The boys are back. A little older, and, pretty much exactly just as confused. I review Jackass 3D at MSN Movies.
UPDATE: Slate’s Dana Stevens is a nice person and an often sharp writer, but sweet you-know-who on a stick, my eyeballs almost permanently rolled into the back of my head when I read the lede of her review of the film under consideration here: “When I was pregnant, I was afraid of having a boy.” Okay. Thanks for sharing. But first off, there’s the Casey Kasem “these guys are from England…” provision at work here. But it gets better: “It wasn’t that I didn’t like little boys, but there was something about them that felt alien to me…” And perhaps that’s as it should be. Funny, though, how getting pregnant usually works, huh? What a world!
But anyway, rather than get angry, I thought maybe it would be fun to come up with a list of movies for which the lede “When I was pregnant, I was afraid of having a boy” would be equally, erm, appropriate. So far I’ve got the entirety of Hal Roach’s Our Gang shorts, Wild Boys of the Road, Dirty Harry, Helter Skelter (that’s a TV movie, does it count?), Citizen Kane, Carlos. There have got to be a few more, I’m sure, ar ar ar. What I’m really waiting for is the male film critic who’ll have the balls to kick off a review by writing, “When I knocked up my wife, I sure as shit didn’t want her to have a fucking girl.”
From the screencap, the movie looks like Easy Rider meets James Bond!!!
By the way, stumbled on your blog, and must say this is a great place you have here.
Okay, I am laughing, and laughing hard, especially at the last sentence. But Glenn, based on my brief encounter with the first Jackass, I sympathize with her. She’s suffered enough. Randall Jarrell said a male reader might put down The Man Who Loved Children and ask, “Ought I to be a man?” And if Christina Stead’s masterpiece could work Randall Jarrell into that kind of emotional state, I do think Jackass in fucking 3D could make a person look at an infant boy and seriously consider raising him on Max Ophuls and John Donne and not letting him outside until he’s 38.
@ The Siren: It’s funny; when “Jackass” the series started, I got almost exactly as huffy and enraged and probably EVEN MORE pious about it, and I don’t know exactly when I was able to lighten up about it or how, but I did. I guess part of it was remembering my own (very slight) involvement in “Beyond Vaudeville,” which had a similar crass-boy attitude but was a lot more…intellectual about it (nobody on that show let a staple gun go near his scrotum, unless they were a guest, maybe). The paradox is, this particular kind of humor really IS a “guy” thing, but I think that using that fact as a cudgel to condemn males or maleness is kind of counterproductive, in the same way that it would be to characterize that awful Trenton woman who mocked a dying girl on Facebook as doing something that only women would do would be.
PSYCHO?
What, too obvious?
Buffalo 66
Rosemary’s Baby
Husbands
anything by Kevin Smith
Arthur
La Collectionneuse
Die Hard
BAD BOYS
Straw Dogs
The Virgin Spring
Dog Day Afternoon
This is a good game.
The Omen? Rope? Martin Short in Clifford?
My experience with Jackass pretty much mirrors Glenn’s. Saw the first episode of the TV series and wondered who on earth could possibly be entertained by it. Then I caught the first two movies on DVD and “got” it, especially the second one. I saw Jackass 3D last night with a packed audience and had a grand ol’ time. I think part of it is the high spirits with which the crew approaches their insane stunts (I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn a few of them are brain damaged).
The current issue of Entertainment Weekly has a very sweet reminiscence by Johnny Knoxville’s mother about raising him and dealing with his chosen profession.
Anything with Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Ashton Kutcher, Dane Cook, Kevin James, Zach Galafianakis or Andy Samberg.
Anything directed by Michael Bay or McG (or for that matter, anyone else who goes by one name).
And anything with a guy in a mask who doesn’t speak and kills everyone in his line of vision.
Eraserhead.
I suppose I should count myself pretty lucky, as I just got back from seeing JACKASS 3D with my wife. And she was almost more into it than I was. There were, however, two old biddies in the back who kept shouting stuff at the screen like: “Don’t they know what’s going to happen?!” and “That guy is so dumb!” Still, they did not walk out.
Warren, if Dana Stevens prayed—which OF COURSE SHE DOES NOT—and if she read this blog and its comments threads (which I very much doubt), she would right now be praying very hard that a), you and your wife do not have any children, male or female, of her Wonder Daughter’s age; that b), you do not live anywhere near the Magical Correct neighborhood in which she and Wonder Daughter dwell; and that c), you two, in fact, NEVER EVER reproduce. Doesn’t that make you feel special?
The biddies kind of have a point. There IS some predictability here. As I mentioned in my own review, the film made me very happy that I don’t hang out with those guys. It’s just like one giant papier mache hand smacking you in the breadbasket, or floppy dildo flying straight at your schnozz, after the other with them. Ouch.
I like how every now and again in the background or periphery of a shot you’ll notice one of the gang instinctively put his hand over his crotch, just in case…
Dana Stevens must be somewhat relieved that few of the Jackass crew are likely to procreate, because of all the nut shots they’ve taken.