Napoleon Dynamite
12/07/2004 03:21 Filed in: Movies and Television
"Just follow your heart. That's what I do." --Napoleon Dynamite
Napoleon on girls:
Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills...
Napoleon's compliment to Deb:
I see you're drinking 1% milk. Is that because you think you're fat? Because you're not. You could probably be drinking whole milk.
You'll find mixed reviews on this movie. I liked it. Roger Ebert hated it. So who're you going to go with? But Roger, like a lot of folks, will never get this movie. He's uncomfortable with it and compares it to Adam Sandler movies which he also doesn't like. He feels like these movies make fun of certain kinds of people and he doesn't like that. But if you look at an Adam Sandler movie like Water Boy , surely folks know that it is not about real people. Sandler's character is more of a caricature in that film than anything else. Maybe Ebert just feels a bit guilty for picking on the other kids when he was in school.
Napoleon Dynamite is not a caricature. I knew people just like him when I was in high school. Napoleon for the most part lives in his own fantasy world. He's into nunchucks, Chinese throwing stars, D&D, and more than anything else, he is not afraid to be who is.
I remember a friend of mine named Paul in high school. Paul was a bit of a misfit like Napoleon, but a very likable fellow if you got to know him. One day in the dressing room after PE, a much larger guy started picking on him. Paul reached down and pulled out a pair of nunchucks from the front of his pants (yeah, really). He raised them up in the air and struck a pose right out of a B-grade martial arts movie. The bully simply reached down, took the nunchucks from Paul, and hit him over the head with them. I walked over to Paul and helped him up off the floor. My suggestion to him? I said, "Paul, in the future, if you are going to pull those things out, you'd better use them or run."
Anyway, Napoleon Dynamite lives with his brother and grandmother in [the beautiful state of] Idaho. Grandma gets hurt riding dune buggies, and Uncle Rico comes to live with them. Meanwhile, Napoleon befriends Pedro, the only latino and the only guy with a mustache in the school. He decides to help Pedro run against the popular girl Summer for class president. Oh, and both Napoleon and Pedro seem to like the same girl, Deb. That's essentially the plot.
It's really a pretty funny movie. Really.
But you'll either get it or you won't. It's according to what kind of sense of humor you have. Probably guys will like this movie more than girls, although Kathy laughed all the way through it.
I liked Napoleon. He's not afraid to be himself in spite of being very different from his classmates. He's not afraid of being an outsider. He had a strong sense of fairness and unfairness. He's not afraid to stand up for others who are being picked on, and he's a loyal friend.
This movie also has a number of throw-away scenes that have nothing to do with the central plot. There's a scene where Napoleon identifies different kinds of tainted milk for a panel and is extremely pleased with himself that he can get every one correct. This has nothing to do with anything, but it gives you further insight into Napoleon's character.
Kathy and I saw this movie over the weekend at the Village 8, here in Louisville--a theater that shows movies a few months after their release for a lower ticket price. There was a group of folks in the theater who obviously had seen the movie before. Had it not been for them, we wouldn't have known to wait until the credits were over to see the wedding scene.
Napoleon Dynamite is an independent film that was a hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The entire movie was edited in producer Jeremy Coon's apartment on a Mac using Final Cut Pro. Fox Searchlight Pictures picked it up after representatives saw it at Sundance. It was released over the summer and is now on DVD. Rent it, and don't be surprised if you find yourself asking things like "Do the chickens have large talons"?
Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills...
Napoleon's compliment to Deb:
I see you're drinking 1% milk. Is that because you think you're fat? Because you're not. You could probably be drinking whole milk.
You'll find mixed reviews on this movie. I liked it. Roger Ebert hated it. So who're you going to go with? But Roger, like a lot of folks, will never get this movie. He's uncomfortable with it and compares it to Adam Sandler movies which he also doesn't like. He feels like these movies make fun of certain kinds of people and he doesn't like that. But if you look at an Adam Sandler movie like Water Boy , surely folks know that it is not about real people. Sandler's character is more of a caricature in that film than anything else. Maybe Ebert just feels a bit guilty for picking on the other kids when he was in school.
Napoleon Dynamite is not a caricature. I knew people just like him when I was in high school. Napoleon for the most part lives in his own fantasy world. He's into nunchucks, Chinese throwing stars, D&D, and more than anything else, he is not afraid to be who is.
I remember a friend of mine named Paul in high school. Paul was a bit of a misfit like Napoleon, but a very likable fellow if you got to know him. One day in the dressing room after PE, a much larger guy started picking on him. Paul reached down and pulled out a pair of nunchucks from the front of his pants (yeah, really). He raised them up in the air and struck a pose right out of a B-grade martial arts movie. The bully simply reached down, took the nunchucks from Paul, and hit him over the head with them. I walked over to Paul and helped him up off the floor. My suggestion to him? I said, "Paul, in the future, if you are going to pull those things out, you'd better use them or run."
Anyway, Napoleon Dynamite lives with his brother and grandmother in [the beautiful state of] Idaho. Grandma gets hurt riding dune buggies, and Uncle Rico comes to live with them. Meanwhile, Napoleon befriends Pedro, the only latino and the only guy with a mustache in the school. He decides to help Pedro run against the popular girl Summer for class president. Oh, and both Napoleon and Pedro seem to like the same girl, Deb. That's essentially the plot.
It's really a pretty funny movie. Really.
But you'll either get it or you won't. It's according to what kind of sense of humor you have. Probably guys will like this movie more than girls, although Kathy laughed all the way through it.
I liked Napoleon. He's not afraid to be himself in spite of being very different from his classmates. He's not afraid of being an outsider. He had a strong sense of fairness and unfairness. He's not afraid to stand up for others who are being picked on, and he's a loyal friend.
This movie also has a number of throw-away scenes that have nothing to do with the central plot. There's a scene where Napoleon identifies different kinds of tainted milk for a panel and is extremely pleased with himself that he can get every one correct. This has nothing to do with anything, but it gives you further insight into Napoleon's character.
Kathy and I saw this movie over the weekend at the Village 8, here in Louisville--a theater that shows movies a few months after their release for a lower ticket price. There was a group of folks in the theater who obviously had seen the movie before. Had it not been for them, we wouldn't have known to wait until the credits were over to see the wedding scene.
Napoleon Dynamite is an independent film that was a hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The entire movie was edited in producer Jeremy Coon's apartment on a Mac using Final Cut Pro. Fox Searchlight Pictures picked it up after representatives saw it at Sundance. It was released over the summer and is now on DVD. Rent it, and don't be surprised if you find yourself asking things like "Do the chickens have large talons"?