Mike Judge's films seem destined to fail at the box-office and develop loyal followings later on. There's Office Space, of course, but also Idiocracy, which barely got released in theaters but whose reputation is already seeming to grow (less deservedly, but the names of its reality-shows are hysterical: Ow, My Balls!). And now there's Extract, which tanked badly on this holiday weekend (there were three people when I saw it, including me), but should make for some very entertaining DVD viewing later on.
Certainly it's not a great film, and there's no particular reason for most people to see it in the theater, but the fact that people are opting for a unanimously reviled Sandra Bullock comedy over this is sad (if not surprising, I guess). Extract has a strange rhythm and some nice character work. The problem, as with Office Space, is that there's also a cluttered, not-at-all compelling plot that gets in the way of these characters. Still, there's plenty to enjoy among the actors. Jason Bateman (in a likeable Michael Bluth from Arrested Development-mode) is good as a man who seems to have scored a good job and a nice house in the suburbs only to find that the job is unfulfilling, the wife no longer wants to sleep with him, and the neighbor wants to have interminable driveway conversations. So he takes to hanging out with his old friend and bartender (a very funny, bearded Ben Affleck) who wants to shake him out of his doldrums. Mix in the ever-reliable JK Simmons as a plant supervisor who can't remember anyone's name and David Koechner,especially, as the obnoxious neighbor, and you've got yourself a few laughs on a dull afternoon.
Also, Mila Kunis is just outrageously hot.
I've never seen IDIOCRACY, but an old friend from high school and her stoner boyfriend basically performed the whole movie for me a couple years ago. I heard Judge on public radio last week. The new Sandra Bullock movie looks absolutely atrocious. I kind of want to see GAMER. Kind of. And that's all I got.
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