"Untitled Mike Judge Comedy"?

Luke Wilson y Maya Rudolph y Stephen Root y MIKE JUDGE. I hate to say this, but I have high hopes.

I won a bet with my brother over this.

One thing I love about all of Mike Judge's work so far (Beavis & Butthead, Office Space, King Of The Hill) is that, although it's definitely tongue in cheek, it's all so completely SINCERE, which I think is why so many modern comedy vehicles fail (SNL, Mad TV, etc, being "zany" for laughs, not working).

This movie has a title now! It is to be called 3001.

WORST MOVIE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE.

  by - zaetoon (Sun Mar 6 2005 21:17:53 )

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UPDATED Sun Mar 6 2005 21:21:49

WORST. MOVIE. EVER.

i saw a free screening and i almost died. DIED!
think of the worst movie you have ever seen and multiply it by 56,678.
Mike Judge, what happened? you used to be cool.
And luke wilson, you are so attractive, what went wrong?

gahhh just do youself a favor and dont go see this when it comes out. it was so effing terrible.

and dont think i'm some human devoid of all things humorous; i love silly movies just as much as i love serious dramas, but this movie? good god. worst humor ever.

if you DO go see this, try your hardest not to kill yourself while viewing it. in fact, make sure not to take any sharp objects with you; you just may stab your eyes out.

I mean, I'm not an Office Space cultist or anything but it was good fun and his other stuff's been great, so I'm kinda surprised by the vehemence of this! The lack of detail on what exactly WAS wrong makes me suspicious.

(Actually, Nickalicious, you ever going to take a visit out here? I keep meaning to get out there but reality always intervenes.)

In a way, Luke Wilson's Joe - an ordinary unambitious guy turned savior of a dunderheaded world - feels like a guilty conscience's reaction against Office Space's Peter Gibbon, for whom lack of ambition turned out to be the key to happiness and his greatest virtue. Joe has a revelation late in the movie that he was part of the problem in his own time but was able to skate by because of other, smarter people doing the hard work of running the world. When he becomes the smartest man on earth he accepts the responsibility that goes with such a position. The other 20th Centurian, a prostitute recruited by the army is less negative about the fucktard's dystopia she finds herself in, at first because she discovers it's really easy to rip off the morons she's surrounded by, then later because it's a chance at a new life. One of the better running gags is that Joe never figures out she's a hooker, accepting her story that she's a struggling painter long after it's clear she's bullshitting him.

I fully expect Idiocracy is going to become a cable/video sensation, especially since it looks like even fewer people will see it at the cinema than saw Office Space on it's first release. Watching it on Comedy Central or TNT would be especially wierd, since the culture they exemplify are the subject of so many of Idiocracy's skewerings. Still, they'll run anything that gets good ratings and is highly quotable and rewatchable, so I bet by this time next year it happens.

"Go away! 'Batin'!"

Yeah, this is pretty fucking fishy.

this still lists the wider opening as TBA

Los Angeles
Chicago
Dallas
Houston
Austin
Atlanta
Toronto

are the cities.

I think it has more to do with some really nasty satire of some really big companies.
That's crazy talk. This is the most de-fanged satire of all time. Ghetto people talk funny! Americans are stupid and obsessed with violence! Starbucks handjobs! Poor/stupid people breed like rabbits!

Yeah, well, it's definitely a flawed picture. Sorry you didn't like it more. I'm willing to concede that

a - I am a total Mike Judge fanboy
and
b - Going after some of my favorite targets (dumb tv, anti-intellectualism, corporate overlording) may have influenced me to be kinder to it than deserved.

On the other hand, I really did laugh a LOT.

i also agree with milo about the defangedness of the satire. hardly what one would call hard-hitting.

but i defy anyoe to watch this in suburbia and not feel a bit of painful recognition upon leaving the theater and coming out into the world again. it's not so much a feeling of elitisim i get, but just an exhaustion with the relentlessness of modern culture's attack on your intelligence and senses, ie "I'm eating! fuck you!"

