Movie Review: God Bless America (2011)

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God Bless America could be a hard pill for some to swallow.  A dark comedy by industry veteran Bobcat Goldthwait, yes the crazy Police Academy guy.  It tells the story of a man that decides to go on a killing spree after being brought to his wits end by the incessant perversion of this great country.  No, this isn’t an anti-liberal film, or even an anti-conservative film, but is an anti-shitty people film. 

Our protagonist, Frank, is played by Bill Murray’s younger brother Joel, and it may be the best role he has ever had in my opinion.  Frank is a tormented man, with nothing but disappointment in his world.  We see him get abused by everyone around him, from his neighbors to his co-workers, and even his own daughter.  After one exceptionally bad day, Frank gets the news that he has terminal cancer.  Even during this dramatic revelation his doctor takes a personal phone call and ignores Frank’s need for the slightest human compassion.  With no one left in his life and the inevitable end in sight, he returns home with the intention of committing suicide.  Gun in hand, Frank prepares for the end, when his television showcases a bratty high school reality star throwing a tantrum.  Suddenly, something inside him snaps, and Frank decides to turn the gun on her.  He is going to die anyway, so why not take down a supremely horrid person on his way out.  He drives across the country and executes the little bitch in a somewhat haphazard fashion.  He manages to evade any law enforcement, but is witnessed by the local oddball, a young girl named Roxy.  She is enamored by Frank’s courage to do what everyone else is thinking, and after a little convincing the unlikely duo begin a quest to rid the world of every shitbag they can think of.   

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With so many senseless killings going on in the real world around us, I’m sure this movie will ruffle some feathers, but if you can just let the fiction be fiction there is a lot of great messages to take away from it.  Frank delivers some of the most heartfelt yet comedic speeches on topics ranging from shock jocks, to corrupt media, all the way to just being plain rude in a movie theater.  There truly is some great moral lessons to be learned from this bloody romp through the heart our shameful society. 

For me this movie felt like an instant cult classic with elements of Office Space, Cecil B. Demented, and The Professional all mixed together for a final brew of bittersweet satisfaction.  It will forever be in my list of all time favorite movies.  You can’t help but sympathize with Frank in his violent endeavors, because at the end of the day he really is a good guy.  He even rejects the sexual advances of his far too young cohort, Roxy.  Speaking of which, Roxy is an amazingly charismatic character in her own right.  Her loyalty to Frank and her own bad decisions is admirable to say the least, and she has an individuality about her that feels authentic.  She knows she is young and ignorant on certain issues, but is confident in the matters she is educated on.  I especially liked her rant about Alice Cooper being the original rebel rocker.  Not only is it spot on, but it defines her character as someone wise beyond their years.

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At the end of the day, God Bless America is really just Bobcat Goldthwait venting his frustrations of the world around him in the best way possible.  I suppose it could be interpreted as just bitching about pop culture, but again there is some solid moral lessons to be learned here.  Bobcat Is much more than just a bit player in a bad 80′s comedy.  He has been writing and directing for television and movies since the early 90′s, and with this particular film he has been cemented in my mind as an inspirational figure.  His directing style is very precise and yet open to improvisation at the same time.  He is known for shooting entire movies in a couple weeks on shoestring budgets.  A very enviable trait indeed, especially when they turn out as good as God Bless America or World’s Greatest Dad. 

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So next time fox news makes you so mad that you wanna strangle a puppy, or American Idol berates some poor schmuck to the brink of suicide, just turn on God Bless America.  You can live vicariously through Frank and Roxy as they tear through the heart of pop culture with guns blazing.  It really is a hell of a ride that just might tug at your heartstrings as well.  I easily give it a 9/10, but if you live in the mainstream it could be closer to a 5 or a 6.  Just remember, it’s just a movie, no need to actually kill anyone, okay?

flicks I watched this weekend

Aurora Borealis
An interesting romantic drama starring Joshua Jackson, Juliette Lewis, and Donald Sutherland with a small role from Tyler Labine (Tucker and Dale Vs evil).  The movie is centered around Joshua and Juliette falling in love blah blah blah, but there was a good dose of life lessons and a general theme around growing up and moving on with your life, which our protagonist has a big problem with.  Throw in his suicidal grandpa with dimensia, well played by Sutherland, and you’ve got Aurora Borealis.

