IDIOCRACY on DVD

Writer/director Mike Judge has transcribed every phone call made by a jerk with a walkie talkie cell phone and encapsulated the crudeness of 21st century life in the cautionary tale, IDIOCRACY. Released in virtual secrecy over Labor Day weekend 2006, Luke Wilson portrays soldier Joe Bauers, forgotten (like the film) survivor of a military experiment in suspended animation. The most average man in the Army awakens after 500 years to a world where is the smartest man in the world, because the population has regressed in intelligence. His country calls on him to lead the nation out of the garbage-filled, dust bowl that America has become.

Maya Rudolph (Rita) is along for the ride as a prostitute, who is also part of the experiment gone wrong. She makes her way very well in the new world.

Terry Alan Crews, better known as the Dad in TV's EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, plays President Camacho, a retired wrestler. No mention is made if he is the first African-American person to hold the office. Crews small-screen talent as a wise father translates to big-screen charisma. He plays an idiot with gravitas. He's in over his head but knows enough to call in the smartest man in the country to help.

This movie has many memorable scenes, which for me is a sign of good story telling. If I'm ever held prisoner in one of Jeb Bush's concentration camps in the Michigan (avenge me, boy!) I could replay most of this movie from my memory. I hate to give away the gags but they are mostly visual. You could watch with the sound off and get most of the jokes.

I'm issuing a rental fee guarantee. If this movie doesn't stick in your head after making you laugh I will send you a free Blockbuster rental coupon upon proof that you kept a straight face throughout.

Arthur Herzog's novel IQ 83 has a similar dystopian conceit of mass low-intelligence in America, except it's caused by a virus. Judge's vision is more plausible because we live in the first stage of it. As long as people don't believe it matters who is the president, or stop educating themselves, or just care about what happens from their couch to their Office Space, we are lurching to disaster.

Special mention to Dax Shepard as Frito, Joe's lawyer. Every time I thought he was about to learn or grow from being around Joe, Judge pulls back the reins and he's still stupid, maintaining a Peter Sellers BEING THERE-like consistency in tone, especially in the Beavis and Butthead-like scene near the end where Frito teams up with another moron to help Joe when he's in mortal danger. We're so conditioned to a sitcom moment-of-shite, that it was refreshing to take another tack and stay dumb. Even the ending is only slimly hopeful in that area.

Is it too obvious to point out that Mike Judge, like Don Imus begetting Howard Stern, is a forefather of today's dumb culture by conceiving Beavis and Butthead?

I wonder where Judge goes from here? Mamet writes/directs PG now and then, so Judge could follow that and make general interest movies and profane satire. He once said he didn't want to be known as the man who could not stop making Beavis and Butthead. Mission accomplished, but it's still his obit lede unless he tops it. Or IDIOCRACY is (re)discovered on television. Maybe Comedy Central can throw it a lifeline and run it overnight? It would make a great 4th of July special. Run it like the History Channel does and follow with Colbert doing analysis.

The D on DVD; Idiocracy

Jack Black was unknown to me until HIGH FIDELITY (2000). Spoiler alert: If you had never seen him until that movie, it makes his appearance performing at the end of the movie all the more unexpected and enjoyable.

I later caught up with a lot of Jack’s previous work in the D’s TENACIOUS D (1999-2000) and Odenkirk/Cross’s MR. SHOW WITH BOB AND DAVID (1995-1996)—both HBO series. I saw the six HBO TENACIOUS D episodes uncut on Comedy Central and watched them again on TENACIOUS D: THE COMPLETE MASTERWORKS. Brilliant stuff.

Jack’s work grew in wisdom and knowledge with SHALLOW HAL (2001) and THE SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003) but KING KONG (2005) fell short of too-high expectations and failed to propel Jack to superstar status. Regardless of the disappointment of KONG, siren comedy was always calling him back. He seemed poised to receive the comedy baton of destiny, in a long track stretching 100 years from Fatty Arbuckle to Oliver Hardy to Lou Costello to Jackie Gleason to John Belushi to John Candy to Sam Kinison to Chris Farley, and make a run at becoming America’s premier funny fat man of the 21st century [sorry Horatio Sanz].

I usually don’t like scatological stuff but like Damon Wayans said in his book BOOTLEG, his father didn’t like bad language unless it was funny. Yet I found TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY too disgustingly filthy to fully enjoy and too much like the six HBO shows to get what I think is a big part of Jack and partner Kyle Gass’s appeal—the surprise every time, like in HIGH FIDELITY, that these guys are really good entertainers.

My mother used to say the same thing about Buddy Hackett. “Why does he have to work blue?” She also liked it when Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops played a Beatle song--you could hear the melody without all the loud music.

The D are so much better than the bathroom humor. Has the toilet tank run dry or does the handle just need a jiggle? Jack and Kyle brought humor to a humorless musical genre [Weird Al and Zappa excepted] but enough already with the poop and the erection jokes.

The plot contains a TRUE WEST role switch at the end of Act I, a conceit so regularly stolen (see ADAPTATION for example) that no one remembers that Sam Shepard actually thought it up the first time. Gore Vidal had a similar complaint about the progeny of VISITOR TO A SMALL PLANET—Mork, My Favorite Martian, 3rd Rock, et al. Elaine May said it was too famous a play to have had an author.

Spoiler alert: The quest for a magic pick takes them to the Rock and Roll History Museum and a mysterious stranger, Tim Robbins, shows them how to break in to steal the pick. Jack meets Sasquatch in a mushroom haze, the boys beat the devil—the source of the pick and rock glory, but they never get to play open-mic night—the first-prize being the reason for stealing the pick in the first place.

This could have been a franchise. I can see The D, like Mr. Peabody and Boy, rocking through history and setting things straight. But the movie peters out as the two stoners try to remember that great song they were working on, the greatest song ever played.

