Napoleon Dynamite: I Just Don’t Get It
[Cross-posted at Greatest Journal.]
For months I’ve been virtually the only student in SMAD that hasn’t seen this movie, and considering that movies are a critical element of class discussions in SMAD 301 and that Professor Reynolds like to keep things “relevant” to us, my ignorance has put me at a persistent disadvantage. The sheer logistics of the situation boggles my mind. To the best of my knowledge, that film never made it to wide release, which is to say I live near several large theatres and it never came to any of them. Yet, somehow, the 5% or so of the university population that bought that movie on DVD showed it to the other 94% and suddenly SMAD students are bilingual. They speak fluent English and Napoleon Dynamite quotes, and to be honest, their English isn’t too great.
Well, far be it from me to resist such overwhelming peer pressure. After all, I had to watch it if for no other reason than to illuminate some class discussions that had been eluding me. This was strictly for educational purposes, and in no way entirely about wanting to know what the @%^&*# big deal was. Lucky me, Dave has a copy. Actually, Dave has a copy of just about every movie ever made. He’s a regular Blockbuster video. So, last night (or, ok, technically morning), we drove over to this Christian youth center that has a ginormous personal theatre. The people there were just finishing up watching The Incredibles-I never get tired of that flick-and were totally up to some Napoleon Dynamite. They even had free junk food.
mmmmm…. Free junk food.
So, as I’m watching this movie, with Dave next to me giggling like a hyena, I was reminded of something Dave Barry wrote in the foreword to his first novel. Before he retired, Barry was one of the most prominent humor writers in the country who wrote weekly essays well known for making his reader’s drinks relocate to their sinuses. For this remarkable talent, he won a Pulitzer Prize. He was also infamous for his rock band, which he was in along with various other professional writers like Any Tan and Stephen King. These contacts proved useful when Barry started writing his first novel, when King provided Barry with a helpful piece of advice for any aspiring fiction writer. “Dave,” King reportedly said, “you know, a story needs plot and characters.”
Whoever made Napoleon Dynamite missed that memo. Yes, without a doubt, that was the first movie I can ever recall that had absolutely no plot whatsoever. Monty Python movies suddenly look deep and meaningful. Napoleon Dynamite had characters. Lots of those. They walked around in a zombie-like shuffle with half lidded eyes that made me want to reach through the screen with a stick to poke them-to see if they were awake and partly because that would have been more fun than the series of random events that was passing for the movie’s “story.” I also spent a large portion of the movie trying to decide if the filmmakers were trying to imply the Napoleon was mentally retarded or whether that was just a symptom of the whole movie. Most of all, I wondered what the big deal was. It’s not that the movie was bad. It more or less defies classification into good or bad. It’s just… Well, it’s stupid. To some, this is the movie’s charm, but whatever they see in it is lost on me. Monty Python is stupid, but it’s also funny. I know this because they occasionally throw in “jokes” to let me know this. Napoleon Dynamite skipped this step too. Maybe they thought if they cut out the plot and the jokes, they could save some money filming. I’m not really sure.
I suppose what most surprised me about the film was wondering how to god it became such a mega sleeper hit. The word of mouth on this flick is astounding, yet it’s utterly unremarkable except for it’s considerable shortcomings. I’ve heard that it’s the kind of movie that you either love or hate, yet I can’t really work up enough give-a-shit to do either. I’m just going to have to file this one under the “people are weirdos” file and move on.
More on this later.
For months I’ve been virtually the only student in SMAD that hasn’t seen this movie, and considering that movies are a critical element of class discussions in SMAD 301 and that Professor Reynolds like to keep things “relevant” to us, my ignorance has put me at a persistent disadvantage. The sheer logistics of the situation boggles my mind. To the best of my knowledge, that film never made it to wide release, which is to say I live near several large theatres and it never came to any of them. Yet, somehow, the 5% or so of the university population that bought that movie on DVD showed it to the other 94% and suddenly SMAD students are bilingual. They speak fluent English and Napoleon Dynamite quotes, and to be honest, their English isn’t too great.
Well, far be it from me to resist such overwhelming peer pressure. After all, I had to watch it if for no other reason than to illuminate some class discussions that had been eluding me. This was strictly for educational purposes, and in no way entirely about wanting to know what the @%^&*# big deal was. Lucky me, Dave has a copy. Actually, Dave has a copy of just about every movie ever made. He’s a regular Blockbuster video. So, last night (or, ok, technically morning), we drove over to this Christian youth center that has a ginormous personal theatre. The people there were just finishing up watching The Incredibles-I never get tired of that flick-and were totally up to some Napoleon Dynamite. They even had free junk food.
mmmmm…. Free junk food.
So, as I’m watching this movie, with Dave next to me giggling like a hyena, I was reminded of something Dave Barry wrote in the foreword to his first novel. Before he retired, Barry was one of the most prominent humor writers in the country who wrote weekly essays well known for making his reader’s drinks relocate to their sinuses. For this remarkable talent, he won a Pulitzer Prize. He was also infamous for his rock band, which he was in along with various other professional writers like Any Tan and Stephen King. These contacts proved useful when Barry started writing his first novel, when King provided Barry with a helpful piece of advice for any aspiring fiction writer. “Dave,” King reportedly said, “you know, a story needs plot and characters.”
Whoever made Napoleon Dynamite missed that memo. Yes, without a doubt, that was the first movie I can ever recall that had absolutely no plot whatsoever. Monty Python movies suddenly look deep and meaningful. Napoleon Dynamite had characters. Lots of those. They walked around in a zombie-like shuffle with half lidded eyes that made me want to reach through the screen with a stick to poke them-to see if they were awake and partly because that would have been more fun than the series of random events that was passing for the movie’s “story.” I also spent a large portion of the movie trying to decide if the filmmakers were trying to imply the Napoleon was mentally retarded or whether that was just a symptom of the whole movie. Most of all, I wondered what the big deal was. It’s not that the movie was bad. It more or less defies classification into good or bad. It’s just… Well, it’s stupid. To some, this is the movie’s charm, but whatever they see in it is lost on me. Monty Python is stupid, but it’s also funny. I know this because they occasionally throw in “jokes” to let me know this. Napoleon Dynamite skipped this step too. Maybe they thought if they cut out the plot and the jokes, they could save some money filming. I’m not really sure.
I suppose what most surprised me about the film was wondering how to god it became such a mega sleeper hit. The word of mouth on this flick is astounding, yet it’s utterly unremarkable except for it’s considerable shortcomings. I’ve heard that it’s the kind of movie that you either love or hate, yet I can’t really work up enough give-a-shit to do either. I’m just going to have to file this one under the “people are weirdos” file and move on.