Credit: John Anderson

In 2006, Bobcat Goldthwait attended the Austin Film Festival to present his new film, Sleeping Dogs Lie, a surprisingly sweet comedy about the taboo subject of interspecies sex. Certain secrets should be kept private and never disclosed to one’s betrothed no matter how persistently one is coaxed to be completely honest.

After the festival, one projected opening date in Austin after another evaporated into the ether of broken promises. For whatever reasons, Sleeping Dogs Lie never opened locally, although the DVD is still available for rental (which I recommend). Compared with God Bless America – Goldthwait’s newest film which opened today at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar – Sleeping Dogs Lie tackles subject matter that is much more outré but handles it in a manner that’s much more endearing. Check out the trailer below, as well as the interview I conducted with him over at the Driskill Hotel on the making of Sleeping Dogs Lie.

This article appears in June 1 • 2012.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.