Why come ain’t you saw this film?
One of the above men is the President of the United States (and a wrestler and porn star, apparently not mutually exclusive occupations in the year 2505)
Idiocracy, released on DVD today (tuesday Jan. 9), is the latest film from Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space.) The story: A thoroughly average man (Luke Wilson) awakens 500 years in the future to a world so dumbed-down that he finds himself the smartest person on the planet. Judge utilizes this overly familiar premise (think Matt Groening’s Futurama, or any number of other sci-fi stories) to satirize the dangerous tendencies of today’s culture: rampant corporations, carnivalesque political systems, cheap and vulgar entertainments, etc.
While many of the film’s ideas are obvious and some of the jokes were even shamefully lifted directly from The Simpsons (the ol’ toilet-seat-in-the-lazy-boy gag) it’s still the funniest Hollywood comedy I’ve seen in a while. It’s not as deep or vicious as classic satires like Dr. Strangelove or Brazil, but it seems frighteningly prescient; I doubt it will be 500 years before we reach the inane conditions portrayed here.
Which may be why the film has arrived with so little notice — it was finished in 2004 but the studio, for possibly suspicious reasons, declined to release it until 2006, and then only to a number of theaters countable on the fingers of one hand (which still might strain the intelligence of the film’s characters.) At any rate, it’s available for rental now — however, if it’s checked out, we also have Ow! My Balls! (in the TV section) or the film Ass (winner of eight Oscars, including best screenplay.)
January 10th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I saw this, too. I thought it was amiable and fairly sweet-hearted. Some really funny stuff, some clunkers. I wasn’t a huge fan of Office Space, so take that into consideration.
January 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Granted, I only saw a few Youtube clips, but the movie’s tendency to equate the mannerisms of youth culture with stupidity is stupiderer than anything its trying to satire. Yes, stupiderer.
January 10th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Youth culture is a contradiction in terms.
January 10th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Truth lies in contradiction, brah.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Young people *shouldn’t* be allowed to speak in incoherent, ungrammatical fadisms. I think there’s a big difference between, say, regional vernacular or technological jargon vs. pre-18yr olds avoiding learning the common language and subsequently being semi-literate the rest of their lives.
January 10th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Hey, Andrew — satire is a noun. You should have said “satirize.” Or is that part of your “youth culture?”
January 10th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Also, this film is satirizing *adults* who are so stupid and easily-led that they speak like dimwitted, media-saturated teenage thugs… and the fact that they were encouaged to speak this way by huge corporations and not discouraged (as they should have been) by their schools, families and friends.
This is admittedly different than something like DR. STRANGELOVE where Kubrick and Southern reveal the fatal illogic behind supposedly sensible bureaucratic doublespeak and governmental sloganeering by using that language *exactly as it was written* in military manuals, social plans, etc.
This is just a very funny movie but nowhere near as brilliant as it could have been, for several reasons… I do have a problem with this film’s (and OFFICE SPACE, too) idea that being “normal” is “okay”… I understand and even empathize with Judge’s message - I believe it *is* his message, in all of his work - but I also wonder how much the studio requires him to follow this formula. It’s the same sort of programmed sweetness and easy resolution that kind of ruins the last 5 minutes of every single episode of KING OF THE HILL, for example.
January 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am
In linguistic terms, all dialects are equal, and all have their own consistent grammar. All except this “American English” I’ve heard so much nonsense about, which is like the raucous squawking of angry monkeys.
January 13th, 2007 at 1:29 am
I hate Noam Chomsky.