Citizen Kane. Casablanca. The Godfather. Idiocracy. These, my good people, are the height of Modern Films as we know it. While some viewers may be a bit biased one way or the other, I feel we have actually peaked here with the Ultimate Story for the Ages with this one simple and incredible cinematic experience. Is this real? Almost 20 years after its release, I believe this film should be elevated to the highest pantheons of Filmitude, seen by all folks, and screened in schools as an educational guide. At least high school. Blur the giant purple dildo though, that’s just not appropriate for the school kids, plus they would probably just giggle about it and miss the amazing dialogue.
Luke Wilson stars as Joe the Everyman. Average in every way. Being employed by the military, they decide to make him a test subject of a one-year hibernation experiment. Things get fercockled (furcockled? Fircockeld? Fuck you spellcheck, you don’t likes me no more, I’m going with the initial spelling), and Joe wakes up 500 years in the future. And Shit’s gotten Dumb. Like, almost dumber than now but even dumber in terms of why plants crave Brawndo. Stupid toilet waters.
Director Mike Judge hits it out of the ballpark AGAIN. Office Space was a perfect capsule of what the inanity of corporate culture was all about, and here he addresses, well, just the future of the world. And by using current-ish norms and extrapolating to the future, once again creates a great comedy of social insights. Longform doesn’t really seem to be his thing though so much respect to his contributions towards the tv side in Beavis and Butt-Head (juvenile, yes. Funny? Also yes), plus King of the Hill, and Silicon Valley among a few others, all shrewd social commentaries in their own right. But this? Damn. This is one humorous, sharp, well done look at what may come of society that we live in now. I will admit I was one of the few people to actually see it in the theater when it was released, like a two week run? Not too many places actually screened this upon release. I Wonder why? Loosely based on at least the beginning of C. M. Kornbluth’s story from 1951 called “The Marching Morons.” It really is a tale for all the ages.
