Meredith and I went to see Idiocracy last night. I was really looking forward to it, mainly because of two reasons 1) Mike Judge, 2) Fox’s shunning. According to every piece of information I’ve read the movie was completely shut down by fox. No marketing, no promos, no t-shirts — NOTHING. But I’ve read lots of reviews on the Intarweb that were very positive and the IMDB database and rotten tomatoes both have lots of reviews and a mostly positive (70%+) rating.
Ugh.
It was funny and the writing was mostly well done but there were really two fundamental flaws. Firstly, the humor and the jokes were all pretty lowbrow. Think “Beavis and Butthead”, not “Office Space”. Lots of potty humor and fart jokes. Secondly, the satirical premise was not biting enough. There were a (very few) places where the scope of current idiocy was alluded to (mostly at the very beginning and very end), but overall — it was still very “even though we’re all dumb as a bunch of fucking stumps, we’re still cool heroes.” I couldn’t tell if that was intentional by Judge or possibly some influence by Fox to attempt not to insult its main constituents.
Overall, the movie was entertaining, but not the “$20 at the box office” type of entertaining. More like the watch it on cable, or maybe — MAYBE — pay-per-view or net-flix.
The best part of the evening was finding BB Rover’s. They’re open ’til 1 am and they serve food until midnight. That’s good to know because we discovered last night that North(west) Austin is in dire need of more late-night hang-outs. Kirby Lane is about it and they’re always packed solid. BB Rover’s was awesome — some live music outside and plenty of room inside with a good crowd but not packed. It’s pretty much everything I like in a pub — food, free wi-fi, and piles and piles of different beer options (draught and bottle).
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