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In Theaters: 'Dark Shadows' May A Cause A 'Sleepless Night,' But 'God Bless America' For 'Bonsai'

  • By Emma Bernstein
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  • May 11, 2012 3:59 PM
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  • 1 Comment
News
So “The Avengers” knocked it out of the park, huh? With a $600 million intake worldwide and lots and lots of good reviews, Joss Whedon and the folks over at Marvel can probably even one-up James Cameron at the next Masters of the Hollywood Universe fete. (That sounds fun, doesn’t it? I’d go to a party like that.) This weekend is a little smaller, but looking good nonetheless. A number of foreign films that have done well in the festival circuit, and the latest eyefeast from Burton and Co. hit theaters today, providing quite a lot of competition – if not dazzling CGI and budget – for the massive blockbuster winner of last week. Let’s see how they measure up.
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More: Dark Shadows, God Bless America, Hick, Sleepless Night, I Wish

Review: 'God Bless America' Looks Incendiary, But Is Actually A Self-Congratulatory One-Note Screed

  • By The Playlist
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  • May 11, 2012 10:04 AM
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  • 2 Comments
News
Former shrill-voiced comedian turned acidic writer/director/satirist Bobcat Goldthwait may just be one of the most simultaneously electric and frustrating indie filmmakers working today. When it comes to deliciously wicked and acerbic premises, there might not be a better conceptualist. A devilishly arch comedic mind, Goldthwait has thus far come up with three succulently mordant, often morally taboo narrative inventions: a girl who tries to repair her relationship after she reveals to her partner she's engaged in sexual acts with her dog ("Sleeping Dogs Lie"); a struggling and untalented author who parlays his son's fake suicide note into a writing career ("World's Greatest Dad") and his latest, "God bless America," a pitch black societal missive about a disenfranchised man and an all-too-willing and fed-up teenage girl who go on a cross-country killing spree aimed at the shallow, the insipid and the repellently vacuous.
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More: God Bless America, Bobcat Goldthwait, Review

SXSW '12 Interview: Bobcat Goldthwait Talks His 'Oliver!' Sized Kinks Musical & Rowdy 'God Bless America'

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • March 12, 2012 2:35 PM
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  • 0 Comments
News
Bobcat Goldthwait has always walked the road of comedy right on the edge. From this early days as a member of the "Police Academy" ensemble, but his current work as a filmmaker which has seen him bring deliriously dark, demented and funny works like "Shakes The Clown" "World's Greatest Dad" and "God Bless America" (recently unspooling at SXSW) to the big screen. But his passion project may surprise you -- it's a musical based on the The Kinks album Schoolboys In Disgrace and it has been a project he has been developing for a while. The last we heard about it was nearly a year ago when it was reported that Jack White would be helping to re-record the music, with Warp Films throwing their weight behind the project as producers. But The Playlist member Aaron Hillis caught up with Goldthwait in Austin and he revealed a bit more about what we might expect.
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More: Bobcat Goldthwait, God Bless America

SXSW '12 Review: 'God Bless America' A Funny, Insightful & Outrageous Indictment Of Contemporary Culture

  • By Todd Gilchrist
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  • March 10, 2012 12:01 AM
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  • 5 Comments
Reviews
At the movies, righteous anger is in painfully short supply these days, but writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait manages to harness all of his (and more than a little bit of ours) in “God Bless America,” a scathingly funny indictment of the vagaries of contemporary U.S. culture. Compiling an encyclopedic list of offenses unleashed upon the world through the entertainment industry, the pretense of political discourse, and the increasing indignities of human interaction, Goldthwait crafts a revenge fantasy that’s smart, specific, and imminently sympathetic, even when its characters retaliate in admittedly extreme or inappropriate ways. Desperate for a time before TMZ without purely succumbing to rose-colored nostalgia, “God Bless America” is a twisted but troublingly accurate chronicle of contemporary inhumanity, viewed through the eyes of a man no longer capable of ironic detachment.
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More: God Bless America, SXSW Film Festival, Review

15 Most Anticipated Films Of SXSW 2012: From Will Ferrell In Spanish To The Lost Duplass Bros. Movie & More

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • March 6, 2012 3:03 PM
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  • 3 Comments
Features
While Sundance still gets the headlines, the last few years have seen the film strand of South By Southwest, the Austin, Texas cultural conference, become just as vital to the movie world as Robert Redford's baby. The past few festivals alone witnessed some of the best movies of their respective years debut, from low-budget indies like "The Puffy Chair," "Beeswax," "Tiny Furniture" and "Cold Weather" to more mainstream fare like "I Love You Man," "Adventureland" and "Bridesmaids," to international genre hits like "Kill List," "Attack The Block" and "Monsters."
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More: SXSW Film Festival, South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW), Features, God Bless America, Casa De Mi Padre, Frankie Go Boom, Cabin In The Woods, Small Apartments, The Hunter, Do-Deca-Pentathalon

SXSW Adds '21 Jump Street,' 'Do-Deca-Pentathalon,' 'Killer Joe,' 'Casa De Mi Padre' & More To Lineup

  • By Kevin Jagernauth
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  • February 1, 2012 3:00 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Festivals
Don't unpack that bag from Sundance too fast. SXSW in Austin, Texas is just around the corner and it has two things over Park City: spring heat and BBQ. With the film festival just over a month away, organizers have dropped their features lineup, and there will be some nice surprises for those making the trek.
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More: 21 Jump Street, Casa De Mi Padre, Killer Joe, Bernie, Paul Simon: Under African Skies, The Comedy, The Raid, Keyhole, God Bless America, SXSW Film Festival, Do-Deca-Pentathalon

R-Rated Trailer For Bobcat Goldthwait's Nihilistic Comedy ''God Bless America' Suggests Greatest Movie Ever Made

  • By Edward Davis
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  • January 31, 2012 12:01 PM
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  • 12 Comments
News
When it comes to molotov cocktail-like film premesis, perhaps none are greater, more deliciously wicked than comedian turned filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait's incendiary and hilarious societal screeds. Always testing the limits of good taste Goldthwait's films have chronicled light beastiality ("Sleeping Dogs Lie") and deep, shameful immorality in a picture about a father who fake's his sons suicide note and then becomes a famous author in the process ("World's Greatest Dad"). His comedies are always pitch, pitch black.
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More: Bobcat Goldthwait, God Bless America, Film Trailers

Magnet Acquire Bobcat Godthwaite's 'God Bless' America,' Cohen Media Group Take 'The Awakening'

  • By Benjamin Wright
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  • September 14, 2011 3:30 AM
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  • 0 Comments
Plus Sony Pictures Classics Buy Jonathan Demme's 'Neil Young Life' While TIFF continues for a few more days in The Great White North, acquisitions of films are now heating up what was being called a slow buying season for studios, with a steady drip of purchases continuing in the last 24 hours.
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More: Films, Film Studios, The Awakening, God Bless America

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