Shmee.Me

Idiocracy is another cult classic from the creator of Office Space and Bevis and Butthead, Mike Judge.  It is very funny even if the thesis it based around is flawed and quite classist.  Its premise is that unintelligent people are breeding faster then intelligent people, and because of this by the year 2505 the human race will be dumb as rocks and headed for collapse.

Luke Wilson is a soldier with completely average intelligence, so they decided to use him as a guinea pig to test out a freezing chamber for one year.  They don’t have a female soldier that fits the criteria, so they use a local woman of the night played by Maya Rudolph.  Sadly they get forgotten about, and end up in the year 2505 as the smartest people in the world.

The best part of this movie is the first twenty minutes where they show a smart couple discussing how it would irresponsible to have kids during the current economy, and that they should wait until they have enough money saved.  Meanwhile a guy in a trailer park has like five different women and kids all over the place.

Like usual Mike Judge’s sarcastic take on the world really shines through here.  While the premise is flawed it plays on our fears so it seems like it is true, and it gets us all thinking that the future may truly be full of moronic degenerates, but as we all know money and breading have nothing to do with inelegance, but the movie knows that we forget that sometimes.

It is a shame Mike Judge has never really had mainstream success because he does know how to write a funny movie.

Ravenous is one of my favorite movies from when I was in high school.  It was passed over by a lot of people, but it has David Arquette’s name on the box, so I forgive them.  The reviewers for the most part were not kind to this movie, but I think it holds up well and it is worth a look.

The story is a about a soldier who during a battle fakes his death and as a result is thrown under a pile of bodies.  He wakes up and is enraged and turns the tide of the battle, and it is promoted for his ‘victory’, but his commanding officer guesses at his cowardice and sends him to the middle of nowhere.  At his new post he finds that his power and strength may have come from the blood dripping in his mouth, and he may not be the only person that knows how to harness this power.

So right now you are thinking “great a movie about cannibals and David Arquette, that means I am out!”, but it is still awesome, and David Arquette has a minor role and gets eaten, so that is a plus.  This movie is so unique and fun, it is hard not to have a good time, and for the record Roger Ebert agrees with me.

My buddy TK and I must have watched this movie like 30 times.  TK even had the soundtrack which is one of the best parts of the movie.  The music is so offbeat it just adds to the character of this movie.

If you are looking for something different to watch, and aren’t afraid of a little blood, you should give this movie a try, and if you don’t like it you can blame TK and me.

Prometheus was the long awaited prequel to Alien from Ridley Scott, and while it got good reviews, people tended to be disappointed with the film.  I am not sure this disappointment was fair.

The movie is about a group of scientists that find messages all over the earth that seem to point to one planet way out in space, as where our forbearers came from.  So like all good scientists, they commission a space ship, the Prometheus, and head out.  Now I am not going to spoil the rest of the film for you, but since it is a prequel to Alien, I guess you at least know that things do not go well for the group.

Most people’s complaints about the movie tend to center around the fact that all these people are scientists, and yet they are always doing very dumb things.  I would counter that just because they are book smart that does not mean that they are going to know what to when their lives are on line and they are being chased by unknown beings.  True they choose the guy with the map to get lost, but I think they do a good job of showing him as an idiot before then.

The main thing I like about this movie is that they truly tired to make a good Sci-Fi movie.  They tried to make a movie that would scare us and make us think, and while the movie was not excellent it was very good.  And I think because Alien was excellent anything less then that was considered a let down.  I would watch this movie a hundred times before I had to watch Total Recall again, because the effort showed, and I am looking forward to the sequel .

Despite the negatives you may hear about this movie, you should give it a try.  I believe that it will still entertain you.  It may not be as good as Alien, but it is better then ninety percent of the garbage out there, and since so few good Sci-Fi movies make it, we should show our support.