Watching the President was just as grating and senses-dulling as watching an actual WWE affair - none of the satire was sharp enough to rise above the base material.

this is sort of opposite to, say, Talledega Nights, where everyone is pretty stupid, but it makes stupid look funny, and fun, whereas here it's just soul crushing.

onion liked it

I checked the paper this morning, and it is indeed playing at 10-12 theatres in and around town. However, only a handful are showing more than once a day. The majority are tossing it it out once at odd times like 1:10 in the afternoon or 11:40 at night.

Case in point: the scene where the cops pull over Joe, Frito, and Rita, shoot the hell out of the car, blow up the car, shoot guns in the air, shoot down a passing airplane, and start rioting. Is the scene a commentary on violence, or is it just fun to blow shit up?

I'm not sure he thought too much about funny, sadly, and certainly not about sharp satire. The only thing this movie has going for it is gallons of bile, if you're into that sort of thing. I agree with whoever said it's depressing.

ugrgrgrhughghh mike judge u know i <3 u boo but wtf is this shit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goode_Family

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183569/

noooo

http://www.tv.com/video/14181/the-goode-family?o=tv&tag=video;watchbtn;0

Good grief.

*96 tears*

oh awesome, finally somebody's really gonna stick it to those vegans

They don't know their place.

royal tenenbaums what

still haven't seen it, is it like this

I don't know. But I wouldn't bother getting all defensive before the pilot's even leaked

Yeah, I can't imagine that King Of The Hill would've looked promising if presented with the same kind of advance promotional materials and descriptions, so I don't really understand what y'all are so bummed about already.

I mean if anything I'm just glad the dude is laying off the yokels for once.

if I can't say "this is gonna suck" on the internet any more I don't wanna live in this world

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000008L6L.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The panda pitching something into a recycle bin in the deep background of the wiki image made me laugh.

If anything I almost get the feeling he's trying pull a Seth McFarlane, which seems wrong.

I like double joke of the main character shares his name with a Swahili word and a certain linux ubuntu.

I dunno; the various pandas and the dolphin jumping thru a rainbow gives me the idea that this might a total pisstake(not sure of whom, yet). I guess we'll see.

if they are relentlessly whiny and awful and helpless then it might be good. if it tries to 'say something' then fuck it.

"You know, I 've learned something today..."

already dreading the bemused avuncular mccainite neighbor

Is The Leftersons really such a rich vein of comedy?

Oh Christ, I'd forgotten about them. They used to grace our BSRW op-ed threads years ago. It's like Mission Hill(or even the Oblongs?) gone all wrong.

if they are relentlessly whiny and awful and helpless then it might be good. if it tries to 'say something' then fuck it.

Uh, if they're "relentlessly whiny and awful and helpless" then it's also going to suck ass. I don't think the series can work if it's just total Beavis & Butt-head style misanthropy (and I liked B&B).

the lefterwsons is some funny shit, but i also just watched sinbad spin a basketball while wearing a hot dog colared jump suit, so what do I know

unpromising, to say the least. And I'm quite the Mike Judge apologist.

"The reason why their last name is Goode is because they are always trying to do good."

http://skateandannoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/duh-duh.jpg

The promo is horribly done...everything about it reminds me of a preview for some sitcom on a "Christian" cable network

this makes me sad

I don't know man, this idea seems so friggin 1990s. I don't know anybody like this Goode Family or whatever, and I know a lot of fruitcake vegans.

fruitcake isn't vegan, though. what's up with those people?

I guess I know some people kinda like this. although they don't have children. or cars. I guess I am kinda like this except I am not a vegan (or a vegetarian). I am in favor pandas recycling though.

the problem is that this looks like any ostensible comedy is based on fulfillment of a stereotype - whereas with King of the Hill the comedy all comes from the cast essentially breaking/subverting the stereotype of the right-wing suburban redneck family.

king of the hill never looked like a "redneck" family

Yeah, Hank Hill doesn't really come across as right wing or anything like that. He's more like the moral and ethical center of the show, and everything around him is what's getting poked fun at. The humor about Hank is more natural and straight forward, mostly the really cut and dry things he says.

both true

i saw Idiocracy the other night and thought it was OK, a few good lols

Ow! My Balls is awesome but yeah movie is kinda a mess

first three minutes re: natural selection is both o_O and hilarious. it was downhill from there.

it really helps when you have 0 expectations and no real idea what it's even gonna be about beforehand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

"The Marching Morons" is a science fiction short story written by Cyril M. Kornbluth, originally published in Galaxy in April, 1951. It was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.

