Better dead than alive though.

“I always thought I was going to wake up one day and there’d be a big-ass raccoon on the floor curled up in my room,” says Weinberg senior Luke Bonucci. “I had a hole in my wall that was just a vent that they didn’t have a cover for, and there was a raccoon that lived inside that vent. I could hear it walking along; I could hear its claws on the metal inside the vent.” So he put his dresser in front of the hole. If one of the raccoons living in the walls got too noisy, he’d smack the wall, sending it scurrying to someone else’s room.

“As long as I can remember being in that house I can remember there being raccoons in the ceiling,” says Bonucci’s roommate Rob Baroch, a McCormick senior. Seven roommates lived in that three-story house, 1012 Garnett, last year.

“They hung out over the shower,” says McCormick senior Jeremy Nudell, another roommate. “You’d take a shower and they would stampede across the ceiling. And they’d scratch at your ceiling when you were sleeping. It became really disturbing after a while.”

The roommates called the landlord. And the maintenance man, and anyone else who’s responsibility it was to remove the family of raccoons from their walls. They were told it was no big deal–it’s just mice. “Even though we saw a family of raccoons walking into a hole in the roof,” Bonucci says. “We saw it.”

They couldn’t get rid of them, so they named them all “Coon-coon” and learned to live with them. “It was co-habitation,” Bonucci says. “We were just upset that they didn’t have to pay rent.”

When the living room filled with flies near the end of the year, they didn’t even bother calling the landlord. Bonucci took care of it himself. “I took out a can of Raid, and I was standing in the middle of the room just turning around in circles spraying Raid everywhere, and they were just dropping. It brought a whole new meaning to that phrase.” They figured they were better off leaving the landlord out of it.

“The last half of our lease we just tried to avoid them,” says Baroch, “because anytime you dealt with them it would just cause more problems than it solved.”

My landlord Andy was great with the small stuff, like repairing busted pipes and broken dishwashers. But anytime we tried to get him to improve the quality of living he tried to raise the rent. Take the windows. They were drafty enough that bluebottle flies could work their way in the sides, and a few of them didn’t have screens. Andy said if we wanted new windows we would have to pay for them. We didn’t argue because we didn’t know that there’s an Evanston ordinance that requires all windows to have screens during the summer. He was counting on our ignorance.

“Students should not live like that,” says 5th Ward alderman Delores Holmes, whose ward encompasses the majority of off-campus students in Evanston. She’s been working, along with neighbors, students, ASG and Northwestern administration to educate students on holding landlords accountable. “They need to know that they have rights and that landlords have responsibilities to keep the property up to standards.”

That’s not something the guys from 1012 Garnett knew when their heating broke and they were studying in their coats. “You could see our breath inside, in the TV room,” Bonucci says. It took a week and a half before anyone came to fix it.

Too often, students bear with substandard living conditions because we don’t know our rights. Landlords take advantage, and we become the victims.

Stacy Uchida, a Weinberg senior, says students are willing to live in bad conditions for a simple reason. “We don’t have much choice,” she says. “Where else are you going to live?”

“There is a lot of drinking and then a lot of vandalizing of the property,” Nancy Gabriel, the property manager for 1012 Garnett wrote in an e-mail. “Once students threw a couch out the window and lit it on fire. Another time, they manufactured alcohol in the basement.”

D’arienzo says it’s this behavior that causes landlords to have higher expectations and more codes for student renters. “They’re trying to maintain as much of a sense of order as they can,” he says.

Unfortunately, that also means landlords often treat student tenants with less respect than they would normal ones. According to the 1012 Garnett roommates, the previous tenants left furniture stacked to the ceilings, moldy food in the refrigerator and dirt everywhere. But the landlord left the house in disrepair and the guys weren’t able to move into the house until a week after their lease started. A cleaning crew wasn’t sent until a week after that.

Patel, Bonucci and Baroch now live in a raccoon-free apartment. Photo by Blake Sobczak / North by Northwestern

The city of Evanston’s Web site has a long list of regulations and restrictions on how landlords must keep up their properties, including requiring that “the interior of every structure…be free from any accumulation of rubbish or garbage”—something that the 1012 Garnett landlord ignored and the tenants put up with. Landlords just need someone to enforce those laws–even when students are the tenants. Students may not be ideal neighbors, but they still have rights.

