"A Serious Man": a dark Jewish comedy even a goy can enjoy

I'm originally from Minnesota. I study films. Ipso facto, I love the Coen Brothers.

I don't love everything they've done. Their remake of "The Ladykillers", despite Tom Hanks' flamboyant portrayal of Professor GH Dorr, was ultimately a let down. I wasn't compelled enough to see "Intolerable Cruelty". Even though I love it, I'll be the first to admit that the sum of "The Big Lebowski" is far less than its parts, even the part where Jeff Bridges is nailed with a coffee mug or has a marmot dropped in his tub.

The fact that the Coens don't aim for the approval of film goers like me, or, more importantly, film goers that flocked to see "2012" this past weekend, is their greatest strength. The unique dialog and flair for dark and ironic comedy that permeates their career works would never have come to light had they set out to be conventional filmmakers. It comes as no surprise, then, that their latest offering, "A Serious Man", is not as accessible as most movies, but is also far more engaging, and funny, than most.

"A Serious Man" takes a page from the Book of Job and applies it to Larry Gopnik (relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg), a college physics professor in late 1960's Minnesota. Everything that can possibly go wrong in his life does. His wife matter-of-fact-ly announces they need to start thinking about divorce, his tenure is up in the air thanks to anonymous letters, probably written by a disgruntled student, and his idiot-savant brother can't get off the couch or on the right side of the law. He seeks the advice of three rabbis, each of which offers more useless advice than the previous.

In the hands of most other filmmakers, this would be heavy, depressing material. With the Coens, though, it is a comedy, albeit a dark one, that had me laughing almost the duration of the film. I am not exaggerating - for most of the run time, if I wasn't laughing out loud, I was stifling chuckles.

The humor of the Coens comes through the straightforward absurdity they create situations on screen. Larry's children, whom his wife is terrified of dragging into their divorce proceedings, are oblivious to the marital troubles even when Larry is asked to move out of the house. Rather, they are more concerned with the fact his wallet isn't around to pilfer nose job money from, and that "F-Troop" is coming in fuzzy.

When we aren't shown why going to your own Bar Mitzvah stoned is a bad idea or told an ultimately unresolved dental mystery, though, the Coens present a potentially bleak view of the universe with the question, is there an underlying cosmic reason to our suffering? Although they never definitively come to a conclusion, you don't get the sense that Larry's trials will be rewarded like Job's eventually were, but therein lies the conundrum of faith, especially when it comes to Job: it is only through not losing his faith that Job is ultimately rewarded. However, we can't help but ask: if our name isn't Job, are we being tested, or does life just suck huge amounts of ass?

The Coens won't answer for you, but they'll make you laugh as you ponder.

TOO MUCH: the film didn't need the opening sequence

COULD HAVE USED MORE: one more scene with Larry's romantic rival Sy Ableman, as well as one more with his sultry next door neighbor

FILM SNOB NOTE: An attorney Larry is referred to works for Tuckman Marsh, the law firm handling George Clooney's divorce proceedings in "Burn After Reading". Kids on the bus to Hebrew school channel The Dude's bowling buddies in "The Big Lebowski".

IHYFM RATING: FOUR AND A HALF out of FIVE MEHS.

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: You picked one of the better films of one of the best American writer/director teams around. Mazel tov.

"Zombieland": finding zombie comedy jokes 'Shaun of the Dead' missed

When I first heard of "Zombieland" this spring, following an incident wherein Woody Harrelson punched a paprazzi photographer because he thought they were a zombie, I was intrigued. A zombie comedy, when we already had the superlative "Shaun of the Dead"? Could there be any zombie jokes that hadn't already been mined?

Surprisingly, yes.

"Zombieland" follows a young loner, Jesse Eisenberg ("Roger Dodger"), who has survived the zombie apocalypse because he's spent his life as a paranoid shut-in. He crosses paths with Woody Harrelson, a zombie-ass-kicking nut that is driven only by the search for Twinkies. They team up with the conning sisters Emma Stone ("Superbad") and Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") on their journey west to an amusement park, because, well, there's nowhere else to go. The journey and destination are filled with plenty of silly post-apocalyptic mayhem, from luring zombies out of hiding with a few recognizable strains on the banjo to destroying a store for the fun of it because nobody else is going to mind.

