Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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A Weak, Silly Premise Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa(Rated by HEATHER GRIFFITHS R) Generally, I am ready to go and watch just about any movie out there. I watch the stuff I don't review on my own time, the longer films, the more dramatic films, the films I think it would be harder to review. However, every so often I'm forced to sit through a movie I am pretty sure I'm not going to like and would never seek out on my own to watch. A few years ago that film was Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, and I was pleasantly surprised. Borat managed to rise above its sketch-comedy source material and cross boundaries in a very effective way. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (92 minutes), on the other hand, fulfilled my low expectations of the hidden-camera reality genre, the star and the adolescent comedy it celebrated. For half a second, watching the previews that featured the child beauty pageant skewering scenes, I thought I might find something to enjoy in Johnny Knoxville's beyond tired shtick. Within minutes of the first scene I knew how wrong I was. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of all the leftover Halloween candy that awaited me after I spent what felt like four hours watching a 90-minute movie. Stylistically, the film relied on the hidden camera style of Knoxville's Jackass television show. I found it obnoxious then and I continue to think the genre is overrated. I will tolerate shoddy footage in low-budget horror films such as Paranormal Activity; here it seemed both less justified and more mean-spirited. I think Borat used the fake documentary conceit to much better effect in terms of combining quality footage with people responding more realistically to bizarre situations and I think Knoxville could have taken a page from that book while still getting the reactions he wanted. The film opens with a focus on the titular Bad Grandpa, Irving Zissman (Knoxville, after three hours in a make-up chair). A doctor arrives to tell him his wife Ellie (an unrecognizable Catherine Keener) has died, and he then commiserates with an unknowing bystander. His crude response to the death of his wife results in exactly the kind of disinterested non-reaction that we would expect in polite society — and if you decide to spend money on this, take a minute to consider how many different times they tried to get a good reaction out of the unknowing bystander. I figure they must have spent a few hours hoping to generate some outrage, so if this is the best reaction shot they wasted their time and mine. After some more silliness that results in little humor, the character of Billy the grandchild (Jackson Nicoll) is introduced in a waiting room, talking smack about his mother to the largely disinterested people sitting next to him. The mother (Georgina Cates) takes Billy to his grandpa and insists that he escort her son to his father (Greg Harris) so she can do some jail time. Improbably, this exchange takes place during Ellie's "funeral," and the amount of manipulation required to broadcast the family argument at the services probably tipped off most of the attendees that they were in the middle of some kind of reality show. Anyway, Knoxville continued to waste the time of people who have actual lives and better things to do by soliciting a social worker or something to meet him and Billy in an Internet café to arrange for a custody exchange. Like most of the rest of the film, nothing all that funny happens. Overall, the stand out scene already appeared, almost in its entirety, in the trailers that have been running for months. The Bad Grandpa takes Billy to a child beauty pageant to perform an entirely inappropriate (and yet somehow, strangely apropos) dance to Warrant's "Cherry Pie." However, you have to ask yourself — are the funny five minutes worth the 85 minutes of stupidity that preceded it? Now showing at Wynnsong 7, HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandFair 15. NOVEMBER 16 • SALVATION ARMY ANGEL TREE KICK OFF AND TOY RUN at Cross Creek Mall. Registration at 10:30 a.m. Ride at noon. Bring unwrapped new toy. Single Riders $15/Double Riders $20. Food, silent auction, door prizes, PD escort. Call 309-8679 for more information. NOVEMBER 17 •CHILI COOKOFF at Legend's Pub. Call 867-2364 for more information. NOVEMBER 23 • 10TH ANNUAL STEELE ANGELS TOY RUN at Freedom Biker Church. Registration 11a.m.-1 p.m., ride at 1 p.m. Bring toy or donation. Music, 50/50, food, door prizes, games and auction. Call 8180458 for more information. NOVEMBER 28 • THANKSGIVING FEAST at Legend's Pub. Call 867-2364 for more information. DECEMBER 6 •LEGEND'S PUB 17TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY at Legend's Pub. Call 867-2364 for more information. DECEMBER 7 • 31ST ANNUAL WINGMEN MC TOY RUN at Cape Fear Harley-Davidson. Registration 11 a.m., ride 2 p.m. Bring a new unwrapped toy or cash donation. Live music, food available. Benefits Fayetteville Urban Ministries. Call 6896901 for more information. DECEMBER 14 • CLIFFORD SELLER'S MEMORIAL RUN at Legend's Pub. Call 867-2364 for more information. PATRIOT GUARD RIDERS The Patriot Guard Riders is a diverse group of patriots from every state that come together to honor fallen soldiers at funeral services across the country. Visit www.patriotguard.org for more information about the group. 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