Jeff Murphy, the assistant director of Evanston’s Property Standards Division, worries that students don’t report landlord violations because they’re afraid they’ll be evicted. “If a student contacts us they’re not going to end up on the street at the end of the day,” Murphy says. The property standards division might ask students to move out, but they’ll find them somewhere else to live first. Students need to know their rights in order to get the help they need.

So where do you turn for help—the university?

Looking for information about off-campus living at Northwestern? Try contacting the university’s off-campus housing department and you’ll probably end up on the phone with Joseph Hunter, a part-time Weinberg student and administrative assistant for the Department of Graduate Housing.

“As far as off-campus housing goes, we don’t even touch it,” Hunter says. “Nobody on campus does.”

Turns out there is no department of off-campus housing. Just a Web site that tells students to check Craigslist and keep parties quiet. To get a copy of the Tenant-Landlord Ordinance, Evanston’s official document of renter’s rights, students are told to come by the office. And according to Hunter, no one stops in to pick up the ordinance. Which is good, because he doesn’t have any to hand out.

If anyone does call with a landlord problem, they’re turned away. “We pretty much have a template down that there’s nothing we can do for them,” Hunter says.

Mark D’arienzo, the associate director for University Housing Administration, says that it has never been university policy to “hold the hands” of students as they transition from residence halls to off-campus housing. He knows there are problems when students move off campus. It’s just not his job to fix them.

“Students living in the residence halls receive a lot of information regarding how to go about doing things on campus,” says Virginia Koch, senior assistant director of Residential Life. “But there’s not a lot of education done on what to do after you move off-campus. It’s really part of their learning curve to figure out what types of services are available.”

All the Northwestern officials interviewed knew they needed to provide more help to off-campus students. They just didn’t know how. Even their advice for students is divided. Lucile Krasnow, Northwestern’s special assistant for community relations, advises students not to settle for less than their rights, but is quick to change the subject to off-campus parties. D’arienzo only offers the advice to “Be nice to your neighbors.”

Northwestern has always taken a limited role in helping students moving off-campus compared to other schools. Loyola University in Chicago works closely with students, providing off-campus information sessions and hosting housing fairs, where students can find apartments and meet potential landlords. They also give students incentive to stay on campus.

“We have about 15 apartment-style halls for our sophomore, junior and senior students,” says Michelle Lata, assistant director for Resident Services at Loyola. The apartments are similar to Northwestern’s sought-after Kemper suites, equipped with personal kitchens and bathrooms. “What we want to do is transition them from a more first year, traditional setting to something that’s a little more independent,” Lata says.

It’s working. “I like my on-campus apartment much, much, much better than my freshman dorm,” says Liz Hegarty, a Loyola sophomore. “I’m still extremely close to campus without living absolutely next to 50 people and having no privacy.”

Koch knows that singles and apartments are popular, but says they’re not possible (Kemper only holds 177). If more Northwestern students wanted to stay on campus–in any dorm–they’d be out of luck. “There physically isn’t a bed for every student at Northwestern,” D’arienzo says. Some students must live off campus, and then must deal with slumlords on their own.

It wasn’t always like this. A few years ago the university cared enough about students moving off campus to provide apartment listings. Murphy’s office regularly received calls from the university asking if Evanston buildings were up to code. Then the focus shifted.

“This decree was passed down from on high that we were no longer going to post off-campus housing,” Hunter says.

But while the university had decided to ignore off-campus students, ASG stepped up.

“I’ve definitely heard stories about students who have put up with lower property standards because they’re worried about getting kicked out of their property,” says Weinberg senior Jilian López, director of ASG’s External Relations. “They’re not sure whether to talk to their landlord or to talk to the city or to talk to the university or who to talk to. You shouldn’t have to live without heat when it’s freezing outside.”

1012 Garnett is located about one block south of the Foster El stop. Photo by Vi-An Nguyen / North by Northwestern

Instead of hoping students would figure out the housing game for themselves, ASG’s External Relations Committee decided to do something. They started with the Off-Campus Housing Evaluations, a Web site where students could rank their apartment and their landlord, letting future tenants know about potential problems. If students consistently used the site to rate and research apartments, landlords would have to meet student demands or risk bad ratings. The site gives students a way to regulate landlords without resorting to the city or the school.

