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DVD Tuesday: Idiocracy — If You Don't Laugh, You'll Cry
DVD Tuesday: There's dumb, there's dumber, and then there's Idiocracy... Mike Judge has seen the future and it really doesn't work!
I mentioned Idiocracy in an earlier column, but now I think it's time to give it its due: Mike Judge's dystopian-future comedy is flawed, but I find myself quoting it all the time.
Worried that it's a waste to let America's best soldiers idle when there's no war for them to wage, the military initiates a top-secret program to put them on ice – literally – until they're needed. Naturally, the top brass isn't about to try out an experimental technology on the cream of the fighting crop, so they choose low-level GI Joe (Luke Wilson) and smart-mouthed hooker Rita (Maya Rudolph) as guinea pigs.
The plan is to freeze them for a year, but things happen, regimes change, and next thing you know, no-one who knew about the hush-hush experiment is around to keep tabs on it.
500 years later, Rita and Joe wake up in an America in which everyone with the brains God gave geese has been bred out of the gene pool. The president is a professional wrestler/porn star, the nation's top-rated TV show is "Ow, My Balls!" – all whacked in the 'nads gags, all the time -- and the country is facing an agricultural crisis because centuries of hard-sell advertising has convinced the morons of the future that crops should be watered with sports drinks, not water.
Rita and Joe are geniuses by comparison, but their future countrymen are too dumb to know it. Rita adapts – she knows a fresh market when she sees one – but Joe persists in trying to explain that water is not just for toilets, despite the fact that all talking sense does is get him called a fag.
I won't ruin the rest of the jokes, but some are so funny they hurt and Judge's reckless use of real brand names is refreshing. I can't say I know for sure that 20th-Century Fox buried the film in regional release before sending it to DVD was Judge's vicious skewering of Fox News, but it's hard not to think that may have played a part.
Idiocracy is uneven, but at its best it's brilliant, and the opening sequence sets the bar high: Prepare to squirm as it explains how the world's best and brightest thought their way out of reproducing while the dumbest of the dumb blithely insured their genetic place in the brave new world.
Send your movie questions to FlickChick.
See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the multiple award-winning Movie Talk vodcast.
Things to Consider:
Favorite movies about the future, comic or serious?
Can futuristic fiction actually make people reconsider the way they think and act in light of the possible consequences for future generations? Writers like George Orwell certainly thought so, but is it futile to hope that a book (or movie) like 1984 can actually make a difference?
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
2008:
Kill Bill
Detour
Diary of the Dead
Videodrome
The Kingdom
M
Touch of Evil
Bonnie and Clyde
Atonement
When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Rififi
Michael Clayton
Network
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Shoot 'Em Up
Freeway
A Mighty Wind
2007:
It's a Wonderful Life
Waitress
Laura
Cop
All About Eve
Severance
Sweet Smell of Success
Daughters of Darkness
The Crazies
Blade Runner
Zodiac
Manhunter
A Simple Plan
Taxi Driver
Renaissance
Blowup
Hot Fuzz
300
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! — Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
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Jun 17, 2008 3:18 PM
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"Welcome to Costco, I love you."
The only thing wrong with this film's premise is the idea that it will take a full 500 years to sink to this level. We saw this one during its tiny, unpublicized theatrical run, and while it's hilarious, I actually choked up once or twice when some of the material hit way too close to home.
Is the DVD version the theaterical cut, or does it restore any of the material that was rumored to have been cut before release?
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Jun 17, 2008 4:47 PM
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I haven't seen this movie, but it's in my netflix queue. I might have to move it up.
One of my favorite movies about the future is Gattaca.
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Jun 18, 2008 9:23 AM
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One of my favorite movies about the future is Gattaca.
Well Leah - Gattaca and Idiocracy don't have much in common. I do have to admit that as stupid as Idiocracy is at times, id does make you think!
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Jun 18, 2008 12:31 PM
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1984 book and film has been on my mind a lot these past few months. The book was one of my favorites. I read it when I was about 12 or 13. Unlike other favorite books I only read it once. It was so frightening to me that I couldn't face it again.
So much of what Orwell predicted has come true; our TVs do watch us, we are on camera everywhere and we are constantly being asked to give up more and more of our rights and reason daily.
We are told that certain crimes and transgressions are more rampant than ever. I believe it just may be that they are more easily identified as such and more of them are being reported and discovered. How much easier, in the days before our sophisticated forensic science, were murders to disguise as accidents and suicides? How much infanticde disguised as crib death? How much molestation and spousal abuse gone undetected and unpunished because of lack of refuge and narrower definition?
Since someone will certainly accuse me of being "soft" on such things, let me state clearly that I think they are horrible, inexcusable and should be punished to the full extent of the law.
But I'm not sure that any more people are committing such things now than they were a hundred years ago and the all-seeing eye makes me almost (almost) as nervous and worried (despite my life as a law-abiding citizen) as the idea of being a victim of those crimes does.
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Jun 19, 2008 3:23 AM
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My favorite serious future movie is probably "Gattaca" because it poses a serious warning about genetic quests for perfection which is fast becoming more science and less fiction...
I also liked "Silent Running" although it may seem a little dated now. But Bruce Dern is great and I even like the Joan Baez songs...
Humor wise, you got to go with "Sleeper" although "Demolition Man" (while considered an action movie) had some pretty funny stuff in it.... I loved the stuff with "Taco Bell" winning the franchise wars... and the shell for toilet paper.... --
Butthead
Note from MM -- this blog was accidentally posted twice, so I moved this post over when I deleted the extra one.
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Jun 19, 2008 11:58 AM
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My favorite serious future movie is probably "Gattaca" because it poses a serious warning about genetic quests for perfection which is fast becoming more science and less fiction...
Exactly. It's scary to think about. Michael Crichton's last book was also about genetic engineering and stuff related to that. I haven't read it yet, but I bet it's good. And he raises some real issues. (like patenting genes)
I've never heard of Silent Running or Sleeper, but I do love demolition man. I like the story and it's a fun movie, I also like the taco bell stuff. But one of my favorite things about it is seeing all these really famous people early in their careers, like Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt, Dennis Leary, and Rob Schneider, who wasn't even credited. I also was just looking at the cast list on imdb and jack black is listed. I'll have to look for him next time.
Some other future movies I really like are Minority Report (that's in spite of tom cruise, who I can't stand) I, Robot, AI, Alien Nation, Enemy Mine (i think that's a 'future' movie), The Island isn't a great movie, but I like it too, Serenity, and finally, what about Westworld (i think it's a future movie, I mean, it's about robots)? I love this movie. Of course, it was written and directed by Michael Crichton, my favorite author, but it's still a great movie.
I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of right now.
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Jun 19, 2008 12:22 PM
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I think Silent Running and Sleeper are just great and seem no more dated than any other movie that's 30-40 years old.
Gattica, however, bored the crap out of me. Almost as much as Dark City. I know, I know... blasphemy. But give me the Gun Kata of Equilibrium any day over either of those flicks with their watered down ethics of the future...
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Jun 20, 2008 12:39 AM
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