Actually Never

Since the last update, the only Oscar nominee I’ve seen is Conclave. It was the kind of movie I wouldn’t have sought out for myself but maybe should as it was very good. Had a surprising number of turtles.

The Oscars are a lot closer than I realized and I don’t think I’m going to get to all of the Best Picture nominees in time. Doesn’t help that I spend my free time on movies like this that were unfairly overlooked by the Academy.

What I knew

A fair bit; I’d seen the three previous Jackass movies and various clips of the TV show. For at least two of those movies, I went to the theatre with my friends Dave and Rob. And twice, Rob left the theatre partway through and we later found him laying down in the lobby with a cool cloth on his forehead. He claims it was motion sickness from the shaky camera work but there are lots of things in a Jackass movie that could nauseate a person. I can’t remember if he came to the third movie with us but why would he?

Of all the things that COVID took from us, one of my biggest disappointments was not being able to drive up to Saskatoon to try to bully Rob into going to Jackass Forever.

What I know

I liked this about exactly as much as I expected, though I watched it by myself and these things are always better with a crowd.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the previous movies but I don’t remember them being quite so penis-based. Or at least not where the penises were so frequently displayed. Not offended, just making an observation.

Speaking of penises, Steve-O’s not-beard of bees – merkin of bees maybe? – was especially designed to give me nightmares. Though given my dislike of loud noises and jump scares, I think just being around any of the Jackass people ever would be my own personal Hell.

I liked that there was minimal focus on playing pranks on civilians. That’s never appealed to me. They can sting each other in the lips with scorpions all they want but leave the rest of us out of it.

There are new Jackass people now. I suppose there would have to be. The originals are getting old and one died and Hulk Hogan forgot which one and that was a pretty funny day on Twitter.

Anyway, I have nothing against the new folks but also have no attachment to them. And I don’t know how one generates that attachment now. There’s no TV show anymore and it had been 12 years since the last movie. And as much as I’ll appreciate any opportunity to torture Rob, I don’t know how many more movies you can do without running out of ideas.

I wish Johnny Knoxville had asked if Butterbean was okay after the bull incident.