Jackass: Number Two
by Ryland Walker Knight
When the first JACKASS movie came out in theatres I had zero desire to subject myself to its stupidity and I still haven't seen it. In line for the sequel I was ready to abandon the plan. I thought, This is going to make me sick--I know it. But I was persuaded to stick with it ("It'll be funny!") and despite any weariness of watching so much vomit onscreen I might want to spew in my seat, I was too busy laughing for my gag reflex to take hold. For the most part. There's a couple sequences that made me avert my eyes but even those skits had my laughing seconds later. The movie runs 95 minutes and my stomach was taut for, I'd say, 92 minutes. Sometimes I was recoiling, shocked and appalled, but the absurdity kept me howling. There's a little slack in the middle of the movie and it ends a little late with a near-brilliant (yet mishandled) Busby Berkeley musical number but there's enough in there too keep you giggling and oblivious. And that's probably the best thing about the JACKASS brand: you never have to think, just laugh. The only thing I kept mental tabs on was how often the cast was naked, or close to. They're a close knit bunch of ridiculous adrenaline junkies getting paid ridiculous salaries to risk death and mutilation for laughs, often at one another's expense. Its immaturity and plain idiocy is easily forgotten, though, once those laughs start piling up in this oddball monster movie that, in the end, is some kind of masterpiece.
02006: 95 minutes: dir. Jeff Tremaine: "written" by Sean Cliver and Preston Lacy
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Well, quit keeping me in supsense...what was the final tally?
ReplyDeleteHow many times was the cast naked?
I need to know.
Well, the first scene involves Chris Pontius feeding his dick to a pet snake so that should give you a pretty good idea of where it's headed.
ReplyDeleteJackass is the one of a handful of works distributed by Ho'wood and indiewood that will actually endure. Nobody will remember Gridiron Gang, but horse semen is forever.
ReplyDeleteOh you McSweeney's satirists, you tickle me so. Seriously: Did Nathan Lee really think we would buy his dada comparison? It's a well written essay, as usual, but c'mon, they may appeal to surealists but they are no band of merry intellectuals off to inspire in-depth theory slanging. They just want to laugh as much as possible. And lucky for us, they want us to laugh too.
ReplyDelete