JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA - 1 nomination

JACKASS PRESENTS: BAD GRANDPA

Makeup and Hairstyling - Stephen Prouty

When my sons, my brother, and my husband wanted to see this movie, I said, "go on without me, it's not like this is a candidate for an Oscar nomination."  

And then it happened.  

I'm not a complete prude - I could see the humor in Borat and other staged/real life films. I would hardly call this genre a personal favorite, mostly because it goes for the most prurient humor, and then it sinks a little further; nothing is too ridiculous to try.  To explain a bit more clearly, there are a handful of actors "in on the joke" and they interact with regular people in the real world, acting more and more outrageously to see how they react.

But ok, it got a nom so it got me.  

If I'm being completely honest, I actually did laugh out loud at a handful of scenes in the film.  The story is simple - a grandpa takes responsibility for his grandson when the boy's mother is taken to jail.  The boy is pretty cute and he clearly has some sort of earpiece so that he can say the things that will garner the greatest reactions.  Johnny Knoxville (as the grandpa), too, does and says the most outrageous things to prompt a reaction.  We know that the pranked people have to sign releases in order to appear in the film, so for me, the best part of the movie were the outtakes at the end in which everyone comes clean to the folks they've tricked, and for the most part, the reactions are good natured and understanding.  It's kind of amazing.

But, if you're like me and you're seriously over this genre, this film is a big pass.  But what of the nomination?  At first, I was pretty unimpressed - shall I spend a dozen pages where I list all of the movies that have taken a young person and aged that person with makeup and hairstyle?  It's been done.  And done.  And done.  So what makes this worthy of an Oscar nomination?  I was mostly stumped until my husband reminded me that both had to be so convincing that they would not only play on the big screen where you can make all sorts of camera and lighting adjustments to achieve the illusion, but also had to play in real life where someone standing right next to Johnny Knoxville would be fooled into thinking that he was an elderly 86 year-old man.  

So, ok, I won't begrudge the nomination, but I still won't recommend the film.  

Havent's seen the film?
Watch the Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Movie Trailer