You are a jackass

Watching the new Jackass number 2 had us thinking back to the original, the one that started it all, so we decided to revisit that cinematic milestone: Jackass.

I remember going to see the first one in the theater and feeling almost a little ashamed, "Am I really going to go see this?" "Do I really want to open that door?"

Yeah, yeah, what's the big deal. And really there is none. It is gross-out movie meets documentary. It is a 2-hour high-quality, fast paced, best of College Humor. It is a darker, voyeuristic, slightly sadistic side of ourselves, our inner skate-jock.

Hey, we've all had those friends who we hang out with just to see them do something stupid (like blow up a section of the woods behind their house, drink 3 liters of soda underwater, zap themselves with a tazer gun... And sometimes we are that person who accidently gets a mouthful of bong-water because they don't know how a bong even works.

So really jackass is nothing shocking (ok, some of it was a little shocking) but it is all in good, guilty pleasured fun.

Ebert refused to review the jackass movie (because it is un-reviewable) but he did watch it and acknowledge it. He made an interesting point when he compared it to "real" Hollywood movies where characters pretend to be afraid of special effects monsters, while Steve-O dangles from a tightrope terrified of real alligators waiting below him.

Yeah, you get the idea that they over-play some of the falls and pain reactions (like the opposite of faking an orgasm) but you can't deny that they are getting shot by riot guns and they are really vomiting up their own pee that they just ate.

Maybe not my finest hour but not an hour wasted. It holds your attention (the movies are actually edited and paced very well, and usually leave you wanting more follow up). The Jackasses are the crazy guys who do the stuff you would never do but would encourage (or dare) your friends to do.