Next up: IDIOCRACY.

Extra!!! PIRATE QUEEN preview in the works...

Don't ask me how, but I've scored a comp to a preview of THE PIRATE QUEEN. I would never review an early preview of a show and will simply give a general impression of the goings on. The show is in from Chicago and most media have reported it is being retooled from the Chi town production.

ON BORROWED TIME (1991) at Circle in the Square

Mr. 1 On the Town remembers:

ON BORROWED TIME (1991) at Circle in the Square—thoughts on George Campbell Scott and Nathan Lane

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of doing a little research for the forthcoming memoir of one of the founders of the Circle in the Square Theatre, Theodore Mann. I saw my first play at the downtown Circle, THE HOT L BALTIMORE in 1975 and saw many other productions at the uptown Circle. One of the most memorable was ON BORROWED TIME with the iconic George C. Scott, Conrad Bain of television’s DIFFERENT STROKES, and the rising young actor Nathan Lane.

I had already seen Scott and Lane in PRESENT LAUGHTER at the Circle in 1982 and anticipation was high for their reteaming in BORROWED. It’s a quirky tale about an old man, his grandson, and a deal with Death. You may recall the movie with Lionel Barrymore, as kind in this film as he was evil in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Right after this show, Lane went to do the GUYS AND DOLLS revival, then went Hollywood to voice Timon in THE LION KING. I always liked him as a latter-day Chuck McCann, dating back to the Nyquil commercials [“Can I borrow a cup of (sniff) Nyquil?”] and his role on THE DAYS AND NIGHT OF MOLLY DODD as Bing Shalimar, a Manhattan character who’ll walk your dog, stand on line for you at the DMV, or do whatever else it is that Manhattanites won’t do. He disappeared from the show as a recurring character but showed up again near the end of the MOLLY run. Molly [Blair Brown—more on her some other time as I’ve probably see her more than any other actress on stage] is desperate for a babysitter and calls Bing, giving him the 411 on what to do with the baby. Bing asks, “Is it okay if I have to step out?”

Scott was a man of unbelievable versatility. If you ever saw MOVIE MOVIE, you know how drop-dead hilarious he was. In ON BORROWED TIME he was tough, tender, and hilarious, defying all attempts to typecast him. Integrity personified, this is a man who once turned down $1 million to do a car commercial because it meant shaving the beard that he grew for a stage role. One of the many things I admired him for in this role was playing his age or even older. Many of today’s stars cling to middle-age roles and look silly. I remember when James Garner said to hell with it, no more, after they taped him up to look younger in the TV miniseries SPACE [not to be confused with SPACE COWBOYS]. Scott embraced and enhanced and these senior roles.

So when I hear about Nathan Lane’s acting partner in two great productions, sorry Matthew Broderick, my first thought is GCS.

Page from original program, copyright PLAYBILL 1991.

FLOATING at the Barrow Street Theatre

Today I saw Floating, created and performed by Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands, at the Barrow Street Theatre. The show is a multimedia presentation, Andy Kaufman meets Victor Borge by way of The Truman Show and Space 1999.

The plot is simple: a man named Hugh Hughes tries to leave his Welsh island home of Anglesey and start a new life on the very day that an earthquake destroys the bridge to the mainland, sending the island afloat into the North Atlantic.

Before the story gets underway, ringmaster Hughes engages the audience in a lot of silliness, in particular, needling the latecomers to the performance. If you don't like audience participation, avoid the first few rows or arriving late.

Victor Borge in COMEDY WITH MUSIC was the master of teasing latecomers, as when I saw him set up a gag in one of his Broadway performances in the 1970s. He told the on-time audience to laugh like crazy later on when he refers to that supposed great joke he told at the beginning of the show, just to make the latecomers feel awful that they missed it. Borge pointed to the late folk and tells them it's too bad they missed that great joke at the beginning of the show. It's funny but not hostile.

Hughes is a little hostile and mildly amusing like Letterman when he asks the latecomers if they wish to apologize for being late. They even do a quick redo of the opening of the show. Other silliness includes passing around to the audience stones from the island and wrestling magazines from his nine (Welsh for grandmother), played by cohort Rowlands. She also plays the other characters, most notably, mean old Mr. Morgan.

After 30 minutes of explaining the story via film, running a PowerPoint presentation of longitude and latitude coordinates of the floating island, and passing around more items to the audience including a handheld slide viewer showing his grandparents, the real plot enfolds.

The sonic/visual highlight of the story is the earthquake, with a close-your-eyes count-to-10 scene change a close second. The island breaks away after the quake and Hugh tries to swim off the island. His efforts are for naught and Mr. Morgan chastises and abuses him most creepily. Morgan gets his comeuppance in comical fashion, giving context to some of the props the audience has been given. At one point the island makes it as far as Iceland, in an odd digression seen on the computer projector. He jumps off Anglesey to Iceland and goes back to Anglesey. I guess he didn't want to leave Anglesey as bad as we were led to believe.

The workings of the Gulf stream brings a resolution to the tale.

Floating has a lot of energy and was a bargain at $14 from TDF (Theatre Development Fund). This show was a part of Wales Week 2007 in New York, via the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2006 where it received a Total Theatre Award. After the performance the two players were in the lobby. I congratulated Mr. Hughes and Ms. Rowlands for an enjoyable afternoon. She stamped my hand which now has on it a black circle in which the outline of the island is seen, surrounding the word "Floating."

Mission Statement

1 On the Town is dedicated to the idea that, while it is fun to go to the theatre or the movies with someone, it's ok to go alone. The title comes from Eugene Levy's SCTV sketch featuring a nebbish reviewer who was out on the town alone, probably not by choice.