Thursday, January 11, 2007
IDIOCRACY
IDIOCRACY. Wow. The more I google it, the more it looks like Fox tried to bury it. Deep. Opened in September in only 7 cities, none of them NY. I wonder what the conspiracy is? Because, I know the business well enough to know that there's a conspiracy. He openly mocks large corporations. I think they may have agreed to lend their logos, like Taco Bell agreed to be all over DEMOLITION MAN, thinking they'd get great product placement. When they saw how it turned out, they probably went bananas.
Googling it will spoil the surprises, so if you're tempted, don't be. It spoiled them for me, and what was left was a movie more disturbing than CHILDREN OF MEN. I'm not kidding. This may be the most grim dystopia I've ever seen. And in a comedy, no less.
Mike Judge really shows his true colors. In BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD, I suspected he was mocking the MTV audience, but I had no idea he had this deep a contempt for them. We are blessed to have Mike Judge.
When I tried to watch the JACKASS movie, I was made profoundly uncomfortable. I mean, on a deep, existential level. I tried to figure out why. I mean, I watch "tortureporn" like HOSTEL until the cows come home and never feel like JACKASS made me feel. For a long time, I chalked it up to me being too square or old to "get it." Maybe it triggered some nascent homophobia of which I was unaware, I wondered. Maybe I had no sense of humor, or a sense of humor that's "too safe." Given the range of what I find amusing, that was doubtful. I think I just slowly realized that I was living in a world where shit and torture and genital mutilation -- with no context whatsoever -- were found not only acceptable, but funny, by a mass audience. I guess this is how they view the world.
And, you know, if they were viewing the world that way as a purposeful method of giving the finger to a society that treats people like cattle, that would be one thing. But that wasn't in that film, or in the response to it. Even on a subconscious level. Dey just towt dat wuz funnee. This is a selfishness that's gone beyond self-indulgence. This is psychological infantalism of the worst degree. "You just have to laugh at it," the fans say, "It's funny because it's just so stupid."
No, it's stupid because it's so stupid.
As the Wicked Witch of the West aptly mused, "What a world. What a world."
And that's what I thought when I staggered out of JACKASS. I was feeling dread on an apocalyptic level. This is a movie that made the Three Stooges look like Samuel Beckett.
BORAT made a very convincing case that redneckism still permeates America. Basically, we're Borat's homeland with a better dental plan. And, just as Borat's comrades are capable of surprising sweetness, so are we. He dealt with redneckism on one level. Mike Judge kicks it up a notch.
Mike Judge holds up the most unflattering mirror to America I think I've ever seen. We don't stop and think enough about who we are, as a culture, when even our best critics, in an orgy of if-you-can't-beat'em-join'em, begin apologizing for JACKASS. I feel as if Mike Judge similarly staggered out of JACKASS, but was smart enough to know what was going on, and do something about it.
IDIOCRACY is that something. And maybe that's why Fox buried it. It would be incendiary to so many people who would see it, that riots would break out in theaters... if only they could get past laughing at the fart jokes and realize that the joke's on all of us. And it should be. We should be ashamed of ourselves. That's what IDIOCRACY made me feel. Intense, intense shame. And that's the point.
I've never seen our potential intellectual apocalypse taken on like this. You know, usually it's just some fuddy duddy like me longwindedly pontificating... like I'm doing, now. But this is using the JACKASS audience's ammo against itself. It is a revolutionary work, in the truest sense. And to paraphrase THE FOUNTAINHEAD, mankind will never destroy itself, nor think of itself as destroyed. Not so long as it produces work such as this.
IDIOCRACY. Wow. The more I google it, the more it looks like Fox tried to bury it. Deep. Opened in September in only 7 cities, none of them NY. I wonder what the conspiracy is? Because, I know the business well enough to know that there's a conspiracy. He openly mocks large corporations. I think they may have agreed to lend their logos, like Taco Bell agreed to be all over DEMOLITION MAN, thinking they'd get great product placement. When they saw how it turned out, they probably went bananas.
Googling it will spoil the surprises, so if you're tempted, don't be. It spoiled them for me, and what was left was a movie more disturbing than CHILDREN OF MEN. I'm not kidding. This may be the most grim dystopia I've ever seen. And in a comedy, no less.