But this spring ASG has something even bigger planned.

“We want to make it a one-stop shop for students looking to move off-campus,” López says. ASG is looking to build, with Northwestern, a Web site that would house all of the information students need to move into an apartment. How to recycle, when to take out the trash, what to do on vacation, and who to call when your landlord isn’t doing his or her job, all on one easily searchable page. The interactive components, like the off-campus housing evaluations, will be posted on ASG’s Web site. “It’s a good temporary solution, until we can afford to have a real off-campus housing office,” López says.

Because of the size of the project and the necessary webspace, ASG has enlisted Krasnow and Burgie Howard, the interim dean of students. They’ll work together to compile all of the information students need to create a Web site where they can find it. They hope that once students know what to do, landlords will stop taking advantage of students’ lack of housing knowledge.

“There are lots of student situations that have been difficult, messy, disappointing,” Krasnow says. “I have sympathy for students who are in substandard housing, probably for too much money.”

The guys from 1012 Garnett don’t live there anymore. They thought about it, but when the landlord tried to raise the rent by 10 percent they found a similar house farther north. The heat works, and so far there haven’t been any signs of raccoons. And the best part? No slumlord.

None of the guys mentioned nostalgia for the dorms, and there’s no reason to. With a basic understanding of tenant rights and a little stubbornness, students can get their house in the condition they want. The proposed off-campus housing Web site will help, but knowing when to put a foot down is more important.

“Don’t be afraid to be demanding of the landlord,” Murphy says. “They are making a lot of money on these properties and you shouldn’t be intimidated by them.”

I should’ve known Jim’s adorable speech from the previews would be ruined. I just didn’t expect Jim to do the ruining. I understand the Jim-turning-into-Michael plotline, but I kind of hate it. There’s no one left to break the awkward tension and diffuse situations. The show is getting more and more uncomfortable, and I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to be fun to watch.

Even the dance scene wasn’t fun. Maybe it’s due to my disproportional hatred of the wedding dance YouTube video, but seeing it reenacted made me want to switch channels. The scenes of Pam and Jim alone were great, and Andy Bernard carried his segments of the show. The pierced scrotum bit was believable. Kevin having his shoes burned? Less so.

The Office is a half hour show for a reason. This hour-long special was strained with too many bad jokes to work. Things aren’t funny when they’re not possible. Dwight ending up with a lady-friend is funny, but not when she’s Pam’s attractive bridesmaid. It strains the logic behind the show. Just like the hotel staff stealing and destroying Kevin’s shoes. It was all an elaborate set-up for the end of the show, when Kevin sticks his feet into the hotel’s ice bucket. It’s funny, but it feels forced, and it relies more on being gross than The Office should have to.

The show has got a lot of balls in the air with Jim’s promotion and the coming baby. Starting new threads like Andy and Erin’s romance and Michael hooking up with Pam’s mom is a little more than viewers can handle. Take it slow, wrap up the threads and see where the show goes. Just stop pushing it.

Thursday’s episode had all of the discomfort The Office is known for, but none of the punctuating humor. The idea that anyone can turn into Michael is interesting, and probably valid, but it undermines the show’s premise. Michael was always a suit and tie, unable to cope with social realities or tough decisions. The lack of depth is what made him funny. He was a caricature, and the writers’ ability to flesh him out over the seasons was a testament to their skill. Caricature is at the heart of all the show’s characters. Only Jim and Pam are fully dimensional. The viewer is supposed to connect with them, and laugh while they struggle with being the smartest people in the room.

The collective intelligence must be dragging them down. Jim was naive to think that his move to give salespeople raises wouldn’t be construed as favoritism. It was also naive to think that talking straight with his co-workers, now employees, would work. He used to think they were all idiots. Now he’s one, too.

Pam isn’t any better. Her most prominent roles in the show are fretting over eating a donut, asking people for money and squealing at her new name, Mrs. Pam Halpert. She’s becoming a stereotype, just like Jim. They’re beginning to fit in with their co-workers. Without their sarcasm, the show has lost its spunk. This week’s episode was awkward, boring and mildly annoying. Just like any other day at the office.

