Change Your Image
joe6629
Reviews
Show Me the Father (2021)
Great Message - Even For The Non-Religious
Some very inspiring stories and a pretty amazing twist toward the end.
You can take what you want from this film and even though I'm not religious, I think the message is crucial: Fathers are incredibly important for us as individuals and as a society. With the relentless Leftist attacks on the family - and especially Fathers - it's awesome to see a well-made, Life-affirming film for a change.
The Gulf of Silence (2020)
Not worth your time - and it asks for a LOT of it.
An hour and 25 minutes of a slow, nasal, condescending, self-important woman fantasizing how she was "selected" to become some kind of UFO expert by "the government". She also claims to give the viewer the "truth" of what's gone on here on Earth ... and she basically regurgitates a few months' worth of high school "science" class factoids including how life on Earh formed (cough).
If you came to this looking for a genuine whistle-blower, you should know that it's all fiction - and very sloooow fiction at that. I watched it at 1.5X speed to get through it faster. It probably would have been easier to stomach without the amazingly annoying soundtrack ... like 80 minutes of someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard - but there you have it.
There are much better ways to spend your time and attention.
Love, Death & Robots (2019)
Wasted Potential
As an professional animator and artist, I can say that I really appreciated the various styles of animation in the series - varying from cutting edge to some pretty limited/stylized animation. A special shout out to Digic for their episode - some of the most impressive shading and simulation I've seen - just jaw-dropping stuff.
The stories are varied, but mostly predictable, and pretty much all center around violence of some kind. If you remember Heavy Metal magazine, well, you'll have a good feel for most of the stories. My biggest gripe with the series was the out of place and in-your-face gratuitous nudity, profanity, and gore. It made the series feel like a political/cultural (SJW) statement more than a series of *stories*. Yes, those elements have a specific place in specific stories - but most of these episodes felt like they started with an agenda and tried to wrap a story around it - even if it kept jarring the viewer out of their sense immersion.
I despise this kind of film-making - it's political, simplistic, shallow, and amateur - everything that will give this a very short shelf-life. What a waste of talent. C'mon guys - you're better than this!
8 stars for the technical aspects. -7 Stars for the stories and adolescent use of excessive SJW dog whistles and nudity/profanity. Given Netflix's pushing of all things culturally degrading, I'm not surprised - and you shouldn't be either.
What a waste of great potential.
Fatman (2020)
Who Is This For?
The idea of Santa having a hit put out on him by a disgruntled, corrupt, psychopathic child is interesting - and given that Mel Gibson had signed on I figured it was worth a shot. What Fatman is though, is hard to describe: Fatman portrays adult themes, profanity, and violence mixed with adolescent dialog and plots. You have an (alcoholic) Santa character vacillating between compassionate and psychopathic. You have fantasy concepts mixed with attempts at "realism/grittiness" and the standard injection of "woke" themes (Mrs. Cringle is Black?) that left me wondering who the heck this movie is supposed to be for? Adults? No - Writing is simplistic and bland. Children? No - too much profanity, violence, and adult themes. People who consider themselves "edgy"? Maybe(?).
At the end of it all, my overwhelming impression was "What WAS that!?"
Two of Us (2020)
Who finances this trash?
Have you had your "woke" today? Another "movie" bashed into shape around a bolus of propaganda: Lesbians vs. Zombies. Woo. Edgy. Looks like it was shot with a phone. Wooden acting, amateur makeup, pathetic pacing, canned Foley, Thrift-Store clothes (ripped, yet miraculously clean), etc. It seriously looks and feels like a high school project.
Who funds this drivel? Someone obviously has more money than brains.
Love and Monsters (2020)
A Fun Movie for a Change
What a refreshing movie. No preaching, no agendas, no wokeness! Shocking! Hearkens back to the good old days of adventure films and a bit of coming of age films as well. The protagonist Joel is controlled by his fear and it takes his love of a girl to strike out on a quest to find her in a world where mutated (from tiny to huge) cold-blooded creatures and insects have taken over the world. There are a few Deus Ex Machina events thrown in there, and it is pretty predictable but that's OK - none of it feels out of place. Nothing to complain about as far as production values (sound, camera work, score, lighting, etc). An enjoyable family movie for sure.
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
Should you laugh in a werewolf movie?
