“People talk about political correctness as if they are being oppressed”: Bobcat Goldthwait on the healing powers of dark comedy, getting sober and the legendary comedian-activist Barry Crimmins
“Call Me Lucky” is director Bobcat Goldthwait’s affectionate—and highly affecting—portrait of curmudgeonly comedian/activist Barry Crimmins. This documentary is, like most of Goldthwait’s work, funny and disturbing. After comedians like Patton Oswalt, David Cross and Kevin Meaney talk about Crimmins’ talent for being a rude, funny, obnoxious truth-teller, there is a revelation that puts the comedian’s story in a whole different perspective. Suddenly, “Call Me Lucky” becomes a story about speaking openly and honestly to helping others overcome trauma and allow for coping and healing.
Goldthwait’s film is a mature and heartfelt entry in his career that began with his manic antics as an actor in “Police Academy” movies. (He now says those films “make me want to jump off a bridge.”) They eventually begat him directing dark comedies like “Shakes the Clown,” “Sleeping Dogs Lie” and “World’s Greatest Dad,” which addressed the respective issues of alcoholism, bestiality and autoerotic asphyxiation. Goldthwait continues to mine taboo subjects in “Call Me Lucky,” and the film shows how comedy and pain interlock.
