Two recent movie watches, one drawing some laughs intentionally, the other not so much.

God Bless America (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was Bobcat Goldthwait’s third feature in the last few years. It’s a funny, if clumsy, cri de couer against the vanity and banality of reality TV, radio shock jocks, bloviating political pundits, and other forms of celebrated hatefulness in popular culture. The best part was how following each killing of a mean person by the everyman protagonist, the media’s attempt to blame something simple and headline-y (terrorists! violent movies!) rather than look for a pattern. Anyway, it’s a nice — though extremely violent — anti-stupid fantasy for those of us who hate TMZ and Glenn Beck.

Nellie was determined to watch the remake of Red Dawn (imdb | rotten tomatoes), even though it carries a 12% rating and was rewritten and delayed for ages. I like how Rotten Tomatoes summed it up: “The rebooted Red Dawn lacks the original’s topicality, but at least pays tribute in delivering the same short shrift to character development and general logic.” I mean, they didn’t even leave in the iconic scene — the one good thing about the original — of hundreds of parachutes falling quietly to the ground outside the school’s windows. Instead, we get a cutting-room-floor scene from Friday Night Lights and a Camaro with a minigun mounted on top. Blech.