World's Greatest Dad

Bobcat Goldthwait, 2009

Can I Stream it?

4/5

High School Teacher Lance (Robin Williams) is surprised at the reaction of the school after his son's suicide.

World's Greatest is a uniquely dark piece of work bordering on ridiculousness at various points. Goldthwait manages to channel some energy that is challenging enough to resemble Todd Solondz while also making it absurd enough to resemble John Waters. But he still manages to mold it into something with some real charm. Goldthwait is comfortable making films about some controversial subject matter, and doesn't seem to care if you can't handle it. The subjects of suicide, hardcore pornography or auto-erotic asphyxiation don't sit well with everybody. Bobcat doesn't hesitate to explore this realm here. The film is filled with great performances, anchored with a really familiar warm performance from Robin Williams. His teacher character is much different from past teacher roles like his legendary performance in Good Will Hunting. While he had a sense of callused confidence there, here is more of a sweet doormat just looking to have a positive accord with the people in his life. Lance sips from his World's Greatest Dad coffee cup that he quietly cherishes because of it's ironic value. Probably the only nice thing that Kyle has ever done for Lance. Most of his exchanges with Kyle (Daryl Sabara) are one-sided - where Kyle says something dismissive to him and he simply walks away with his head down. Williams' Lance character draws the sympathy early when you see how horribly Kyle treats him. After a few exchanges you are begging for Kyle to get his comeuppance. The surprising reaction from everyone mourning Kyle's death is a familiar feeling. Quite often we see despicable people pass on only to draw a surprising amount of grief from many. They forget about the horrible things the person had done over the years. The person becomes a saintly figure. World's Greatest Dad is a look at death through an uninhibited lens. Sudden luck, a dramatic shift in life after a traumatic event. It's a really singular picture by Goldthwait that impressively balances the tragedy and comedy elements. 

Scrooged

Richard Donner, 1988

Can I Stream it?

3/5

On paper, Scrooged seems like a pretty good idea. Create modern version of the classic Christmas Story and add Bill Murray, and infuse it with some meta elements of making a staged classic Christmas Carol television special during the updated retelling. Sprinkle in some campy zombie makeup, give Murray the obligatory 80's mullet, and of course add Bobcat Goldthwait. And although it carves out its own little niche in the Christmas genre, there isn't a lot of warm fuzziness to Scrooged. You won't really come away with it with a good feeling like you will with some of the other versions of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Instead there's more of a prolonged icy blackness that mostly just subsides over the latter moments of the film. Perhaps its the gaudy contemporary aesthetic to the corporate atmosphere in much of the film. Murray's character does arch, but it's not a complete moral makeover like you would see in Groundhog Day. But to give him credit, he has only had a few days to gain a different perspective and not hundreds of years. In a sense it's probably because his character is just downright bitter. There's not a lot of nuance to Frank Cross the person. Instead, he's just a nasty man who by the end of the film has you convinced he has had a moment of clarity. But is it really that convincing that it will stick? In a sense it doesn't really matter. Because the journey is still entertaining, witty enough, dark enough when it needs to be, and cheery enough when it needs to be.  (with some good meta elements involved), dark enough when it needs to be, and cheery enough when it needs to be.

Willow Creek

Bobcat Goldthwait, 2014

Can I Stream It?

3/5

Curious couple Jim (Bryce Johnson) and Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) venture to the Pacific Northwest to the small town of Willow Creek with their portable video camera, where inexperienced but outdoorsy Jim is casually working on an amateur documentary that consists of him looking for Sasquatch around the location of the famous 1967 Bigfoot footage and interviewing the local townspeople before embarking there.

Bobcat Goldthwait's found footage thriller is a clear nod to The Blair Witch Project in that he places a couple of oblivious people in the middle of the woods and scares the hell out of them. Remove menacing unwelcoming witch lady and install equally unwelcoming giant ape-like monster, hit play. Like a lot of found-footage films the shaky cam takes a bit of getting used to, but after a while your vision settles in. There are believers and nonbelievers in the town of Willow Creek. After a few sloppy attempts at collecting some local anecdotes Jim and Kelly are ready to hit the road. Jim is the clear believer (who makes it clear that this is a childhood dream of his to take the trip) while Kelly is skeptical to say the least. One thing that is for certain is that when they arrive in the small town is the mythos of Bigfoot itself is a living, breathing thing. There are people whose full-time jobs (albeit low-paying and not so eventful) are based on the mythology. Seeing the hand-carved wooden statues and elaborate murals throughout the town is almost enough to make a believer out of anyone. The energy around the town provides a more silly, tongue-in-cheek image of the whole thing despite the few kooks who seem to take it a bit TOO seriously.  

So the couple ventures into the thick lush forest outside of the town. Cue the giggling and the not-so-serious attitude and then the sun sets. Night falls and the fun begins. The tension builds. No punches pulled. Goldthwait employs the device of letting your imagination do the work instead of immediately throwing you a shot of some CGI'd monstrosity. He even gives you something that is basically the equivalent to the terrifying baby crying in Blair Witch. When the camera sits with two people alone in a small tent in a dim light, your other senses are augmented. At the end of the day, The Blair Witch Project's approach worked on some people but didn't work on others. It was a very divisive film. People who happened to live in the woods tended to be more affected than the city-dwellers who brushed it all off as a failed attempt to scare them. But if that movie got in your head, Willow Creek certainly will. Willow Creek is not trying to reinvent the wheel, and by not doing that it hits the mark.