Although it's not really forging new territory in the zombie genre, "Zombieland" works because it is genuinely funny, due to both the writing and the cast. Woody Harrelson is as funny as he has ever been on screen, and Jesse Eisenberg likewise reminds us he wrote the book on being George Michael Bluth before anyone heard of Michael Cera. Emma Stone is charming and funny, and Abigail Breslin proves she can have a little edge on the screen. "School of Rock"/"Orange County" scribe Mike White has a funny bit as a gullible gas station attendant, and towards the end there's a surprise cameo that is, well, to die for.

"Zombieland" never commits the Cardinal Comedy Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Forget Thou Art a Comedy. Even when the requisite somber back stories of our heroes are revealed, the scenes end with a laugh. "Zombieland" also embodies the mantra "brevity is the soul of wit"; at scarcely 82 minutes, the movie isn't long enough for the jokes to wear thin, and as the credits roll, you can't help but ask for more.

TOO MUCH: there was one rule of survival aside that was ultimately pointless, other than to temporarily separate some of the characters. Boo.

COULD HAVE USED MORE: one liners from Woody

FILM SNOB NOTE: Try and miss the Twinkie connection with the surprise cast member. Don't check the IMDB page before you see the movie. Also, it's not joked about, but the irony of vegan/raw-food enthusiast Woody Harrelson wanting nothing from life but a Hostess Twinkie is

worth a chuckle.

IHYFM RATING: ABOUT FOUR out of FIVE MEHS.

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: Aside from the zombies, it's not a mind-blowing movie (GET IT?), but at least it's a solid comedy.

"V for Vendetta": a 1980's graphic novel that predicted the Patriot Act

Ah, the life of a college film student. You spend as many nights trying to convince other film majors that idolize Wes Anderson that their fan-dom makes them mild douchebags as you do trying to perfect scripts ostensibly about vampires but are actually about the reunification of Germany*, which makes you a mild douchebag as well.

It was 2005. I was headed into my senior year, and had since the 2000 elections grown more and more politically aware. As you can probably gather from the title of the post, I was not the biggest fan of the Bush administration, and was constantly thinking about the various ways the medium of film could express the frustration that I felt many people had with the White House, but because of the "you're with us or against us" mentality were afraid or unable to fully express.

My college pet project that never really materialized was an adaptation of "Catch-22" for the Iraq war, which I had tentatively titled "Stop Loss". Never mind the fact an Iraq war drama of the same name was recently released, to do the source material justice is all but impossible, if you don't believe me, sit down and watch the star-studded flop of 1970 (not that it really matters, but I did eventually write and direct a gentle "Office"-esqe satire of the Bush administration before graduation). It was frustrating that, for the most part, the mainstream entertainment industry only had Jon Stewart and eventually Stephen Colbert to take Bush and Co. to task for, if nothing else, blatant and unapologetic fear-mongering.

Then, in 2006, Warner Brothers released the next project the Wachowski Brothers had following the (silly and pretentious) end to the Matrix trilogy. It was an adaptation of a graphic novel from Alan Moore and David Lloyd about a revolutionary trying to jostle the public of a dystopian London from their political slumber.

The movie, of course, was "V for Vendetta".

The title character, V, is a vehemently verbose vigilante who vows vigorous vengeance for the virtuous vulgus victimized by a vile vanguard.

Did the previous sentence take me 20 minutes to write? Yes, yes it did.

V marks the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day, by bombing the Old Bailey, a historic London court. The act is one of rebellion against a theocratic administration, led by a scene-chewing John Hurt, that used the panic following a wide-spread poisoning to rise to power and control all aspects of British life with an iron fist. Tangled in with V, played with aplomb by Wachowski veteran Hugo Weaving, is Evey, an eventually bare-headed Natalie Portman. Hot on the trail of Evey and V is Inspector Finch, played by Stephen Rea, who is warned from the highest authorities against digging too deep into V's motives.

