Uhhh...Michael...

Mahnola Dargis on the new Mike Judge flick:

Fitfully funny with a low joke-to-minute ratio, "Extract" plays like two irreconcilable and unfinished sketches, neither particularly fertile comedic terrain. The first revolves around Joel's beef that his wife has sexually closed for business by the time he comes home from work, a weak bit that Mr. Judge tries to exploit with repeated close-ups of Suzie cinching her sweat pants. At the urging of his friend Dean (Ben Affleck, delivering a real performance), Joel hires a part-time pool cleaner and full-time moron, Brad (Dustin Milligan), to service her. The second sketch involves the attempts of a vamping con artist, Cindy (Mila Kunis), to scam Joel by cozying up to a dim factory worker, Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), who's suffered an-on-the-job injury.

What's most striking about "Extract," beyond the scarcity of jokes and absence of actual filmmaking, is its deep well of sourness, which at times borders on misanthropy. In his first live-action feature, "Office Space," a comedy about the indignities of that modern hell we call a desk job, Mr. Judge took aim at the dehumanization of organizational life. In "Idiocracy" he expanded his sightlines to include corporations and consumer culture. The received wisdom remains that 20th Century Fox, which backed the movie, dumped "Idiocracy" into the marketplace because of its anti-corporatism: it mocks Fox News along with brand-name companies that run ads on media outlets belonging to Fox's parent company, the News Corporation. What was often left unsaid amid the ruckus is that the movie conceives of its own audience as cultural dopes.

Judge has always been hit or miss for me--though I love his hits. Satire's a hard business. I think King Of The Hill is brilliant, but The Goode Family not so much. I'm on pretty familiar terms with the species of liberals Judge was trying to satirize, so I was all in for it. But the show felt dated--like a collage of jokes you'd make about liberals circa 1995.

The thing I loved about King Of The Hill, even more than the Simpsons, was its warmth, was Judge's affection for Hank Hill and his family, even as he ribbed them. It's tough to walk that line. You have to have a certain amount of respect for the objects of your comedy.

Also, I should add that Judge is partly responsible for Daria, which I love.