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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theatres and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Idiocracy (2006)

Wow. Just...wow.

Idiocracy was released in 2006 to a grand total of 130 theaters at its widest release point. This film earned a grand total of $444,000 in release. You read that right. Idiocracy didn't even crack a million dollars. This movie wasn't stealthy, it was flipping invisible! To post a result like this, a movie generally has to be really, really bad. I'm talking Jaws 4 bad. Freddy Got Fingered Bad. We're talking about films that make BloodRayne look good.

So how come I was able to sit there and enjoy myself for 80 minutes? How does a film like Delgo get 2,100 theaters in wide release while this film didn't even get one-tenth that amount?

I have no clue. I really don't. This film is an absolute mystery to me. It's like Mike Judge pissed somebody off with serious connections. He's done films before that garnered reasonable box office, (hardly monstrous successes, but if Uwe Boll can get films released...) and they even seem to make decent money or more on DVD. But this film literally got the release treatment of being shoved into a car trunk and then dumped into a river.

But enough about the bizarre release activity. Let's talk about the movie. Idiocracy stars Luke Wilson as Joe Bauers, Maya Rudolph as Rita, Dax Shepherd as Frito, Terry Crews as President Camacho and features cameos from Justin Long as a stoner doctor and Thomas Haden Church as a very panicked CEO in the future. It's not brilliant casting. Heck, it's not even very inspired, but it works for this film. Wilson seems perfect for his role as completely average soldier. Everyone else is just... there.

It doesn't really matter, though, because the film doesn't rely on the acting to make its point. It relies on Judge's pointedly sarcastic script. Judge posits a theory in which he points out that smart people don't seem to have kids very often, but stupid people seem to have them in droves. Judge shows an example of his theory that's pretty damn amusing as he shows a completely frigid yuppie couple in denial about their inability to reproduce while showing a not terribly bright trailer park denizen single-handedly populating a county. The end result is obvious, as the world becomes overrun with inbred idiots.

Thrust into this mess is Joe, who is volunteered into a military experiment for suspended animation. Joining him is Rita, a prostitute hired to take a year long nap with Joe as the Army is unable to find a female as average as Joe is. Naturally, something goes wrong with the experiment and one year turns into 550 and Joe and Rita don't wake up for a very long time.

When they do wake up, the world is a mess. Progressively dumber and dumber generations combine with automation to produce a civilization that continues to lurch along like a zombie. A very, very dumb zombie. It's like the planet is overrun with not-very-bright six-year-olds.

The movie makes one pointed joke after another about the way that civilization is evolving. TV has the violence channel and the masturbation channel. A sports drink has replaced water everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Starbucks now offers sexual favors with every latte, as does H&R block with every tax return. The President's cabinet is based on a TV contest.

It's all pretty stupid, which is probably the point, but it's also pretty funny. There's a weak plot about Joe being the smartest man on the planet and being needed to save the world from itself. It doesn't matter. You're not watching this movie for plot. You're watching it for Judge's cynical and hilarious view of where we as a species are heading, and it's great. There are about a thousand throwaway jokes in this film on this point and they're all brilliant.

If you do happen to stumble across this one in the DVD aisle, take a moment and pick it up. While it's not really a cult classic like Office Space, Judge is really onto something here and I kind of wish he'd focused more on his vision than the stupid comedy and the semi-weak plot. If you're the kind of person who really enjoys all the little jokes crammed into every Futurama episode, then you'll swear that Judge made this film as an ode to you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I suddenly have a craving for a latte. And possibly a tax return.