Today’s scene that I love comes from the greatest show ever made about my home state of Texas, Mike Judge’s King of the Hill.
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Tag Archives: Mike Judge
4 Shots From 4 Films: Another Special Texas Edition
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today is San Jacinto Day, which means that it is once again time for….
4 Shots From 4 Texas Films
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, dir by Tobe Hooper, DP: Daniel Pearl)
Slacker (1991, dir by Richard Linklater, DP: Lee Daniel)
Office Space (1999, dir by Mike Judge, DP: Tim Suhrstedt)
Upstream Color (2013, dir by Shane Carruth, DP: Shane Carruth)
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996, directed by Mike Judge)
While having a dream about being a giant who can destroy a city and almost score, Butt-Head is woken up by his friend Beavis. Beavis points out that their TV has disappeared. Muddy footprints lead away from the television’s former location and out the front door. Anyone who is familiar with MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head will immediately realize that this is a crisis. Animated and voiced by Mike Judge, the moronic teenage duo of Beavis and Butt-Head really don’t have anything in their lives beyond television and heavy metal. Beavis and Butt-Head set off to find their television, a quest that will see them traveling all the way from Highland, Texas to Las Vegas and eventually Washington D.C. Along the way, they’ll be pursued by ATF Agent Fleming (Robert Stack), they’ll get hired by alcoholic Muddy Grimes (Bruce Willis) to kill his wife, Dallas (Demi Moore), and Dallas will set them up as the perfect patsies for a terrorist attack on Washington D.C. Chelsea Clinton will beat up Butt-Head. President Clinton will declares the boys to be heroes. They’ll even meet their fathers, though everyone involved will be too dumb to realize it. But will Beavis and Butt-Head ever find their TV?
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was the first movie to star Beavis and Butt-Head and I can still remember when it first came out in 1996. No one expected much from it but it turned out to be one of the funniest movies of the year, a triumph of animation, social satire, and jokes about wood. A lot of the film’s humor comes from just how stupid Beavis and Butt-Head are but even more of the humor comes from everyone’s inability to understand just how stupid they are. Agent Fleming may think he’s saving America but he’s actually just chasing two teenagers who don’t even know how to read their own names. Muddy may think that he’s hired two experienced hitmen to “do” his wife but instead, he’s promised to pay two idiots to do his wife. (With the money, “we could buy a TV,” Butt-Head tells Beavis.) Everyone, from Fleming to Muddy Grimes, assumes that there must be some sort of grand scheme behind Beavis and Butt-Head’s journey across America. There isn’t. They just want to find a television.
Beavis and Butt-Head were and still are two wonderfully comedic creations. Watching them, I’m always surprised to remember that Mike Judge provided both of their voices. When they argue with each other about where their TV has gone or if it’s a good idea to jump out of a speeding car, Judge is arguing with himself. Butt-Head may be the leader but the heart of the duo is definitely Beavis and maybe Cornholio. The non-stop laughing, the inability to read, the obsessively crude humor, Beavis and Butt-Head were the future and they didn’t even realize it. Voicing the boys and their neighbor Mr. Anderson, Mike Judge generates most of the laughs in the movie but he still gets first-class help from Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, and especially Robert Stack.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America was considered to be a surprise commercial and critical success but the only people who were really surprised were those who hadn’t previously experienced Mike Judge’s sense of humor and satirical viewpoint. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is smart comedy about some very dumb people.
4 Shots From 4 Films: Another Special Texas Edition
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Today is San Jacinto Day, which means that it is once again time for….
4 Shots From 4 Texas Films
Slacker (1990, dir by Richard Linklater, DP: Lee Daniel)
Bottle Rocket (1996, dir by Wes Anderson, DP: Robert Yeoman)
Office Space (1999, dir by Mike Judge, DP: Tim Suhrstedt)
Primer (2004, dir by Shane Carruth)
Shattered Politics: The Front Runner (dir by Jason Reitman)
Based (loosely, I assume) on a true story, 2018’s The Front Runner tells the story of a politician named Gary Hart (played by Hugh Jackman).
