Foster: I’m the bad guy?
Prendergast: Yeah.
Foster: How did that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I help to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. Instead, they give it to the plastic surgeon. They lied to me.
– Falling Down (1993, screenplay by Ebbe Roe Smith)
***
The red band trailer of Bobcat Goldthwait’s next movie, God Bless America, is now making its way across the net, as the film itself tools around the festival circuit on its way to a May 11 wide-opening.
Judging solely by its trailer, God Bless America looks like a mutation of Kick-Ass, Heathers, Taxi Driver, Paper Moon, Serial Mom and The End (1978).
Diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, the film’s pathetic protagonist (played by Joel Murray) embarks on a killing spree. He and his teenaged sidekick (Tara Lynne Barr) knock off individuals they’ve deemed deserving of death: a bratty reality TV star, talent show contestants, moviegoers who won’t turn off their cell phones, a bunch of Fred Phelps’ followers:
Based on the trailer alone, I’m not impressed – unlike the folks at certain pop culture sites. (The writer at ScreenJunkies enthused, “The trailer for God Bless America looks like my dream journal!”)
The movie looks awfully derivative (see “mutation” above). Look: I’m 47 years old, I’ve already seen a lot of movies and I can’t undo that. Most new films are either remakes and franchise sequels surfing on stunt-casting fumes, CGI and catchy soundtracks, or Tarantinoesque “homages” to far superior movies I saw when I was 17.
I’m not averse to filmmakers making cinematic references; the movie I’m about to discuss “quotes” Fellini’s 8 ½ in its opening sequence. But quotes are a long way from plagiarism and lazy, sterile regurgitation.
Because every movie today seems to be simply a collection of winking “homages” to other ones, expect to hear God Bless America compared to Falling Down (1993). A lot. I remember when that Joel Schumacher movie was condemned as a sign of the end times, and for better or worse, most of us are still alive. God Bless America will no doubt be condemned too, for its “glorification” of violence (and, I suspect, the weird friendship between a middle-aged man and an adolescent girl).
However, God Bless America’s apparent differences from its revenge-fantasy predecessor demonstrate the distance Hollywood (and society) has traveled in the last 20 years. Not necessarily in the right direction, of course.
“Filmed during the L.A. riots and released on the same day as the World Trade Center bombing and two days before the siege at the Branch Davidian compound (which ended badly), [Falling Down] could be said to be a record of fear and loathing extant in the real world of early ’90s America.”
– Bee Tee Dee, Unwinnable.com
In Falling Down, Michael Douglas plays William Foster (a.k.a. “D-FENS” after his vanity license plate.)
With a buzzcut you could set your clock by, white short-sleeved dress shirt, tie and wimpy pocket protector, Douglas’s iconic physical appearance in this movie – it’s been “name checked” numerous times since (see The Simpson’s ill-fated Frank “Grimey” Grimes) – was presumably styled to remind the viewer of both Bernard Goetz and Charles Whitman.
Stuck in a sweltering Los Angeles traffic jam, driven over the edge by sensory overload — every other car sports a bitchy bumper sticker that’s practically each owner’s personal declaration of war — Foster abandons his vehicle in the middle of the highway, explaining to the angry driver behind him, “I’m going home.”
Foster’s one-day Oz-like odyssey takes him through the seedier ‘hoods of the City of Angels. Like Dorothy, he meets colorful, cartoonish people along the way – a Korean store owner, Hispanic “gang bangers,” a neo-Nazi, a fake Vietnam vet, a rich plastic surgeon – but instead of collecting new traveling companions, Foster keeps accidentally, and somewhat comically, upgrading his arsenal: the baseball bat he acquires from the store owner is eventually replaced by a switchblade and finally a gym bag full of assault rifles and handguns.
Foster insists to everyone he meets that he just wants to get home in time for his daughter’s birthday party, but like lots of bitter, divorced, dead beat dads, you suspect Foster’s The Searchers-meets-The Swimmer mission is actually designed to perturb his ex-wife, who’s taken out a restraining order against him (albeit for less than compelling reasons).
