Ouch! My Balls!

I don’t like to shill for Big Business.  As far as I’m concerned energy company execs are worse than nun-beaters, perky drug rep girls are the whores of Babylon, and I’d rather masturbate with a cheese grater than set foot in a Wal-Mart.  But I really, really dig Netflix.  Blockbuster fits into the above mentioned category, and my local independent video store, while having a much more eclectic inventory, only rents for a two-day maximum.  Netflix on the other hand has virtually every film ever released domestically on DVD and lets me keep a disc until I’ve time to watch it.  If you’re still driving to a video store every few days, do yourself a favor and check them out.  Which brings us to what we watched last night:

Idiocracy

The tale of how this movie came to be is really almost as good a story as the film itself.  It’s a Mike Judge film.  He’s the same cat responsible for Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, and most notably Office Space…one of the greatest comedies of the modern era.  Sometime during the production of Idiocracy, Judge got in a serious pissing match with some execs at Fox…about what I can’t even fathom.  Then end result is that Fox, in a “we’d rather shoot ourselves in the face than see you succeed” decision, released this full-budget movie in very limited cities.  One notable market left out was a little place known cordially as New York City.  Additionally, there was absolutely zero marketing campaign or promotional support.  The end result predictably enough was that no one, not even die-hard Office Space fans ever even heard about it much less had the opportunity to see it.  But, just as Office Space was a miserable box office failure and rose from the ashes like a phoenix to achieve cult DVD status, it appears as if Idiocracy will follow suit.  It actually had a waiting list (though I got it quickly enough) when I put in my Netflix queue.

The movie itself, while rather funny, was a bit disappointing.  It had a truly wonderful concept, one which echoes the rhythm of a drum I’ve been beating for years:  America is dumbing itself down.  As the more intelligent members of society have few or no children whilst the slower and less-educated have more and more, the collective ability of society decreases.  Luke Wilson plays an army clerk who finds himself awoken from a five-hundred year hibernation (ala Futurama) only to find that the most popular show on TV is called “Ouch! My balls!," Fuddruckers (only now it’s called ButtFuckers) is the epitome of fine dining, and he’s the smartest person on the planet by default.  People have become so dumb they can no longer solve their most simple problems. Wilson is enlisted to help them get straightened out, and the laughs ensue.  Great premise, average execution.  There are a ton of small things you probably won’t pick up on unless you’re really watching closely (my wife pointed out that everyone wears Crocs), but overall it just doesn’t quite ever live up to its potential.  That’s probably enough of a synopsis to determine if you’re the type of person that would like it.  The reviews were above averaged, and I mostly enjoyed it.  Still better than most of the dribble being churned out by the major studios.

One added bonus is that although it featured a Wilson, it wasn’t Owen.  While Luke is not as humorous as his more proboscis-endowed brother Owen, he doesn’t come with Ben “I’ve never read a script I rejected” Stiller either.  Now THERE is a guy who sold his soul to Satan.  Whoever thought you could springboard an entire career off a scene involving getting your scrotum caught in a zipper.

 
Ouch!  My Balls!