The year is 1987 and former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart is preparing to announce that he will be seeking the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the greatest nation of all time, the United States! (YAY!) Hart is widely seen as the front runner, for both the nomination and the general election. He’s got the youth vote sewn up. He’s energetic. He’s supposed to be intelligent. We are told that he is handsome and charismatic. (I say “told” because, in this film, they seem to be informed attributes as Hugh Jackman is given a truly terrible haircut and his performance here is a bit on the dull side.) Hart announced his candidacy while standing in the Rocky Mountains. His wife (Vera Farmiga) is behind him, even if she chooses not to join him on the campaign trail. His campaign manager (J.K. Simmons) is welcoming new and idealistic volunteers to the campaign headquarters and encouraging them to remember that all of the difficulties of the campaign will be worth it after Gary Hart is elected president. As for the press, they’re investigating long-standing rumors that Hart is a womanizer. “Follow me around, you’ll get bored,” Hart says. So, two reporters from the Miami Herald (Bill Burr and Steve Zissis) do just that they catch a young woman named Donna Rice (Sara Paxton) apparently staying over at Gary Hart’s Florida townhouse.
“It’s nobody’s business!” Hart snaps, when asked about his private life and it’s obvious that the film expects us to take Hart’s side. The problem, as Hart’s campaign manager points out, is that a lot of people are volunteering for Hart’s campaign and have sacrificed a lot to help him out and now, if Hart doesn’t figure out some way to deal with the story, it looks like it was all for nothing. Even if Hart didn’t cheat with Rice, he still showed remarkably poor judgment in spending time alone with her in Florida while his wife was back in Colorado. The film argues that the press went overboard pursuing the story and perhaps they did. The press tends to do that and really, no politician has any excuse not to realize that. But, even if we accept the argument that the press acted unethically, that doesn’t exactly exonerate Gary Hart, though this film certainly seems to think that it does. To a certain extent, this film reminded me a bit of James Vanderbilt’s Truth, in which it was assumed we would be so outraged that Cate Blanchett’s Mary Mapes was fired for producing a story about George W. Bush’s time in the National Guard that we would overlook that Mapes and CBS news tried to build a major story around a bunch of obviously forged documents.
(Of course, if Hart had been running today, I doubt the scandal would have ended his campaign. If anything, Donald Trump’s personal scandals seemed to play to his advantage when he ran in 2016 and 2024. To a find a 21st Century equivalent to Hart’s scandal, you’d probably have to go all the way back to John Edwards in 2008. Of course, Edwards was cheating on his wife while she was dying of breast cancer, which makes Edwards a special type of sleaze.)
As for the film itself, director Jason Reitman tries to take a Altmanesque approach, full of overlapping dialogue and deceptively casual camera moments. There are a few moments when Reitman’s approach work. The start of the film, in which the camera glided over hundreds of journalists reporting from outside the 1984 Democratic Convention, was so well-handled that I briefly had hope for the rest of the film. Reitman gets good performances from dependable veterans like J.K. Simmons and Alfred Molina. But, at the heart of the film, there’s a massive blank as Hugh Jackman gives an oddly listless performance as Hart. The film expects us to take it for granted that Gary Hart would have been a good President but there’s nothing about Jackman’s performance to back that up. It’s odd because, typically, Hugh Jackman is one of the most charismatic actors around. But, as Gary Hart, he comes across as being petulant and a bit whiny.
It’s an interesting story but ultimately, The Front Runner doesn’t do it justice.
The Unnominated: Office Space (dir by Mike Judge)
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences claim that the Oscars honor the best of the year, we all know that there are always worthy films and performances that end up getting overlooked. Sometimes, it’s because the competition too fierce. Sometimes, it’s because the film itself was too controversial. Often, it’s just a case of a film’s quality not being fully recognized until years after its initial released. This series of reviews takes a look at the films and performances that should have been nominated but were, for whatever reason, overlooked. These are the Unnominated.
The other night, Erin and I started a new Labor Day weekend tradition of watching the 1999 comedy, Office Space.
