Mike Judge's Extract (Spoilers Welcome)

Cafe Society
1

I saw this film today. I really liked it. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, it had some holes, and the entire conflict in the film is practically a MacGuffin, but for some reason the film really clicked with me.

I like Mike Judge. I pretty much like everything he does. Beavis and Butthead was hilarious. King of the Hill is probably the most underrated show around. His two previous films, Office Space and Idiocracy, are hilarious.

But, like those two, the studio gave no support to Extract. Why do studios make Mike Judge films if they are going to dump them in the early fall without the benefit of promotion.

The cast was perfect. Oddly, Ben Affleck gives the best performance in a ensemble which includes Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristin Wiig, and JK Simmons.

One nice touch for those who live in Texas, was the film’s plaintiff’s lawyer satire.

One of the characters is injured and hires “Bob Adler” a TV shark played by Gene Simmons. It is so obviously a broad swipe at Houston based ambulance chaser Jim Adler, down to the same type of commercials and unprofessional nickname. The audience, the few of us that saw it, were cracking up in our suburban Houston theater.

I agree with some of the flaws that the film’s negative reviews cite (though the film is currently a “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes); a reviewer for the WP called it the most disappoining comedy of all time.

Reading that review, I don’t disagree with some of his assessments. I just come to a different conclusion. For me, this is one of those gestalt films, where despite individual flaws, the film really gels into something nice.

I hope this one catches on when it hits DVD, like Judge’s other two comedies. It is a really decent flick.

2

I don’t think that’s true. I’ve been seeing the trailer all over the place the last three months (I go to a lot of movies.) And Kunis and Bateman have been all over the late night circuit plugging it.

It opened in 1600 theaters, which is 1599 more than Idiocracy did. It got mediocre-to-OK reviews (currently 65% on the tomato).

It’s not the kind of comedy that makes rad bucks on its opening weekend. (Though the $4 million it did is respectable considering the current competition.) It’ll probably be in theaters longer than junk like Gamer and Final Destination, which will blow their wads the first couple weeks then disappear.

So I think they did a fine job, marketing-wise, for what this movie is.

3

It was opening on more screens than I had thought. When I was reading an article on my phone about it, I had thought it said 600!

Either way, I was probably misguided as I read a new interview with Judge, and he said this one was independently financed to avoid a lot of the studio BS from Idiocracy.

4

Kristin Wiig - mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. She’s one of those actresses to me that has an an unknown, indescribable quality that makes her really desirable. I don’t think she’s hot in a traditional sense (though very pretty), but yet… wow.

Oh, and the wife and I liked the movie OK. Jason Bateman always gives a solid performance. He’s just a likable person. I would agree with the 60+% rating because I’d give it a 3/5.

5

If you don’t have expectations of greatness, you can relax and have a good time.

6

We managed to get tickets to the world premiere of it a few weeks ago in Austin. It got a great audience response and we thought it was mostly hilarious.

We’re big Mike Judge fans so we went in with the expectation of it being funny like Office Space and Idiocracy and it did not disappoint. Ben Affleck really does steal all of his scenes. Also same goes for the guy who plays dumb Brad. Love the scene with Gene Simmons pantomiming the slamming of Bateman’s character’s balls in the door. Mike Judge is from around here and the Extract factory is based on the old Adams Extract plant here in Austin.

I will say the best part of the night was the Q&A with Judge and Jason Bateman. I just wish my camera hadn’t been stolen as I had taken video of it and hadn’t yet uploaded it.

7

We just saw it yesterday and were mostly “meh” about it. There were times when I was bored with it and I didn’t laugh that much in it. I don’t think I’d recommend the film. On the other hand, we saw “All About Steve” this weekend, despite the bad reviews and I found myself laughing a lot at it. Go figure.

J.

8

Yes, she is “stealthy hot” as a buddy of mine calls women like her. I thought she was really good in the film. This is the first film where I’ve seen her show anything other than pure comedy. Often, she plays an over the top character, which she plays very well. Here, she had some dramatic moments, that I thought she nailed. When she finds out that Bateman hired the gigolo and discovers the truth that (a) her husband did that and (b) she was not so pretty that he would want her, her face really sold the moment. That could have been a hokey scene, but I thought she made it really heart breaking.

Do you know if it was filmed in the area?

Judge said that this one was the closest he’s come of his films to a drama. I wonder if people will be disappointed that it wasn’t all funny.

Also, when I saw it something weird happened. This group was sitting in front and left (as a group) right after Bateman and Affleck have the discourse on masturbation. They looked offended; like they were leaving in a huff because of the content.

If that is the case (maybe something else caused their exodus), why the hell do you go and see an R-rated comedy? What R-rated comedy released in the last several years doesn’t have raunchy discussions? It just seemed odd.

9

Extract was filed in parts of North Austin and Hutto. The neighborhood/house scenes were Hutto.
I guess our audience was more primed for a comedy as we were all laughing through most of it. It got an excellent response from the premiere audience.

Note: Mike Judge used to frequent a restaurant that my boyfriend worked at. He would sit and write for hours. The neighborhood (and its inhabitants) is very very similar to the one portrayed on the Goode family.

10

Cool. My in-laws live and work in Georgetown and Round Rock (respectively). Not too far from Hutto. Neat.

11

I was pretty disappointed in it. I liked Bateman and Wiig. Affleck overacts. The characters were poorly developed and the story lines were not fused well. Any “commentary” was ham-handed and often misplaced. Not his best work. You can tell he’s worked in episodic tv, as the movie resembled three epsiodes of a sit-com season.

12

I liked it pretty well. I’d heard it wasn’t laugh out loud funny like Office Space so no disappointment there. Just kind of a quirky movie with some well delivered lines. The thing that really threw me was the scene where

they’re all getting stoned and it turns out the weird stoner dude is Mila Kunis’s boyfriend .

Anyway, Jason Batemen seems like such a cool guy and he was outstanding in this. I’m surprised at the great review upthread of Kristin Wiig, though. I usually like her but I wasn’t crazy about this performance. Of course, maybe that’s because her character isn’t *supposed *to be likable, in which case she did a bang up job!

13

I just saw it tonight. It was alright, but nothing I’d really recommend. I laughed at several parts but it really started dragging by the end. I thought it was funnier than Office Space though, which I finally saw for the first time last week and thought was mostly dull. Maybe I’d just seen so many parodies of it that it didn’t seem funny anymore.

14

We saw it tonight and I told my girlfriend it wasn’t what I expected. (She disagreed. Apparently she felt the commercials communicated the guy-hires-a-male-hooker-so-he-can-sleep-with-a-hot-grifter plot.) It was interesting and in places it was really funny, but I thought it was uneven and I was hoping for more laugh out loud moments. It does have a great cast: Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Ben Affleck in a character role and Mila Kunis is more than enough to sell me on a movie.

I think the biggest laughs for me were

the smash cut to Nathan’s funeral - smash cuts to funerals are always funny - and the line about "Some people just aren’t meant to do drugs, and I guess you’re one of those people.

15

“Uneven” is probably the best way to put it. The Kunis plot just … fizzled. Pfft. No impetus for her change of heart. I thought for sure she’d call the police once he had the stolen goods in his possession, but nope; that was pretty much the end of it.

That said, I laughed most of the way through. In retrospect I don’t know why I had such a strong reaction, but the part that really cracked me up was Brad improvising the pool cleaning.