DVDs, 1/14.

No one really knows, or at least no one is telling in full the story behind Idiocracy, Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's second live action movie, after Office Space in 1999. Idiocracy began life with the title Uh-merica, was retitled - first Amerikwa, then 3001, then Idiocracy - and may be based unofficially on the short story "The Marching Morons," by CM Kornbluth. Judge shot the film in 2004, but some poor test screenings led to reshoots and title changes in early 2005. Fox sat on the film for some time, inspiring a cavalcade of conspiracy theories (though in interviews Judge has attributed the film's hobbled journey to the screen to studio ineptitude and incomprehension) and an open letter to Fox from Judge's fellow Texans at Ain't It Cool News. Fox only finally released the film in September of 2006 to some 125 theaters in, at first, just seven cities, without the benefit of television advertising, critics screenings, or even trailers. Though it eventually received good reviews - from critics perhaps motivated to defend the film in the face of corporate negligence - Idiocracy soon vanished, and has now reappeared on DVD, on a disc bearing only some deleted scenes as supplements.

Updated through 1/16.

And just what exactly is the film at the center of this story? What inflammatory piece of agitprop or embarrassing satire could have created such a mushroom cloud of controversy? Idiocracy turns out to be a purposely garish dystopian satire, a sort of Sleeper for the six-pack brigade. In it, an average citizen - or rather, below average citizen - played by Luke Wilson is frozen during a military experiment only to awaken, thanks to an accident, in the year 2505, where he finds an America whose mental wattage has declined to 30, where nothing works, where marketing rules, and where the president is a former porn star. Wilson's character suddenly finds himself the smartest person in the world.

Do the DVD reviewers take pity on Idiocracy, or find a gem in the rough? Not necessarily. In this case, the netheads seem not to be driven to defend a sentimental favorite. Brian Orndorf of DVD Talk speaks for many when he writes that, for whatever reasons, "Idiocracy is a terribly muddled affair." He goes on to add: "What's finally being shown to audiences after two years sitting on a shelf gathering dust is a Frankenstein's Monster of a film, pieced together by a studio looking to pull off cinema's greatest single act of irony: they've dumbed down a film about dumbing down." Still, Orndorf found much to praise in the film ("As a satire, Idiocracy is a cold steel blade to the gut"), while advising the potential viewer to "keep your expectations low, and there's an often hilarious, sly little feature to be found in here somewhere."

Betsy Bozdech at the DVD Journal warns that "Mike Judge fans expecting another Office Space (1999) are likely to be bemused - and somewhat disappointed," finding that "the story is thin and meandering at best, with too many jokes being repeated and too little for any of the main characters to do."

Fernando F Croce at Slant was disappointed to find that "working on a larger, broader scale in Idiocracy... [Judge's] control quickly dissolves into a freefall of ideas and jokes, some hitting the bullseye and others landing on the floor with a thud. Judge is indifferent to anything resembling space or rhythm, yet the low-tech chintz of his approach ultimately enhances the caustic themes by making the futuristic atmosphere absurdly transparent." Still, he concludes that "Judge's nervy futuristic comedy survives studio cluelessness on its way to cult appreciation."

Not all the reviews are negative, of course. Harry Knowles at Aint It Cool News reminds us that he thought the big screen version was "one of the best films that Fox made last year," while the anonymous reviewer at Current Film finds that Idiocracy "is another terrific work that will hopefully get the attention it deserves on DVD," indicating that it is a "very funny, very entertaining comedy with a solid lead effort from Luke Wilson."

Matt Brighton at DVD Authority thirded these views, asserting that Idiocracy "is a very clever film, and I had a great time watching it. It's the kind of movie that you really have to be in the mood for or just really like Mike Judge's style of directing," while Bill Gibron at DVD Verdict judges that "Idiocracy is one of the best comedies of 2006, right up there with Clerks II and Borat."

