Netflix Diary
1. Idiocracy
It's kind of interesting how, when Beavis & Butthead first came out, it seemed like Mike Judge's sense of humor was stupid, or that his humor was simply about stupid people in a blunt, slapstick-y way, like Dumb & Dumber. But in retrospect, it seems kind of painfully clear that stupidity itself is his topic, whether it's institutionalized corporate stupidity in Office Space, naive, well-meaning small town stupidity in King Of The Hill, or the nihilistic teenage stupidity of Beavis & Butthead. So Idiocracy seems like an almost inevitable move for him, a exaggeration of what all these different forms of contemporary stupidity could mean for future generations. Office Space infamously made barely a blip at the box office before becoming a cult classic on DVD, and the fact that Idiocracy barely played in theatres has led a lot of people to assume that scenario will play out all over again. It might, but it's definitely not as funny as Office Space, and also lacks that "hey, I work at a boring desk job too!" thing that's led to the whole culture of cubicle humor like Dilbert and The Office and countless TV commercials which is becoming more tedious and repetitive than an actual desk job. Idiocracy is pretty funny, though, so I can't complain, it was worth the rental. There are some lines I'd quote but I won't spoil it for you.
2. Silent Hill
The first or second Valentine's Day that J.G. and I ever spent together, we ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched horror movies, and so we kinda decided that would be our V-Day tradition and have done it almost every year since. We watched a couple new-school scary movies that didn't turn out to be very scary, though. Honestly, the video game version is way creepier. I used to have a roommate who'd play Silent Hill for hours on end and that shit is creepy as hell, all the fog and quiet and then crazy shit happening out of nowhere. The movie does a decent enough job of emulating that vibe, but the result is pretty boring, because walking someone walk through fog is a lot less exciting than playing a game where you're walking through fog and don't know what will happen next.
3. The Cave
Another ho-hum horror movie we watched on Valentine's. This one was kind of cheesy and fun, though, in that sense where you can kind of bet on which characters are going to die first and who'll survive at the end, which J.G. is way better at than me.
4. The Exorcist
Now this is a horror movie, maybe my favorite of all time. J.G. had never seen it, so we rented it for V-Day but didn't watch it until the following weekend. No matter how many times I see it, it still sticks in my head for a few days afterward (during which time I listened to all the Sparklehorse songs with reference to 'Captain Howdy'). Especially this time, because I watched all the bonus stuff on the DVD. The best part is the commentary track by the author of the book William Peter Blatty, which wasn't recorded while watching the movie, so what he says has no relationship to the visuals and ends halfway through the movie. So after he finishes talking, they fill up a few more minutes of the audio track with a bunch of outtakes of Mercedes McCambridge recording the dialogue for the voice of the demon. Supposedly they had her smoking a ton of cigarettes and eating egg yolkes to get her voice sounding that hoarse and otherworldly, and that voice makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I wish she'd been the lead singer of a band.
5. "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy"
I remember watching this early 80's BBC mini-series version on PBS at my dad's house when I was a kid and had just started reading the book series. But J.G., also a fan of the books, had never seen it, and in light of the recent Hollywood version I kinda wanted to revisit it. The acting sometimes leaves something to be desired (although noone in the cast is as egregious as Mos Def, there's also nobody as perfectly cast in their roles as Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy and to a lesser extent Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel in the new version), but the cheesy low-fi special effects kind of suit the overall depressing view of space travel that the whole series takes. And since it's a lot longer, it fits in a lot more key scenes and gags that I'd kind of forgotten about since the last time I read the book.
6. Liberty Heights
I saw this back when it had just come out on video, and probably watched the second half of it on cable a dozen times, but it'd been a while since I watched it in full, so I thought I'd revisit and show it to J.G., who I knew would probably like seeing Ben Foster and Adrien Brody in early roles. It's a little more melodramatic than, say, Diner or Tin Men, and the score is really overbearing, but it's still a pleasure to watch any of Levinson's Baltimore movies, about kids growing up here around the time my dad was that age. Also, Bebe Neuwirth being a total MILF in this.