7.5/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387037/?ref_=nv_sr_3

Disappearance of Alice Creed
A very unorthodox little film that literally has only three actors in the entire thing.  Only one of which I was familiar with, Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan).  What an amazing flick for what had to have been a paltry budget, though you wouldn’t know that from watching.  Very professionally done with no found footage bullshit that plagues low budget films of this style.  It’s basically a kidnapping story that grows increasingly interesting at every turn, through inter-connected relationships that are slowly revealed throughout the film.

8/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379177/?ref_=nv_sr_4

Cyrus
Wow what a great flick from the Duplass brothers, starring John C Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, and Matt Walsh.  An awkward film that’s definitely not for everyone, but very well done.  John C Reilly is basically a loser whose life turns around when he hooks up with Marisa Tomei.  Only problem is her 22 year old son, Jonah Hill, has a bit of a mommy complex and basically sets out to sabotage his mom’s new squeeze.  Jonah Hill is surprisingly creepy and believable in this role, and was his first step to getting the Oscar nominee career he has going now.

9/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336617/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Garden State
The directorial debut by Scrubs star Zach Braff, was hit and miss for me, but overall a pretty decent flick.  Starring Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Ian Holm.  It’s essentially a romantic drama between Zach and Natalie, with Zach’s mental issue’s and over medication by his father/psychologist serving as the back drop.  All actors involved did a great job, but i feel Braff was completely outshined by Portman and Sarsgaard, who truly seemed to inhabit their roles.

7/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0333766/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1


Short film ideas

just some rough ideas I came up with, feedback is welcome

The boy who lost nothing
A kid in his twenties meets an alluring girl with major social disfunctions/ family problems. They have chance encounters throughout the city and have lengthy dialogue about their problems and the boys inability to wrap his sheltered mind around the depth of her issues. After some heartfelt moments the girl rejects his advances and leaves. A few days later the boy sees a news story about the girl commiting suicide apparently for no reason, as the news story outlines her life as being nearly perfect in every way, he realizes everything she told him was a lie. All the aspects of her and her life he was so drawn to was a falsity, thus he lost nothing.

Found footage of a serial killer
Shot as a static position of a security camera in a torture room, where a deranged yet purposeful killer has detained a girl for months on end with extremely minimal contact. No reason was given for her detainment, and the killer doesn’t seem to want anything from her. Finally one day he enters the room with a small table and two chairs. He chains her to the chair and engages her in conversation. He asks her many personal questions delving into the very nature of life and its perversions. After each answer she gives he takes her words and twists them into the “truth” of the matter or at least how he perceives it. He tells her that when the talking is done he is going to kill her in the most brutal and torturous way possible. The girls facial expressions in reaction to his words will be the most important part of the film, and the focus will be on her terror and realizations of what has passed and what is to come. The film will end just as the torture is about to start. NOTE: the killer’s face will never be on camera!

The lawyer
A lawyer has a crisis of conscious when his client, an accused child molester and murderer, unknowingly confesses to the kidnapping and murder of the lawyers best friends child years prior to the murder he is currently charged with. The lawyer is enraged, bewildered and confused as he searches for the correct course of action. The case, which he is sure he will win, is worth millions, and his oath as a lawyer prevents him from telling his friend the truth. He wants to purposely throw the case , also against the lawyer rules, or maybe even arrange for his friend to get revenge on the killer. Being in the toughest possible spot for a man to be in, he struggles to maintain any sense of normalcy in his life…. Cant think of an ending right now lol