Mike Judge really shows his true colors. In BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD, I suspected he was mocking the MTV audience, but I had no idea he had this deep a contempt for them. We are blessed to have Mike Judge.
When I tried to watch the JACKASS movie, I was made profoundly uncomfortable. I mean, on a deep, existential level. I tried to figure out why. I mean, I watch "tortureporn" like HOSTEL until the cows come home and never feel like JACKASS made me feel. For a long time, I chalked it up to me being too square or old to "get it." Maybe it triggered some nascent homophobia of which I was unaware, I wondered. Maybe I had no sense of humor, or a sense of humor that's "too safe." Given the range of what I find amusing, that was doubtful. I think I just slowly realized that I was living in a world where shit and torture and genital mutilation -- with no context whatsoever -- were found not only acceptable, but funny, by a mass audience. I guess this is how they view the world.
And, you know, if they were viewing the world that way as a purposeful method of giving the finger to a society that treats people like cattle, that would be one thing. But that wasn't in that film, or in the response to it. Even on a subconscious level. Dey just towt dat wuz funnee. This is a selfishness that's gone beyond self-indulgence. This is psychological infantalism of the worst degree. "You just have to laugh at it," the fans say, "It's funny because it's just so stupid."
No, it's stupid because it's so stupid.
As the Wicked Witch of the West aptly mused, "What a world. What a world."
And that's what I thought when I staggered out of JACKASS. I was feeling dread on an apocalyptic level. This is a movie that made the Three Stooges look like Samuel Beckett.
BORAT made a very convincing case that redneckism still permeates America. Basically, we're Borat's homeland with a better dental plan. And, just as Borat's comrades are capable of surprising sweetness, so are we. He dealt with redneckism on one level. Mike Judge kicks it up a notch.
Mike Judge holds up the most unflattering mirror to America I think I've ever seen. We don't stop and think enough about who we are, as a culture, when even our best critics, in an orgy of if-you-can't-beat'em-join'em, begin apologizing for JACKASS. I feel as if Mike Judge similarly staggered out of JACKASS, but was smart enough to know what was going on, and do something about it.
IDIOCRACY is that something. And maybe that's why Fox buried it. It would be incendiary to so many people who would see it, that riots would break out in theaters... if only they could get past laughing at the fart jokes and realize that the joke's on all of us. And it should be. We should be ashamed of ourselves. That's what IDIOCRACY made me feel. Intense, intense shame. And that's the point.
I've never seen our potential intellectual apocalypse taken on like this. You know, usually it's just some fuddy duddy like me longwindedly pontificating... like I'm doing, now. But this is using the JACKASS audience's ammo against itself. It is a revolutionary work, in the truest sense. And to paraphrase THE FOUNTAINHEAD, mankind will never destroy itself, nor think of itself as destroyed. Not so long as it produces work such as this.
# posted by Doctor Lao @ 9:09 PM 
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i assume it will become a cult classic like mike judge's other film, "office space"--it will play on comedy central hundreds of times, & be big on DVD. did you watch it til after the credits?--there was a scene w/ upgrayedd coming out of a cryogenic chamber in the yr 2505. so was there possibly going to be a sequel? there prob won't be one now. but if they had been thinking about one (& even if they hadn't), i wish they had the following in the film: a few members of a ultra-rich upper class who control the system. after all, if everyone's an idiot, who built the jumbo-trons & invented the other machines of the future--obviously there must be (must have been) some sort of intelligentsia who are truly in power & keeping the masses ignorant.
# posted by 
: 10:51 AM
: 10:51 AM
Damn. I've never heard of this film before.
I do remember an interview with Mike Judge a while ago, at the height of B&B's popularity, where he said that teenage dumbasses were the best targets for satire, because they didn't complain when you made a show about how stupid they were--they thanked you. He kind of left that insight hanging, but it left no question about his opinion of the kids desperate to be just like his heroes.
I've always felt a discomfort about Stern's use of the mentally handicapped on his show; he says that he's portraying them honestly and offering them the only mass media outlet available to them to talk back to the world. But it looks to me like he's putting them in front of the camera for laughs, and like Romans at the Colosseum or Medeival mobs who went down to the town square to see stray animals get lynched, we savour it as pure entertainment.
