Idiocracy - new Mike Judge movie in superlimited release

I liked it okay, but it def. has some problems. Seemed pointless as live action, would've been more fun as a cartoon. And its basically one really looooooooong joke, very one note.

Scarface's appearance cracked me up.

I thought he was referring to President Sean Camacho!

But King of the Hill's avoidance of race seems more than a little forced and dishonest. I mean, race isn't exactly a non-issue in East Texas, and the show's timidity in this respect is hard to parse.

Idiocracy is Mike's first work to really deal with and incorporate non-white America. And in it, signifiers of non-white race, lower-class poverty and stupidity-to-the-point-of-retardation are all mixed together, as though they were essentially the same thing.

Didn't kill the movie for me (the lack of good jokes did that), but I found it more than a little off-putting.

While there have been occasional minor/guest characters of other races, it's a basically white universe. And the profound race issues (including outright racism) that are such an essential part of the real-world landscape the show supposedly mirrors are almost entirely sidestepped.

Yeah, I was thinking of Mexicans, too. I know that the show sometimes touches on race issues, but even so, I've always found it kinda timid.

Some of the "alley gang" should be at least kinda/sorta racist. Given the culture they represent, this failure seems like a cop-out. How do white, conservative, middle-class, suburban Texans really feel about race? In my admittedly limited experience, people like Dale (and even Hank) are often profoundly racist.

The only actual racist on the show, though, seems to be Khan. Why? Why does the show present such a rosy, "enlightened" view of race-relations in Texas? I understand that everybody on the show is stereotyped to some extent, but why are the non-white characters so consistently stereotyped in terms of race alone? Why aren't there any hispanic major characters? In Texas of all places?

I don't wanna get bogged down in debate. If what I'm saying doesn't make intuitive sense to you, then arguing the point probably won't change your mind. And I don't think you're wrong, necessarily. What I'm talking about is more implicit than explicit.

???

also, when I watched the show regularly(years back), Khan was the best character w/ the best lines.

adam beales did you ever seen the one where hank is worried hes a racist because ladybird keeps reacting violently to the repairman played by bernie mac? or the one with chris rock where bobby writes a bunch of 'black people drive like THIS!' jokes?

PEGGY: I'll tell you something right now: We cannot afford to have that dog running amok, biting every black person she sees. It makes us look like a bunch of ignorant rednecks. Oh, and it's bad for black people too.

BOBBY: You're so lucky, Connie, you're ethnic. Joseph and I are just nothing. We're just white and boring.
JOSEPH: Yeah.

Still, I'm not gonna argue this any further. I can't imagine it going well.

though i can understand if, like adam beales, you have never actually paid any attention to anything hes done before, that the half-assed treatment of maya rudolph & scarface could seem like it (my big draw to the film = mike judge directs film starring maya rudolph & scarface)

I always thought that they should have a throwaway gag "Meanwhile, on the other side of town..." and quickly show a foursome of basically identical black dudes hanging out in their alley sippin' on beers, saying "yep" and then an equivalently imcoherent black-dude ramble from melanin-enhanced Boomhauer.

I don't think it's actively racist in any way. I think it tries hard, in fact, to be progressive -- antiracist. But I have qualms about the ways it goes about this. While I think the show's aims are noble, I think it ends up sweeping the real face of racism under the rug. And for a show that attempts to present a semi-gritty, humane, morally honest view of life in suburban Texas, I think that's a mistake, though a small, harmless one.

I understand that you don't see it this way, and I have no problem with that.

But Idiocracy is another matter. Here, I think Judge isn't really in control of his feelings/ideas about the intersection of race, class and intellect. And I think he ends up shooting himself in the foot. Made it hard for me to enjoy the movie. Why, for instance, do so many white people in the film have Hispanic names? What's the point?

Oh, and strike every instance of the phrase "I think" in ppg 2 of my last post. It'll reduce the impression of moronism by at least 10%.

And out (again).

I just saw this movie for the first time since it was in theaters. Some of it has aged well, some of it has aged terribly, but it remains by and large a borderline disaster, like a self-funded pilot that never got picked up.

it does look really cheap, doesn't it?

Pretty sure I won't be going back to rescreen this one

Especially not when Southland Tales exists