Election (1999) - Payne's high school politics dramedy

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Nebraska Movie of the Year 

 

Matthew Broderick looks disgruntled, caught inside the excited mouth of Reese Witherspoon on this poster for Alexander Payne's Election

High school teacher Jim McAllister has a beef with his over-achiever student Tracy Flick, who is running for student president, so he engages an opposing candidate.

Election is an MTV-produced, fast-edited and funny movie, the third feature from Nebraskan master co-writer-director Alexander Payne (The Descendants (2011)).
Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line (2005)) glows as comedienne as young Flick, while Matthew Broderick (The Night We Never Met (1993)) accepts the role of McAllister, which, according to your temperament, serves as a tongue-in-cheek reference to his legendary turn as rebellious high school student in John Hughes' masterpiece Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), or as a part that throws sly vitriol on this glorious past. - For me, seeing one of the heroes of my youth tackle this bitter, grownup high school teacher did take some of the joy out of Election from me.
It is still a clever tragicomic movie with a gender-focused sting of societal criticism. Payne co-wrote the script with Jim Taylor (Sideways (2004)), based on Tom Perrotta's (Little Children (2004)) same-titled 1998 novel.

Related posts:
 

Alexander Payne: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]   
Nebraska (2013) or, Father and Son
Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
The Descendants (2011) - Payne and Clooney score with a Hawaiian story of heartbreak, loss and family 
About Schmidt (2002) or, Dear Ndugu ...

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 14.9 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertain - but looks like a big to huge flop
[Election was released April 23 and runs 102 minutes. Filming took place from July 1998 - February 1999 in Nebraska, Ohio and New York. The film was released theatrically in 16 countries in total, but only the North American gross is made public. It opened #37 in 6 theaters to 119k $ and peaked at #5 in 827 theaters. The film was Oscar-nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay, lost to John Irving's screenplay for The Cider House Rules. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, won a National Board of Review award "for excellence in filmmaking" and 3 Independent Spirit Awards, out of 5 nominations. Election is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


What do you think of Election?

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) - Judge's hilarious America portrait

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Road Movie of the Year + Best Satire of the Year

Mike Judge's uniquely off-putting animated teenage characters arrive on the big screen in full colors on this adventure-teasing poster for his Beavis and Butt-Head Do America

Typical US teenagers and heavy rock fans Beavis and Butt-Head suffer the agony of having their TV set stolen, and to get it back they end up crossing the country and falling into a nasty situation with an assassin, without ever really realizing this however.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is written by Joe Stillman (Gulliver's Travels (2010)), co-writer/director Brian Mulroney (KaBlam! (1997, TV-series)) and great Ecuadorean-American filmmaker, feature-debuting co-writer/director Mike Judge (Idiocracy (2006)), who created the Beavis and Butt-Head TV-series that ran from 1993-11. Mike de Seve (Father of the Pride (2004, TV-series)) and Yvette Kaplan (Zooey's Zoo (1999, TV movie)) co-directed.

Beavis & Butt-Head Do America may be the funniest adult animation comedy of all time. A road movie comedy based on MTV's popular cartoon-looking series' juvenile duo, the humor is drier, more low-key and hysterical than the loud escapades of Springfield (in the Simpsons TV-series (1989-) and the 2007 movie), and different from the 1999 South Park movie, which are the two closest comparison works.
The animation is neat, and especially the delightful caricatures of a palette of more or less archetypical American characters is highly comical. Robert Stack (Mumford (1999)), Demi Moore (Ghost (1990)), Bruce Willis (Die Hard (1988)) and Cloris Leachman (When We Last Spoke (2019)) deliver some of the best voices in the film, besides the two leads which Judge do himself.

 

Related posts:

Mike Judge: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
 

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Silicon Valley - season 2 (2015) - Critically deflated second run for beloved sitcom 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Silicon Valley - season 1 (2014) - Judge and Co. introduce a hilarious tech-centric satirical sitcom

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 63.1 mil. $ (North America alone)
= Huge hit (projected return of 5.83 times its cost)

[Beavis and Butt-Head Do America premiered 15 December (Los Angeles) and runs 81 minutes. The show was put on hiatus to make the film. The film opened #1 to a 20.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend in the top 5 (#4), grossing 63.1 mil. $. The film went unreleased in many markets and was likely mostly a North-American-centered hit. My projected world gross total is 70 mil. $. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. A VoD sequel followed in 2022, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe. Judge returned with Office Space (1999). Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is fresh at 71 % with a 6.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America?