[By the way, note that now when you post on this site, you have to go through password verification. I'm getting tired of the penis enlargement posts, none of which actually work.]
I do remember an interview with Mike Judge a while ago, at the height of B&B's popularity, where he said that teenage dumbasses were the best targets for satire, because they didn't complain when you made a show about how stupid they were--they thanked you. He kind of left that insight hanging, but it left no question about his opinion of the kids desperate to be just like his heroes.
I've always felt a discomfort about Stern's use of the mentally handicapped on his show; he says that he's portraying them honestly and offering them the only mass media outlet available to them to talk back to the world. But it looks to me like he's putting them in front of the camera for laughs, and like Romans at the Colosseum or Medeival mobs who went down to the town square to see stray animals get lynched, we savour it as pure entertainment.
[By the way, note that now when you post on this site, you have to go through password verification. I'm getting tired of the penis enlargement posts, none of which actually work.]
I don't think Mike Judge was concerned with boo-hoo-hoos about the poor, put-upon lower classes being kept in stupidity by the ee-vil aristocracy. (When given a choice -- which cable provides -- I suspect that the many of us will watch eMpTyV before Bravo, even though both are available in the same package. You can't say we're denied a say in the matter. When was the last time you heard a contemporary country station on the radio do a pledge drive?) This is a parable about the present, not a literalist depiction of the future. We're all -- even the smartest of us -- guilty of participating in the dumbing down of society. I can't do a lot about what others do, but it wouldn't hurt me to read a book, now and then, and the film justly chastised me for wasting my mind instead of improving it.
Any reappearance by Upgrayedd is a joke on Joe, who keeps insisting that it's impossible for Upgrayedd come back and seek retribution on Rita.
Any reappearance by Upgrayedd is a joke on Joe, who keeps insisting that it's impossible for Upgrayedd come back and seek retribution on Rita.
You're right, Toner. The use of the mentally handicapped on Howard Stern leaves me uneasy, also. I'm not sure what analogy you're drawing with Mike Judge, but it's clear that the targets of his satire aren't mentally handicapped. They just choose to live as though they were.
when the the US pres & GOP party members says that the jury is still out on global warming, that evolution is just a theory, ban books, promote abstinence-only education, etc.--i think it's a fair assessment to say that there's an ultra-rich intelligentsia that would like to keep the populace ignorant yet pro-creating. i think this should have/could have been addressed in the film.
# posted by : 5:19 PM
: 5:19 PM
Sorry, my comments about Stern were in response to your unease when you saw JACKASS. I don't like Stern's use of special olympians anymore than you care for Johnny Knoxville's antics, but hey, I'm an old fart, I'm repressed, I have no sense of humor, etc. So say the masses.
So I saw the movie. Thought it was very good; basically, better-than-average Saturday-Night-Live sendup of Planet of the Apes. The satire was a little too broad and the comedy was a little too inconsistent, but it still beats the SCARY MOVIE films or MEET THE FOCKERS or most other overpromoted, unimpressive attempts at humor that the studios crank out.
My theory for its burial: It's a pretty shoddy production. The special effects look cheap and the voice-over is lazy writing (though funny at times). My guess is that the execs saw this, knew it was going to be a cult film no matter what they did, and toyed with the idea of sending it straight to DVD before half-heartedly releasing it in a few theaters. FOX is famous for not caring what people say about it, even its own employees (The Simpsons routinely blasts the network on which they air), as long as the resulting lawsuit is a story their "journalists" can keep spinning. I'm kinda surprised they didn't release the film, then sue Judge, then play up the story on their networks, thereby promoting the movie and their anchors' hairdos. I can, however, imagine Carl's Jr. getting furious about the way they're depicted--especially their new corporate slogan, "Fuck you--I'm eating!"
So I saw the movie. Thought it was very good; basically, better-than-average Saturday-Night-Live sendup of Planet of the Apes. The satire was a little too broad and the comedy was a little too inconsistent, but it still beats the SCARY MOVIE films or MEET THE FOCKERS or most other overpromoted, unimpressive attempts at humor that the studios crank out.