As we watched Mike Judge’s first live-action film, it occurred to me that Office Space is a film that unites all of my friends. It doesn’t matter whether they work in an office like Peter (Ron Livingston), Samir (Ajay Naidu), or Michael Bolton (David Herman) or if they work in a restaurant like Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) or even if they’re an independent contractor like Peter’s loud neighbor, Lawrence (Diedrich Bader). It doesn’t matter if they would rather be fishing like Peter or watching reruns of Kung Fu like Joanna. Everyone that I know has said that they can relate to Office Space. Everyone has had to deal with a passive-aggressive jerk of a boss like Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole). Everyone has known a crazy co-worker like the red stapler-obsessed Milton (Stephen Root). Everyone dreads the arrival of consultants like the Bobs (John C. McGinely and Paul Willson). Everyone resents being told that doing the bare minimum is not enough, whether it’s just sitting in your cubicle or wearing 15 pieces of flair. Everyone dreams of sleeping late and not stressing about TPS reports. Everyone dreams of screwing over their company in a way that’s so clever that they’ll never be caught. (And I think everyone secretly knows that they would screw it up by putting a decimal point in the wrong place.) Everyone wants to destroy the oldest and least reliable piece of equipment at work. Everyone wants to feel like they can just announce that they’re going to quit and spend the rest of their life doing what they would do if they had a million dollars.
Considering the fact that the film has now become universally beloved, it’s interesting that Office Space opened to mixed reviews and middling box office. The studio wasn’t sure how to sell a live action film from the director of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill and many critics focused on the film’s rather loosely-constructed, episodic narrative and overlooked the fact that the film captured all of the small details that drive people crazy about their work. Audiences, though, discovered the film on video and undoubtedly enjoyed watching it after a long day of dealing with their own annoying boss. The film’s star, Ron Livingston, has said that many people have approached him and told him that he inspired them quit their jobs. “That’s kind of a heavy-load to carry.”
For a film that centers around office workers updating data so that computer systems don’t cash in 2000, Office Space has aged remarkably well. Ron Livingston, David Herman, and Ajay Naidu are an instantly sympathetic and likable trio of nerdy heroes. Stephen Root’s panic as he realizes that he will be the only employee not to get a piece of cake remains both poignant and funny. Gary Cole is still the boss from Hell. I still laugh at John C. McGinley’s rage when his praise of Peter as a “straight-shooter with upper management potential” is dismissed by Peter’s boss. We can all relate to Jennifer Aniston’s dislike of flair and her hatred for Brian (Todd Duffey). The jump to conclusion mat would probably be even more popular today than back in 1999.
Of course, Office Space was not nominated for any Oscars. That’s not really a shock. It’s an episodic comedy that was directed by a Texas filmmaker who was, at the time, best-known for a cartoon about two brain-dead teenagers. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be nominated for anything, even though I think more people have probably watched Office Space over the past few days than have watched American Beauty. Oscars aren’t everything, though. Office Space remains both a great work film and a great Texas film.
Previous entries in The Unnominated:
What If Lisa Marie Picked The Oscar Nominees: 2022 Edition
With the Oscar nominations due to be announced tomorrow, now is the time that the Shattered Lens indulges in a little something called, “What if Lisa Marie had all the power.” Listed below are my personal Oscar nominations. Please note that these are not the films that I necessarily think will be nominated. The fact of the matter is that the many of them will not be. Instead, these are the films that would be nominated if I was solely responsible for deciding the nominees this year. Winners are listed in bold.
It should also go without saying that I’ve only nominated films that I’ve actually seen. So, if you’re wondering why a certain film wasn’t nominated, it’s always possible that may have not gotten the opportunity to see it yet. Of course, it’s also possible that I didn’t feel that a certain film was worthy of a nomination, despite what the critics may say. In the end, my best advice is not to worry too much about it. I’m not an Academy voter so ultimately, this is all for fun and that’s the spirit in which it should be taken.
You’ll also note that I’ve added four categories, all of which I believe the Academy should adopt — Best Voice-Over Performance, Best Casting, Best Stunt Work, and Best Overall Use Of Music In A Film.
(Click on the links to see my nominations for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010!)
