“From a vanity standpoint, it makes you feel a bit old to have a person from your generation on the presidential ticket,” said the actor Johnny Knoxville, 41, of “Jackass” fame. “And it’s embarrassing that it’s Paul Ryan. I wonder if The Germs ever felt this way about having Belinda Carlisle as their first drummer.”
Ouch!
I think two things can safely be said of this quip: First, that Paul Ryan has already, or will soon hear of it. And second, that Germs ref will sail right over Ryan’s pointed little head…
Small Apartments focuses in on the small lives lived inside of a run-down Los Angeles apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks. Little Britain‘s Matt Lucas is both creepy and sympathetic in his stellar performance as the eccentric Franklin Franklin, an underwear-clad Swiss alphorn-playing weirdo who accidentally kills his horrible landlord (Fargo‘s Peter Stormare). Franklin adores his handsome, charismatic older brother (James Marsden) who lives in a mental institution and sends him daily letters, cassette tapes of his rantings and ravings, and fingernail clippings. One day when no letter arrives, Franklin panics and goes to investigate what’s happened to his sibling.
Franklin’s soda bottle-filled apartment is flanked by his neighbors, Tommy Balls, a ne’er do well stoner liquor store worker (a terrific Johnny Knoxville) and Mr. Allspice, a bitter, divorced painter who moved into the building and just never left (James Caan). Neither can stand freaky Franklin or his annoying alphorn playing.
The cast is rounded out with a wonderfully nuanced performance by Billy Crystal as a world-weary fire investigator and a spray-tanned Dolph Lundgren, unexpectedly hilarious as an egotistical pop psychologist who preaches the gospel of “brain brawn.” Juno Temple plays an aspiring teen stripper with dreams of Vegas who lives in the building and the always pitch-perfect Amanda Plummer shares awkward/sweet screen time with Knoxville as Tommy Balls’ worried mother.
Director Jonas Åkerlund is practically a legend for his music video work (Madonna’s “Ray of Light,” Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up,” Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” and dozens of other iconic clips) and known for his meticulous eye, strong art direction, innovative camerawork and clever edits. The slow-moving Small Apartments, is, as the title implies a small film, but one that sports an impressive A-list cast and, despite the Coen Brothers-esque darkness of the plot,an ultimately uplifting message.
The screenplay was written by Chris Millis and adapted from his own novella, which won the 23rd Annual International 3 Day Novel-Writing Contest in 2000. With a haunting soundtrack courtesy of Swedish composer Per Gessel.
Last night Tara and I attended the Hollywood premiere of Jackass 3-D at Graumann’s Chinese Theater, and, predictably, we laughed our fucking heads off.
With a four-year absence in cinemas since their last outing, the advent of widespread 3-D movie screens has provided some irresistibly low-hanging fruit for the Jackass gang, and unsurprisingly, they went all out with it (bodily fluids, bodily, uh, solids, and projectile dildoes make several star turns). The ante has been upped considerably in this installment. Think you felt the pain before? Trust me, it’s TEN TIMES more visceral when someone gets whacked in the nuts in 3-D. Ten times more painful, ten times grosser and tens times funnier.
Not that they’ve altered their classic crowd-pleasing formula all that much, it’s more that the 3-D technology takes their cartoony Buster Keaton meets Tom & Jerry antics to a different level, not to mention pain threshold. They’ve also grabbed the gross-out factor knob and cranked it (much) higher than ever before. Sure, I’ve felt queasy watching past Jackass shenanigans, but there was one point in Jackass 3-D where I (literally) found myself reaching for the popcorn bag to puke in (I didn’t but it was a very close call). Not that I minded, it’s what I came for, I’m just thankful they didn’t use John Water’s “Odorama” gimmick for this one.
Let there be no doubt, Jackass 3-D is a berserk and hog-wild nihilistic joyride, taking the audience places that they would NEVER, EVER want to visit in real life. The whole 3-D thing normally leaves me cold, but to truly appreciate the genius comedic craftsmanship behind the cheerful insanity of Jackass 3-D, you really do have to see this one in the cinema. I’m already a huge fan, but last night I was continuously wiping the tears of laughter from my 3-D glasses. This film is going to be a huge, huge hit.
Jackass 3-D opens this weekend. It’s already a part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Below an interview I conducted with Johnny Knoxville in 2008.