The result: an adaptation that, although a slight departure from the source material, effectively ridicules public apathy, manufactured fear, theocratic and militaristic rule, and specifically the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Grahib, Dick Cheney, and Glenn Beck all in the not-always-subtle disguise of an action thriller.

The success of "V for Vendetta" lies not only in the sharpness and immediacy of its political commentary, but the fact that the story does not rely on the parallels to keep the story moving. Despite the producer's awareness of the time they were making the film and the details they included because of the climate, the themes of "V for Vendetta" are broad enough that it can stand alone.

What we are given with "V for Vendetta" is a story of revenge, retribution, and awakening that is carried primarily by superb casting and the idea of triumph of the common man. The final act of "V" is, not to purposely alliterate, visceral. Your heart will swell, and I guarantee you will never again listen to the 1812 Overture the same.

TOO MUCH: V occasionally being a whining sissy

COULD HAVE USED MORE: exploding landmarks, dominoes

FILM SNOB NOTE: To film the final scene outside of the Parliament, Westminister was shut down for three nights from midnight to five am, the biggest accommodation for a film that was ever made for the area. Graphic novel co-author Alan Moore distanced himself from the film after his previous works were, in his eyes, bastardized for the screen, as he would do again for the 2009 release of "Watchmen". The other co-author, David Lloyd, said he liked the film and thought Moore would only approve of a straight depiction from the novel.

IHYFM RATING: A solid FOUR AND A HALF out of FIVE MEHS.

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: You picked a good thriller, and if you ever ask me to hang onto a mysterious package for you, I should probably say 'no'.

*I couldn't find a clip of this scene from the Colin Hanks vehicle "Orange County". If you caught the reference, you deserve a cookie.

"Point Break": Patrick Swayze and one last surf

We lost a Hollywood icon yesterday when Patrick Swayze took his last big wave after a protracted bout with pancreatic cancer. Reflecting on the long career of an actor I commonly and inexplicably confuse with Richard Gere, I couldn't help but go back to one of Swayze's cult hits that I hadn't seen until only a few months ago. After being completely blown away (no pun intended, actually) by Kathryn Bigelow's sleeper hit "The Hurt Locker", I finally felt compelled to sit down with a DVD I'd owned for years but never watched: Bigelow's inexplicably enjoyable surfer-bank-robber thriller, 1991's "Point Break".

Keanu Reeves' most impressive acting credit to date was as Ted, one of the Rhodes-scholar time travelers in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". As Johnny Utah, an FBI agent teamed up with Gary Busey in order to take down a ring of surfing bank robbers in LA, Reeves channels his inner Ted and turns in, especially in the second half of "Point Break", one of the worst screen performances I've seen since watching a full three minutes of "Gigli". Reeves furrows his brows like nobody's business, and delivers his lines with the gravitas of Christian Bale's Batman were Batman a regular on the cover of High Times.

Swayze plays Bodhi, a charismatic surfer that takes an undercover Reeves under his wing, and, obviously, ends up being the ring leader of the bank-robbing gang under investigation. Of course, before Reeves finds out, a budding bromance blooms. When Reeves has a chance to take Bodhi out, he, in the words of the fantastic comedy "Hot Fuzz", "just fires his gun up in the air and goes 'aahhhhh'".

The absurd melodrama and ridiculous premise aside, though, there is something inherently gripping about "Point Break". In one particular scene, when everyone has figured out who everyone else is, Swayze takes Reeves skydiving. Swayze tells Reeves he packed his chute for him, and over the next minute, the other robbers all pass around their chutes in what seems to be a deadly game of shells. This awesome scene is not on the internet. I call bullshit.

It's an action-vehicle that features not one, but two, skydiving scenes, a car/foot chase that's damned entertaining, a couple of great fire-fights, and Gary Busey being a silly fat bastard to John C McGinley's bureaucratic asshole. What really drives "Point Break", and perhaps why this film has had such staying power despite it's silliness, is Patrick Swayze's charm. You REALLY grow to love Bodhi, he's just so cool! It's a major bummer when it turns out he's the bad guy that needs to be taken down.

