Camacho’s teleprompter is more persuasive than Obama’s
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho utters those inspiring words in Idiocracy. But when the camera panned down to show them scrolling across a teleprompter, I ’bout died.
What the heck — I’ve done Mary Poppins and bad cartoons this week.
I remembered Idiocracy as being a mildly funny, one-joke movie. But I rewatched it with Uncle B last night, and…I dunno. Maybe I was just in the mood for it. Or maybe it seems a lot truer four years later.
Idiocracy is a 2006 film from Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head, Office Space) and it’s a real blunt instrument of a comedy.
A dude and a hooker are locked into high tech pods and put into chemical hibernation in an Army experiment that is supposed to last a year. Instead, they lie forgotten until the pods are accidentally opened five hundred years later. For five centuries, dumb people have been breeding like bunnies, until dumb people are all that’s left.
That’s the joke, and he manages to spin a whole movie out of it. But it’s a better movie than I remembered. I didn’t realize until second time through how many clever sight gags are going on in the background.
There’s some mystery surrounding its release. Fox owned it, and didn’t advertise it at all. Didn’t release a trailer. Didn’t pre-screen it for the critics. Released it in a fraction of the usual number of theaters. Basically sat on it until the DVD. Nobody’s quite sure why.
It is savagely nasty about several actual corporations, including Fox itself (the most popular program of 2505 is a Fox offering called “Ow, My Balls!”), Starbucks (which vends handjobs instead of coffee) and Carl’s Jr. (whose new motto is “Fuck You! I’m Eating!”). But Fox has certainly allowed many of its programs to poke fun of it in the past, so I dunno what the deal is.
The scary part? We watched it on a commercial channel and the ads seamlessly blended into the movie, so dumb were they.
Posted: July 14th, 2010 under movies, personal.
Comments: 20
Comments
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: July 14, 2010, 11:10 pm
I’ve been meaning to see this one but never have. *Adds to netflix*
Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: July 14, 2010, 11:57 pm
I loved this movie. We are about 6 years away from watering crops with Mountain Dew.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:02 am
I looked at the teleprompter and immediately started to snort.
Weasel was making a similar noise, a foot or so away.
Hope! Change!
Duh!
Slap a pair of gypsy earrings on Mike Judge and he could hold down a fortune telling gig with no problems at all.
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:12 am
Does anyone else remember the story “The Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth?
Unfortunately, current demographics suggest that’s where we’re going.
Comment from Doug!
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:38 am
I just set the DVR to record it, thanks for the tip. Looks like it’s on Saturday night on the Comedy Channel. If I were that time traveler I’d expect the population to be stupider 500 years from now but I’d be relieved to learn that there were still commercials or capitalism.
Comment from USCitizen
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:58 am
Idiocracy. The movie was like a trainwreck – you cannot turn away from it.
The scene outside the hospital window where the cars drove off the broken bridge were painfully idiotic. Even the letters that didn’t fit on the outside of the hospital were hard to ignore.
It remains one of my favorite movies to watch as I ponder the wisdom of crowds.
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: July 15, 2010, 3:51 am
Idiocracy is incredibly great movie but I think it targeted all the wrong people and the powers that be in Hollywood didn’t realize it until they saw the screening. Then they just sabotaged it hardcore.
The only thing wrong with the movie is he said it would take 500 years to get there. try 5 decades, on the outside.
Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: July 15, 2010, 8:45 am
I’m haunted by the immortal words of Dr. Shafty –
“Water?….you mean like out of the toilet?”
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:15 pm
Well, whaddya know? Beavis and Butthead are coming back.
Comment from BigBlueBug
Time: July 15, 2010, 12:55 pm
Does anyone else remember the story “The Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth?
Heh, let’s build a spaceship.
Comment from Randy Rager
Time: July 15, 2010, 2:50 pm
Harrison Bergeron springs to mind.
Every time Obumblefuck nominates someone, I think “Is this his Diana Moon-Glampers? Or is it the whole system?”
Comment from Nicole
Time: July 15, 2010, 5:36 pm
Loved this movie. My only sadness about it is that I can’t show it to my mom because of the massive amounts of cursing. 🙂
At this point, I’m not sure how Camacho could be worse than the current president. 🙂
Comment from David Gillies
Time: July 15, 2010, 5:49 pm
Another great sight gag was how Fuddruckers mutated over the centuries into Buttfuckers. And they actually marketed Brawndo for a while as a real product (don’t know if it’s still available.)*
Biggest problem I have is I’m so much smarter than all you dipshits I pretty much live in this movie already. I keed…
* um, just checked: Brawndo.
Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: July 15, 2010, 7:15 pm
I still like Douglas Adams’ method of getting rid of all the stupid people.
I’ve never heard of this movie, though. Maybe when my daughter gets back from her stint at Yellowstone I’ll have her netflix it.
Comment from Bill (still the .00358% of your traffic that’s from Iraq) T
Time: July 16, 2010, 12:13 pm
Carl’s Jr. (whose new motto is “Fuck You! I’m Eating!”)
A bit more assertive than, say, “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?”…
Comment from Dawn
Time: July 16, 2010, 10:44 pm
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
BEST. MOVIE. EVER. MADE. That is all.
But…I thought Napoleon Dynamite should have won an Oscar.
Comment from Billybob
Time: July 17, 2010, 5:31 am
What a co-inky-dink. Was a in meeting today discussing some inane bureaucratic crap when my boss mentioned a line from the movie. I just about shot coffee out of my nose at the thought of the Ass-Dozer.
Soon we’ll all get our degrees from Costco.
Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: July 19, 2010, 12:23 am
By the way, his next movie Extract isn’t as good but its pretty fun anyway.
Comment from jwpaine
Time: July 23, 2010, 2:25 pm
Rich Rostrom: Does anyone else remember the story “The Marching Morons” by C. M. Kornbluth?
That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw Idiocracy on cable a couple of years ago. Prescient. And when I realize that, I immediately think wistfully of Bloch’s (IIRC) short “Sales of a Deathman.” Companion pieces, they should be.
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