The Rundown: The ‘Jackass’ Movies Are Cinema

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

I won’t pretend to be the first or only person with a WordPress login to claim that the Jackass movies represent one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of American cinema. That argument has been made many times by many people who are much smarter than I am. It is true, though, and I will happily remain a member of that bandwagon.

If I’m being honest here (and why would I lie on Johnny Knoxville’s internet), my appreciation of it all has changed over the years. At first, even before the TV show, back in the CKY days when it was just Bam Margera and friends tearing apart West Chester, it was just something I would watch while drinking cheap beer with a group of fellow idiots. And it is still that in many ways. It is mostly that. Watch this trailer for Jackass Forever and tell me I’m wrong.

But it’s also, like… perfect It’s kind of perfect. It says more about 21st century America than half of the movies that have won awards in that period. You could make a compelling argument — and I will, especially after a few of those cheap beers — that it is a more worthy addition to a time capsule from this era than, like, Argo or The Departed. It captures the vibe of a subset of the culture as accurately as any piece of art ever has. There’s a whole underlying statement there about suburban malaise and young men attempting to cope with a rapidly changing society, none of which anyone involved intended to make, I imagine. It’s true, though. In a just and fair world, it gets nominated for Best Documentary at next year’s ceremony. This is not hyperbole.

It is also, to be clear, a movie franchise in which a softball pitcher whizzes a heater straight into a dude’s beanbag to the great delight of his buddies.

Put 10,000 comedy writers in a huge room and give them all the energy drinks and time you want, they will still not come up with anything that makes me laugh harder than this. It’s the jimmie-walloping of it, to be sure, but it’s also the self-satisfied fist pump and the thing where a graying Johnny Knoxville leaps into the frame in celebration while wearing a cardigan. There are layers here. But it’s mostly the thing where the guy got rocked in the junk. I say this as someone who has degrees from college and law school. I feel okay about it.

And then there’s this moment from the trailer, which is lovely in motion but somehow even better as a still image.

That is art. I’m not kidding. It’s kind of beautiful in a way. It sums up everything they’re doing and everything they represent and even, to some degree, the futility of mankind trying to control the natural world. It is also an image of a 49-year-old man getting launched ass-to-the-heavens by a bull for the enjoyment of a nation of doofuses. Art can be more than one thing. This is what they mean by that whole “eye of the beholder” thing.

Jackass is good. It has always been good. Do not try to think yourself out of that. Whether you enjoy it for the simple reasons or the deeper reasons, or you use the deeper reasons to justify the simple reasons, the point is that there’s very little there not to enjoy. Put it in the Smithsonian. It will help future generations understand us in a painfully clear way. As all good art should.

The feud between The Rock and Vin Diesel brings me an amount of joy that borders on unreasonable. I can’t explain it. It just makes me happy to know that these big beefy dudes get so mad at the mere thought of each other that they could spit right there on the floor. It’s been going on for years now, too, dating back to the filming of The Fate of the Furious in 2016 when The Rock dropped this nuke in the caption of an Instagram post.

“My female co-stars are always amazing and I love ’em. My male co-stars however are a different story. Some conduct themselves as stand up men and true professionals, while others don’t. The ones that don’t are too chicken sh-t to do anything about it anyway. Candy asses.”

Things, as they sometimes do, spiraled from there. The Rock was spun off with Jason Statham for Hobbs & Shaw, Tyrese got emotional about it all on social media, and everyone started lobbing little passive-aggressive sticks of dynamite back and forth. It was great. And now the franchise is sending characters into outer space and The Rock is off making action movies based on rides at Disney World, which all feels kind of correct, cosmically. It’s fine. I refuse to choose sides. I just want them to bicker in the press forever.

All of which has made this a wonderful summer for me. The press bickering has been incredible. First, Vin Diesel spoke to Men’s Health for a profile to promote F9 and said one of the most flabbergasting things I’ve ever read. Speaking about The Rock’s performance and their subsequent issues, he said, “I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”

Just incredible. I really think he believes that, too. Vin Diesel thinks he’s making art with the Fast & Furious movies, to the degree he thinks they should contend for Oscars. It is endlessly fascinating to me. Someone it is less fascinating to, on the other hand, is The Rock, who had this to say while promoting Jungle Cruise with Emily Blunt.

When asked about Diesel’s comments, Johnson says, “I laughed and I laughed hard. I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me.” Blunt can’t resist extending the moment. “Just thank God he was there,” she says of Diesel. “Thank God. He carried you through that.” “Felliniesque,” Johnson says.

A few notes here:

Actually, no. Disregard that last bullet point. I can’t risk these two making up and taking this feud away from me. I need it to burn forever. I need it to rage under the surface like the mine fires in Centralia. I do not ask for much.

— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) July 19, 2021

I don’t have much to add here. I don’t see why I should add much anyway. Gillian Anderson, star of The X-Files and now Netflix’s Sex Education, logged into her Twitter account and posted a screenshot of a teapot that looks like a penis and testicles and then added the hashtag #PenisOfTheDay. There is nothing not to like about this. And it got even better because, if you click on that hashtag, you will see dozens of people sending her images of Jeff Bezos’s phallic rocketship. Gillian Anderson is good at social media. That’s what I’m trying to say here.

Speaking of women who are good at social media and like to have fun, let’s check in with 75-year-old Dolly Parton.