I must admit, my expectations were low - which is always an advantage to underdog movies ... but I really enjoyed this. Kind of Fargo meets Twin Peaks meets a werewolf movie. I agree with other reviewers that it's more character study than werewolf movie - but that's not a bad thing in this case. Jim Cummings did a great job IMO - although I can see how some people might not quite "get" what I think he was going for. If you consider that he wrote, acted in, and directed this, it's all the more impressive as usually that's a recipe for disaster. There is a ton of subtlety in what's going on and for the people who think that "Transformers" is awesome theater, well, they'll probably miss most if not all of it. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the reactions and dialog. If you chuckled your way through a movie like "The Station Agent", you'll probably do the same here.
There were a few weaknesses in the plot and the character arcs could have been better, but overall, I enjoyed this enough to watch it twice ... which almost never happens.
Production values are good, acting is pretty strong, it's not awash in political agendas or wokeness, so, worth a watch.
Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)
A Bit Derivative and Predictable
Nothing to complain about in the production quality - it's all pretty standard fare - nothing glaringly bad - maybe a bit too heavy on the closeups. A few nods to other sci-fi movies - most notably "Predator". I wasn't expecting anything epic since the sequels to the awesome "Tremors" have been pretty lackluster, but it was a tolerable distraction. Michael Gross is definitely showing his age - watching him run was just painful. The cast is pretty two-dimensional, you've got your "Mary Sues" - women who can do no wrong and eclipse the men in every way, the psycho White Guys, the incompetent White Guy, the hipster Chicks who never mess up their makeup, etc. John Heder's character was ... embarassing ... thanks to sub-par writing. Honestly, I could have enjoyed this more if the whole Feminist BS wasn't rubbed in your face throuout the entire film. I'm wondering if Hollywood is even capable of producing something that's not a "story" hammered clumsily around a piece of woke/SJW propaganda. Watch it if you're bored ... or go back and watch the original (much more enjoyable).
The Silence (2019)
Who Writes This Stuff?
Some cave explorers blast a hole in a cave wall deep under the Appalachian Trail, and release a zillion carnivorous bats that have been just .... I dunno .... sitting around for a couple million years waiting for someone to blast a hole in the cave wall and let them out? I can actually get beyond the obvious question of "What were they eating for all those years?," but this movie fails to take advantage of my bludgeoning of disbelief and just goes down hill from there.
Now, I'm all for a good creature flick, but the onslaught of stupid pouring out of this movie is really hard to stomach. Are today's audiences *that* incredibly vacuous? There are so many glaring details that are flat out wrong (rattlesnakes crawling around in Fall? Sure. 39 Rounds from a Baretta Model 92? Why not. Car side windows spiderwebbing instead of shattering like tempered glass does? Absolutely ... etc. etc. etc). Somehow, the creatures can hone in on a small bell dingling from 1000 feet overhead, but 5 city-dwellers trudging through the woods is somehow ghostly silent .... in the Fall. Right. I don't know what the challenge is with getting details right in Hollywood, but it would have helped the movie tremendously. When the deaf daughter says, "I know how to live in silence" - I about fell over. Somehow the fact that she's deaf makes her super-quiet? What?
Then, there's the Standard-Issue agenda that seems to creep into every movie put out by Netflix/Amazon these days: Guns? Baaaad. Christians? Baaaaad. Masculine men? Baaad. White guys? Baaaad.
So, in a nutshell, this is a hackneyed movie that's all been done before, with a splash of SJW propaganda thrown on top for seasoning. I'm sure some people will find it very realistic and engaging ... but if you're a thinking person, you might just want to pass. Go watch Pitch Black again - you'll enjoy it more.
Two stars for the production quality and CGI.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Plenty of Stupid to go around
In the not too distant future, the Earth is overrun by an killer race of, super-hearing, armored .... preying-mantis-crossed-with-spiderman-venom-things. This is the story of one family's "fight to survive". The movie is very much a Drama first with a little bit of horror and very little sci-fi thrown in. There is a lot of time spent on the "tensions" within the family regarding a loss early on. There is almost no back-story as to how the world was overrun by these creatures (Aliens? Chimeras? Man-made?)
The Good: The acting is decent, the score, cinematography, and FX work are all well done - there is certainly nothing to complain about here. Pacing is pretty slow - a lot of time is spent trying to make the audience feel uncomfortable (too much time IMO). The movie feels a lot like an M. Night Shyamalan piece.