As Foster’s mission of mayhem gains strength, LAPD Detective Prednergast sets out to stop him. Played by Robert Duval, Prednergast has a lot in common with his prey: a “lost” daughter, a twitchy wife, and most importantly, obsolescence — it’s the detective’s last day on the force.
People misremember Falling Down as having a higher body count than it actually does. Foster kills one despicable character in self-defense; his other “victims” are merely shook up — as is Foster himself, who doesn’t exactly retain expert control over his unwieldy weaponry.
Even the movie’s maker conveniently “remembers” a different film than I do. At last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Joel Schumacher was eager to talk about his two-decade old flick:
“I think Michael Douglas was the original Tea Party-er,” says Schumacher with a truly mischievous grin. (…)
“He’s the man who wonders who are all these (foreigners) in my country? And where is my gun?”
Schumacher says a lot of people identified with him, and even saw him as heroic for becoming assertive in a society that demands sheep, but his intent was much darker.
“I guess you could call him a hero, but he’s waving his gun at his wife and child by the end of the movie. I mean, is that heroic?” he asks, with a shrug.
“I think when a person leaves his car, he’s abandoned his identity. So if you pull out a gun at McDonald’s, are you going to use it? Where does it go from there? It’s like what Joan Didion wrote about swimming out so far that you can’t return, and you are out there where there is nothing.”
First, I’d love to know what word Schumacher uttered that prompted the reporter or his editor to substitute the word “foreigner.” (Naw, Hollywood liberals aren’t racist or anything…)
And Schumacher’s notion of “Tea-Partiers” is equally predictable and more revealing of his own prejudices than those allegedly held by conservative activists (whom he’s never met in person).
Yes, Douglas’ character is a VERY angry guy. But there’s nothing terribly “conservative” about, say, complaining about the price of a can of Coke, or inherently “right wing” about bitching that fast food employees aren’t supposed to serve breakfast after a certain time.
Yes, such stringent regulations seem petty and even arbitrary, and have certainly contributed to the increase of cynicism and the general breakdown of social trust and cooperation. However, if you subtract the automatic weapons, Foster’s tantrum in the restaurant — while obviously designed to echo two still-fresh massacres at Luby’s and McDonald’s — wouldn’t be out of place in the lyrics of “Alice’s Restaurant” or the faux-hippie anthem “Signs.”
(In fact, Foster encounters far more pressing obstacles to his well being than the protagonist in Signs does for choosing not to wear a button down shirt and tie.)
Falling Down is a cinematic fable and, as one critic noted at the time, “a Rorschach test to expose the secrets of those who watch it.” It’s an anti-hero’s journey that’s inspired artists as varied as Iron Maiden circa 1995:
and the Foo Fighters, just last year:
I can’t imagine God Bless America resonating in a similar fashion.
Perhaps audiences today are jaded and media-saturated, not to mention harder to shock thanks to real life events.
I feel very safe in predicting, however, that the body count in God Bless America will be higher than Falling Down‘s.
And that none of the victims will be black, Hispanic, gay, Asian or Muslim.
I wonder if any of the white, privileged lefty hipsters who flock to see Goldthwait’s new film will possess the self-awareness to flinch as they cheer the murder of their own cohort on screen.
If it turns out that THAT will be Goldthwait’s “hidden agenda” “gotcha” for viewers, I’ll congratulate him for his courage and cleverness.
But, alas, I’m pretty sure I won’t have to.
If you’re wondering what film will tap the current angst as FALLING DOWN did, look no further than HUNGER GAMES.
A future North American government stages a humiliating spectacle where children from regions of that oppressive country are forced to fight and kill each other.
But the game gets flipped when a teenaged girl from the starved Appalachian region picks up a bow and arrow and starts to win the brutal contest…. But her survival and personal bravery starts to threaten the fascistic government.
If HUNGER GAMES doesn’t speak to the current economic and cultural conditions, I don’t know what does.
I saw that movie already, it was called Battle Royale.
Sounds like Rollerball (1975).