That left the funny up to the ensemble cast. Toby and Dwight’s faux-film noir chase to prove Darryl was lying about his worker’s comp provided the most of the high moments. Even Michael’s crude attempt to ask Oscar, the show’s only gay character, how to make a colonoscopy more “pleasurable” couldn’t live up to Toby smashing his head on Dwight’s dashboard. Darryl’s doppelganger sister was an excellent addition, and added a little dimension to Darryl, one of the show’s better characters.

The wedding prep was another necessary but dull plot point, paving the way to Pam and Jim’s Niagara Falls wedding without giving any laughs. Meredith is so tragic her crassness stops feeling like a joke and more like the sad truth. Pam and Jim are best when they can play off of each other, and keeping them separate for the entire episode sucked the fun out of it.

Good thing Dwight was there with a well-placed scream to provide a closing laugh.

Also: can we get a decent prank? C’mon, Jim, hit us with something. Two episodes in and there’s still nothing memorable.

The second season starts off full-tilt in “Vows.” Time did not stop to wait for the viewer during the past two months. Instead, we’re expected to play catch-up and connect-the-dots, figuring out Paul Ballard’s new position, Topher’s growing conscious and Dr. Saunders’ growing paranoia. The good doctor seemed at peace with the realization that she was a doll at the end of last season. But the reality of not being real has worn on her. Her thoughts are Topher’s desire, so she thinks, and fighting her own mind is making her fracture. As she says, “My entire existence was constructed by a sociopath in a sweater vest. What do you suggest I do?”

The Dr. Saunders plot line is a good sign of the ensemble cast Dollhouse is trying to create. One person’s struggle for identity is an interesting show, but a world of people struggling for identity — dolls and actual — is compelling on a level much higher than television. Knowing the ends of the stories, and watching for the beginning of a breakdown, is less entertaining and more satisfying. Dollhouse is becoming the kind of show that makes viewers question their reality, not just the show’s.

That’s why it was nice to see the heady philosophy cut by a reference to that lonely soul Tempura Joe, a client who enjoyed being turned into tempura by Echo. Because humor is a part of identity too.

The rest of the episode is equally unsophisticated, and equally funny. Michael decides to falsify rumors about everyone in the office in order to hide the rumor he told about Stanley having an affair. It’s a simple construct that opens the way for gay jokes and fat jokes. But it’s also Michael at his most Michael. He finds out he’s hurt someone and tries haphazardly to fix it. It’s a little too smart to be believable, but it’s funny enough to carry the episode.

One of Michael’s “false” rumors is that Pam is pregnant, picking up from the end of last season. Jim and Pam have decided not to tell anyone to avoid shotgun marriage rumors. Their relationship is as touching as ever, proving that the show is entertaining even with them happily together. They come out to the office so Stanley’s rumor isn’t revealed as the true rumor, giving everyone a chance to see the ultrasound. Their current happiness is still touching and funny, but it’s hard to say where the show will go once a marriage happens and a baby is introduced. People become a lot less quippy when their sleep is constantly interrupted.

The bright spot of the episode was the interns. They replaced Ryan for the episode, bringing the outsider, “smartest person in the room” perspective. It’s always refreshing to see the characters through a stranger’s eyes. As the show has gone on, Pam and Jim have become insiders as well, and they aren’t able to give the same detached view of the office that they once did. The ending bit about what they learned at the internship and the actors’ names Michael called them was a nice cap of straight wit from people who can tell the emperor has no clothes.

Mike Judge, left, in the director’s chair. Photo courtesy of Allied Integrated Marketing.

