TOMAS BORSA
Opinions Editor

Standing tall in the shadows of forbearing cinematic masterpieces like Citizen Kane and The Shawshank Redemption, Jackass 3D has met exuberant critical and public acclaim. A century from now, audiences around the world will still be uncovering the subtleties of its art direction, all beautifully interwoven into a poetic tour de force that examines cross-cultural elements of the human psyche.

Jackass 3D is a cinematic masterpiece, an avant-garde exploration of the human condition so wildly ahead of its time that its nuances will surely be lost on most theatre-goers. If such a category existed — and by Jeeves, I’ll do my best to see that one day it does — Jackass 3D would be a shoe-in for the Academy Award for Most Creative Use of Human Feces.

This is more than just a film. It is a cultural landmark that has gracefully fused every artistic element imaginable into a perfectly balanced cocktail of blood, sweat and poop. Indeed, it is one thing to see a dildo fired from a cannon into a fat man’s jowls. But it is another thing entirely to see it in three-dimensions, at 1,000 frames per second.

The masterful cinematography of Jackass 3D is unlike anything previously captured on film: it’s richness and effusive clarity is so astounding it borders on the gustatory, overwhelming the senses as much as it does one’s gag reflex.

Few movie experiences have ever been able to elicit such a varied plethora of emotions, nor pose to the audience such profound and fundamental existential paradigms. Do we not all secretly desire to play tether-ball with a beehive? Is there not a little bit of projectile vomit in all of us? Is there anything better than watching a grown man get hit in the nuts with a baseball?

When dealing with a film of such serene allegory, it is all too easy to give too much away — yet the avenues of discourse are left unpaved, allowing the audience to decide for themselves the symbolism of each wang, turd and face-slap, an ingenious auteurial foresight that teases the very deepest throes of human emotion.

The ramifications of such a film for the human race are — to put it modestly — tremendous.