The Meh: I tried really hard to piece together some kind of chain of events combined with extenuating circumstances to make sense of the characters mindset and actions - but failed. A lot of the situations in the film are just stupid (like the nail in the tread of the stairs ...WTF?) The story, overall pretty much sucks. No doubt, it had a lot of potential - and could have been really engaging .... but as happens when story takes a back seat to propaganda .... they pooched it. If you don't like movies with stupid characters in them - you know - the kind where they don't do what is obvious - or anything that makes sense - then you probably will have the same issues with this that I did. The mode of the characters seems to be "Let's just wait around until we're all eventually picked off" (In movies like this, I have zero empathy for the characters and end up rooting for the monsters). The super-hearing creatures had some characteristics that could obviously be exploited against them (blind, no sense of smell, no apparent echo-location, etc) yet the electronics-wizard dad couldn't come up with a simple booby trap? I came up with a half-dozen traps to try while watching the movie ..... and HE had over 400 days to think about it. I mean, a super-sensitive hearing creature ... and nobody in the world had tried sonic weapons? REALLY?
The Bad: Like pretty much everything coming out of Hollywood these days, A Quiet Place has a huge serving of Feminist propaganda rolled into it (this is probably what killed most of the potential of the story). That's right, the father is a total Beta who spends most of his time looking like a lost puppy - and proves to be completely ineffective at protecting his family. The only thing he manages to do is impregnate his wife and subsequently "fall on his own sword." The son in the movie is a pathetic wuss - the "ideal" feminized male actually. His deaf sister is twice the "man" he is. Then, there's the mother: she hits a Feminist home-run! Fifteen minutes after birthing a child on her own, she is up and running - turns into a monster-killer on a mission and manages to do what her husband couldn't (figures out how to kill the monsters). SO believable!
My advice: If you feel you need to watch it, wait for the dollar theater. Why would you *pay* to be propagandized? This is yet one more movie where potential is sacrificed on the altar of Misandrist/PC/Feminist/SJW propaganda. 2 out of 10 Stars for the technical aspects.
Annihilation (2018)
Interesting but Ultimately Ruined
Imagine this: A strange, alien phenomenon is enveloping more and more area in a remote part of the countryside. You've already sent in two crack Spec-Ops teams that promptly disappeared. You don't have a lot of time before the phenomenon grows even larger - and possibly becomes uncontainable - and you still have no idea what it is. What do you do? A) Send in another team - perhaps a larger, better-trained, better equipped Spec-Ops team that is hard-wired to a team sitting on the perimeter, or, B) Send in four chunkalicious regular gals ... because ... y'know, if a team of highly trained soldiers can't do it - four Diversity Divas sure can!
You can guess which one they pick in Annhiliation.
First, the good: There are a few cool/creepy concepts and some nice visuals in Annihilation ... one in particular that will stick with you for a while, I bet. Cinematography, acting, sound, score, visuals, FX are all pretty good - nothing distracting, anyway. *Overall* the story is pretty engaging and kept my interest.
The not so good: Once again, what was a potentially decent idea/story is completely destroyed by Leftist Propaganda mixed with a generous helping of stupid. Feminist component? Check. Homosexual component? Check. White woman cheating on her husband with a black man? Check. Forced People of Color component? Check. Incompetent/Crazy white men? Check. Then, you get to the stupid: These women are supposed to be "combat-trained", yet are utterly laughable with their weapons handling and tactics. Muzzle discipline is cringe-worthy. They don't work as a team and they make ridiculous tactical decisions (like one going off on her own to search for a missing team member). They didn't bother to bring flashlights or weapon lights .... but they brought a powerful microscope! They're supposed to be documenting what they find, yet nobody is taking pictures or video - or even field notes. Their night watch (LP/OP) is set up in the middle of a field, and the person manning it is sitting there with a lantern blazing away. I'll stop there - you get the idea.
So, is it worth watching? I'd say "yes" if you don't have to pay to see it. It's an OK "shut-your-brain-off-for-2-hours" kind of movie (if you can ignore the SJW garbage). The sad part is that the movie actually could have been dramatically better - there are some good ideas in Annihilation .... but Hollywood seems to have abandoned telling stories and shifted to jamming propaganda down our throats as a business model.
Hangman (2017)
A Clumsy "Se7en Lite"
First, I like Karl Urban. I like Pacino (mostly). So I thought that there was good potential here even though "Hangman" is essentially "Se7en Lite"... except not as good as that might imply. There aren't any new ideas here - it's all pretty cliché' - and of course there is the requisite insertion of the Gay and Feminist Agenda that seems to contaminate every movie coming out of Hollywood these days. Ooo - so edgy! Step right up and *pay* for your daily dose of propaganda. Yawn.