Mike Judge scored his first big hit with two unfortunate-looking teenage boys watching bad music videos and hitting dogs with baseball bats in Beavis and Butt-Head. Such an auspicious start can only lead to great things. Like four homely middle-aged men drinking beer and watching their alley on King of the Hill. Judge’s work in animation led him to try working with real actors, who admittedly looked slightly less revolting. Office Space was a slow-burning hit, responsible for endless amounts of flair and satiric takes on cubicle culture (pretty sure he’s to blame for Michael Scott). The follow-up, Idiocracy, was an equally bright and commercially ignored film, which fell almost instantly into the mysterious world of cult classics. In Extract, Judge takes on blue-collar culture and suburban living in the same way he tore apart life in front of the photocopier — with sharp wit and an empathetic eye. He sat down to talk with North by Northwestern about his new film and his ‘90s mentality.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that your movies had a hand in defining the ‘90s. Is Extract an attempt to squeak into the ‘00s?

Well I started writing it around 2000, so maybe I’m still stuck in the ‘90s. In fact, I kind of see the movie as set in ’99 or 2000, because that’s when I started writing it. There’s a lot of landline use and stuff like that. Maybe it’s an attempt to be stuck in the ‘90s.

Music has always played a big role in your work. How did you go about picking the songs for Extract?

You know, music’s really important to me, and sometimes I’m thinking of the music even before, at the writing stage or at the editing stage. This one, it started to come together when I was prepping the movie. I tried a lot of different music. This one, we did it on a tight budget, and what’s always happened is, like on Office Space, I’ll get these songs that I love and they’re perfect and then you find out the cost. “Oh, that one’s going to be $80,000” and then you can’t afford it. This one, I put in all this music, and then I was just bracing myself for the long battle. And then one day I said, “What’s going on with the music anyway, have we heard back?” “Oh, it’s all, we cleared it all.” [Laughs] and I had all these backup choices that I was going to try. And then, it was the easiest thing ever.

Do you hear songs that you feel like you sort of have to write a sequence for, or do you pick songs to fit the movie?

Yes, it’s a little bit of both. Sometimes, like on Office Space, there was that Ice Cube song, “Down for Whatever,” it’s called, when they’re copying the disk. I’d always imagined, when I’d hear that I’d imagine that sequence, something where it’s a very simple thing, but make it look like it’s a big deal. And then, like the Geto Boys’ song, “Still,” which is in the printer smashing, that’s another one. This one, like the Johnny Paycheck song at the beginning of the movie, I thought about that a lot, with this movie.

Two of the main characters, Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis, are famous for their television shows. Were you familiar with those shows before you cast them?

With Jason, yeah, definitely. I’d seen him in other stuff, where he’s more of a character actor, which he’s really great at. But when I saw Arrested Development, I thought he’d be perfect for this. He’s just one of those guys that, it’s fun to watch him react to people and to see him being put-upon and it’s funny to watch him be frustrated and all that. And then Mila, I hadn’t seen a lot of That ‘70s Show, but actually it was when I saw her in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that’s where I thought she’d be great for this.

Yeah, I was going to say, there are a lot of similarities between Jason Bateman’s character in this movie and in Arrested Development. How did you go about differentiating Joel from Michael Bluth?

Well I started writing this back in 2000, so I didn’t, there was a moment where thought, maybe it’s going to be too similar, but then I thought, maybe that’s not a bad thing. I mean, I think the tone of this is different than Arrested Development. At some point I actually stopped watching the DVDs of Arrested Development, because I didn’t want to find myself ripping this off, and I wanted to just focus on this. So I didn’t consciously find things to differentiate, I just kind of focused on what I had started writing and just imagined Jason playing this guy.

Historically your characters are underachievers. Was it a difficult transition to write for someone who has accomplished a lot in his life?

Oh, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that. This is the first time I, well, I had always been an employee. I’d had dozens of jobs, and always found it hard to get motivated. And when Beavis and Butt-Head happened, suddenly I went from never having anyone working for me to having 30 to as many as 90 people working for me. And I just was suddenly found myself going, “God, these people don’t appreciate anything. You try to be nice to them and they take advantage of you.” And going, “Okay, wait a minute, I’m the boss now. They’re just like I was.” But to me the difference between a boss like this, and what I felt I was in a sense, and somebody who’s, like, the middle management of Office Space — because middle management people they thrive on being in charge because they like being in charge, they like bossing people around. When Beavis and Butt-Head happened, I really do like taking on a big project and seeing it through and steering the ship and all that. That’s a really satisfying thing to do. I don’t get off on just telling people what to do and being a manager for the sake of being a manager. So it wasn’t hard at all for me to imagine this guy who had this idea for a different angle on making extract. I think he really likes that part of it. He doesn’t like the babysitting these people part of it. I had a lot of those kinds of situations when Beavis and Butt-Head became a show.

