Stephen Root, as usual, was great as the judge.

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 10:00 am Stephen Root, as usual, was great as the judge.

Should he be added to the "Stanton-Walsh Rule?"

"No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." - Roger Ebert

Frankie99 wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 10:31 am

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 10:00 am Stephen Root, as usual, was great as the judge.

Should he be added to the "Stanton-Walsh Rule?"

"No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." - Roger Ebert

Absolutely. The last man standing, sadly. I might throw William H. Macy in there, as well.

Mike Judge gets a lifetime pass from me for Beavis and Butt-Head, but Idiocracy is CRAP.

It's just too easy and too obvious. It feels like the first draft of a satire written by a wiseass middle schooler.

With apologies to FM Krev, "Idiocracy is prophetic!" and "Idiocracy was a documentary!" are right up there with "Die Hard is a Christmas movie!" as movie takes I'd be happy to never hear again.

Office Space shares the same level of low-budget campiness in Idiocracy. It's not that complicated of a movie, just a silly comedy. The fact that it has about the same cultural cache as Office Space suggests that it is more than just a low-budget film.

Anyway, I always liked it despite its flaws. There's plenty of memorable characters in it, even Upgrayedd, who didn't really have any speaking parts and was only found in a picture or two.

Prophetic? Consider this: the producers wanted something futuristic looking for clothing, but it had to look stupid and almost like something only morons would wear, so they bought a bunch of shoes from a small shoe company called Crocs.

andyman wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 1:02 pm

Jacques wrote: Mike Judge gets a lifetime pass from me for Beavis and Butt-Head, but Idiocracy is CRAP.

It's just too easy and too obvious. It feels like the first draft of a satire written by a wiseass middle schooler.

With apologies to FM Krev, "Idiocracy is prophetic!" and "Idiocracy was a documentary!" are right up there with "Die Hard is a Christmas movie!" as movie takes I'd be happy to never hear again.

I wouldn't use the term "prophetic" and I think much of the movie decidedly isn't... whatever you want to call it.
Yet, it surprised me how much of the Comanche meme came true: it was ridiculously over-the-top and far-fetched at the time. Apart from Reagan presidents had generally been people with experience.
Yet fucking Hulk Hogan is speaking at Republican rallies now and as long as Don keeps the gimmick up his fans don't care about the truth.

It's like the asteroid in Don't Look Up and what happened with Covid.

Or White Noise coming out weeks before a train derailment carrying toxic chemicals...

Jacques wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 11:52 am Mike Judge gets a lifetime pass from me for Beavis and Butt-Head, but Idiocracy is CRAP.

My take too. I laughed, maybe twice through the whole thing?

Frankie99 wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 10:31 am "No movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." - Roger Ebert

It's true.

zircona1 wrote: Wed Apr 09, 2025 1:22 pm I laughed, maybe twice through the whole thing?

I remember rooting for it, as I like the comedic conceit, but it's just not funny. Office Space is funny when it's just the situational comedy, but that also loses me when they they try to shoehorn in an actual plot.

I had fun watching it. And there are some real parallels as American culture seems to circle the drain. NC for that alone.

Here comes the waffles:

The basic premise of the film, de-evolution, people are getting genetically dumber, is problematic. I think some people actually take that seriously and it has a eugenics angle. While I celebrate many of our cultural curmudgeons I think the way we casually look at human intelligence isn't only inaccurate, it's self defeating. The George Carlin quote about "Think about how smart the average person you know is..... half of the people are dumber!". Is neat as a pin and psychologically false. If you see intelligence on a bellcurve you realize that the majority of the people are average and true idiots are unique. Also human intelligence has some elasticity; people can actually get smarter through practice. So while our country keeps feeling dumber, it's actually a cultural problem, and an individual problem. It's ignorance, not a cognitive gap. Which in some ways is all the more damning. You can still watch the movie and think of it that way. Or I can still STFU and have a laugh while those idiots water their garden with Gatorade.