Urban is saddled with the standard-issue "brooding, former hot-shot FBI agent" character and Pacino as his "burned-out-but-brilliant former (retired) partner" ... who's somehow allowed to be heavily involved in a serial-killer investigation(?) Snow plays a New York Times reporter who claims that her goal is to give some ... "honest insight into what it's like to be a police officer..." .. uh, sure. This coming from the paper that loves to promote hostility and violence toward the Police.
They are trying to decipher the "coded message" that the "Hangman" is sending to them via mutilated and ritualistically displayed bodies (insert "mysterious and never fully explained" connection to the two investigators) and even though they keep getting "letters" (via the victim's bodies) nobody bothers to put them on the diagram that they keep showing. Another (of many) bizarre thing is that the "clues" left to the detectives are ridiculously obscure ... and yet they figure out the "meaning" of each one in seconds ... and are never wrong.
Production value is good (overall) with the exception of some annoying "shaky camera" footage. The dialog is clumsy, the acting flaccid, and the soundtrack is tolerable ... but the biggest issue I had is that the story does not flow: the pacing is inconsistent and confusing. There are some jarring continuity issues between shots, e.g. you'll have a couple of camera cuts building tension, and one that immediately follows that falls flat - it doesn't fit. It feels like there were shots randomly taken out and others randomly inserted ... I found myself thinking, "Well... that was weird ..." a lot.
Some of the other pain:
There is no logic to how the victims are selected or why - yet they want you to believe there is.
Some of the flashback footage is cringe-worthy. I can imagine Urban saying "Man, please don't make me do that ..."
In one shot it's 11pm on the first day, in the next shot, it's 10:45pm on the second day. You'll feel like someone is hitting the "Next Chapter" button on the remote without telling you.
Detectives allowing a reporter to contaminate a murder scene.
The 30-something, crippled, Latina Police Captain. Really? What vast law-enforcement experience/expertise would have logically earned her that position? What is she? An Affirmative Action "3-fer"?
Pacino punishes you with one of the WORST attempts at a "Southern" accent I've heard in a long time. Horrific.
To conclude: If you have nothing else to do, and want to just put your mind in neutral (maybe drink heavily) it's a tolerable way to spend a couple of hours ... but a much better use of your time would be watching (or re-watching) "Se7en" instead.
Nightworld (2017)
Starts Out Strong-ish .....
First, I'm being fairly lenient because it's obviously not a big-budget movie. The acting is OK - not painful to watch. Score is OK - not distracting or annoying. Cinematography is OK - about "TV Movie" quality.
My main issue is with the jumbly and non-sensical story (and severe lack of back-story). The movie starts out decently enough - a grieving former policeman decides to take a job as a security guard in a creepy old building to get his mind off of his loss (you're never told *why* his wife took her own life). The opening scenes are very reminiscent of "The Shining" - even down to the job interview. So far, so good. But then things start getting kind of disjointed (what's a dream, what's not) - especially as other characters are introduced. There are some pretty big jumps in the development of relationships that are kind of jarring. The romantic interest (like most of the rest of the plot) feels very forced and doesn't make much sense - especially at the pace it "progresses." It's always a little weird when some young girl (working at a coffee shop) is supposedly attracted to a guy her father's age ...it's like "Hi, great coffee" then 5 minutes later they're ripping each other's clothes off ... WTH? To add to the mix of bizarre, Eglund plays a blind man who instead of using a typical blind-person's delicate cane, he's busy clubbing the crap out of everything in sight with a heavy walking cane - and nobody finds this odd. Then, Eglund's can't seem to locate who he's talking to (not a problem for any blind person I've met) ... and his changing accent ... and then the part where he reacts to the flickering lights - lol.
The focus of the "creepiness" is a mysterious set of doors in the basement of the building (made me think of "The Keep" with Scott Glenn) with some thumping/whooshy/moany sounds coming out of it. Unfortunately, instead of the movie building up tension and getting creepier ... it just became progressively more laughable. Most of the attempts to build tension end up being distracting instead because they don't make any sense. The attempts at "scary" feel more like an old "Twilight Zone" episode in their sophistication and timing.
Overall, "Nightworld" is watchable ... and as long as you're not expecting too much, you won't be disappointed.
Infinity Chamber (2016)
A Great Indy Sci-Fi Flick
Wow - what a pleasant surprise!: A movie based on an interesting and unique premise for a change (instead of another pimped-up Hollywood reboot Leftist propaganda-fest). "Infinity Chamber" is an excellent example of how a compelling story can make up for a smaller budget.