That's, in a way, how I'll feel about Swayze's legacy - his likability overpowering some of the duds of his relatively short career (do NOT try to convince me of the artistic merits of "Red Dawn" or "Road House"). In any case, "Point Break" is a guilty pleasure, like terrorizing Whoopi Goldberg after bringing sexy back to pottery. Here's to Swayze - good luck catching your Fifty Year Wave in the Sky.

TOO MUCH: Love interest side plot

COULD HAVE USED MORE: Busey being Busey

FILM SNOB NOTE: As mentioned earlier, "Point Break" was discussed in the buddy-cop spoof "Hot Fuzz". Towards the end of the movie, they take it one step further:

IHYFM RATING: THREE out of FIVE MEHS.

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: your taste is either ironic, or just bad.

"Drag Me To Hell": it's heavenly!

No, I wasn't just reaching for the Gene Shalit-esqe low-hanging fruit with that terrible pun of a title. "Drag Me To Hell", Sam Raimi's return to the B-horror genre that gave him his start, was perhaps this summer's most-overlooked movie.

I'll happily admit I've long been a fan of Raimi's. Throughout high school, my buddies and I would frequently end up throwing on one of several VHS copies of "Evil Dead" late on a Friday or Saturday night. We even pooled together cash to get one of our friends a foot-tall Ash doll that played quotes from "Army of Darkness" for his birthday. Raimi returning to his genre roots after the enjoyable "Spider-Man", the excellent "Spider-Man 2", and the incredibly disappointing "Spider-Man 3" was an exciting prospect. The trailers for "Drag Me To Hell" seemed promising enough, even if they didn't make the film seem something off the beaten horror path:

And then the film opened. The aggregate Rottentomatoes reported: 92% positive critical reviews.

I was shocked. Those are "Up" numbers. "The Dark Knight" numbers.

I went out and saw it opening night.

About two months later, when it was a midnight screening at Chicago's Music Box Theater, I saw it again. And that time, I brought friends.

The movie, for what it is, is great.

The strength of "Drag Me To Hell" is not it's highly original plot, because it is not terribly original. It's the steady hand of a director that has a damned good idea of what he's doing.

"Drag Me To Hell" is funny. It's scary. It's hysterically gross. It combines all of the elements of a classic B-horror thriller that Raimi experimented with in "Evil Dead" and all but perfected in "Evil Dead 2". The scares are genuinely creepy: I couldn't tell you the last time I had a nightmare because of a movie, but damn if I didn't dream I had the tar beaten out of me by a shadow after seeing this the first time. Raimi creates a wonderfully ominous atmosphere without a lot of creepy music or CGI dead children a la "The Ring"; rather, he does it in a way that would make even Hitchcock shudder - with timing, editing, and cinematography. Raimi will give you a couple of quality surprise scares throughout, and he lets the obvious ones build maddeningly before paying off with a quick visceral jolt. And, as any fan of the Evil Dead series is familiar with, he relieves the tension with plenty of silly gross-out gags and dark comedy.

Alison Lohman (a favorite of mine since "Matchstick Men") plays a young banker eyeing an assistant manager position who chooses the wrong client, Lorna Raver, to prove to her boss she can make the tough decisions. Rather than grant an aging gypsy a third extension on her home loan, Lohman informs Raver she's getting the boot, and in return gets a nasty curse. Unless her skeptical boyfriend, the always-amusing Justin Long, and a frightened mystic, the hopefully rising star Dileep Rao, can help her break the curse, she'll be tormented for three days before, you guessed it, getting dragged to hell to burn for all of eternity.

After years and years of "Ringu" remakes and knockoffs, "Saw" sequels and knockoffs, and basically everything that's been fodder for Scary Movies 1-5, "Drag Me To Hell" is a refreshing breath of air in the horror genre. If you love a good scare and cathartic laugh, I can't imagine you'll be disappointed once "Drag Me To Hell" comes out on DVD next month. I think you'll agree, and forgive the pun, that it is heavenly horror: simple, but expertly crafted, and incredibly enjoyable.