The story is set hundreds of years in the future: the date is 7-B-936. John Barlow, a man from the past put into suspended animation by a freak accident involving a dental drill and anesthesia, is revived in this future. The world seems mad to Barlow until Tinny-Peete explains the Problem of Population: Due to a combination of intelligent people prudently not having children and excessive breeding by less intelligent people, the world is full of morons, with the exception of an elite few who work slavishly to keep order. Barlow, who was a shrewd conman in his day, has a solution to sell to the elite.

Kornbluth was the shit

king of the hill never looked like a "redneck" family

-- and what, Wednesday, August 6, 2008 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

they totally do, though! it's just a slightly more subtle depiction instead of being all out good ol' boy caricatures.

xpost just getting into him now. The Space Merchants should be taught in every high school.

I haven't seen a promo or trailer but, I'm surprised at the amount of negative replies based on the picture and description alone. It sounds like a goode idea to me, that he write something that is kinda like the opposite of king of the hill. He hates those hippies. Maybe these hippies will hate rednecks. It could be just like another King of the Hill type show but from a different angle. I'm sad to see so many immediately disappointed people when they haven't even seen the show yet. LOL some of you guys are hypocrites and remind me of the music haters of bands that they only heard 1 song if any.

some dude otm. Those guys are related to me.

Space Merchants and its sequel (I think its called "the Merchants' War"?) are both amazingly prescient, funny shit. Pohl and Kornbluth really brought out the best in each other. (Pohl's other real masterpiece is "Jem" - highly highly recommended)

It could be just like another King of the Hill type show but from a different angle.

I pointed out the key difference above

wait, are the writers at least the same as king of the hill?

fwiw I don't have any problem being satirized by Mike Judge - he's always skewered leftist tropes (cf hippie teacher in B&B, numerous guest characters on King of the Hill, bits of Idiocracy, etc.) its just that this seems like a really uncreative premise, not exactly fraught with possibilities.

what about the possibilites for king of the hill... who would have imagined

I think they could make an whole episode about rescuing mice in the basement alone. Or someone getting sick and they don't want the normal medicine and they just get sicker.

like I said above, that stuff isn't particularly funny because its just built on reinforcing an existing stereotype - King of the Hill works so well because, among other things, it actively plays against stereotypes

you could reduce yr plot suggestions to "hippy does something hippie-ish" - King of the Hill resists those kinds of reductions (for ex. Hank enjoys dancing with his dog, Hank accidentally uses crack as fishbait, etc.)

Well hopefully they won't just reinforce stereotypes but actually have some normal issues as well as that kinda stuff. I bet it wont get good like that until at lest a few episodes into the season though. Remember the earliest episodes of king of the hill. That show has come a long way.

Not so sure about this, but I'll give Judge the benefit of the doubt...

http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/extract/

i predict lols. it's a pretty basic trailer.

is it an old-fashioned movie-thing to have the male romantic lead be 15 years older than the female?

bateman is like four years older than wiig. isn't he supposed to be older than mila kunis. like, she is a significantly younger woman, in the film, and that's a thing.

whereas in (say) wedding crashers, nobody mentions it.

OK, the story isn't clear in the trailer - just wondered after they were both kind of flirting w/ one another

is it an old-fashioned movie-thing to have the male romantic lead totally understandably and romantically pursue the much younger female in his employment because he and his wife have some problems w/ their sex life that neither of them will discuss?

well, the sweatpants gag was pretty good anyway

looks good.

especially after idiocracy :(

bateman is like four years older than wiig.

Read this as "batman is like four years older than wiig" and was like, huh?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2253574/

I liked Idiocracy but yeah mostly cos it made shots at the anti-intellectual pro-materialist America that I grew up in and have come to loath. After the first half hour it starts going downhill, cos the plot itself takes over, and the plot is pretty mind-numbingly stupid.

Goode Family premiere tonight. Anyone else watch?