The acting is decent, the dialog isn't distracting, the cinematography is respectable, the sound design is balanced - which is to say nothing pops out as being sub-par - everything "fits" pretty well. The story can be a little confusing in places, but that's part of the appeal as you find yourself wanting to figure out what's going on - what's real, and what's fantasy/simulation.
Is "Infinity Chamber" filled with Michael Mann-splosions and crazy CG effects? Nope. Will you miss them? It depends on what you watch movies for: something that makes you think, or, something that requires zero mental involvement and that you flush the moment you walk out of the theater (this movie is the former). If you like movies like "Primer", "Cube" and "Moon" (somewhat cerebral movies taking place in limited environments), you will likely enjoy this one as well.
Bushwick (2017)
Leftist Civil War Fantasy
What starts as an interesting premise ultimately flops on it's face and wallows in Leftist political muck - and it's not even clever or subtle in the process. Of course, it's not much different than the veritable cornucopia of utterly worthless Leftist/SJW movies being made these days - whether it's an "average" 102 lb. woman who can miraculously beat up ten 240lb, fully-armed spec ops soldiers - or in the case of Bushwick - an easily-captured "redneck" soldier who happens to tick of all of the SJW imaginary hot buttons (racist, homophobic, cowardly, murderous, white supremacist, etc).
I've seen some pretty bad movie ideas that *somehow* managed to get green-lit - and Bushwick ranks right down there with the worst of them: FFS, the Southern States secede and attack New York?? Are you freaking kidding me? They couldn't even come up with a remotely believable reason.
I have to agree with another reviewer who said that this is "Red Dawn" for Leftists and SJW's - that pretty much sums it up.
The only reason this gets one star instead of zero is because I think Dave Bautista did a pretty good job. It also gets a tiny nudge in the humor category because for some reason, Leftists love to use BB-guns in their movies ... and not even nice ones. I guess the hipsters et. al. can't tell the difference, but I laugh every time I see a character "threatening" another character with a cheap plastic toy. Oooo... so SCARY! lol
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Barely a shadow of the original
I have to admit that I cringed when I found out that ScarJo was going to play the lead - but I thought I'd give it a chance. After seeing some of the work that Weta had done on the robotics for the film (on YouTube), I thought that maybe they WERE going to do something interesting ....
I was wrong.
The good: They did a pretty good job of capturing the gritty, oppressive, megalopolis of the original Anime. There were a FEW scenes that were faithful to the original. The FX work was good if not great, and nothing stood out as being sub-par. In the realm of the latest spate of super-hero movies, it holds it's own in regards to the technical.
The not-so-good: If you are an Anime fan and a fan of the complexity and pacing of the original story and the amazing design and story-telling that went with it, you will be *sorely* disappointed. Sorely. Disappointed. Lots of reviews are apologizing for this, but to me, it's unforgivable ... but also very Hollywood in that if you give Hollywood a great story, they will pack it with propaganda and hack out the best parts with a rusty spoon. Other reviewers try to excuse it by claiming "It's it's own movie" - and I say, "Then the should have titled it differently." The story is a poorly written cliché-fest apparently pandering to the "simplistic" Western Mind ... whatever that means. The most interesting aspects of the characters were written out, and replaced with characters you've seen a hundred times. They even managed to infuse a Sappho undertone for the Major - and re-wrote the final act to make the Feminists happy - what a shock! /sarc.
If you must see it, wait for the dollar theater - or rent it and watch it with some friends when it's available. After suffering this, I went back and watched the original ... and it just drove the point home how bad this Hollywood version is. 3 Stars for the technical aspects.
The Chamber (2016)
Pretty Difficult to Sit Through
I can't really fault the sets or effects as the entire set is pretty limited. Cinematography is OK, Audio is OK, Sound Track is serviceable and thankfully not annoying.
Kuhnke (as "Mats") does a pretty solid job given a pretty weak script. Salt (as "Edwards" aka Stick-Girl) and McArdle (as "Parks" aka Dough-Boy) are both unsuitable to be cast as "military personnel" and unforgivable as "SEALs". Why IN THE WORLD did they cast a woman as a SEAL Team Commander? Seriously?... and a pallid, anorexic one at that? If you're as tired of the SJW/Feminist pandering that goes on in film as I am, you might want to pass this one up .... otherwise be prepared to see yet another 85lb supposed "super woman" with arms about the size of my 2-year old's throwing around a guy three times her size - eventually killing him with her bare hands.
