Friends with Kids

I tend not to like movies where I know what's going to happen.  It usually feels like a chore to get to the inevitable conclusion.  I prefer movies that keep me on my toes.  That's why I like indie films; their directors don't feel obligated to have the characters live happily ever after; they may not even live at all.

"Friends with Kids" is not a surprising film.  The premise: two best friends see marriages breaking down around them once kids enter the equation.  They have a kid together so that they can pursue their romantic dreams without parenting getting in the way.  Zero points for guessing who these two end up with.

But despite its predictability, writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt makes "Friends with Kids" work thanks to her spot-on observations about marriage: how some relationships can run too hot and cold to be healthy, how even solid marriages hit bumps after childbirth, how the desire for comfort clashes with the wish for something new and exciting.  Westfeldt also displays a deft touch in showing how people really interact; a dinner party scene that ends in tears is especially well-orchestrated.  She executes poorly in the predictable final scene, but it's still a worthwhile film.

I'm not a big fan of the "journey, not the destination" mindset, but with a film that's smart and poignant, I can see the appeal.

God Bless America

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait has made a name for himself writing and directing comedies with outrageous premises and unexpected depth.  Sleeping Dogs Lie was about a woman who had once blown a dog, but it was really about how we deal with the past with our significant others.  World's Greatest Dad was about a father who writes an eloquent suicide note after his son kills himself, but used this set-up to explore how we remember the dead.

God Bless America, by contrast, is pretty much exactly what it seems: a middle-aged man and a teenage girl going on a killing spree to express their outrage at America's moral degradation.  Frank loses his job on a bogus sexual harassment charge and soon learns he has terminal cancer.  With the help of a truly twisted teen named Roxy, he decides to use his newfound freedom to take down some of the best exemplars of America's celebrity-driven culture, sex-obsessed mores, and fear-mongering political culture.  Along the way he rants about Twitter and young people's insistence on taking pictures everywhere, the greatness of Alice Cooper and the horror that is Diablo Cody.  (As if the movie didn't have enough of a "Get off my lawn" vibe already.)

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop in this film, for some sort of nuance or second layer to emerge.  But it never really happens.  The best Goldthwait can do is show some minor areas of disagreement between Frank and Roxy, like whether high-fives are an abomination (yes, really).  In this way he suggests that not everyone might agree on who deserves to be killed.  What an incisive point!

The inevitable closing monologue in God Bless America is just a restatement of a rant Frank gives early in the film.  There really is no deeper meaning or evolution to this film.  It's a stand up comedy rant masquerading as a movie, Taxi Driver for 10-year-olds.