TOO MUCH: opportunity for lame Shalit-isms

COULD HAVE USED MORE: another face-full of bugs for Lohman couldn't have hurt

FILM SNOB NOTE: One of the most effective weapons in Raimi's arsenal is the slow rotating of the camera to the right or left side - referred to as "The Dutch Angle". A few other directors that used this well? Hitchcock and Welles. Raimi also takes a cue from Tarantino and uses old-school Universal title cards at the beginning and end of the movie.

IHYFM RATING: A solid FOUR AND A HALF out of FIVE MEHS

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: It's a bit of an obscure choice, but at least you picked something solid. If you said "Sorority Row", I'd think you deserve to be... well, you know.

"Signs": either audiences hate Hitchcockian filmmaking, or just September 11th

Critics, for the most part, enjoyed. Audiences, for the most part, hated it.

M. Night Shyamalan had a promising debut. I, of course, am talking about his 1998 opus "Wide Awake", starring Denis Leary, Rosie O'Donnell, and Julia Stiles. Haven't seen it? Neither have I.

And then came 1999, and, according to the DVD case, the "#1 thriller of all time!", "The Sixth Sense". Audiences loved the ghost story, the twist, the cameo by New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg; critics and the entertainment community loved it as well. "The Sixth Sense" was nominated for six Oscars, and although it came up short against "American Beauty", the world seemed to be Shyamalan's oyster.

His 2000 followup, "Unbreakable", didn't wow critics and audiences (this one included), but likewise was considered a decent-enough thriller with a strange twist.

Then, after a two-year hiatus, came "Signs". Critics overall responded positively. Audiences, however, despised it.

"Signs" is the story of Graham (a yet-to-be-crazy Mel Gibson), a recently retired pastor and widower who has lost his faith. Helping him raise his children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin's first, and amazing, major film performance) is his brother Merrill (a yet-to-be-crazy Joaquin Phoenix). The movie begins with Graham waking in a muted panic - he hears his children screaming. He and his brother find them in the corn fields outside their Bucks County, PA farmhouse. In the middle of the night, a massive series of crop circles has appeared. Although they originally suspect they're the victims of local pranksters (played hysterically in one scene by Stella and The State's Michael Showalter), it quickly seems as though the cause is far more, shall we pun, alien [/ducking chair].

From the very first frame, following the opening credits with James Newton Howard's delightfully harrowing Herrmann-esqe score (below), it is clear that this is a world where something is not right.

There is something on the tip of everyone's tongue, an underlying agitation and tension that nobody in the family directly addresses. Even when we discover about the recent tragic death of the family matriarch, and before the imminent alien invasion is apparent, that uneasiness remains. Even though we're spared any melodramatic speeches from Gibson, and more importantly, the children, about how much mom is missed, they all carry the trauma in how they try to act like everything is fine. Their family, obviously, is not fine, and it becomes all the more apparent that everything in the world is far from fine. Crop circles pop up world-wide, alien craft appear, and it seems like all humanity can do is wait for complete annihilation.

The most common complaints about "Signs" are fair. Audiences criticized the marketing campaign that made "Signs" seem like the next "Independence Day", when in fact the plot is so focused on the family we spend all but two scenes on the farm, and for the most part, we don't even see the alien invaders. When we do, they aren't much to behold, which is the other big complaint. The aliens have a run-of-the-mill anatomy and rendered in a fairly mundane CGI, and the first two sightings - on the roof next to the chimney, and the stray foot in the corn field - are so muted they almost can't be seen. When I first saw this in the theater, I wouldn't have known I should be startled had it not been for the music cue. Although not a common complaint, some critics didn't care for the overall theme of the movie, namely, Graham's grappling with faith and whether or not he believes in chance, coincidence, and fate; some critics felt it was too heavy-handed and predictable. Other critics, like Christopher Smith of the renowned Bangor Daily News, didn't care for Shyamalan's acting role in the film, which seems to be the main crux of his Spinal Tap-ian review, "crap circles".

