...where distraction is the main attraction.

Friday, February 3, 2012

The "God Bless America" trailer

This trailer for "God Bless America" will either excite or upset your Friday.

(Warning: Not Safe for Work due to cusswords.)

I have two different voices going on in my head about this film.  The first one says that the movie looks like a contemporary Bonnie and Clyde tied to a theme of our society in decay.  The other voice says, wow someone's going to go on a shooting spree after seeing this.

Of course, I haven't seen the actual film.  Nor have its detractors.  Can't judge a film's ethics based on a trailer.  Though this trailer seems to hold back little of the ethical comment.

And clearly it taps into the intellectual, creative, and ethical decay that most of us feel is happening all around our country.  But it (the trailer) addresses it with the finality of death and destruction, a fantasy that all ills can be ended with anarchic violence.

And that's where the third of my schizophrenic voices says, "While I'm sure that this movie will be more interesting than anything else in theaters this year, I'm going to skip it." I'm going to judge this film, based on the trailer alone, because I'm tired of American violence.  I'm tired of how it's woven into our values.  Not just in our news and politics.  I'm tired of seeing in art.  Hearing about it in music.  Watching documentaries about it.  Seeing narrative films exploit it.  Seeing narrative films comment on it.

Seriously, when are we going to get some good films about healthy American sex?  I'll watch documentaries about it.  Narrative films that exploit it.  Narrative films that comment on it.  Yes, this subject matter is easily accessed online for free via a multitude of websites that'll play graphic somewhat-staged lightly-edited episodes.  But I'd rather see our larger entertainment industry embrace American sexuality much more fully, especially in our cinema.  Hell, independent and big-budget.  Sex is much more interesting and entertaining than violence.  And there are great swells of money to be made by it.  So there's no reason to shun capitalism in order to perpetuate the mythical puritan ethic.

Give us unending hours of flesh that doesn't bleed and I'll say "God Bless America."