Table-talk of Parkus Grammaticus for March 22-23, 2008

I. Hey Dullblog's Devin appears on the Upper West Side on Tuesday, March 25, to talk about the Beatles in 1968; in the meantime, read his take on the great (?) Beatles movie project that never was.
II. On Style; for Moderns meditates on Elton John's sartorial choices:

The background looks like a stock background on offer at your local overmodernized, ruined-a-good-thing photo booth. It's like Hi Mom! Here's me and my fake visit to Yellowstone! Except it's not me in 1997. It's Elton Freaking John in 1974, hairy chested in some pre-JNCO jeans, with less (head) hair than his contemporary self, and holding his hands as awkwardly as hands have ever been held.

III. A friend has unearthed a blog post (I am not quite clear what the blog is called!) devoted to the iconography of Idiocracy. Here's one for tax season:

Untitled Mike Judge Comedy

Dizzyhead Dennis on Idiocracy (L.A. Times):

STUDIOS abandon and manhandle movies all the time, operating under the assumption that some films will benefit most from a cut-and-run release: a kind of cost-effective euthanasia for terminal cases. But 20th Century Fox's treatment of Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" was no mere dump job — it had the whiff of outright sabotage.

But that counted for nothing when "Idiocracy" opened Labor Day weekend, without the benefit of press screenings or a marketing campaign, in a mere six cities nationwide....The film took in a dismal $450,000—not surprising given the total absence of ads and trailers and that many reviewers bought into the received wisdom that unscreened movies are duds and panned it accordingly...The disregard was so pervasive that some bloggers have speculated that Fox actively set out to bury "Idiocracy." On Moviefone, the film was mysteriously listed as "Untitled Mike Judge Comedy."...

"Idiocracy" argues that it's in the interest of the rich and powerful to perpetuate the stupidity, or at least the unquestioning obedience, of the public. Despite the film's obvious misanthropy, there are traces of the class consciousness that fueled "Office Space," an ode to cubicle drones that was essentially "Bartleby the Scrivener" for the age of late capitalism.