The heavy-handedness of the theme of fate, faith, and chance is certainly debatable. There are several scenes of Gibson monologue, which, in my opinion, are well-enough written, directed, and performed. Shyamalan's role of Ray Reddy, who was inadvertantly responsible for the death, has a monolgue that's slightly overdone, but happens early enough that it doesn't have too much affect on the final act. If talk about faith versus chance versus fate happens to be your type of movie, I think you're in luck. If you'd rather see Gibson jump on an in-flight saucer and beat the alien to death with a garden hoe, you're out of luck.

The alien invasion scene in particular owes a lot to Hitchcock. Most of what is happening is hidden from view, instead, we're forced to stare at a wall or a flashlight for an agonizing time while we listen to indiscernible racket. Just like in any good suspense thriller, or in one of my all-time favorites ("Jaws"), "Signs" lets our imaginations do most of the heavy lifting for us. On a whim, I threw the DVD in over the long weekend, and wondered if audiences had grown too lazy to appreciate suspense that wasn't spoon-fed. If you don't have an active imagination, I'm pretty sure you won't be predisposed to liking most of the last third of the movie.

On further reflection, though, I wondered if the poor audience reception went beyond differing expectations or the need to see ID4/Saw-style gore. I began to wonder, unironically, if people hated this movie because of September 11th.

Yep, I just said that. Please allow me to explain before you assume I'm crazy.

The flashbacks wherein Graham talks to his wife for the last time were scheduled to shoot September 12th, 2001. This was the first day of filming for the movie "Signs".

A movie about questioning faith, reason, and chance was filmed in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Watching the film seven years after its release, the confusion and shock of those events is palpable, especially in those first scenes.

Given the subject matter, I then couldn't help but wonder: was the film too dark for audiences to really connect to less than a year after September 11th? Even though it earned almost $230 million at the domestic box office, most people I've talked to don't care for the movie. I just can't accept that some questionable CGI, slower pacing, and a few lines could make people hate what is, at the core, a suspenseful claustrophobic thriller that takes cues from cinema's most accomplished directors. Perhaps if the film came out two years earlier, or seven years later, audiences would have responded differently.

TOO MUCH: bad CGI, televisions and radio telling the characters what's going on, could have used fewer dramatic pauses

COULD HAVE USED MORE: nuanced dialogue in Shyamalan's scenes and Gibson's basement monologue

FILM SNOB NOTE: This was the last of Shyamalan's movies to be well-received by critics. His subsequent films, "The Village", "Lady In The Water", and "The Happening" were received with progressively negative reviews. Also, Mark Ruffalo was originally slated for Joaquin's role, but dropped out when a (benign) brain tumor was discovered. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto replicates his "Silence of the Lambs" style of actors looking directly into the lens.

IHYFM RATING: 3.75 out of FIVE MEHS

IF YOU SAID THIS WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE, I'D THINK: It's odd you didn't say "The Sixth Sense", but at least you didn't say "Lady In The Water".

Friday Film Snob Focus: Mike Judge

He's the hero of the Everyman; the Sultan of Satire. Over the past 20 years, Mike Judge has delivered some of pop culture's most revered, and smartest, social satires. This weekend, his latest, "Extract" opens in theaters. Although reviews are only lukewarm, a look at Judge's career suggests that even if it's not his best, there will still be several gems of social commentary that define the rest of his work to date.

"Beavis and Butt-head", 1993-1997 (MTV). I didn't have cable growing up, and even if I did, I'm certain my parents wouldn't have approved of the series that was a lightning rod for outraged parents and a generation of imitators too stupid to realize they were being ridiculed. I can't claim to be terribly familiar with the series, having only recently seen a few episodes, but what I have seen is at once painfully stupid while at the same time painfully satirical. The title characters are unbearably moronic, and those they encounter, though not nearly as annoying, are equally ignorant. Although it didn't get started until "Beavis and Butt-Head" was nearing the end of its run, the series is reminiscent of mob scenes from "South Park", which of course owe a lot to the precursor to both series, "The Simpsons". As one critic said, according to Wikipedia, the series reduced itself to "self-parody of their self-parody". The overall theme that continues to come to mind for this series is perhaps best summarized as one of my favorite posters from Despair.com, on the issue of meetings: "None of us is as dumb as all of us." The occasional copycat incidents unfortunately proved the series' underlying moral - willful ignorance is dangerous.

