Sheer Genius

I finally saw a movie in the theaters this weekend. I couldn't believe it. After many false starts, I found myself sitting down in the Burbank Town Centre AMC 8. Not bad, but not that great either. But it didn't matter, because what was unspooled before me was pure and utter brilliance.

I speak of Jackass Number Two.

Much like "Snakes on a Plane", you pretty much know if Jackass the second is the movie for you. If you don't like seeing grown men doing some of the more brilliant yet unbelievably dumb things ever captured on celluloid (or digital video then transferred to celluloid, only to return to a digital format in about 4 months). If human feces and vomit are not your viscera of choice, go on and see something with ponies in it. (Although with the horse semen drank in this film, ponies might be in short supply).

Yeah, you read that properly.

There's no plot, it's just stupid pranks, usually meant to torture one another for everyone's amusement. And for ones that don't work so well, or produce far too much vomit, all you have to do is wait a few minutes, and something brilliant will come along. My personal favorite stunts involved the note left for the Jackass guys in the hotel room, the beehive limo complete with marbles, the mine, the card thrower,the anaconda ball pit, and the bungee jump. There are far too many stunts, and everything I try to recall, I just wind up laughing harder. Seriously, I laughed so hard in this movie I burst a teste.

And this is the exact kind of movie that would take that blurb and run it with pride.

The sheer genius of the picture comes from the boys themselves. They're so damn charismatic, that you want them to continue doing these things to themselves for your benefit. The fact that they have top the last stunt in sheer ridiculousness (or audacity, or top it in sheer disgust) proves that there's a little more going on in their heads then it appears. Most of it hidden behind the shit eating grin of Bam Margera, who's never one to turn down torturing his friends and loved ones. (His family actually gets off a little easy this time around). Some of the one-upmanship to exact revenge on Margera is brilliant. Or, as Ryan Dunn puts it after branding Margera (I'll leave it to your imagination what was branded and where) "It was funny."

Of course, the genius could come from that when in doubt, you can hit someone in the balls. Pure comedy.

But the very fact that Steve-O is not only willing, but PROUD AS HELL, to place a leech on his eyeball deserves at least a nomination for the Nobel.

UPDATE: Sadly, Steve-O did NOT win the Nobel. I found this to be a serendipitous moment.