Tag: Idiocracy

Mike Judge’s IDIOCRACY Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli!

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“The #1 movie in America was called ASS. And that’s all it was for 90 minutes. It won eight Oscars that year, including best screenplay.”

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IDIOCRACY plays this weekend (April 14th and  15th) at the Tivoli as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli Midnight series. 
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In Mike Judge’s utterly rude, crude, and politically incorrect 2006 yarn IDIOCRACY the U.S. Army selects a thoroughly average Army private, Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) for their top-secret Human Hibernation Project, because he is thoroughly average. Since the U.S. Army couldn’t find anybody in their ranks to fill the female slot, they have selected a hooker, Rita (Maya Randolph), from an African-American pimp named Upgrayedd  (the extra ‘d’ stands for “double dose”). Joe and Rita are put into suspended animation for only one year as a part of the experiment, but an accident occurs and they wind up being suspended for 500 years! Our hero and heroine end up at the bottom of a gigantic garbage heap. As civilization grows even more idiotic, mankind lets the garbage pile up into mountains for centuries. They are released from their capsules as a result of the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505 and discover a society where the dumbest have procreated in such huge numbers that human evolution has degenerated to the point that everybody is an imbecile. Indeed, numbskulls proliferate, and a wrestler, President Camacho (Terry Crews) is the President of the United States. (oh, and there is a restaurant chain named Buttf@#kers. Mindless television programming and rampant consumerism rule the airwaves. The favorite TV reality show is called ‘Ouch, My Balls!’ where guys get kicked in the gonads. There is also the Masturbation Network and the Best Picture of 2505 is a film entitled ASS, and all it shows is a giant close-up of a naked, flatulent, male butt for 90 minutes. In a brilliant sight gag, a carnival ride time machine display takes citizens on a journey through the 20 Century and they learn that Charlie Chaplin and the Nazis tried to rule the world. There a Museum of Fart where people tour a number of displays depicting various eras of time and they get to press a huge red button that sounds various kinds of farts.

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Nobody drinks water in the year 2505, and a Gatorade knock-off sports energy drink called “Brawndo” has become the number one employer in America and the number one beverage because it contains electrolytes. “Brawndo” looks like green radiator fluid. Nobody knows what purpose electrolytes serve, but they’ve been told it is good for them. Following this lack of logic, farmers rely exclusively on “Brawndo: to irrigate crops. Consequently, nothing grows anymore, and America has turned into a dust-bowl of devastation

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IDIOCRACY, which was Mike Judge’s follow-up to his cult hit OFFICE SPACE, yet never played theatrically in St. Louis upon its initial release (Webster U ran it for three nights about 4 years ago). It may be a terrifying and over-exaggerated caricature of the world today, but just look around you at almost any time and you will see where many of the crazy ideas in this film came from. What’s even more frightening, is that in a future not quite as distant as 2505, the things you see in IDIOCRACY may well not seem as over-exaggerated as they do now. IDIOCRACY portrays one big nightmare of a future, yet manages to stay entertaining and, indeed, hilarious at many places. See for yourself when IDIOCRACY screens this weekend at midnight at The Tivoli.

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The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8!

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

A Facebook invite for the screenings can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/256024564824158/

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And here’s the Tivoli’s midnight line-up for the next several weeks:

APRIL 21ST AND 22ND               –      SHAUN OF THE DEAD

APRIL 28TH AND 29TH              –      2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

 MAY 5TH AND 6TH                      –      GREMLINS

 MAY 12TH AND 13TH                   –    MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO

MAY 19TH AND 20TH                  –    THE DARK KNIGHT

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The Tivoli Announces the ‘Reel Late’ Midnight Line-Up – ROCKY HORROR, IDIOCRACY, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, and More!

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Another brilliant lineup of midnight movies for the ‘Reel Late at The Tivoli’ to kick off the 2017 season. It’s a typically good variety of titles that will draw the late night movie buff crowd with a couple of retro surprises. The Midnight Movie experience has always catered to a college-age crowd and that’s the way it should be. ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with live shadow cast with the Samurai Electricians kicks off the new schedule on March 31st and April 1st. The oldest film this time is 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY from 1968 and the most recent is THE DARK KNIGHT from 2008. There’s a Miyazaki thrown in there for attendance insurance (the last one sold out!) and a handful of standards including SHAUN OF THE DEAD and GREMLINS. I believe Jackie Chan in DRUNKEN MASTER and IDIOCRACY are new to the Tivoli midnight roster, and I suspect they will draw good crowds.