And now, without any further ado:
2022
Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Emily the Criminal
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Nitram
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Vengeance
Best Director
Edward Berger for All Quiet on the Western Front
Todd Field for TAR
Joseph Kosinski for Top Gun: Maverick
Baz Luhrmann for Elvis
Martin McDonagh for The Banshees of Inisherin
BJ Novak for Vengeance
Best Actor
Austin Butler in Elvis
Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick
Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
Caleb Landry Jones in Nitram
BJ Novak in Vengeance
Adam Sandler in Hustle
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett in TAR
Emma Corrin in Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Annie Hardy in Dashcam
Mia Goth for Pearl
Aubrey Plaza in Emily The Criminal
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actor
Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin
Val Kilmer in Top Gun: Maverick
Anthony LaPaglia in Nitram
David Lynch in The Fabelmans
Brad Pitt in Babylon
Ke Huy Quan in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Best Supporting Actress
Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin
Essie Davis in Nitram
Judy Davis in Nitram
Nina Hoss in TAR
Nicole Kidman in The Northman
Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans
Best Voice Over Performance
Antonio Banderas in Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
Jack Black in Apollo 10 ½
Steve Carell in Minions: The Rise of Gru
Mike Judge in Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe
Ewan McGregor in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Jenny Slate in Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Best Adapted Screenplay
All Quiet On The Western Front
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On
Operation Mincemeat
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Original Screenplay
Apollo 10 ½
The Banshees of Inisherin
Emily the Criminal
Everything Everywhere All At Once
TAR
Vengeance
Best Animated Feature Film
Apollo 10 ½
Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe
The Bob’s Burgers Movie
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoccio
The House
Mad God
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Turning Red
Best Documentary Feature Film
The Automat
Bitterbrush
Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel
Goodnight Oppy
Is That Black Enough For You?
My Old School
Selena Gomez: My Mind And Me
Send Me
Three Minutes: A Lengthening
Wildcat
Best International Feature Film
All Quiet on the Western Front
Bardo
Battle: Freestyle
The Bombardment
Dark Glasses
How I Fell In Love With A Gangster
Into the Wind
My Best Friend Anne Frank
Restless
RRR
Best Live Action Short Film
A Little Dead
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Best Animated Short Film
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
The Garbage Man
Steakhouse
Best Documentary Short Film
Elephant Whisperers
Her Majesty’s Queue
The Martha Mitchell Effect
Nuisance Bear
The Runner
Stranger at the Gate
Best Original Score
All Quiet On The Western Front
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Don’t Worry, Darling
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Original Song
“At the Automat” from The Automat
“Sunny Side Up Summer” from The Bob’s Burgers Movie
“Vegas” from Elvis
“Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
“Naatu Naatu” from RRR
“My Mind and Me” From Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me
“Hold My Hand” From Top Gun: Maverick
“Carolina” From Where The Crawdads Sing
“New Body Rhumba” from White Noise
“A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” from Wildcat
Best Overall Use of Music In A Movie
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
TAR
Father Stu
Top Gun: Maverick
X
Best Sound Editing
All Quiet On The Western Front
Avatar: The Way of the Water
The Bombardment
Elvis
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoccio
Top Gun Maverick
Best Sound Mixing
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Elvis
TAR
The Northman
Top Gun Maverick
Best Production Design
Babylon
The Batman
Elvis
The Fabelmans
RRR
See How They Run
Best Casting
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Northman
She Said
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Vengeance
Best Cinematography
The Banshees of Inisherin
Bardo
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All At Once
RRR
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Costume Design
Babylon
Death on the Nile
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Elvis
The Fabelmans
See How They Run
Best Film Editing
All Quiet on the Western Front
Ambulance
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Make-Up and Hairstyling
Babylon
Elvis
The Fabelmans
The Northman
Terrifier 2
X
Best Stuntwork
All Quiet On The Western Front
The Batman
Bullet Train
Everything Everywhere All At Once
RRR
Top Gun: Maverick
Best Visual Effects
Avatar: The Way of Water
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Mad God
RRR
Terrifier 2
Top Gun: Maverick
Films Listed By Number of Nominations
15 Nominations — Top Gun: Maverick
11 Nominations — Elvis
10 Nominations — All Quiet On The Western Front, The Banshees of Inisherin
8 Nominations — TAR
7 Nominations — Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans
6 Nominations — Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, RRR
5 Nominations — Babylon, Nitram, Vengeance
4 Nominations — The Northman, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
3 Nominations — Apollo 10 1/2, The Batman, Emily the Criminal, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
2 Nominations — The Automat, Avatar: The Way of the Water, Bardo, Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, The Bombardment, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Mad Dog, Minions: The Rise of Gru, See How They Run, Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, Terrifier 2, Wildcat, X
1 Nomination — A Little Dead, Ambulance, Battle: Freestyle, Bitterbush, Bullet Train, Dascham, Dark Glasses, Death on the Nile, Don’t Worry Darling, Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel, Elephant Whisperers, Father Stu, The Flying Sailor, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, The Garbage Man, Goodnight Oppy, Her Majesty’s Queue, How I Fell In Love With A Gangster, Hustle, Ice Merchants, Into the Wind, Is That Black Enough For You?, The House, Hustle, The Martha Mitchell Effect, My Friend Anne Frank, My Old School, Nuisance Bear, Operation: Mincemeat, Pearl, Restless, The Runner, Send Me, She Said, Steakhouse, Stranger at the Gates, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, Turning Red, Where The Crawdads Sing, White Noise
Films Listed By Number of Wins:
6 Oscars — Top Gun: Maverick
4 Oscars — All Quiet on the Western Front, Banshees of Inisherin
2 Oscars — Babylon, Elvis, TAR
1 Oscars — A Little Death, Avatar: The Way of the Water, Beavis and Butthead Do The Universe, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Ice Merchant, Nuisance Bear, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, X
Will the Academy and I agree? Probably not! But we’ll find out for sure in just a few hours!
