilization. He lacks any sign of subtlety. He makes no effort to create characters that feel like they exist in anything resembling a real world. His grievances, which I 100% agree with by the way, are presented in a blunt inelegant manner that reminds me of conversations me and my friends would have when we were fresh out of high school and thought that we had the world figured out. It’s self-important soap boxing with no interest in presenting a balanced and realistic look at the troubles plaguing our society.

Now, this might not be so bad if he fully embraced the lunacy of his world. A lot of the complaints I have with Goldthwait could also be applied to Oliver Stone, who is certainly no stranger to soap boxing. However, in Natural Born Killers, Stone goes so over the top and so weird that the blunt messaging and unrealistic characters felt natural and had the intended impact. The cartoon world served as a good parody of ours. Goldthwait doesn’t go that far, his film worlds are not far removed from our own which makes his preachy characters and wooden dialogue stand out all the more.

I know I’ve written a lot without really saying anything about the movie in question but my criticisms of Goldthwait can be applied to any of his films, God Bless America just happens to be the latest and most egregious.

God Bless America is essentially one part Falling Down and one part Super (substitute Kick-Ass if you’re out of Super, it won’t alter the taste too much). A middle aged man gets fed up with the stupidy he sees in his neighbors, his workmates, his television, and even his kid. So he decides to go on a killing spree, targeting those he feels are most guilty for turning the world to shit. These targets range from spoiled teenagers to reality show hosts. He picks up an adoring 16 year old fangirl along the way who proves to be even more enthusiastic about this bloodshed than he is.

This lack of originality is one of the main reasons God Bless America ranks as the worst of Goldthwait’s films. Another major reason is his misguided attempts at being “edgy”. You get the sense that Goldthwait truly believes he is pushing envelopes with the “extreme” content of his films, but it mostly comes off as tired and laughable. His past movies have dealt with beastiality and auto-erotic asphyxiation but his approach to these topics just feels like a junior high kid who just learned how to curse.

It was funny seeing this film after talking to Mike Birbiglia about his film Sleepwalk With Me. Mike talked about how comedy has changed and how its hard to be edgy because at this point everything has been said and done. You can’t just say ‘cunt’ and get a reaction. He said really the edgiest thing you can do now is just to be honest. To let people in and tell your story. To open yourself up to scrutiny and criticism. To drop the facade of trying to be cool.

Goldthwait isn’t edgy at all, precisely because he’s trying SO hard to be.