What was it like to work with Gene Simmons?

You know, he was a total pro. He definitely, like, has a presence about him. When he comes onto the set you know Gene Simmons is on the set. You know, he was totally professional, he’d just do anything you’d ask him to do, he was great. A lot of flirting with the ladies, but that’s just kind of his shtick. I didn’t realize what a huge reality star he was. I was so out of the loop, I thought no one would recognize him without his makeup on, and it would be this really unique thing.

Do you think Beavis and Butt-Head would be proud of you for working with Gene Simmons?

They probably wouldn’t be proud of me no matter what.

All of your movies seem to reach cult status pretty quickly. What do you think is going to be the case for Extract?

I don’t know. I try not to predict those things. I’m never trying to make a cult movie. The Beavis and Butt-Head movie was a big commercial movie, and then I’ve had people say that’s a cult movie too. No, I’ll take anything I can get. If people like the movie at all, on any level, I’m happy. It’s actually been probably the sweetest thing in my career that Office Space ended up finding a big audience, selling all these DVDs and making a lot of money and making Fox want a sequel. Because that was, of all of them, I mean, that was the one I had to really fight hard to get the way I wanted. My successful things have been animated, King of the Hill and the Beavis and Butt-Head movie. Everyone thought that I didn’t know what I was doing. And then when it came out and didn’t do well it was like, “See? you should’ve…” So it was kind of hard to take when it didn’t do well, because I just felt like I’d let everybody down. So then to have it just gradually keep building was so nice.

How many staplers have you signed over the years?

Boy, a lot lately. A few hundred, maybe? That was another really cool thing, because Swingline didn’t make a red stapler. I wanted it to be red so it was show up just color-wise in the cubicle. And Swingline ended up getting so many calls to try to buy them, and then people were making fake ones on eBay, and now they make red staplers. It’s really cool.

Do you think that Extract will bring attention to blue-collar workers the same way Office Space did to white collar workers?

I don’t know, I mean, I just wanted to make a similar kind of movie, because I think the blue-collar workplace has its own unique set of characters the way cubicles do. When I was first starting to write this, a friend of mine, who’d been a musician forever, started working in a parts warehouse, and he was just describing, “Oh, there’s this woman, and she just sits on her stool and shakes her head at everybody and she’s got a Tweety Bird T-shirt and a fanny pack.” And I was just like, “Oh my god, I know exactly, I know that woman. I can’t pinpoint, I’ve seen that woman 100 times in my life, but I don’t know exactly where.” And to me, that’s kind of what a lot of these characters, they’re like, I’ll take some little tidbit and then just imagine something and it just feels familiar.

One last question: Have you ever played frog baseball?

I have not, no. I heard a guy say, “Oh, we used to go down there, we used to play frog baseball.” And I was like, does he mean what I thought he meant? And then I asked him and he was like “Oh yeah.” I think in Texas and a lot of places in the country, after a rain sometimes you’ll get tons of frogs.

Frog Baseball, Judge’s first animation hit.

J.K. Simmons (left) and Jason Bateman (right) in Extract. Photo courtesy of Miramax Film Corp.

Mike Judge has a knack for creating characters that are intimately familiar. Anyone who hung out in the parking lot after high school knows a Beavis or a Butt-Head. Anyone who’s worked in a cubicle has met Milton. The characters Judge creates draw people into his movies, past their flaws and into their lives.

Extract accomplishes much of this. The characters are instantly recognizable, in the most cringe-inducing way possible. The scrunchie-haired woman in a fanny pack and kitten sweater? Yeah, she would have a teddy bear in a tutu on her purse.

Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of a factory that makes bottled extracts. Fans of Arrested Development will appreciate his reactions to his feckless employees and friends. He is a put-upon man, with an unsatisfying marriage and a company he’s trying desperately to sell. Cindy (Mila Kunis) appears to be the solution to his first problem, a hot stranger with three buttons undone that shows up to scam anyone and everyone she can. The movie is similar to Office Space: Joel tries to get the girl while figuring out his purpose as a creator of extract. But instead of driving the action with a plan to embezzle company funds and smash photocopiers, Joel is listening to his moron friend Dean (Ben Affleck) and digging himself deeper into accidental drug use and poorly-planned schemes (the two of which being not unrelated).

It’s Extract’s similarities to Office Space that make the movie funny, but it’s the differences that make the movie compelling. The perfectly soundtracked scenes and slo-mo sequences are undeniably great, and the giant bong hits are sure to crack up Apatow fans looking for slightly less sophisticated humor. Plus, you know, a guy loses his ball. Comedy gold.

But Judge has spent the past nearly two decade writing for losers. It’s a new game to see him tackle the boss’s perspective — a self-started and successful Joel — and take on the boneheaded employees, but it reveals the same thing. Joel’s not much less of a loser than Butt-Head; he may be more of one, since he’s incapable of saying what he’s thinking. All of the characters are complex and hysterical, and it would take a three-hour director’s cut to give them all the face time they deserve. But it’s Joel that viewers are rooting for, even when he’s being, objectively, a moron and a jerk. Judge’s ensembles are full of better characters than most movies’ leads, but he still manages to have one person stick out. It’s the reason Office Space did better on DVD sales than it did in theaters. He writes the kind of characters that people want to sit around on the couch with.

Grade: A

Bottom Line: Extract is so good, we kind of forgot about the Arrested Development movie. Kind of.

Jeffery Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Photo courtesy of www.IMDb.com

Bottom line: Who watches the Watchmen? Hopefully no one.
Grade: C-

For a generation of comic book fans, Watchmen defined the medium. Sidestepping the camp and POW! of most superhero sagas, Alan Moore brought a new depth and relevance to his heroes. These weren’t masked avengers fighting arch-nemeses. These were people fighting people, a small group of protectors trying to save humanity from itself. Everything was relatable, in the truly frightening way that makes readers do a double-take on the depravity of human nature. Watchmen gave a nation of nerds what they needed — validation. Through it, comic books became legitimate, a form of art and literature instead of mindless children’s entertainment. Watchmen is the reason comic books are called graphic novels.

That’s why it’s such a shame Watchmen was turned into a comic book movie. Recent hits like Iron Man belie the long history of movie misses that continue to haunt comic book fans. Every cheesy comic book movie chips away a little bit of the credibility built up by Watchmen and other graphic novels. Taking the best of the genre and bringing it down to the level of a movie is like remixing Beethoven. It hurts everyone.

The frustrating thing is that the movie is more or less faithful to the book. The costumes are amazing. Seeing Rorschach’s ever-changing mask in motion was a high point of the movie. The casting is great. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the Comedian full of pathos and tragedy and Billy Crudup plays the superhuman Dr. Manhattan with the complete lack of emotion the character requires. Artistically, director Zach Snyder uses slow motion to match the effect of panels in a comic book, even going so far as to recreate panels exactly. The camera doesn’t shy away from sex and violence, showing things fully the way the book does. The plot is followed closely. Even large chunks of the dialogue made it through relatively unscathed. So why does it still kind of suck?

The short answer is because Watchmen wasn’t meant to be a movie. You can’t hold a movie in your hands, rereading pages and soaking in the art. You won’t get weird looks for reading it at the lunch table. You don’t have to seek it out. Comic books are a niche medium, where readers expect to find meaning and seriousness behind the silly costumes. Watchmen isn’t a blockbuster with a best-of-the-‘70s soundtrack. It is a comic book, the best comic book, and translating it into anything else sacrifices its meaning and its importance.

Simply send in a picture of your cat, dog, tortoise, horse, Chia pet or whatever else you feed and house, along with your name and your pet’s name. The mold growing in your refrigerator doesn’t count; pets who live at your parents’ house do count.

All submissions are due to pets@northbynorthwestern.com by Friday, March 6. We’ll post all photos Monday of Reading Week for your perusing pleasure. Vote for your favorite pets’ pics, and we’ll compile the best pets of Northwestern. So the next time you say, “My dog is totally the cutest,” you’ll know you’re right.