(in short, rather promising for a pilot episode despite obvious unintentional KOTH/Beavis & Butthead flashbacks)

How long should it take the characters to build for a proper show?

that show looks horrible. is there any joke beyond LOL LIBERALS?

i didn't watch it. i guess i'm hoping it'll be more than lol-liberals in the same way king of the hill is more than lol-texans. but i don't know.

watching clips on youtube and this shit is just lethal

What could be funnier than an indictment of Mr. Van Driessen.

Following this and the movie about how only the stupid mongrel poor are breeding, I can't say I'm anticipating his new movie about a factory owner whose employees are exploiting him.

that show is pretty obviously getting burned off over the summer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1225822/

"Extract"

Joel, the owner of an Extract plant, tries to contend with myriad personal and professional problems, such as his potentially unfaithful wife and employees who want to take advantage of him.

Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, J.k. Simmons, Kristen Wiig, and imdb doesn't list if David Herman will be in this or not.

Had no idea this was coming until it popped up as a sidebar advert on facebook.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/hitfix/assets/21/extract_movie_poster.jpg

Idiocracy was so bad! Such an elitist/classist story, and there weren't even that many good jokes. The only funny bits where the TV shows the dude was watching.

canNOT get a read on this movie. the concept/trailer are baffling and unfunny.

there's a lot of catharsis in watching Idiocracy, elitist or not (i dont think it is, even if it is in the tradition of decline of the West types like Spengler or Heidegger).

poor ppl are the most disgusting savages in all the world imo

maybe im giving it too much credit but i took its target to be more the lowest common denominator drives of capitalism or the mass media. (this is probably some creative misreading on my part, I'll admit.)

<3 Idiocracy, F y'all

maybe im giving it too much credit but i took its target to be more the lowest common denominator drives of capitalism or the mass media. (this is probably some creative misreading on my part, I'll admit.)

no i definitely think that was Judge's intent. it seemed like he got half way into it, realized the classist, potentially objectionable angles he was working and started pulling his punches (or losing interest altogether). the result managed to be both toothless and kind of offensive.

but i totally lol'd at the opening 3-4 minutes so I'm basically the most disgusting of savages in the world etc

and will definitely go see Extract

extract was really good.

i didn't think there was a single good thing about extract, and i am honestly baffled when people say they liked it. my whole family dug it and i'm more of a fan of both mike judge and jason bateman than any of them tbh

it was funny? it was kind of sweet and understated too. also ben affleck: "xanax is good for everything. i take it for a common head cold. codeine cough syrup is good." "good for what?" "it's just good".

I watched Extract this weekend. It wasn't terrible but I think I only laughed once. I think Judge might have been going more for 'good natured' than 'hilarious'. There were some fairly well-observed character types (which is one of his greatest strengths, imo). But ultimately it was pretty much just an episode of a half-decent sitcom stretched out to three times the normal length. I don't really get why this had to be a movie.

Probably the first and last time I'll ever say this but: Ben Affleck was the best thing in this movie.

Extract, iirc, was a big nothing. Like they cranked out a first draft, asked Judge if he wanted to work on it some more, and he just sort of shrugged and said "eh." As opposed to "Idiocracy," which is a great idea and was packed with jokes but clearly came off compromised by studio interference and Judge's lack of interest in salvaging a project for the same people that screwed him over.

I keep forgetting "Silicone Valley" is Judge.

Ha, Silicon. But I bet Judge could make a funny Silicone Valley, too.

surprised there's no talk of Tales From the Tourbus around here, non-stop awesomeness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPTT6Kp3Ob8

season 2 pretty great - covering George, Bootsy and James Brown means certain things get repeated a bit, which is annoying, but whatever. More than a few anecdotes that were totally new to me (like Kush putting James Brown in a headlock the night of the JBs inaugural gig)

pretty clear that Judge leans conservative but finding out he's a fucking Ben Shapiro stan ("liking" his dipshit tweets going back months) kinda bums me out :/

Maybe the same sort of libertarianism that the South Park guys espouse. Wikipedia entry links to a report that Judge was at one point prepared to produce a series of anti Trump ads in the vein of Idiocracy for what that's worth.

Yeah I get more of a libertarian vibe

like i get that Shapiro's touted as this big "free speech" guy and i'm sure that appeals to someone like Judge. but he's also an unrepentant trans & homophobe, generally emblematic of Ted Cruz's millennial fan base (insofar as one exists)