The Boys are Back In Town: Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head Episodes 1 & 2
Having done both America and the universe, Beavis and Butt-Head are back where they belong!
I just watched the first two episodes of Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head on Paramount+. The boys are once again spending their days sitting on the couch and watching videos. They’ve got a flat screen now and, like the rest of the world, they’ve abandoned MTV for TikTok and YouTube. Judging by these two episode, they’re a little smarter now than they were during their original run. Butt-Head can now read (if he puts some effort into it) and Beavis knows how to use a drill. Of course, smart is a relative term when it comes to Beavis and Butt-Head. They haven’t changed that much. They’re still getting trapped in boxes and they still can’t score. Beavis still loves fire but, as he discovers during the first episode, Fire can be a tough taskmaster.
Beavis and Butt-Had aren’t the only ones to return. Mr. Van Driessen and Mr. Anderson return in the second episode. Mr. Van Driessen tells the boys that people will buy fresh honey. Mr. Anderson tries to warn the boys about a giant wasp’s nest. You see where it’s going but it doesn’t make it any less funny. Unfortunately, Stewart hasn’t returned yet. Is he still wearing his Winger t-shirt in 2022?
Each episode features two separate stories, along with cut-away scenes of Beavis and Butt-Head watching and commenting on videos. The first episode started with Beavis and Butt-Head wrecking havoc at an escape room and it ended with Beavis talking to a dumpster fire. The Escape Room story wasn’t anything special but it did serve to reintroduce Beavis and Butt-Head so it served its purpose. The Dumpster Fire segment was better and it featured a rare solo turn for Beavis. I loved that Fire’s instructions to Beavis were not what you would expect. Get some exercise. Recycle. Think about college. Fire cares!
The first episode was all about reintroducing Beavis and Butt-Head but the second episode showed the series settling into its groove. The first story featured Beavis and Butt-Head getting trapped in a box. Beavis, always the optimist, thought that maybe they should just get used to living in the box and that maybe some chicks would show up. When they realized they were running out of air, Butt-Head started taking deep breaths to try to get as much of the air as possible before Beavis could get it. The second story was a stone cold Beavis and Butt-Head classic, featuring farmer’s markets, wasps, shampoo, and of course, Mr. Van Driessen and Mr. Anderson. Everyone knows that Beavis and Butt-Head never score and never will score. The second episode reminded us that Mr. Van Driessen never score either and it’s usually Beavis and Butt-Head’s fault. After years of being humiliated and often grievously injured by Beavis and Butt-Head, Mr. Van Driessen still hasn’t given up on them. Maybe he should.
Of the videos that the boys critiqued, the highlight was Beavis revealing his love for BTS but I also liked their commentary on a creepy Cale Dobbs video. Their TikTok commentaries seem like they’ll be more uneven but I did enjoy their reaction to the man explaining how to do a prison tattoo. That will be a good skill to have when the boys inevitably end up in prison.
The most important thing about, though, is that Beavis and Butt-Head are back! Just in time, too. The world is finally stupid enough to benefit from their insight.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe (2022, directed by John Rice and Albert Calleros)
Beavis and Butt-Head, those two lovable, illiterate, and thoroughly moronic teenagers from Highland, Texas, are back and they are as dumb as ever! Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe is their second movie adventure. Currently streaming on Paramount Plus, it’s a smart comedy about dumb people.