My theory for its burial: It's a pretty shoddy production. The special effects look cheap and the voice-over is lazy writing (though funny at times). My guess is that the execs saw this, knew it was going to be a cult film no matter what they did, and toyed with the idea of sending it straight to DVD before half-heartedly releasing it in a few theaters. FOX is famous for not caring what people say about it, even its own employees (The Simpsons routinely blasts the network on which they air), as long as the resulting lawsuit is a story their "journalists" can keep spinning. I'm kinda surprised they didn't release the film, then sue Judge, then play up the story on their networks, thereby promoting the movie and their anchors' hairdos. I can, however, imagine Carl's Jr. getting furious about the way they're depicted--especially their new corporate slogan, "Fuck you--I'm eating!"
I have an answer, Toner!
The shoddy look of the film is a result of Fox screwing with it, early on. If it looks bad, it's because Fox reportedly slashed the budget. Judge went into it with an assurance of a much higher budget. They had to do a lot of rewrites and reshoots to get around the budget-cutting, and even then, it was up to Judge's friend, Robert Rodriguez, to help out in a pinch by finishing up with the effects and digital mattes after Fox kinda-sorta abandoned the project.
Of course, Fox can point to it and say, "Yeah, look at how low-rent and direct-to-video the movie feels. You can't blame us for hiding it."
Unfortunately, Fox is to blame for exactly why it looks and feels the way that it does. I get the idea that Judge went into it with the assumption that he'd be working with Weta or ILM.
Nope, this was a screwing-bluing-and-tattooing from the get go for Mike Judge. It's kinda what Paramount did to Shatner on STAR TREK V. Of course, Shatner's concept for the film wasn't very good, so you can't polish a turd. Still, he went into it logically assuming that he'd have ILM and a budget on par with the last few films, if not a little bigger. (After all, STAR TREK IV was a *gigantic* hit.) Then they started cutting the budget. For no damned good reason. And cutting. And cutting. To the point that Shatner should have just quit. Who knows why Paramount cut the budget? If they didn't have faith in the concept, why not say so and get it over with? At least then, Shatner could have taken what budget he had left, grabbed a couple of TNG writers, and thrown together a film whose story didn't call for any more budget than he had.
For all of the Shatner screw-ups in the film, there are likable elements that glint through. If you read his production diary or listen to his commentary, it's really, really sad.
The shoddy look of the film is a result of Fox screwing with it, early on. If it looks bad, it's because Fox reportedly slashed the budget. Judge went into it with an assurance of a much higher budget. They had to do a lot of rewrites and reshoots to get around the budget-cutting, and even then, it was up to Judge's friend, Robert Rodriguez, to help out in a pinch by finishing up with the effects and digital mattes after Fox kinda-sorta abandoned the project.
Of course, Fox can point to it and say, "Yeah, look at how low-rent and direct-to-video the movie feels. You can't blame us for hiding it."
Unfortunately, Fox is to blame for exactly why it looks and feels the way that it does. I get the idea that Judge went into it with the assumption that he'd be working with Weta or ILM.
Nope, this was a screwing-bluing-and-tattooing from the get go for Mike Judge. It's kinda what Paramount did to Shatner on STAR TREK V. Of course, Shatner's concept for the film wasn't very good, so you can't polish a turd. Still, he went into it logically assuming that he'd have ILM and a budget on par with the last few films, if not a little bigger. (After all, STAR TREK IV was a *gigantic* hit.) Then they started cutting the budget. For no damned good reason. And cutting. And cutting. To the point that Shatner should have just quit. Who knows why Paramount cut the budget? If they didn't have faith in the concept, why not say so and get it over with? At least then, Shatner could have taken what budget he had left, grabbed a couple of TNG writers, and thrown together a film whose story didn't call for any more budget than he had.
For all of the Shatner screw-ups in the film, there are likable elements that glint through. If you read his production diary or listen to his commentary, it's really, really sad.
Goatboy, you speak true. According to a post on Metafilter (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/54507), Rodriguez came in and shot the special effects scenes for free, as a favor to his friend Judge, after Fox cut the post-production budget. Which means that Fox had already decided the bury the film before it was completed. That makes me want to know: at what point did Carl's Jr. and the other lampooned corporations decide to raise a stink? Didn't they read the script before they agreed to let Judge and Co. use their logos? And if there is a civil suit, wouldn't it be a matter of public record?
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