The difference between smug caollege pricks and and ten-year-old boys is that the kids are a hell of a lot more fun to hang out. And the crap they like is way more accessible to a dumbass like me. Shit like remote control fart machines, lots of candy, boobies without knowing what to do with them, gross stuff and whole Saturdays stretched out in front of you with nearly nothing to do.

How to Eat Fried Worms is based on the book of the same name. By the way, it's a pretty fucking great kids book. Like it, the movie adaptation gets it just right when showing how young boys act. It's a genuinely rare movie that tries to entertain kids without giving a rat's ass about the parents or whether the people making it will look cool. That's no small feat for the self-absorbed Hollywood grassfuckers. Usually they make movie kids too smart and precocious, or some idealized carbon copy of the way they've seen kids act in other movies. Worms, though, has kids behave like kids. Well, maybe not the story's only girl (Hallie Kate Eisenberg). She's a bit stiff and I find it hard to believe that these boys want her around. They are, after all, pure prepubescent maleness. They crack up at the word "sphincter", they ride around on bikes, dance like dorks and believe someone's ring has the power to kill people.

Luke Benward is the new kid in town who dreads having to make new friends at a new school. Before his first day is out he finds himself in a bet with the school bully (Adam Hicks) to eat ten worms, prepared by Hicks' minions. From that point, the story is a nearly-chaotic story wild boys running amok, trying to find different, disgusting ways to cook nightcrawlers while not getting busted by their parents or their hard-ass principal (James Rebhorn). In the process of eating his worms, Benward wins the respect of his classmates, which is what he wanted all along. Believe me, winning the respect of ten-year-olds is pretty fucking hard to do. It doesn't matter how big a splash your cannonballs make, or how much faster you can ride than them; you always hear them laughing behind your back.

Always. I can hear them right now.

Writer/director Bob Dolman gets his band of boys to act like they normally would. That's amazing. They are dorky and oblivious, both in the story and in real life. He never stuffs their mouths with poignancy or horseshit that sounds more adult than kid. Really, when was the last time you heard an adolescent say something worthwhile? Dolman also doesn't try to make the story something it's not. Sure, there's some message crap in there about peer pressure and being true to yourself, blah blah balh. But that's buried way below the sheer joy the kids have frying worms, dipping them in marshmallow and ketchup, dousing them in hot sauce, microwaving them and mixing them into omelets.