Catch 'em while you can!
View full size"Pina"View full size"Pina"Category: god bless america
View full size"Pina"
This week's new releases in Portland-area theaters.
"Battleship"Lots -- and I mean lots -- of films and film events for this springlike weekend. At the multiplexes, we've got the boats-vs-aliens film "Battleship," the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy "The Dictator," and the star-packed mom-and-dad-com "What to Expect When You're Expecting." In the arthouses we have the dark marital comedy "Darling Companion," the dark true crime comedy "Bernie," the spree-killer satire "God Bless America," and the documentary "Mansome" about male grooming. We've also got a roundup of three local film events well worth catching: the annual Portland Queer Documentary Festival, the Great Northwest Film Tour of the documentary "Adventures in Plymptoons" about cartoonist Bill Plympton, and the brand new Experimental Film Festival Portland. Add a jam-packed "Also Opening" and "Indie/Arthouse" and "Levy's High Five" and your cinematic cups run way the heck over.
A screed against the worst aspects of the culture goes off the rails, but not without raising some real issues.
Joel Murry and Tara Lynne Barr in "God Bless America"Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait (the squealing, gnarly-haired comedian and, by now, auteur of a handful of cult films) vents his frustration with contemporary American culture, values and mores in the story of Frank, a middle-aged schlub who, divorced, friendless, jobless and diagnosed with cancer, goes on a spree to kill reality TV stars, parking space hoggers, movie theater talkers, and others who violate his code of simple human decency. In the process, Frank accrues a co-conspirator, Roxy, a high school girl with just as many peeves and maybe even more anger at the world.
The pair are played by Joel Murray (Freddy Rumson from TV’s “Mad Men”) and relative newcomer Tara Lynne Barr. Murray isn’t exactly a deep performer, but he fits the role well, and Barr is quite game. As the film progresses, though, their characters come to seem less like people than like mere vehicles for Goldthwait’s personal outrage. And in that context, their anger (not to mention the murders they commit) seems disproportionate and contrived. “God Bless America” offers a few laughs and a moment or two of drama, but it’s finally more of a conceit -- and a familiar one -- than a film.
(100 min., R, Hollywood Theatre) Grade: B-minus
Shawn Levy's books include the best-sellers The Castle on Sunset, Rat Pack Confidential, Paul Newman: A Life, King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis, and Dolce Vita Confidential.
He also wrote and narrated the podcast Glitter & Might. The former film critic of The Oregonian and KGW-TV, he has written for Sight and Sound, Film Comment, American Film, Interview, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Black Rock Beacon. He jumps and claps and sings for victory in Portland, Oregon.
