blubb06 The bad ratings for this movie prove once again that most voters here, if not everyone except me (readers excluded) is an idiot ;-)It is not about defining what stupidity IS - I'm sure none of us needs any lessons on that - but exploring why stupidity is so desirable! Don't believe the text ads on this movie's own website; advertising people are tuned in to stupidity 27 hours a day and are making lots of money promoting stupidity - believe me, I should know. (They're only surpassed by the feeble-minded folks advertising NOVELS.) Stupidity sells, so it can't be that stupid after all.I ass-u-me most of us would agree with the movie's take on certain political personae, but this should not stop us from picking our own noses. Is stupidity the only road to peace of mind in the Atomic Infotainment Age? Were our TV-less ancestors better off? Maybe not. If anything makes our times & age different, it's that TVs have blown up the individual's importance out of all proportion - how else is it possible that I feel I should be able to solve every problem on the planet with my informed opinion? Or the mad idea that War can ever be permanently abolished, now that so much is at stake, if all of us only really, really wish it.Like Monty Python's "Life of Brian", the movie ends with a sing-along song and a note of black humor: "History is made by stupid people, clever people wouldn't even try..." We learn that someone in Vineland/New Jersey carries the distinction of having invented the word "moron", and the general history of IQ testing. Other than that, the educational benefit in negligible, but if you don't expect a solution to life's questions like you would from a BBC documentary, it's an enjoyable hour that leaves the brain ticking for a few more. On the other hand, you could benefit from a series of mantras near the end on how to become perfectly stupid:"No thoughts are good thoughts..." "Remember not to remember..." "Shift the blame..."(for the full course google up the guy's name afterwards... yes, I'm not kidding)

chup23 It's a good thing the makers of this film declared themselves "idiots" at the very beginning of the movie. It saved me from making the comment myself. It would be easy to brand this film "stupid", but I think it goes way beyond that label. It is lazy, inept and insulting. I actually hated this film enough to write this review. I didn't feel this insulted after watching "Transformers," that's how bad I'm annoyed at this movie. Can I just say how tired I am of "documentaries" using canned footage from old propaganda films from the '40s and '50s. You know the footage I'm talking about: scenes in black and white where they show you how things worked in the good old days, when things were simple, and the American dream was a smiling paradise. Women frolicked in their dresses and men wore suits and fedoras. Am I the only one tired of filmmakers splicing this stuff into their movies to show us a foil to their insipid points? To show us that our grandparent's generation was ruled in naivety and now these new filmmakers can show us the truth on how the really real world works? This stuff was okay when Mike Moore did it in "Roger & Me", but just because its public domain (meaning "free footage") shouldn't mean you're hip or ironic when you use it. The filmmakers spend a lot of time explaining the definition of several words -- like "moron" and "idiot" (they seem to take great delight in asking people on the street about these words' origins) -- but seem to have failed to figure out what the word "documentary" is. In most definitions of the word, it contains the word "factual" or "non-fiction." You're supposed to making your thesis by presenting us your audience with non-biased facts or imagery to support your claim. Thus, editing in footage of your colleagues staring moronically at a camera with bad haircuts and fake snaggleteeth to support the claim may be against the tradition. Doing it over and over and over and over again is just tiring. Doing it twelve more times after that is just trying to fill time to make it past the feature film mark. And here's the bad part. In a section where the filmmakers decide to go off on how dumbed down our media has become, instead of getting snippets of actual TV shows to support their claim, they include self-made footage parodying these shows in the lowest common denominator, using the aforementioned fake snaggleteeth. Thanks for letting us make up our own minds, guys. Thanks for speaking down to us. And while I'm talking about the media bashing part of the film, the filmmakers inform us that the world of news has just become an onslaught of 30 second sound bites with no real conversation about the subject matter that's being discussed. Can't argue with that, but guess what? This entire movie is an onslaught of 10 - 30 second sound bites from all of their experts with no real dialogue or discussion on what stupidity is or what its real effects are. I could go on for another hour counting the ways this movie sucks (footage of people tripping isn't stupidity, those are called accidents, guys; showing some guy running naked on an ice-rink is not that interesting to repeat seven times sporadically throughout 90 minutes; placing shitty lightning effects over a guy talking about special effects movies isn't funny or ironic -- its a waste of human spirit) but I think I'm about done here. Fellow filmgoers, just avoid this thing. It's not clever or funny. It's a waste of Canadian tax incentives. And Donald Sutherland (who narrated this mess). And electricity. To those who green-lit "Stupidity," try to find a subject that actually has a subject next time. Or filmmakers that actually have a clue to what they are doing.

SigmaEcho OK, so "stupid" isn't the right word, "cheap" is more like it. A film with a fascinating subject, that has been neglected in the media (which the film makes a big point of), is ruined by shoddy production values. The film has poor quality cameras and even poorer sound. During the interviews, you will strain to hear what the person's saying. The filmmakers could have fixed this with a little bit of good sound mixing, but decided not to. The film also suffers due to a lack of clips from the material that they are talking about. The filmmakers would have been wise to not worry about copyright issues and instead make a good film, especially with the budget they were working with. And as mentioned by others, the film does indeed have no real focus. And what little structure that is offered is...well...stupid. Instead the film uses an inordinate amount of old Trailer Vision material, and old stock footage. This film needed a major rewrite. This subject needs more attention from the public, and this film in the end is simply a wasted opportunity, especially with the great list of interviewees.

hanik_1999 Went to see this movie in San Fran after getting hilarious fliers featuring a really, well, STUPID-looking George W. smiling awkwardly, as only Dubya can. But the movie is not so much about Bush as about, well, stupidity, idiocy, moronism (?) and how they've infected society. We always hear "Sex sells", but this entertaining documentary shows how "Stupid sells" and features some hysterical trailers by the Canadian company that produced it, Trailervision. Kung-Fu Jesus and Pourquoi Pas? (the sequel to...Pourquoi) are shown, and believe me, you will laugh. But the short film (about 75 minutes) also tries to make you think--who'da thunk it in a film basically glamorizing the absence of thought?--about how popular stupidity has become in our culture, arts, and politics. Definitely worth a view, if you can find it. I saw it on 16th & Valencia in San Fran; hopefully it will make its way to New York soon. And check out the trailer of Kung-Fu Jesus on the Trailervision website. No, I don't get a cut by shilling it; my bro and I just found it so friggin' hilarious that you'd be, um, stupid not to see it. Enjoy.