June 22, 2009
Idiocracy (2006)
Should I see it?
Yes.
Related Reviews:Yes.
Short Review: This is the kind of film I’d recommend, but I won’t be able to look you in the eye when I do it.
The premise of this movie is fantastic. It is centered around Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an average guy - actually he's the average guy. Joe is cryogenically frozen by the military and, thanks to some bad luck, wakes up five hundred years in the future where he finds that due to reverse Darwinism, stupid people have out bred the smart ones. Joe is the smartest person in the world. This is solid groundwork for a comedy.
Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) wrote and directed this movie and his sharp satirical talents are clearly visible. While this piece isn’t as comfortable or quotable as Judge’s cable TV staple Office Space, it has the same insight. In essence, this film is a full frontal attack on the stupidity of modern American culture. Judge, who has been mocking the idiocy of this culture for almost twenty years, is dead on with many of his salvos. The overall culture is in complete free fall. We have come to embrace the lowest parts of human nature as treasures by celebrating the inept over the helpful. We are taking climatological advice from dimwit actors and considering moral advice from comedians. Our “intellectual” class couldn’t be more useless as they battle against free thought and embrace groupthink concepts like political correctness. Heck, we’ve dipped so low as to allow for journalists to decide what’s important. Face it, when low life, do nothing journalists are considered vital members of society, you’re in trouble.
To water this down, Judge argues that our culture is little more than a bunch of brain dead zombies giggling at nutshots and farts. We're a culture obsessed with the dumb, obsessed with stuff like this:
Okay, that's pretty awesome so its not the best example. Honestly, I can watch this loop for hours. The reaction of the guy holding the pogo stick is priceless.
To put it another way, this movie is a poor man’s Children of Men, which is a haughty examination of how vacuous Western Civilization has become. While Children of Men is an insufferable mess that is so intent of being smart that it smothers itself, this film travels the exact opposite direction. It goes out of its way to mock our stupid natures by trading in a long line of scatological punch lines. The intelligence hidden in overall point gets a muddled by the litany of butt jokes. To be fair though, the butt jokes are pretty funny.
As a comedy, this film isn’t hilarious but does manage some good laughs. It starts out very strong and fizzles out by the final act. This is due to a lack of a viable villain for the hero Joe to confront. In essence, Joe Bauer is fighting against the whole stupid world. While this may work on paper, it doesn’t translate to the screen. Judge is forced by his final act to devolve into a distracting resolution that feels clunky and certainly isn’t funny – its barely even interesting. This said, the satirical points forwarded by this movie make up for the thin script and by the time the final act rolls around the film has made enough good moments to cover for its lousy resolution.
To sum up, this should have been a funnier film but it couldn’t be more pertinent. Judge makes some strikingly salient points about the condition of our culture but fails to balance them with his usual biting humor.
I will end by pointing out that the best way to enjoy this film is to watch it and then quickly make your way to the closest Wal-Mart. The similarities are creepy.
Cautions: The film has plenty of foul language and sexual references - just like you get when you hang around real life stupid people.
For fun, here are some commercials for the very real energy drink Brawndo. I think they do a good job of summing up the humor of this film.
Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) wrote and directed this movie and his sharp satirical talents are clearly visible. While this piece isn’t as comfortable or quotable as Judge’s cable TV staple Office Space, it has the same insight. In essence, this film is a full frontal attack on the stupidity of modern American culture. Judge, who has been mocking the idiocy of this culture for almost twenty years, is dead on with many of his salvos. The overall culture is in complete free fall. We have come to embrace the lowest parts of human nature as treasures by celebrating the inept over the helpful. We are taking climatological advice from dimwit actors and considering moral advice from comedians. Our “intellectual” class couldn’t be more useless as they battle against free thought and embrace groupthink concepts like political correctness. Heck, we’ve dipped so low as to allow for journalists to decide what’s important. Face it, when low life, do nothing journalists are considered vital members of society, you’re in trouble.
To water this down, Judge argues that our culture is little more than a bunch of brain dead zombies giggling at nutshots and farts. We're a culture obsessed with the dumb, obsessed with stuff like this:
Okay, that's pretty awesome so its not the best example. Honestly, I can watch this loop for hours. The reaction of the guy holding the pogo stick is priceless.
To put it another way, this movie is a poor man’s Children of Men, which is a haughty examination of how vacuous Western Civilization has become. While Children of Men is an insufferable mess that is so intent of being smart that it smothers itself, this film travels the exact opposite direction. It goes out of its way to mock our stupid natures by trading in a long line of scatological punch lines. The intelligence hidden in overall point gets a muddled by the litany of butt jokes. To be fair though, the butt jokes are pretty funny.
As a comedy, this film isn’t hilarious but does manage some good laughs. It starts out very strong and fizzles out by the final act. This is due to a lack of a viable villain for the hero Joe to confront. In essence, Joe Bauer is fighting against the whole stupid world. While this may work on paper, it doesn’t translate to the screen. Judge is forced by his final act to devolve into a distracting resolution that feels clunky and certainly isn’t funny – its barely even interesting. This said, the satirical points forwarded by this movie make up for the thin script and by the time the final act rolls around the film has made enough good moments to cover for its lousy resolution.
