LIE #47: Father Knows Best

World’s Greatest Dad (2009; Bobcat Goldthwaite) is about the venom—making the viewer squirm. But as long as you can appreciate acidic, nasty humor that takes no prisoners, while still delivering maximum laughs, you will enjoy this film and its vicious take on the “sympathy industry.”

A New Fave: “God Bless America”—If Jonathan Swift can do it, so can Bobcat Goldthwaite! (And then we’ve got reality TV zombies with “Dead Set”)

God Bless America (2011; Bobcat Goldthwaite) may not be a perfect movie, but as far as I’m concerned it is certainly a great film: a pure, undiluted rant; a 200-proof “scream from the heart”—incredibly personal filmmaking that isn’t about navel-gazing or suburban ennui.

In gentler times, this film would have been an Ealing Studio comedy, with a dour Charles Laughton sneaking poison into the tea of various boors and louts.

But since these are the days we live in, Goldthwaite’s movie is a blood-splattered, sick-humor black comedy that smashes over the head with a brick because subtlety is no longer appreciated. God Bless America is a violent, angry satire lambasting the current non-existent state of civil discourse in the US—and I loved it.