In 1998, Bevis and Butt-Head (voice by their creator, Mike Judge) accidentally attend their school’s science fair and end up burning the whole place down. The toughest judge in Texas sentences them to Space Camp, where they can learn responsibility. As so often happens with these two, their utter stupidity is mistaken for genius and they end up going into space. Their job is to help the space shuttle dock with the International Space Station. Beavis and Butt-Head, however, think that they are being sent into space to “do it” with astronaut Serena Ryan (voiced by Andrea Savage). Quicker then you can yell “Fire,” the boys manage to destroy the International Space Station and get sucked into a wormhole.
The boys find themselves transported to Galveston. The year is 2022, not that Beavis and Butt-Head ever figure that out. Their multiverse counterparts, Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-Head, materialize to warn them that, unless they go through the wormhole again, the universe could be destroyed. Beavis and Butt-Head are more interested in returning to their house, seeing what’s on TV, and doing it with Serena. Serena, who is now governor of Texas, would rather kill Beavis and Butt-Head in order to prevent anyone from discovering what actually happened on the space shuttle 14 years ago.
It’s a long journey from Galveston to Highland. Beavis and Butt-Head get an iPhone to help and Beavis falls in love with Siri. A trip to a university leads to Beavis and Butt-Head interrupting a sociology class and it also leads to one of the film’s best moments, when a white student with a man bun proceeds to interrupt all of the women in the class so that he can mansplain white privilege. Beavis and Butt-Head take this to mean that they can steal without getting arrested and it turns out that they’re right, up until the moment they try to steal a police car. A trip to prison leads to Beavis shouting that he is the great Cornholio while the universe itself grows closer to destruction.
Yes, Beavis and Butt-Head are just as moronic as ever but, fortunately, so is the sharpness of Mike Judge’s satiric wit. It’s been close to 30 years since Beavis and Butt-Head made their debut on MTV and, through all that time, the main joke has remained the same. Beavis and Butt-Head are such utter morons that almost everyone who meets them assumes that there must be something else going on beneath the surface. In the past, it was just Mr. Van Driessen thinking that he could teach the boys how to be responsible by asking them to clean his house and not touch his valuable 8-track collection. In Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe, it’s expanded to NASA trusting the boys with expensive equipment and human lives. They fit right in at the college and they even manage to rally the prisoners in the county jail. The government thinks that they must be aliens while Sarena worries that they could destroy her political career, even though neither one of them can even read a billboard. Not even Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-Head can bring themselves to accept just how stupid their multiverse counterparts actually are!
But stupid, they are. The world is all the better for it.
Music Video of the Day: Hungry by Winger (1988, directed by ????)
What do we have here?
00:12 — Newlyweds speeding on a curvy mountain road? What could go wrong?
00:23 — There go the brakes!
00:31 — That sharp turn will look familiar to anyone who has ever seen the Duke boys outrun old Roscoe.
00:36 — It’s true what they say. Right before you die, you hear the opening of a bad 80s song.
00:50 — I’ve gotten worst cuts from bumping my head on a low doorway.
00:57 — Dude, did you just leave your wife behind in the car?
00:59– This is Winger. Kip Winger got his start as a backup musician and was a member of Alice Cooper for two years. Until Nirvana changed the face of music, Winger was responsible for some of the most generic hits of the 1980s.
01:21 — How long until we get a shot of the man sitting alone on that same swing?
01:32 — “Look, I’m spinning around with my guitar! Just like we did in practice!”
01:50 — “I remember how much we loved this wall.”
01:59 — It took 37 seconds to go from swinging together to swinging alone.
02:08 — Nobody came to the wedding but she’s going to go ahead and throw the bouquet anyway.
02:20 — It might be easier for the first responders to do their job if Winger would get out of the way.
02:46 — GUITAR!
03:07 — “My wife’s dead. Time to learn how to play an instrument!”
03:15 — Watch out, he’s driving again.
03:22 — Did he ever figure out why his brakes out went out in the first place? This might be a case for Jim Rockford.
03:36 — They still haven’t put out the fire? Is this what my tax dollars are paying for?
03:38 — I would be pissed off too. Put out the damn fire!
03:58 — That dude cannot drive.
04:12 — How does he keep doing this shit without getting a scratch on him?
04:27 — “How am I going to get home?”
To call Winger a “hair metal” band is probably an insult to hair metal bands but they did have a few hits. They also got on the nerves of Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 