The admirable James Delingpole gave an enthusiastic boost to “Hunger Games” in a recent issue of the (UK) SPECTATOR:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/7637713/a-gorefest-in-which-everyone-dies-horribly-heres-my-book-recommendation-for-kids.thtml
Looks well worth a shufti.
Thanks for the link to Delingpole’s review. It seems I’m the only one left in the planet who hasn’t read The Hunger Games, as I think of dystopian novels as the raw broccoli of high school reading lists and wishful nightmares for people who don’t already know they’re living in a nightmare. But if he compares it to crack, then it might actually be fun. Much appreciated.
I think I’ll download it off the internet and then NOT watch it.
Go see ‘Act of Valor’ instead.
If that is too Macho, try ‘Shy People’.
What you may seen in Schumacher’s movie and what he intended are two different things, and in fact “Falling Down” was meant to be an attack on the opponents of Bill Clinton and liberal Democrats in general as much as Hollywood’s attacks on Obama’s critics today are an attempt to portray them as out of the mainstream of political conversation.
Remember, 1992 was dubbed by the big media as both “The Year Of The Woman” and the rise of the “Soccer Moms”, which were intended to contrast with the “Angry White Male” — basically, a reactionary neanderthal who was seeing his racist, sexist, homophobic world taken from him and was lashing out in violence. Dogulas’ character was Hollywood’s stereotype of the person who listened to Rush Limbaugh, voted for Pat Bunchanan in the primaries and Ross Perot or GHWB in the general election and whose time had passed.
Like Goerge C. Scott’s performance in “Patton” — where then negative, anti-war vibe he and Francis Ford Coppola wanted to get across somehow ended up with Vietnam-era audiences sympathizing with the title character instead of being repulsed by his hyper-militarism — what Schumacher and Douglas intended the movie to say to audiences of 1993 may not have been what it said to all of them, but the same desire to demonize conservatives that is in play today was the driving force behind the movie. That’s where the “tea party” reference comes from; Schumacher hated his title character.
Goldthwait’s movie may end up with the same sort of “stick it to the right” ethos, but given its protagonists targets are in large part creations of the culture of the left, he’s either going to have to do some incredibly annoying pretzel logic to show conservatives are behind today’s irritating pop culture, or he”s going to have to craft a totally nihilist “to hell with everybody” movie in order to avoid getting on the wrong side of the current culture wars.
That was exactly the message I got from Falling Down. There’s a reason D-FENS looks like a character from NASA’s Mission Control room, ca. 1968. He’s a specimen of the patriarchal, white, male, military-industrial caste that put an American on the moon. In Falling Down, the world has moved on and people like him are no longer needed or wanted. He is depicted as bitterly clinging to his former power and status as husband, father, worker, and member of society. He is also given some faux-Freudian mommy issues to further round out his dysfunctional character. (It’s an article of faith in Hollywood that the more traditionally male a man is, the more likely he is to be weak and frightened inside – or else a closeted homosexual.) Pendergrast, Foster’s nemesis, mirror character, and fellow patriarch, is shown doing the “right” thing in the end: admitting he’s obsolete and just going away.
Remember also the base closings of the early 1990s and the closure or relocation of big aerospace contractors. Really, to pick one example, Lockheed going to stick around the state represented by Sen. Barbara “Check Bouncer” Boxer and Sen. Diane “Princess Di” Feinstein or move to Georgia and Arizona? Kind’a no-brainer when I put it that way, isn’t it? The closings slammed the Los Angeles area hard and left a lot of engineers and techs very like D-FENS
out of work disposed of and unlikely to ever find employment in their field again.Remember also the base closings of the early 1990s and the closure or relocation of big aerospace contractors. Really, to pick one example, Lockheed going to stick around the state represented by Sen. Barbara “Check Bouncer” Boxer and Sen. Diane “Princess Di” Feinstein or move to Georgia and Arizona? Kind of a no-brainer when I put it that way, isn’t it? The closings slammed the Los Angeles area hard and left a lot of engineers and techs very like D-FENS
out of workdisposed of and unlikely to ever find employment in their field again.I think I’ll just watch Sin City again.
