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.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
