Idiocracy

Have you ever watched a movie and absolutely hated it - but when you looked at it again a few months or years later, thought it was an absolute blast. That's Idiocracy for me, the most recent movie from Office Space creator Mike Judge.

Released in 2006 in barely more than 100 theaters, Idiocracy was a film that 20th Century Fox tried as hard as humanly possible to cover up. They released no commercials or trailers, made up posters only for the hundred theaters the movie was screened it, and they didn't screen it for critics. When it came time for the inevitable DVD release, it was released with little to no fanfare, and then promptly forgotten.

Despite all that, though, Idiocracy was probably the funniest movie released that year, and as it gains a cult following on DVD, I suspect it will be quite fondly remembered in the future. It was sad, yes, and it's gotten sadder - less because of the plot of the film and more because of how eerily true the Britney and Kevin-inspired world it creates is. As a satire, it doesn't distance itself from the instant-gratification culture of dumbed-down entertainment that's thrown in your face every day - and because of that, there are times when you could be unsure about how much the film has fallen victim to the culture it's making fun of.

In it, Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph play a pair of ordinary Americans of average intelligence placed in suspended animation. While it's only supposed to last a year, it instead lasts 500, and when they wake up, they wake up to a much-changed America in which they are the smartest people alive - by quite a lot. Carl's Jr.'s slogan has changed to "F--k you, I'm eating!" The Violence Channel is extremely popular, with the hit show "Ow, My Balls!", and Starbucks now comes with complimentary sexual service. That barely scratches the surface of the number of satirical gags in the film, and Judge seems to have a blast creating this tragically stupid future. It's up to Luke and Maya to save the world from the problems its gotten itself into over the past five centuries, and to try and figure out just where things went wrong.

The movie is ceaselessly fun, and the amount of detail that went into many of the film's gags should put to rest accusations of stupidity of half-heartedness. Still, it's understandable why 20th Century Fox wouldn't want to release the film too widely - the movie is carefully crafted to offend a sensationalist media that believes that you the people who watch TV are idiots and so panders to them. If you're ever in need of a ridiculous comedy to watch with a few friends, I'd highly recommend Idiocracy.

Besides...can you really dislike a movie in which the President of the United States is named Dwayne Elizando Mountain Dew Herbert Comacho (five time ultimate smackdown wrestling champion and porn superstar)?

The Olympics - a minor rant

This is the first time I've ever really gotten into the Olympics at all, especially gymnastics. Between Nastia, Shawn, and Michael Phelps, it's been a pretty exciting year to get into the Olympics. And while things have been solid gold for Phelps, watching gymnastics has been an exercise in frustration as I see, time and time again, the judges completely screw the American gymnasts in favor of the fairly obviously underage Chinese athletes.

The most recent came in the finals of the uneven bars. Kexin He, one of the Chinese stars, performed an amazing routine - but with a number of notable flaws, including an ENORMOUS step at the end of her routine. She was followed by Nastia Liuken, America's superstar gymnast, who performed a similar routine (difficulty-wise) with fewer visible mistakes - and was given the same score, which due to the way gymnastics deals with ties, gave the gold to Kexin He. It took almost ten minutes for the announcers to figure out what had happened, even longer for the coaches to understand why it was scored this way, and was criticized by a number of commentators.

If it were only this event, it would be one thing, but this is only a single example of many available throughout the variety of events. From the all-arounds to the individual events, the judges have repeatedly ignored balance checks, steps, or flat-out falls on the part of the Chinese, while giving the American, Russian, and other nation's athletes extremely low start values and deductions for flaws that no one else could see. The Americans have still pulled off a few wins, but when a number of experienced judges are as critical as they've been about the scoring this year, you have to ask just how legit things are over there.

We have seen a number of spectacular routines from a variety of countries, while the Chinese - using obviously illegal athletes in a shameful flouting of the Olympic rules - have been consistently given the medals. It is performances like this that turns the general public off gymnastics so often, as we see scores we don't understand, seeming favoritism, and other things that make it seem less like a game of skill and more like a game of 'Who do the judges like better?'

Still, as un-manly as it may seem, if you haven't been watching the gymnastics this year, for all my complaining, just ignore the scores and enjoy some spectacular high-flying, falling, and feats of agility and strength. It's a really fun sport to watch when it comes down to sheer physical insanity, it turns out. And who would have thought that the two biggest events this Olympics would be swimming and gymnastics? Seriously - I was at a bar, and the guys turned off the Indians because they heard Phelps would race in a few hours, and when the gymnasts came on afterwards, they were too into that to change back. Is anyone even watching Olympic basketball?

*speaking of awesome, how about the Russian, Isinbaeyeva, who just won women's pole-vaulting? She already had the gold medal, and she vaulted just a little higher JUST to see if she could, setting the world record for the 24th time. yes - she's beaten herself the world record for highest women's pole vault 23 times.

Politics: Orphan Works Bill

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1

On vsrealms.com, if you go into Another Realm, you'll find that poster Bendrix started a thread to let people know about a bill being discussed right now dealing with Orphan Works and how it affects you. The link above is to an article discussing what the bill will mean to each of you, since I know a lot of comic book readers and Vs players are creative people, and since I know that neither Another Realm nor my own blog sees as much traffic as General Discussion on Vsrealms, I would post it here, double the chances of you all finding out about it.

Now, I haven't done any of the requisite research on this topic yet, but I plan on doing some reading over the next couple days.

Here are quick bits from the article, to give you some basic info.

"An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission."

The jist of the bill is that it will make it extremely expensive to copyright things, as well as time-consuming, and could involve multiple private registries that you would have to sign up for. Rather than your works being inherently protected, barring you getting rid of that protection, the bill seeks to make your works inherently unprotected, with you having to pay to protect them.

So, there you have it. Again, I haven't done much research on this topic - at this point, I've just read one or two articles. But I encourage all of you to do your own research and see what you think of these shenanigans, and if it pisses you off as mch as it looks like it'll be pissing me off, make sure to contact the politicians and LET THEM KNOW. General apathy costs us a lot, and I hope it doesn't cost us this, too.