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 | By Andy Tarnoff   Publisher E-mail author | Author bio More articles by Andy Tarnoff |
| Published Jan. 10, 2008 at 11:08 a.m. |
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I recently found myself zoning out in front of the TV, once again mindlessly rolling through channels and seeing nothing but writers strike-inspired reruns. Then, ironically and appropriately, I came across a hidden gem on HBO: Mike Judge's 2006 sleeper, "Idiocracy."
You've probably never heard of it. Either had I until about a year ago, which is weird, since his previous film, "Office Space" is the stuff of legends.
This time around, Judge (who also created the über brilliant "Beavis and Butthead") describes a world set 500 years in the future, in which smart people had long since stopped breeding and were replaced by knuckle-dragging, mouth breathers -- the kind you see featured on "COPS!" The premise is that while intelligent people have fewer children, the dumb ones have lots and lots, until the gene pool created a future filled with idiots. It's an anti-intellectualist future full of Costco, Carl's Jr., and a derivation of Fuddruckers not suitable for print.
Enter Luke Wilson and Maya Ruldoph, two "average" citizens from 2005 who are sent into the future by a military experiment gone wrong. They spend the movie navigating through this era of, as Wikipedia puts it, "promiscuous, illiterate, beer-swilling, jet ski-crashing peers" in search of time machine that may or may not exist.
At times subtle and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious, "Idiocracy" is sharp and biting and clever. For many odd reasons, distributor 20th Century Fox all but blocked its release and did nothing to promote it. Without any press, it made only $444,000 in 135 U.S. theaters. Fortunately, the film finally made it to DVD in 2007 (which is where I found it), and it's now showing on HBO. A cult classic in the making, it's grossed about $9 million, more than 20 times the theatrical release.
There are too many ridiculous jokes to share in this blog, but trust me: set your DVR to record "Idiocracy" before it's too late. In between the laughs, it'll hit close to home -- and leave you wondering if the future depicted is much closer than 500 years away.
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7 comments about this article. Post a comment / write a review. |
Recent Talkbacks ...
Posted by Beef Supreme on Jan. 18, 2008 at 3:09 p.m. (report)
I liked this movie. All I have to say is: THANK GOD FOR FERTILITY DRUGS. Otherwise this movie might become a reality :)
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Posted by samvanhallgren on Jan. 11, 2008 at 11:09 a.m. (report)
So happy to hear someone else sing the praises of this movie! I was one of the people that contributed a couple bucks to the movie's paltry box office draw. Opening weekend. Myself and three strangers took it in. I laughed all the way through it. The others ... didn't. One of the them left before it was over. I spent the next several months talking this movie up (press the button for "having a baby"; "ASS: The Movie") until it was finally released on DVD. Unfortunately, you do the movie a minor disservice by raising expectations. The best way to see this movie is exactly the way you discovered it -- by accident, with zero expectations. The first half, as the first poster suggested, is much better than the second half. That being said: it deserves all the cult status that comes to it. Long live Mike Judge!
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Posted by High_Life_Man on Jan. 11, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. (report)
Starts off funny - that lasts about 15 minutes. After that, boring and stupid.
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Posted by littletinyfish on Jan. 10, 2008 at 12:33 p.m. (report)
When my girlfriend saw that movie and saw the Fuddruckers bit she said "Finally! Somebody said it!" It was like a great weight lifted off the shoulders of the world. I find it odd how Office Space was a huge flop with no promotional backing that steadily gained an amazing amount of cult acclaim and, due to the whole debacle, Judge swore off movie-making. Then he jumped in again and got screwed in the exact same way. A huge flop with no promotional backing that is once again showing signs of becoming a cult hit. I kind of feel his King of the Hill gets the sham as well, but between the prime-time animated shows, it consistently stands with the strongest integrity.
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Posted by CoolerKing on Jan. 10, 2008 at 12:10 p.m. (report)
I got a copy of this and loaned it to my friends, who all loved it. It is funny but scary, as the premise of people being that stupid made us all say, "you know, I can believe this kind of thing could happen."
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Show me the other 2 Talkbacks
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