Huh. The trailer just strikes me as a particularly vicious hipster fantasy aimed at the scions of cultural studies programs, those who just cannot stomach the fact that the great unwashed masses would rather watch bad reality TV than occupy whatever. If they bring the axe down on race-baiting college professors, maybe then I’ll be impressed.
Of course Falling Down was meant to be offensive to Conservative males, of which I am one.
That’s the irony of that movie – in its attempt to berate and emasculate conservative white males, it did such a beautiful job, completely by accident, of displaying the end result of the mindset of liberalism/multiculturalism/progressivism. Kind of like OWS.
I thought Falling Down portrayed the typical L.A. populace pretty well – a virtual cesspool of humanity. Come on, let’s admit it. If God were to give the world a needed enema, he would place the pipe right in the gluteal cleft of any urban jungle manned by a bunch of mindless liberal pols.
And which one of true, red-blooded males, not some limp, emasculated, beta noodle from the Left, hasn’t dreamed of smacking his briefcase underneath the chin of the neighborhood thug, incapacitating him completely, and getting away with it?
Of course, I still like those Rambo and Dirty Harry movies.
From the movie Falling Down. A most memorable exchange that made me really like Foster:
Gang Member #1: Whatcha doin’ Mister?
Bill Foster: Nothing.
Gang Member #1: Yes you are man, you’re trespassing on private property.
Bill Foster: Trespassing?
Gang Member #2: You’re loitering too, man.
Gang Member #1: That’s right, you’re loitering too.
Bill Foster: I didn’t see any signs.
Gang Member #1: [pointing at a graffiti skull] Whatcha call that?
Bill Foster: Graffiti.
Gang Member #1: No man, that’s not f_____g graffiti. That’s a sign.
Gang Member #2: He can’t read it man.
Gang Member #1: I’ll read it for you. It says this is f____g private property. No f____g trespassing. This means f____g you.
Bill Foster: It says all that?
Gang Member #1: Yeah.
Bill Foster: Well, maybe if you wrote it in f____g English, I could f____g understand it.
I recently added this movie to my DVD collection on BluRay. It pretty much describes how conservatives feel about how well the “cool people” in government have done and why we teeter on the brink of disaster. There are no standards, except for conservatives. There are no rules, except for conservatives. Etc, etc…lather, rinse, repeat.
Sorry, but liberal cinema isn’t what it used to be. It’s become so cartoonish I doubt people take it seriously anymore. They think they’re making movies for everyone but it’s really just entertainment for themselves.
“I think Michael Douglas was the original Tea Party-er,” says Schumacher with a truly mischievous grin. (…)
Astonishing. And I suppose that this complete lack of curiosity within this person’s bubble explains why hollywood is dying.
I just finished history of WWII by Andrew Roberts (Storm of War), in which he actually describes some of the more horrific actions of the Japanese against non-Japanese during that war. My response has been, it is a good thing that the Japanese are dying out now.
You see, there is a rough justice in history. Hollywood deserves Schumacher.
“And Schumacher’s notion of “Tea-Partiers” is equally predictable and more revealing of his own prejudices than those allegedly held by conservative activists (whom he’s never met in person).”
As far as I know, NOT ONE Tea Party activist ever brandished a weapon, let alone used it on anybody. Also, every Tea Party protest was not only peaceful, but the protesters usually left the area where they protested cleaner than when they got there. You definitely CANNOT say the same thing for all of those “Occupy Wall Street” scum that have been destroying various parts of cities all around this country. I’m sure Schumacher would have much more in common with the Occupy Wall Street idiots than with any Tea Party member. In fact, it sounds like he’s been to some of the riots by the way he talks and acts.
