criterionforum.org

Dax Shephard offers some details on what exactly Fox did and didn't do for this movie and why they sabotaged the film. Also its, very interesting to see that Robert Rodriguez donated effects to the film.

From CHUD:

[quote]
DAX SHEPARD PONDERS FOX'S IDIOCRACY
11.14.06
By Devin Faraci
Dax Shepard knew CHUD when I walked in for our one on one for his new film, Let's Go to Prison, opening this weekend. “You're from CHUD,â€

Thedigitalbits said the DVD will come out on 1/9.

The Village Voice reviews it. My fave excerpt:

Judge doesn't just bite the hand that feeds him, he barfs all over his audience.

I finally caught up with it and really quite enjoyed it. I agree with others that it feels like studio hands definitely controlled the final edit but there is still a lot of good stuff in here, like the dimwitted doctor whose diagnosis of Luke Wilson's character is, “you're fucked up, you talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded.â€

I'm actually a little surprised at the positive notices for the film. I think there is a tendency to like a film a little more if it's disregarded by a studio, but found Idiocracy to be an intriguing, occasionally funny but largely unsuccessful film.

The main problem with the film is that the satiric elements are often just as dumb as the dumbed down culture it's supposed to making fun of. It's a fine line and difficult one to tread but Judge fails probably more often than he succeeds. For such a short movie, many sequences were far too long, especially the Monday Night Rehabilitation portion of the film. Franky, the funniest portions of the movie were probably in the first fifteen or twenty minutes and the jokes were more or less repeated for the rest of the film. The visual gags were great, but you could definitely tell the studio sped up the edits to make some of them fly by so you couldn't tell what brand was being mocked.

That said, Judge is lucky that he got three very strong performances from his leads. Wilson and Shepherd were particularly good, but I'm a big Maya Rudolph fan and I thought she was really underutilized.

In a bizarro world marketing move, Brawndo is coming to store shelves.

Did the company not understand the movie or what

As this thread has been resurrected thanks to Brawndo ("It's Got Electrolytes!"), I thought I'd add to the praise for this unjustly neglected film. While it's true that it falls off a little after its hilarious first half hour, Judge still has enough left in his satire tank to keep it going through a couple of awkward plot-driven stretches (and, like Office Space, this becomes less of an issue on second viewing). Hopefully, like its predecessor, this is finding a following on DVD.

Brought to you by Carl's Jr.

More info on the company bringing Brawndo to store shelves near you.

Antoine Doinel wrote:More info on the company bringing Brawndo to store shelves near you.

This guy has way too much time on his hands. Is he trying to be ironic or something making these fictional products that were meant to be satirical into reality? All these products seem like something better fitted for some novelty store than an actual grocery store. Although, I do agree that we're already in a state of idiocracy.

I just wish it came with a hand-job.

Murdoch wrote: All these products seem like something better fitted for some novelty store than an actual grocery store.

I just hope they are available at Costco.

miless wrote:I just wish it came with a hand-job.

Handjobs at Costco? SOunds like old news to me. Wasn't that the core product they built the company around back inna day?

Another step towards a permanent idiocracy: meet Marijuana Pepsi.

Manny Karp wrote:Idiocracy

Wait, this isn't actually a rumor, is it? That would be a seriously awful move by Criterion

Why? It's a well-liked and consistently discussed/invoked comedy by a well-respected comic filmmaker that inexplicably still hasn't been upgraded to Blu-ray. I doubt it's coming from Criterion, but it wouldn't be a bad choice

Maybe I should've been more specific about it being my opinion and not an overall concern Criterion should have - but I'm much more in this camp when it comes to the film's merits, and I love Mike Judge's other work.

Having CC edition of Idiocracy would be a bliss! This film is funny as hell, completely prophetic and an absolute tour de force from start to finish. The existing DVD is not bad at all, but the film deserves a new life on home video with a properly done Blu.

I hope they release Idiocracy just to see if they sell it at Costcos.

mfunk9786 wrote:Maybe I should've been more specific about it being my opinion and not an overall concern Criterion should have - but I'm much more in this camp when it comes to the film's merits, and I love Mike Judge's other work.

I agree completely and I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who spotted the resemblance to the core ideas of eugenics. Having gotten tired of the whole "Idiocracy is a documentary" thing, I made this point here on the forum years ago. (I see that the engaging response I got was: "Eh.")
Co-writer Etan Cohen even touted it this year as having "become a documentary." Yeah, the same guy who's busy rebooting Cannonball Run, of all things, is concerned about America losing its intelligence...

The movie is not "completely prophetic," because the whole premise is that most of the population is getting dumber and dumber with each generation, the human capacity for intelligence diminishing due to genetic factors, which is just not true.

Gregory wrote: The movie is not "completely prophetic," because the whole premise is that most of the population is getting dumber and dumber with each generation, the human capacity for intelligence diminishing due to genetic factors, which just is not true.

I assumed the film's point was more cultural and technological degeneration rather than a genetic one. Though that is equally as false a narrative.

Eh.

Gregory wrote:(I see that the engaging response I got was: "Eh.")

Also, delightfully, a misspelling of "Connecticut"

...the same guy who's busy rebooting Cannonball Run...

Hopefully he's doing an entire movie of outtakes a la the end credits of CR II...