Stupidity

January. 01,2003      
Rating:
5.4
Trailer Synopsis Cast

An exploration into the nature of stupidity in Western society and its history of our perception of it.

George W. Bush as  himself
Noam Chomsky as  himself
John Cleese as  himself
Coolio as  himself
Drew Curtis as  Himself
Bill Maher as  Himself
Michael Moore as  Himself
Joel Schumacher as  Himself
Paul Spence as  Himself
Steve-O as  Himself

Reviews

NekoHomey
2003/01/01

Purely Joyful Movie!

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Claysaba
2003/01/02

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

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BallWubba
2003/01/03

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

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Curt
2003/01/04

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

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chup23
2003/01/05

It's a good thing the makers of this film declared themselves "idiots" at the very beginning of the movie. It saved me from making the comment myself. It would be easy to brand this film "stupid", but I think it goes way beyond that label. It is lazy, inept and insulting. I actually hated this film enough to write this review. I didn't feel this insulted after watching "Transformers," that's how bad I'm annoyed at this movie. Can I just say how tired I am of "documentaries" using canned footage from old propaganda films from the '40s and '50s. You know the footage I'm talking about: scenes in black and white where they show you how things worked in the good old days, when things were simple, and the American dream was a smiling paradise. Women frolicked in their dresses and men wore suits and fedoras. Am I the only one tired of filmmakers splicing this stuff into their movies to show us a foil to their insipid points? To show us that our grandparent's generation was ruled in naivety and now these new filmmakers can show us the truth on how the really real world works? This stuff was okay when Mike Moore did it in "Roger & Me", but just because its public domain (meaning "free footage") shouldn't mean you're hip or ironic when you use it. The filmmakers spend a lot of time explaining the definition of several words -- like "moron" and "idiot" (they seem to take great delight in asking people on the street about these words' origins) -- but seem to have failed to figure out what the word "documentary" is. In most definitions of the word, it contains the word "factual" or "non-fiction." You're supposed to making your thesis by presenting us your audience with non-biased facts or imagery to support your claim. Thus, editing in footage of your colleagues staring moronically at a camera with bad haircuts and fake snaggleteeth to support the claim may be against the tradition. Doing it over and over and over and over again is just tiring. Doing it twelve more times after that is just trying to fill time to make it past the feature film mark. And here's the bad part. In a section where the filmmakers decide to go off on how dumbed down our media has become, instead of getting snippets of actual TV shows to support their claim, they include self-made footage parodying these shows in the lowest common denominator, using the aforementioned fake snaggleteeth. Thanks for letting us make up our own minds, guys. Thanks for speaking down to us. And while I'm talking about the media bashing part of the film, the filmmakers inform us that the world of news has just become an onslaught of 30 second sound bites with no real conversation about the subject matter that's being discussed. Can't argue with that, but guess what? This entire movie is an onslaught of 10 - 30 second sound bites from all of their experts with no real dialogue or discussion on what stupidity is or what its real effects are. I could go on for another hour counting the ways this movie sucks (footage of people tripping isn't stupidity, those are called accidents, guys; showing some guy running naked on an ice-rink is not that interesting to repeat seven times sporadically throughout 90 minutes; placing shitty lightning effects over a guy talking about special effects movies isn't funny or ironic -- its a waste of human spirit) but I think I'm about done here. Fellow filmgoers, just avoid this thing. It's not clever or funny. It's a waste of Canadian tax incentives. And Donald Sutherland (who narrated this mess). And electricity. To those who green-lit "Stupidity," try to find a subject that actually has a subject next time. Or filmmakers that actually have a clue to what they are doing.

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rjdegraff
2003/01/06

This film does a credible job of exploring the history of stupidity, the development of the IQ test, etc., but then it falls flat. The documentary focuses too much on people who "choose" stupidity and too little on people who have a brain but can't be bothered to use it. I assume that the quick cuts are geared toward people with a short attention span. In that case this movie seems to target the very people who would be the least interested in watching it.A much better resource for anyone interested in this trend is the excellent book "Dumbth" by Steve (The Tonight Show) Allen. While it is useful to explore why people choose to behave like idiots I would much rather know why people don't go to the effort to think.

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LorienTheFirstOne
2003/01/07

The title pretty much says it all. People really should watch this. I don't care if the budget was small, and the video and sound quality is not Hollywood level. The content is what matters. And the content is good here. I voted 8/10 because it really needed to insist on some subjects, and not mention them and move on so quickly. Also i would like a bit more info,interviews, etc. The music was great by the way. So was the narration. I liked the comments from various famous people, like Noam Chomsky, Joel Shumacher, Michael Moore, John Cleese. also i liked the choice of people inteviewed. TV producers, journalists, authors and others.

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mapeoleaf
2003/01/08

I really enjoyed this film. I never heard about it before but the cover of it caught my attention with a picture of what may just be, Marilyn Manson with a dunce cap on. It looks like the American cover is different than the one that I saw. Anyhow, it would be "stupid" to talk about this point right now. The fact of the matter is this is a very good film. Yes, it can be scary. It is sad the way we are being submerged in a sea of horrid media and we eat it up. It is true that people who are supposedly educated professors are often big "morons", or even the people that run countries. This film captivated my interest and I felt like I needed to change my own viewing habits. For instance: anyone can become an internet celebrity even without their knowledge. Although this is a scary prospect that does occur; the film did not focus on this issue. The film is often very tongue in cheek but also cuts with a sharp edge. I laughed, I cried and I decided to not sit like a dullard in front of the "boob tube" to watch the crap that they shovel us. Yes, we are all morons and we need to free our mind of any intelligence because to pretend that we are smart would just be a lie. Check this film out it will change the way you look at things.

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