M with Bobcat Goldthwait, screening/QA of God Bless America, Los Angeles Film School, 05/07/2012.
I’ve admittedly never been a fan of Bobcat (or Robin Williams or Howie Mandel or Gilbert Gottfried or any other manic ’80s comic for that matter), but we had fun at this one. Destined to be a cult classic. Think Natural Born Killers meets Office Space. The political rant gets heavy-handed at times, but not in an unexpected way.
The best part of this story — and the reason Bobcat came up to us immediately afterward to say hi — was because of an exchange that had happened halfway through the QA between him and M. Hilarious; it’ll be on Jeff Goldsmith’s podcast in a few days or so. I’ll post it later.
Nutshell: the flick is a black comedy about a decent-hearted yet disenfranchised guy whose so fed up with our over-connected society that he guns up and goes on a killing spree, killing people that piss him off. Loud neighbors, screaming infants, reality show producers, political talk show hosts, etc. There was a particular scene where he mowed down a group of rude people in a movie theater.
We were sitting in the front row. About an hour into the QA, M was tending to a text on her phone. Bobcat called her out in comic fashion. The irony spoke for itself. Not just because it echoed the content of the film we’d just watched, but because M is constantly accusing ME of paying too much attention to my phone while SHE is talking.
It was a good night. What became clear after the QA was that the whole hyperactive “Bobcat thing” we’re so familiar with has always been a schtick. Behind the scenes, he’s a pretty mellow sweetheart of a guy.
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