|
Ok, no. Just…no. This is all wrong. Anyone
who has seen the immensely popular Jackass series will recognize their
resident dwarf (sorry if that’s not the politically correct term. I don’t know
what is) Jason “Weeman” Acuna. Apparently someone thought he was loveable
enough to warrant having his own feature, so he and some other skater who’s
name escapes me have put together this appalling disc of tripe, punctuated
with the occasional montage of decent skate footage.
Unfortunately, skate footage does not
comprise the majority of this disc. What we have is roughly one third skating,
and two thirds utterly crap sketch “comedy”. It’s not even entertaining in the
“gross-out” or “watching people hurt themselves” sense, it’s just God-awful,
self-indulgent shite put together by skaters who are under the mistaken
impression that people wanting to watch them skate will also want to watch
their piss-weak attempts at garnering laughs.
There ARE a couple of laughs to be had, but
they are few and far between. The most notable moments probably being the
“watermelon skating” segment, and seeing Steve Caballero and NOFX’s El Hefe
racing Weeman on tiny dirtbikes. But the rest is so spine-chillingly
abominable that I found myself checking how much time was left on the feature
about every five minutes.
It’s not all bad news though, as there are a
decent number of extra features available, and some of these are actually
quite good. In fact, if for some reason you buy this disc and decide to put it
in your DVD player rather than just employing it as an expensive beer-coaster
(a far more appropriate, and definitely less painful use) then you’d be well
advised to avoid the main feature altogether, and just watch the extras. There
is some great skating footage in there and also some at least marginally
funny prank stuff. And a music video which isn’t too bad either.
American Misfits is, not to put to fine a
point on it, stupendously bad. It is offensive to think that film companies
believe that they can just release this bollocks and the public are moronic
enough to buy it because of the inclusion of a few familiar faces. It DOES
have some good skating in it but let’s face it, you can buy a million and one
different skating DVDs and not have to sit through piles of steaming attempts
at humour in between the good stuff. If you want funny pranks and gross-out
stuff, watch Jackass. If you want a good skate video, try 411VM. Just for
God’s sake, avoid American Misfits. You have been warned…….
The video quality of this film is far
from brilliant, but this is to be expected of a DVD of this nature. It is
mostly shot on what looks like home video, so we can’t expect it to be
super-slick. However, it’s as good as can be expected for a skating/pranks
video, and there’s nothing about it that detracts from the viewing experience.
There are no explosions or epic battle
scenes here, and the audio is adequate but nothing to make you sit up and say
“whoa, glad I invested in that 5.1 system!” The soundtrack is actually quite
good, and probably one of the highlights of this disc. But obviously that’s a
matter of personal taste and I’m sure not everyone will completely love it.
Freakout
Vans Warped Tour
Leonard B Lee
Where’s the Bathroom?
The Stitches Music Video
Roommate’s Revenge
Aaron Yeager’s Day Out
Jim Bates, Not Norman
Ego Plums Plug
Photo Gallery
Trailers | 
