You thought the Oscar-nominated pig "Babe" was the most boaring film of 1995?
A fella from New Jersey with a little too much time on his hands begs to differ.Alan Caruba, who started a group called The Boring Institute in 1984 while watching a parade, keeps track of such things and found the movies of 1995 boring beyond belief.
Of course, his intentions are to spoof our cluttered media culture just as he contributes to it by drawing the attention of media worldwide. Including this one. Needless to say, he's a public relations consultant.
This year Caruba pronounced the film "Congo" the most boring action-drama ("a new low"); the Mel Brooks film "Dracula - Dead and Loving It" the most boring comedy ("I'm old enough to remember when Mel Brooks was funny"); and the Paul Verhoeven-Joe Ezterhas collaboration "Showgirls" the most boring sex film ("You'd have had more fun if you'd gone bowling").
His choices are based on what he calls "the squirm and ick factor." The squirm factor "has to do with having to sit through a film which is going on interminably" and the ick factor comes into play when a film "suddenly presents you with something appalling."
The Boring Institute is an organization of one and an institution in name only.
It all started in 1984 when Caruba observed that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade always looked the same.
So he sent out a press release claiming that research done by The Boring Institute, "which I literally invented on the spot," discovered that parade was actually on videotape and that the same tape was aired year after year. The wire services picked up the joke and "I knew I had an instant hit," Caruba said from his Maplewood, N.J., digs.
He followed it later that year with a list of the most boring celebrities of the year.
Last year's list was topped by O.J. Simpson, Kato Kaelin and Johnnie Cochran.
There is no public survey. Caruba is a jury of one. But he is not one of those media hoaxsters who creates false stories to point out the media's gullibility.
"We're not a hoax in that we're misleading the media," Caruba said. "We're commenting on media trends using humor. That's why I think we receive such a warm welcome from the media. The media knows better than anybody that they are devoting large portions of newsprint and their newscasts to stuff that may not be of primary interest to people."
Over the years, Caruba has received thousands of letters from people asking him how to deal with boredom.
He used his journalism background to research boredom and found there was a connection between "boredom and a host of personal and social problems. It's an early stage of depression, a warning sign, particularly among teenagers, of potential suicide."
Caruba has published a book entitled "Beating Boredom: Ten Secrets to Avoid Boredom," available for $3.50 from The Boring Institute, Box 40, Maplewood, N.J. 07040.
No hoax.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)