God Bless America - 2011

Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. DP was Bradley Stonesifer.
I chose 'God Bless America' as a companion piece with 'Welcome to Leith' since both films address terrorism, albeit from different angles. Leith is an analysis of how regular people are changed by terrorism. We follow the town as the hate and anger of Cobb infect normal people and push them to the edge of violence. This is capped off by the burning of Cobb's condemned house.
"GBA" by Bobcat Goldthwait looks at terrorism as a catharsis. There's never a real attempt to deconstruct the bigger meaning of terrorism. Frank's psyche and rational are cut and paste from YouTube message boards. He's a shallow person, but rather than admit this to himself and try and grow, he lashes out at those who reflect the worst part of himself. The joke at the heart of the film is Frank complaining about the lack of comity in his fellow humans just before he acts just as uncivil and blows them away.  
The scene below illustrates my point. Frank is listening to his daughter complain and whine as he watches "Spoiled and 16" or whatever on T.V. His daughters words are lip-synced to the girl on television. 

This would seem to have a couple meanings. 1. Frank is part of the problem. As I already argued, he is lashing out against the emptiness in himself. 2. Bobcat could be arguing entertainment is a reflection of the real world, his stance on the old chicken or the egg argument. So I decided to cheat:

Why does everyone in movies have flip phones? T.V. shows and movies always have people using flip phones. I mean what teenager, is still using one of those?

I actually used one till last year when it broke...but still!

I believe it's because you can't make out the brand of the phone on the flips. Or it's cheaper and fits in the budget easier? And I know this film came out in 2011 but this is something I've noticed in plenty of recent low budget films. No I can't think of any examples. How 'bout some blind belief on your part?

I wanted to point out use of eye lines in the shot below.

So knowing the motivations for the characters, we get an informed feeling on what is going to happen and to whom. Without the noisy character being on screen we can completely consume ourselves with Frank and Roxy. This also makes us hate the guy on his cellphone. Because we don't spend much time with him we view him as disposable, in the same way our killers do.
An interesting bit of experimentation below as Frank murders a guy by hand. It's the only time Frank doesn't use a gun, so it's much more intimate than the other killings.

Frank was set off by the guy implying a sexual relationship between him and Roxy. And the filming of the murder is in complete contrast to shootings. There is something raw and personal about Frank choking the guy to death. The camera watches from the floor as they stumble in and out of frame. There's no glorification here. This is a depiction of Frank at his most base. It shows his outward pathology as a lie to cover up his violent streak.

The scene above is a reference to Taxi Driver. In fact the gun runner shows Travis and Frank the same .357 and makes the same comment about it's power. Frank and Travis both act distrustful of the gun runner leading to awkward scenes. It reminds me of how they used the movie theater scene in 'Buzzard' to pay homage in the same way.
The 14-year-old Orso Bergman would have loved this film. Probably memorized the lists of people they hated and why. The old man in me thinks pointing out pop culture is vapid is about as insightful as asking why MTV doesn't play music anymore. I will say the parts are greater than the whole as the direction and design stood out. Recommended.

P.S.  Since this movie came out: Aurora movie theater killing, Newtown Massacre, Dylan Roof, San Bernadino, Colorado Springs, last weekend in the Florida night club. That's just off the top of my head.