It's kind of interesting how, when Beavis & Butthead first came out, it seemed like Mike Judge's sense of humor was stupid, or that his humor was simply about stupid people in a blunt, slapstick-y way, like Dumb & Dumber. But in retrospect, it seems kind of painfully clear that stupidity itself is his topic, whether it's institutionalized corporate stupidity in Office Space, naive, well-meaning small town stupidity in King Of The Hill, or the nihilistic teenage stupidity of Beavis & Butthead. So Idiocracy seems like an almost inevitable move for him, a exaggeration of what all these different forms of contemporary stupidity could mean for future generations. Office Space infamously made barely a blip at the box office before becoming a cult classic on DVD, and the fact that Idiocracy barely played in theatres has led a lot of people to assume that scenario will play out all over again. It might, but it's definitely not as funny as Office Space, and also lacks that "hey, I work at a boring desk job too!" thing that's led to the whole culture of cubicle humor like Dilbert and The Office and countless TV commercials which is becoming more tedious and repetitive than an actual desk job. Idiocracy is pretty funny, though, so I can't complain, it was worth the rental. There are some lines I'd quote but I won't spoil it for you.
2. Silent Hill
The first or second Valentine's Day that J.G. and I ever spent together, we ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched horror movies, and so we kinda decided that would be our V-Day tradition and have done it almost every year since. We watched a couple new-school scary movies that didn't turn out to be very scary, though. Honestly, the video game version is way creepier. I used to have a roommate who'd play Silent Hill for hours on end and that shit is creepy as hell, all the fog and quiet and then crazy shit happening out of nowhere. The movie does a decent enough job of emulating that vibe, but the result is pretty boring, because walking someone walk through fog is a lot less exciting than playing a game where you're walking through fog and don't know what will happen next.
3. The Cave
Another ho-hum horror movie we watched on Valentine's. This one was kind of cheesy and fun, though, in that sense where you can kind of bet on which characters are going to die first and who'll survive at the end, which J.G. is way better at than me.
4. The Exorcist
Now this is a horror movie, maybe my favorite of all time. J.G. had never seen it, so we rented it for V-Day but didn't watch it until the following weekend. No matter how many times I see it, it still sticks in my head for a few days afterward (during which time I listened to all the Sparklehorse songs with reference to 'Captain Howdy'). Especially this time, because I watched all the bonus stuff on the DVD. The best part is the commentary track by the author of the book William Peter Blatty, which wasn't recorded while watching the movie, so what he says has no relationship to the visuals and ends halfway through the movie. So after he finishes talking, they fill up a few more minutes of the audio track with a bunch of outtakes of Mercedes McCambridge recording the dialogue for the voice of the demon. Supposedly they had her smoking a ton of cigarettes and eating egg yolkes to get her voice sounding that hoarse and otherworldly, and that voice makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I wish she'd been the lead singer of a band.
5. "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy"
I remember watching this early 80's BBC mini-series version on PBS at my dad's house when I was a kid and had just started reading the book series. But J.G., also a fan of the books, had never seen it, and in light of the recent Hollywood version I kinda wanted to revisit it. The acting sometimes leaves something to be desired (although noone in the cast is as egregious as Mos Def, there's also nobody as perfectly cast in their roles as Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy and to a lesser extent Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel in the new version), but the cheesy low-fi special effects kind of suit the overall depressing view of space travel that the whole series takes. And since it's a lot longer, it fits in a lot more key scenes and gags that I'd kind of forgotten about since the last time I read the book.
6. Liberty Heights
I saw this back when it had just come out on video, and probably watched the second half of it on cable a dozen times, but it'd been a while since I watched it in full, so I thought I'd revisit and show it to J.G., who I knew would probably like seeing Ben Foster and Adrien Brody in early roles. It's a little more melodramatic than, say, Diner or Tin Men, and the score is really overbearing, but it's still a pleasure to watch any of Levinson's Baltimore movies, about kids growing up here around the time my dad was that age. Also, Bebe Neuwirth being a total MILF in this.
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on Friday, March 02, 2007 at 8:36 PM.
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