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Here’s the line-up:

MARCH 31ST AND APRIL 1ST   –      THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW with the SAMURAI ELECTRICIANS

APRIL 7TH AND APRIL 8TH     –      DRUNKEN MASTER

APRIL 14TH AND 15TH               –      IDIOCRACY

APRIL 21ST AND 22ND               –      SHAUN OF THE DEAD

APRIL 28TH AND 29TH              –      2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

 MAY 5TH AND 6TH                      –      GREMLINS

 MAY 12TH AND 13TH                   –    MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO

MAY 19TH AND 20TH                  –    THE DARK KNIGHT

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The Tivoli is located at 6350 Delmar in The Loop. Visit Landmark’s The Tivoli’s websiteHERE

http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/st.louis/tivolitheatre.htm

 

In Case You Missed It: ‘Idiocracy’

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There’s a reason why Mike Judge’s 2006 film, ‘Idiocracy,’ falls under the “In Case You Missed It” banner.  After the film’s production and re-shoots in 2004 and 2005, 20th Century Fox sat on the film for nearly a year.  The film had poor test screenings, and in September of 2006, the film was released in seven cities.  Even this was done with little fanfare, only a handful of posters in movie theaters and absolutely no trailers or TV spots to promote it.  Some have speculated that Fox’s disfavor with the film came from Judge’s views on corporate America.  Depictions in the film that put companies like Costco and Carl’s Jr. in less than favorable light may have caused Fox to get cold feet on the project.  The fact that it received a theatrical release of any kind seems to have stemmed from a contractual obligation.  Nonetheless, the film gained a release on DVD, and, much like Judge’s 1999 ‘Office Space,’ ‘Idiocracy’ has gained a cult following.

In the film, Luke Wilson plays Corporal Joe Bauers, the most average guy the US military has ever employed.  Due to his commonness, Joe, as well as a prostitute named Rita, played by Maya Rudolph, are chosen for a military experiment.  They are to be placed in a hibernation chamber for the term of one year.  The project is forgotten about when the officer in charge is arrested, and the military base is demolished for the sake of building a Fuddruckers.  500 years pass, and society has devolved into stupidity.  Everyone is a moron, the economy is in the toilet, and, a la ‘Wall*E,’ garbage is stacked into building-size mounds. After an avalanche of garbage dislodges Joe and Rita’s sleeping pods, they are awakened.  Now, the two find they are the most intelligent people on a planet of idiots.  With the help of an idiot native named Frito Pendejo, played by the hysterical Dax Shepherd, the two try to find a time machine, because, being in the future, they had to have perfected the art of time travel, right?  Along the way, they try to flee the police and even come across the United States government run by President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, played by Terry Crews.

‘Idiocracy’ is a hilarious movie, but it is also fair warning from Judge as to the state we may find ourselves before too long.  The film’s brilliant opening segments shows two, different sets of people.  A middle-class, fairly intelligent couple find themselves struggling in becoming parents while a low-class redneck continuously impregnates various, idiotic women.  Once Judge’s film jumps the 500 years to the future, we find ourselves in a precarious situation.  The film is a statement about a society of morons, but one also finds themselves struggling from laughing at the very things Judge is warning us about.  The number one movie of all time is ‘Ass,’ a 90-minute movie that just shows a man’s ass that passes gas once in awhile.  The film has won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.  The number one television show in Judge’s world is “Ow! My Balls!,” which is 30 minutes of a guy getting racked and hit square between the legs.  The Gatorade-like beverage Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator has virtually replaced water, because “it has electrolytes.”  All of these are humorous and inventive ways in with Mike Judge depicts his world of idiots.  It is all so ridiculous it’s funny, but you just know the days of having mile-long Costcos and fast-food restaurant vending machines are not that far off.

Judge’s film can be viewed as a stupid comedy, but it is also a very accurate satire of a possible future of our society.  Every scene is filled with referential comedy but also very realistic ideas for the ways certain things might be going.  Billboard ads put it bluntly when they say, “If you don’t smoke Tarryltons… F### You!”  Carl’s Jr.’s ad has gone from “Don’t Bother Me, I’m Eating” to “F### You, I’m Eating!”.

‘Idiocracy’ is all things in one, an extremely funny movie that delivers machine gun-speed laughs throughout and an extremely intelligent and through-provoking look at our dystopian future.  The fact that 20th Century Fox dumped the film for flimsy reasons is a travesty.  As it was, the film made just over $444,000, a fraction of its budget.  Had it been released to the masses, it could have become quite a force at the box office.  Granted, Fox, I’m sure, weren’t too keen on releasing another ‘Office Space,’ a film that made the studio very little in profit in 1999, but found its way once released to video stores.  With ‘Idiocracy,’ Judge might not have made a film as funny as ‘Office Space,’ but he definitely made a film that is every bit as satirical and biting as that.

As a side note, in 2007, Omni Consumer Products, a company that produces fictitious products for the real world, unveiled their own version of Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator.   The drink was marketed through viral videos on YouTube, the first of which you can check out right here:

It’s got electrolytes!