Sneaky fuckin Russian
A Russian sleeper agent in 1980’s america has his cover blown when a youth breaks into his home in an attempt to rob him. The kid was searching for hidden money, drugs, or anything of value and accidentally stumbles upon the sleeper agents credentials of some sort. At this crucial moment the Russian returns home, just as the kid makes a hasty escape from the second floor window. The Russian makes it up the stairs in just enuff time to see the back of the kid and his trendy punk jacket. The Russian launches an op to find the kid before it’s too late. Infiltrating a group of counter culture punk kids when you are a grown ass man is not an easy thing to do, as the sneaky russian will soon find out as he stumbles from one failed attempt after another to identify and locate the culprit. Meant to be more of a comedy than a serious spy drama, the focus will be on his dialogue with young punks in the 80’s and his failure to understand their ways.

100

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So recently I reached a milestone on tumblr and broke 100 followers!  I know this seems like a paltry amount compared to the thousands of followers some of you have, but it means a lot to me.  I just wanted to say thank you to everyone, and remind you all that I am always open to suggestions for my blog.

I have been trying my best to create new content for the site, but time is pretty limited for me.  Not to mention I have no qualifications to be a writer heh, but the point is I am trying and your support means a lot.  My quest for success will never end, and I love every second of it.

Thanx again!

Ross

Q:I just read your comparison between. Walter white and Light Yagami. It was great, ever think about a comparison between Kira and Dexter Morgan from Dexter?

darktimesandgoodvibes

Thanks for the kind words!  As far as Dexter is concerned, I do see some similarities, but not nearly as much as Walter White.  While Kira and Dexter both have close ties to the police, their personalities couldn’t be more different.  Dexter has no delusions about who and what he is.  He’s very aware of his dark passenger and believes himself to be a monster merely fulfilling his need in the best way possible.  

I am a big fan of Dexter, well except for the last couple seasons :(  Here is an interesting thought I just had though, what if the worlds of Death Note and Dexter became intertwined?  They both fall into each others criteria for killing.  A battle of wits between Dexter Morgan and Light Yagami would be a pretty epic fanfic.

Well thanx again for the question!

TLK

hey tumblr followers, ever wonder why I only hit like on your posts but never reblog?  Well it’s because I don’t want to flood my site with all the random internet stuff.  So I made a second tumblr that will serve as my personal blog.  Now I will be able to interact much better with you all.  So please follow me at Sephiross

Walter White And Kira: Comparison Of Two Monsters

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I have recently re-watched two of my favorite series, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and Shonen Jump’s “Death Note”.  If you haven’t seen either of these shows, then I highly recommend them especially if you are a fan of the anti-hero.  I am assuming that if you are reading this, you are intimately familiar with both stories.  With this in mind I will not be explaining the plot and spoilers will be everywhere.

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Q:Hey.uh sorry this is random..but I enjoyed reading that article about telepathy. Aha.... Do u wanna see real telekinesis? Lol I can show you. Not many people can do it. And people like us (telekinetic) would rather stay anonymous. But I for once, would like to introduce myself to u. Lol. My name is Myles Canilao. I'm 18 from Canada. Once a strong non believer of telekinesis but holy hell. 8 months ago I started moving a pencil. And as time pass, I can now move furnitures hahah. Fucken wicked huh

myleselizabeth

I am a pretty open minded guy, but u know this sounds crazy right? I am willing to listen to you but I won’t believe it til I see it. I have had a few supernatural experiences of my own, so I’m open to this sort of thing.

Update

For those that actually look at my blog, sorry for the lack of content.  I have been searching for a job the last few weeks and the hopelessness of it all stifled creativity.  Well I finally got hired somewhere and sure enough ideas started flowing again.  While daydreaming on the couch, an idea for a sci-fi story came to me.  I will get back to doing reviews soon enough, but the reason I started this blog was to try my hand at writing.  Film just happens to be a passion of mine so it seemed like a logical place to start.  My ultimate goal, writing wise, would be to write short stories or even full novels.  Anyway, check out this idea I had.  It’s just a rough summary of what the story would be about, but I would like to hear some opinions before I really dig into it.