One of the Old Testament writers has G0D lamenting the unthankful and unappreciative Israelites in their wistful pining away for “the good ol’ days”. He says: “Don’t look back to those tough times, I’m bringing you into always better days.”, and I think that, despite bad weather, thank G0D for advances which give us at least, some idea of what the weather will be; and despite hospital stays, thank G0D for medical advances, and without which, many of us would not be alive, now; and despite a plethora of trashy movie madness, thank G0D for 1st Am. freedoms in which Societal expressions can be laid open, examined and cast aside as useless, or saved for value; and despite corruption in our politicians, thank G0D that, were we ourselves, not so corrupt, we have the certain knowledge that, we could be rid of them; and despite the facts pertaining to joblessness, thank G0D that, the people can eat and otherwise be sustained for so long a time without jobs–and while more could be adverted to, just this much to say that, I think that, we do live in the best of all possible worlds, the content and themes of trashy shows here mentioned, notwithstanding, . . .
You’re 47! You’re not a Gen-Xer, Kathy. You’re a Baby Boomer.
Boomers are generally accepted to be those born between ’46 and ’64. Those of us born in the mid to late 60s (including the author, apparently born in ’65) were children in the 70s and came of age in the 80s. We’re not boomers, we’re Generation X.
A revenge fantasy movie? I’ve seen a lot of movies too, but Falling Down doesn’t strike me as a typical revenge fantasy movie, say, for example, Cape Fear, Ben-Hur, Death Wish, Mad Max, Carrie. Perhaps the writer was taking revenge writing a screenplay to offend a particular audience segment? Whether intended or not, it seems like Falling Down was written to offend and entertain the contemporary sophisticated urban liberal, endemically suspicious of the military industrial complex and the police. The cold war is over (good) Douglas is the conservative technologically unemployed defense worker acting weirdly (bad), and the pigs, led by an aging dinosaur (bad), puts Douglas out of his misery, ending the film and saving the rational world for golf and fast food you can have your own way at Burger King (good). (The obesity plague and politically incorrect Happy Meals and gay marraige was still in the future) I would call it and urban gritty existential horror movie. People pay good money to be horrified.
A trailer for a movie which borrows HEAVILY from a myriad of superior, more intellectually gripping movies (wow.. another ‘remake’ so to speak. Color me *shocked*) and Bobcat Goldthwait at the helm. Why or what’s a mediocre, D-list comedian coming back following his 15 minutes of fame yesterdecade?
Then again the talentless Howie Mandel has been resurrected as well.. sad.
I’m nauseated by retread actors/actresses, movies, ‘musicians’ taking a respectable song and turning it into pop-shite etc.,
I’m excited for the day when ALL cinema-like features are Avatar and ANYONE can do the voices for the characters.
A fun article nonetheless. Especially when providing a Maiden song. Even though it’s from the Blaze Bayley years.. ( :
Bobcat Goldthwait is alive?
That’s the most surprising thing I’ve heard all day.
I saw “Falling Down” when it first came out. It was a while before I went to see another Mike Douglas movie. Being an Aerospace worker myself, I thought this was nothing but a total smear about a lot of good people, from a far left who had contempt for anybody who doesn’t agree with them. I thought it was just me, since all of the media was raving about how great this piece of crap was. No FOX News back in those days as I remember….I had to take the garbage that the leftist media put out. Guess I was correct about this movie all along – I actually felt guilty about my feelings on this film at the time. As for the “director’s” comments about the Tea Party – fvck you.
Hollywood movies are why I pretty much stick to Japanese cartoons. THEY don’t try to insult me.
Liberals are really good at engaging in violent hate-filled wet dreams while proclaiming their non-judgementalism.
I recently saw Falling Down again when it appeared on the list of free movies On Demand. I was struck by how different it was than my memory of it, and how much it differs from the reviewers perceptions. The Michael Douglas character is mentally ill. He always has been. The back story with his wife makes it very clear that this guy has been a ticking time bomb for a long time and that his wife is terrified of him for good reason. This movie is not the story of a good man who snaps under stress. It’s the story of a damaged man who can’t suppress his demons anymore. He does not snap. He becomes the man he always was behind the facade of the wife and family and the job that gave him his only anchor to sanity. How this character became any sort of icon is a mystery.