To sum up, this should have been a funnier film but it couldn’t be more pertinent. Judge makes some strikingly salient points about the condition of our culture but fails to balance them with his usual biting humor.
I will end by pointing out that the best way to enjoy this film is to watch it and then quickly make your way to the closest Wal-Mart. The similarities are creepy.
Cautions: The film has plenty of foul language and sexual references - just like you get when you hang around real life stupid people.
For fun, here are some commercials for the very real energy drink Brawndo. I think they do a good job of summing up the humor of this film.
Luke Wilson movies
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Henry Poole is Here (2008)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Reel Film Reviews
Film Critics United
Labels: comedy, Dax Shepard, film, Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Mike Judge, movie review
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 8:00 AM
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December 3, 2008
Movie Trailer: Baby Mama
Do we need to see the fluid on the ground?
Do we need to see her squatting in the sink?
The trailer lays out what the film is about in traditional fashion and what I'm seeing here is that the jokes are telegraphed and are good for smirks and not laughs.
Do we need to see her squatting in the sink?
The trailer lays out what the film is about in traditional fashion and what I'm seeing here is that the jokes are telegraphed and are good for smirks and not laughs.
Screenwriter: Michael McCullers (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me)
Director: Michael McCullers
Actors: Tina Fey (Mean Girls), Amy Poehler (Blades of Glory), Dax Shepard (Idiocracy), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Steve Martin (The Jerk), Maura Tierney (Semi-Pro), Greg Kinnear (Unknown) and Roman Malco (The Love Guru)
Director: Michael McCullers
Actors: Tina Fey (Mean Girls), Amy Poehler (Blades of Glory), Dax Shepard (Idiocracy), Sigourney Weaver (Alien), Steve Martin (The Jerk), Maura Tierney (Semi-Pro), Greg Kinnear (Unknown) and Roman Malco (The Love Guru)
Labels: Amy Poehler, comedy, Dax Shepard, film, Greg Kinnear, Maura Tierney, movie trailer, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin, Tina Fey
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 5:00 PM
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November 17, 2008
Without a Paddle (2004)
Should I see it?
No.
No.
Short Review: Even pigs wouldn’t wallow in this.
It is not as if I go into movies such as this one with a wheelbarrow of expectations. Quite the opposite, I leave all I know about plot structure, characterization, direction, camera work and editing checked at the door. Perhaps it is my fault that I still find myself cringing at embarrassing junk like this flick.
I can handle poorly made movies. Heck, I’ve sat through both Kill Bill movies; I can handle anything you throw at me. The one thing I cannot abide by however are scenes where one character blasts some crappy song on the radio and everyone starts singing together. I hate it when they do this in movies. This may be me, but the people I hang with don’t tend to break out into song.. Maybe they do in other parts of the country, but not where I come from. Something else that drives me nuts is this: if you’re going to have a recognizable song in the soundtrack – have the original artist’s version. Don’t have some second-rate, hack, fly-by-nighters knock the song off. You’re spending 25 million dollars on the marketing, you can afford to get the rights to original songs.
Sorry for the tangents. Let’s look at the rest of the movie…
The film is about three friends who head out into the woods looking for the lost treasure of D. B. Cooper. The main actors, Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and this Dax Shepard are as good as possible given the material they have to work with. None of them are particularly stunning, but I give them credit for at least trying to make something out of nothing. Burt Reynolds clearly had fun in his role as Del, too bad that fun didn't translate to the screen.
This wasn’t a bad idea for a movie. The bad ideas came in its execution. You probably have overlooked this goofball comedy. Please, continue to do so for your own sake.
Related Reviews:
Other bad comedies
Delta Farce (2007)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Christian Spotlight on the Movies
Screen It!
Labels: Burt Reynolds, comedy, Dax Shepard, film, Matthew Lillard, movie review, Seth Green
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 9:00 AM
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September 17, 2008
Movie Trailer: Smother
HA! HA! HA! There's an old woman in a rascal at a bowling alley and she dies of a heart attack and the rascal goes down the alley and dumps her fresh corpse into the pins! Strike! HA! HA!
NOW THAT'S COMEDY!
I think that everyone who voluntarily sees this film should be neutered and exiled.
But that's just my opinion.
Screenwriter: Tim Rasmussen (License to Wed) and Vince Di Meglio (License to Wed)
Director: Vince Di Meglio
Actors: Diane Keaton (The Family Stone), Liv Tyler (The Strangers) and Dax Shepard (Idiocracy)
NOW THAT'S COMEDY!
I think that everyone who voluntarily sees this film should be neutered and exiled.
But that's just my opinion.
Screenwriter: Tim Rasmussen (License to Wed) and Vince Di Meglio (License to Wed)
Director: Vince Di Meglio
Actors: Diane Keaton (The Family Stone), Liv Tyler (The Strangers) and Dax Shepard (Idiocracy)
Labels: Dax Shepard, Diane Keaton, film, Liv Tyler, movie trailer
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 7:00 PM
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