Idiocracy
d. Mike Judge, 2006
Mike Judge's new film in seven years--the last being 1999's Office Space--did not receive a proper distribution from its studio, 20th Century Fox. Hard to see why, as it's quite an enjoyable film, but also a biting satire of American culture. The film, a fusion of sci-fi and low-brow humor, begins with the assumption that an average man from the year 2005 (played by Luke Wilson) could very possibly be the smartest man on the planet by the time 2505 comes around. By then, culture has been reduced to watching a guy kicked in the groin on a 70-inch TV and ordering fries from an automatic dispenser (sound familiar?) The succes of Idiocracy is that it doesn't always play it straight; a casual viewer may even confuse its commentary for a simple comedy, which is a risk all good satires take. Hardly a masterpiece, but I imagine Idiocracy is better than most 2006 studio releases, and let's just hope it finds an audience on home video (as Judge's previous film, Office Space, did).