"King of the Hill" (1997-2009): Certainly the most mellow of all the Sunday night Fox animated comedies, "King of the Hill" nonetheless earns major points for being almost Seinfeldian in its explorations of the trappings of day-to-day life. Hank Hill is generally confronted with either his wife, son, or niece looking to explore or express themselves in ways that make him uncomfortable, such as his son taking a fancy to dancing with the family dog, or his wife becoming a foot model. Occasionally his oddball neighbors take the center stage, and it is ultimately up to Hank to overcome his misgivings and save the day as only a propane salesman could. Perhaps one of my favorite episodes is when Hank's beloved truck is on its last legs, and he says he's willing to only drive it 10 miles a year to get 20 more years out of it [I'm pretty sure I got that slightly wrong, let me know what it actually is in the comments]. Hank embodies the no-bull common sense and decency that we all aspire to, the occasional gullibility and stubbornness we are all prone to, and the moronic ineptitude we all inevitably succumb to.

"Office Space" (1999): Not much can be said about the cult smash hit that nails the repetition, boredom, and general insanity of cubicle life. If you haven't had the viewing pleasure, a fantastic sampling is the opening credits where our hero simply tries to get to work.



I remember first seeing this movie in early 2002 (to date myself, still in high school) and thinking it was just a really funny movie. Five years later, being a year out of college and in a job about as invigorating as working computer code at Initech, "Office Space" had a much deeper and depressing effect on my still relatively young psyche. The characters were no longer caricatures. They were my coworkers and my bosses. I had unwittingly become Peter Gibbons, stuck in a pointless job I couldn't stand. His rebellion was cathartic, if not downright heroic. Past generations had Odysseus, George Washington, and Joe DiMaggio. The hero of Generation Me is the guy that beat the hell out of the printer that always jammed, and he, like the Dark Knight, was the hero we needed, and the hero we hopefully deserved.

"Idiocracy" (2006): One of the three smartest satires* of the Bush administration was tragically dead-on-arrival: the culprit - Mike Judge's home for a decade, and the film's financier and distributor, 20th Century Fox. "Idiocracy" imagines Luke Wilson as the world's most average man who, through a mistake in a military hibernation experiment, wakes up 500 years later, and due to rampant commercialization and dysgenic reproduction by society's lowest rungs, is now the smartest man on the planet. Perhaps worried that the tale took too accurate a swing at the entertainment industry's most profitable demographic (people that paid money to see Transformers 2), Fox didn't advertise the film and released it to less than 200 screens nationwide. The film is biting, and although it loses a little steam towards the end, funny throughout, thanks to a perfectly-casted Wilson, SNL alum Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and a hysterical Terry Crews as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. Again, the phrase "none of us is as dumb as all of us" comes to mind throughout the film's duration. Most strikingly, though, is how frightening it is, as a show titled "Ow! My Balls!" being the most popular on television doesn't seem so far-fetched.

"Extract" (2009): I have yet to see Judge's most recent film, although I did have a chance to read it when it was being shopped around LA in 2006 following Fox taking a pass. What I read was basically "Office Space" with a midlife crisis, with Judge's typical observational satire. The film's cast consists of the capable Jason Bateman, SNL's Kristen Wiig, Spiderman's JK Simmons, Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Mila Kunis, and Ben Affleck in a role that looks as though it could be the career rebooter he was hoping Hollywoodland would be. Early reviews are only lukewarm, but for my money, I'd rather see a decent Mike Judge satire than any of the more standard offerings of which he seems so rightfully fearful.

*Wall-E and In The Loop being the other two (yes, I think In The Loop counts as Bush-era). Did I forget any?

Ed. note: After I drafted this column Wednesday night, an interview with Mike Judge and a pretty positive review of Extract popped up at The Onion's superlative AV Club. Please believe me, I'm not that shameless a plagiarizer.