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September 12, 2006
WB: The Marching Morons

Billmon:

Clearly, the studio understands how offensive a movie about a world filled with slack-jawed morons could be to a contemporary American audience — not to mention the top executives at Newscorp. Also not to mention the White House, the RNC, the Pentagon, the American Enterprise Institute, the major Wall Street investment banks, Ivy League universities and all the other places where the morons of today like to congregate and pretend they’re the genetically superior elite.

The Marching Morons

Posted by b on September 12, 2006 at 20:15 UTC | Permalink
Comments

He also was blessed with a sharp intellect, a biting wit, and a gift for the English language — which probably explains why hardly anybody has heard of him today.
had to restrain myself from an almost reflexive mouthlaughing there for a moment

Posted by: b real | Sep 12 2006 20:43 utc | 1

Modern guerilla moments make use of the latest in networking, so I recomend the makers of this movie to sneak out a few copies and send them to selected geeks. If it is funny, the movie will go through the filesharings networks and quickly become a cult movie. Maybe even so fast it can create an audience for the cinemas…

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Sep 12 2006 20:44 utc | 2

While we’re on the subject of Kornbluth, I’d like to pimp for some of Kornbluth’s other short-story masterpieces found in various anthologies, such as “The Luckiest Man in Denv,” “The Adventurer,” “The Little Black Bag,” and my all-time fave, “The Cosmic Charge Account,” which flamed the New Age almost thirty years ahead of time. CMK would probably have said that he wasn’t predicting anything, just reminding us that self-serving stupidity is eternal.
Thanks for starting the soon-to-come worldwide craze for all things Kornbluth!

Posted by: Tirebiter in Sector R | Sep 12 2006 20:54 utc | 3

Perhaps ABC/Disney will show it as a ‘documentary’ ? After all, irony is wasted on the dim.

Posted by: Lyagushka | Sep 12 2006 22:03 utc | 4

We SF fans know all about Kornbluth. He’d have been much more famous if he’d lived longer.

Posted by: plashch | Sep 13 2006 0:33 utc | 5

Cyril M. Kornbluth. heh. Be careful what you name your children.
[I wonder what the ‘M’ is for] I guess I’ll be in the stampede to the bookstore.

Posted by: beq | Sep 13 2006 0:55 utc | 6

Tirebiter in Sector R,
Ah, “The Little Black Bag”, that rings a bell. Liposuction for the masses … oops … almost.

Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Sep 13 2006 2:01 utc | 7

Ah, “The Little Black Bag”, that rings a bell. Liposuction for the masses … oops … almost.
They filmed that one as a short feature In the early ’70s, for Rod Serling’s second TV show, The Night Gallery. Burgess Meredith, the veteran character actor — Rocky’s trainer, the apocalyptic bookworm in the Twilight Zone’s All the Time in the World — played the rummy who finds the bag and becomes a “doctor.” I keep hoping the Sci Fi channel will bring back The Night Gallery, including that episode, but so far no luck.

Posted by: billmon | Sep 13 2006 3:19 utc | 8

Gotta run! My week to run Norway!

Posted by: R.L. | Sep 13 2006 3:40 utc | 9

and merideth breaks his glasses, I think.

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 13 2006 3:52 utc | 10

My favorite film critic says this film is as good as it sounds, billmon, so seek it out, ye faithless!

Posted by: Rowan | Sep 13 2006 3:54 utc | 11

Speaking of Rod Serling,
The Twilight Zone (The Obsolete Man)

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 13 2006 5:07 utc | 12

I read this script (“Idiocracy”) – I thought it was quite funny (wait till it gets to the Extreme Court). Extremely disappointing that this is getting dumped and sort of inexplicable, even to someone in the film industry like me. I mean, why make it if you are just going to do this? The only explanation I have is that somebody thinks it can be another cult classic like “Office Space” and this is some, weird deliberate attempt to create that.

Posted by: Other Lisa | Sep 13 2006 5:50 utc | 13

Gotta love The Space Merchants and Gladiator at Law, both by Pohl and Kornbluth.

Posted by: Rouser | Sep 13 2006 22:43 utc | 14

If it does become available on DVD, I hope someone will let us know! I’m dying to see it, and even if it was in wide distribution I doubt it would be shown here in the backwoods of the Ozarks…where the kind of folks you describe are breeding exactly the future generations starring in the film.

Posted by: woodswitch | Sep 14 2006 1:32 utc | 15

I prefer the alternative history narrative where Upton Sinclair won the 1934 gubernatorial race in California, ended poverty in that state as promised, and swept to power as US president a few years later w/ Robert A Heinlein, his aide in the 1934 contest, as VP.
A side benefit of this scenario: we never have to read Stranger in a Strange Land.

Posted by: Dismal Science | Sep 14 2006 16:38 utc | 16

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