Sci-fi book idea

Planets are actually enormous evolved beings and we are all its children.  We have a telepathic and magnetic link between the planet and all life forms that reside here.  At a future date, humans create space shuttles able to leave our immediate solar system, but as they cross that threshold, the astronauts, become weak and sickly.  Another 100,000 miles and they all drop dead one by one.   Though we don’t realize it yet, the reason they died is that they went too far from their home planet.  The link between them and the planet was severed, causing their inevitable death.

The truth of the matter, which will be revealed throughout the story, is that we are actually capable of using our planet itself as a vehicle.  If enough people around the globe invoke their link to the planet through meditation, they can guide it through space.  This state of  mind could be induced and magnified through technology, allowing smaller groups of people to control the planet.  Of course the idea of a planet intelligently moving through space has it’s problems, most importantly no sunlight.  While the possibility of creating an artificial sun exists, or living underground and surviving on the heat of our magma core.  We are not at the point of knowledge and evolution yet, but others in the universe may be.

The ancient Samarians inscribed stories of  giant god like figures, the Anunaki, visiting earth from a planet named Nibiru that appeared in our skies.  The interpretation by some, is that there is an unknown planet that exists on  a highly elliptical orbit and only passes through our solar system every few thousand years or something like that.  The truth of the matter (in the story) is that Nibiru merely visited us through its denizens invoking their link to the planet.  It’s the reason we have such dramatic shifts in weather contained in the fossil record and religious texts.  Ice ages, great floods, catastrophic seismic activity, all can be explained by a large body getting to close to our own planet.  They had to orbit every time they visited, because if they came to a full stop, their own planet would suffer planet killing consequences.  Our own catastrophes were thought of as a small price to pay in exchange for the knowledge they granted us. 

Back in the present, a new galactic body starts an approach to our planet, but they aren’t friendly this time.  An enormous planet capable of sustaining a small sun’s orbit heads our way, with the intent of killing our planet after raiding it for all its most valuable resources, including dna.  The denizens of said planet, aren’t much different from our selves in appearance though I cant think of a concrete idea of how they would appear yet.  Their technology would differ from ours immensely, and would be akin to the protoss from star craft.  Relatively advanced technology coupled with telekinetic shielding, amongst other  mental capabilities amplified through tech.  they seek to raid our planet for natural resources as well as collect various life forms for slavery, study, and simply raw organic material.

The story will be told through high ranking government figures and scientists slowly discovering the truth of all the things I have mentioned.  The result is worldwide knowledge of the impending doom, and immediate action  to avoid our fate through invoking the planet.  Eventually tech is created to greatly multiply the mental link of a person by roughly 100,000.  The exact amount of power is dictated by a persons body and mind, and so small teams of people were formed, consisting of the most intelligent, physically fit, and strong minded individuals.  The story would revolve around one particular group and most events would be told through their eyes.  Through these elite groups of enhanced individuals, and the cooperation of mother earth itself, the alien threat is eventually neutralized.  Though not without great casualties and dramatic effects to our planet.

that’s all I got for now, I just wanted to get it down before I forgot.

Thx for reading!
Ross

Horror Movie Review: The Descent

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The Descent is one of those flicks, that just takes you by surprise and blows your expectations out of the water.  I walked out of the theater stunned and amazed at the expertly crafted tension.  There is a fair amount of gruesome deaths as well, and not to mention solid acting and cinematography.  All done with a basically unknown cast, and what appeared to be a low budget.  My favorite aspect of this indie film though, is the bloodthirsty creatures and their logical back-story.  I am the kind of nerd that needs a little logic in my fiction, and that appetite is satiated. 

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