Right.
SO believable.
Additionally, the lack of discipline in both conduct and language coming from these supposedly "elite" soldiers is laughably bad - watching the two "SEALS" argue is like watching an old married couple fight.... and they fight a LOT. Since the writer apparently didn't seem to know any military personnel, he at least could have watched "The Abyss" a few times before writing his highly pressurized SEALs ;)
I can't help but think that if the movie had been cast with believable characters, it would have added a star or two to the rating - even with the hideous dialog.
There isn't a lot more to the movie, so I'll close with the suggestion that if you want to see a movie similar in many ways to this one, yet superior in every way, check out "Pressure"(2015) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3029476/
Spectral (2016)
Don't Expect Too Much ... and You Won't Be Disappointed
First, the Good: There is a lot of eye-candy - like a video game trailer. The production design, stunt-work, locations, visual FX (CG AND miniatures), score, and camera work are all very, very respectable - as good if not better than some more "mainstream" movies I've seen. The soldiers (for a change) look like they've actually handled a weapon before (although some of the tactics are kind of silly). The acting is decent -i.e. bland yet not so bad that it's distracting.
The Not-So-Good: The writing is borderline unforgivably bad - with more than a few parts ripped right out of other movies. I felt like I was getting hit with a cliché' club through most of it - and caught myself laughing out loud at how ridiculously BAD some of the dialog exchanges were. There IS one inkling of an original idea here (the genesis of the baddies) but that's about it. Everything else has been done before ... and probably too many times. The Deus Ex Machina factor plus the MacGuyver-esque solutions were really hard to stomach.
Overall, if you're bored and want to shut your brain down for 110 minutes, it's worth watching ... if only for the FX
The 5th Wave (2016)
For the Twilight crowd - not for Sci-Fi fans
The "Twilight" crowd will love it. Awash in pretty boys, long soulful stares, teen-sexual tension, and a girl who manages to have pretty amazing hair, makeup, and stylish costuming even though there's been no running water or power for months, and she's been sleeping in the woods for ... days? weeks? equipped with only a teddy bear and a bottle of water (not that this is different from any Hollywood movie out there about the "end of the world") "The 5th Wave" can pretty much be watched with the Fast-Forward button pushed for well over half of the movie - especially if you're looking for any action and want to avoid the sappy "romantic" scenes. If you are looking for gritty, somewhat realistic, fast-paced, compelling science fiction ... this is NOT the movie for you.
The acting across the board is flat - but it's not the actors' fault, really - they didn't have much of a script to work with. The writer failed to build any tension *anywhere* in the story. I spent most of the movie waiting for the pacing to pick up - but it never did. Overall, the movie is slow, non-sensical, and frankly, boring.
There was a lot of potential here, but the makers failed to take advantage of any of that potential - which is too bad - and the way the movie ends makes it abundantly clear that they plan to do a sequel as you feel like you've just watched an episode of a TV-series - the ending just leaves you hanging - no resolution at all. If you want a more enjoyable "alien invasion" viewing experience, you might want to watch a few episodes of "Falling Skies" and save yourself a few bucks.
God Bless America (2011)
Had Potential....
I had really high hopes for this film. While it *does* have some great laugh-out-loud moments, it unfortunately suffers from the same affliction that a lot of Indy films I've seen lately suffer from: excessive one-sided political stereotyping, and the incessant need to jam the writer/director's political point of view down the viewer's throat at every opportunity. Now, political stereotyping doesn't have to be a toxic flaw *if* the ridiculous stereotypes are balanced and take swipes at both ends of the spectrum ... but "God Bless America" doesn't do that. The writer (Bobcat Goldthwait) is obviously coming from a very Liberal-leaning (and arguably very distorted) point of view. This conspicuous prejudice turns what could have been an enjoyable movie with a potentially poignant message - into yet another "Liberal values are good, Conservative values (what Liberals believe them to be, anyway) are bad and have ruined the country" sermon. If Bobcat would have stuck with lampooning the insanity that's so prevalent in modern pop culture (ala "Idiocracy") and forgone the myopic political digs, GBA would have been a *much* better movie.
Production quality was good, and the acting was decent. If you describe yourself as "Liberal" you will probably really enjoy "God Bless America", but personally, I won't be recommending it to friends because, ironically, the movie falls victim to the very societal decrepitude it endeavors to point out. It's just too politically jarring to be enjoyable.