At the other end of the smarts scale, the most intellectual film of the week is Criterion's release of Robert Bresson's companion piece to Au hasard, Balthazar, Mouchette. Glenn Erickson, the DVD Savant, argues that "this tale of an unhappy childhood is no longer as shocking as it might have seemed in 1967; the ensuing decades have seen plenty of equally depressing movies about blighted, hopeless young lives." Still, the Savant reminds us that from "this point on, Bresson's films became even colder, until his last picture, L'Argent, a remote observation of human evil at work; a minor act of dishonesty sets in motion a deplorable chain of events that lead to a series of bloody serial killings. Unlike his early Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson's characters no longer believe that a search for spiritual harmony is even possible." Erickson goes on to note that Criterion's transfer is "flawless," and that "Tony Rayns provides an insightful commentary that sums up the overwhelming critical reverence for this title, with a special emphasis on Bresson's technique." Apparently, Godard had a sideline in movie trailers, and the "capping touch is the original theatrical trailer, which Jean-Luc Godard once disowned, but finally admitted was his work. Godard's trailers are always captivating and clever, and this one presents Mouchette as a provocative mystery."

"Idiocracy's skimpy plot makes Office Space look like Chinatown," writes Vince Keenan. "But its vision of tomorrow - this dystopia brought to you by NASCAR - is every bit as meticulously conceived and terrifying as the one in Children of Men; if anything it's more plausible."

Slate's Dana Stevens can't help noticing the similarities, either:

Sure, Idiocracy is a low comedy, full of kicks to the groin and monster-truck rallies, while Children of Men is a serious dramatic thriller about the extinction of humanity. But both movies are chilling visions of a future dystopia extrapolated, with pitiless logic, from our current moment. Both feature a reluctant hero (Clive Owen in Children of Men, Luke Wilson in Idiocracy) who's jolted from his depressive complacency and asked to save the planet from destruction. And both posit human reproduction (or the lack of it) as the problem that threatens the future of the human race.

One other commonality: Both movies were scandalously underpromoted by the studios releasing them.

Craig Phillips has noticed, too: "Idiocracy, in fact, may be a more frightening depiction of what nightmares may come than Children of Men."

Dennis Cozzalio reminds us that Bilge Ebiri has meticulously chronicled Fox's odd mistreatment of the film from the very beginning.

Sujewa Ekanayake? He laughs and recommends Idiocracy.

In other DVD news, Criterion editor Michael Koresky has been watching "Louis Malle's documentaries, which we'll be releasing as the second Eclipse series this Spring, and which have been somewhat under the radar over the past forty-odd years, certainly in comparison to his fiction films. So there was a great sense of discovery for me, as well as there will undoubtedly be for many—both for these underseen films, and for the places they capture."

In the LA CityBeat, Andy Klein takes advantage of a slow week at the theaters to catch up with Oldboy: Three-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition, Shogun Assassin and Walt Disney Treasures: The Hardy Boys.

This week's "DVD Club" entry from the Observer's Philip French: Kind Hearts and Coronets.

And to come full circle, DK Holm looks into another strange case at Quick Stop Entertainment: "You'd think that you'd have heard of a film starring both Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz. You'd think that Hollywood's publicity mavens would be in high gear to make you know about it. Especially if the film was also produced by Luc Besson. You'd think that when the DVD of said film arrived in the mail unbidden that a critic might say, 'Oh, yeah, I've been waiting to see this.' No, instead when Bandidas arrived in my mail box I had never heard of it, and upon researching it, wondered why."

Updates: As Michael Sicinski notes in a comment below, he wrote a review of Idiocracy in September - and you need to read it: "The thing is, Mike Judge has made a political film without a constituency. This is practically a film version of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, and as such manages to be offensive even to those to whom it purports to reach out.... I found myself laughing at the very jokes and ideas I found most troubling. That's the highest compliment I can pay Judge's film - more so that any recent comedy I can think of, it's a true think-piece."

"Wilson delivers exactly the kind of comic performance the film requires." Paul Matwychuk explains.

Update, 1/15: "Cult classic status is just around the corner," predicts Jeff GP at the Six-Reel Shuffle.

Update, 1/16: "Mike Judge's Idiocracy was one of the greatest films of last year," writes Kim Morgan. "And not just one the greatest films barely anyone saw, but one of the greatest satires to hit screens in a long time." Mike Russell, who talks about the film - yes, this is an online listening tip - on Cort and Fatboy.

Posted by dwhudson at January 14, 2007 7:37 AM