Napoleon Dynamite (South Park Without The Barf Alert)

Worldnetdaily.com ^ | 01/06/04 | Joseph Farah

[goldstategop]

Illegal aliens are invading our country and an army of some 20 million now occupy it.

150,000 are known dead in South Asia and up to 1 million are homeless due to the tsunamis.

The 109th U.S. Congress is convening.

But, don't worry. I've got some good news for you.

And, no, I didn't just save a boatload of money on my car insurance.

There's a movie sweeping the nation right now, capturing the imaginations of young Americans, making them laugh and entertaining them – and doing all that without sex, violence, obscenity or profanity. There's nothing politically correct about it. There's no deep message in the film. It's not intended to be socially redeeming. And, unlike the biggest box-office hit of the hour, there's nothing even offensive about the name of the film.

But it is funny.

Very, very funny.

Very strange and very, very funny.

This independent film was made on a budget of $400,000 and has grossed more than $44 million.

When the DVD was released for Christmas, Fox shipped 2.5 million copies – about twice the number you would expect for a movie that grossed $44 million. It sold 1.35 million copies the first day, making it the top-selling DVD for Christmas week. As a result, Fox ordered another million copies.

Yet, when I tell you the name of this movie, many are going to say: "Never heard of it."

Are you ready?

"Napoleon Dynamite."

Ever hear of it?

If you haven't, your kids have.

And it might be a good idea to buy the DVD, sit down and watch it with them.

It's just good, clean fun.

Grown-ups are not supposed to get the humor in this movie. And some of them clearly don't. When it was released, stuffed-shirt critic Roger Ebert described it as "a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor." Another critic said it "may be the most condescending comedy ever ..."

Like I always say: There's no accounting for taste.

I admit this is a very different kind of movie – and not for everyone. But I have seen it three times now and I could easily watch it four more. I laugh a little harder every time.

The appeal of the movie is that it captures life in high school. Yet, aside from a few language quirks peculiar to this particular generation, there's transcendency to "Napoleon Dynamite." This 2004 glimpse of high-school life is strikingly similar to my own experiences some 35 years ago.

Don't ask me what happens in this movie. The only answer is "not much." That's not the point. It's not about plot. It's about characters – funny, goofy, recognizable misfits of all ages.

Imagine "Seinfeld" set in a suburban high-school environment. If you can picture that, you may begin to picture what you are in for when you rent or buy the DVD this weekend.

I don't recommend movies often. I only watched this one because my 18-year-old daughter brought home the DVD and asked her parents to watch it with her. I'm glad she did.

Your son or daughter might not bring it to your attention.

Why don't you get the jump on them and bring it home yourself?

If you do, here's my advice:

See it with an open mind.

Don't let me raise your expectations too high and ruin it for you. (After all, nothing much happens in this movie.)

And tell me if you don't think there is something redemptive about this geeky movie.

[goldstategop]

A geeky movie about high school without profanity, violence or sex. Just have a lot of laughs. Fox has shipped a lot of DVD copies. While Joseph Farah says its Seinfeld in high school - it conjures up a different image for me... South Park without the off-color language. Just what the New Years' ordered --- a break from life's problems.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Sorry if I don't rush out and buy this on DVD. Farah is not the movie critic I would rely on since he trashed South Park without ever having bothered to watch a single episode.

[vrwc1]

I've watched it with my kids (11 year old girl and 15 year old boy) a couple times - they love it and I think it's hilarious. Mom can't stand it though.

[kizzdogg]

I've watched this movie and it was probably one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. You will be laughing from beginning to end. Anybody who loves to laugh should definatly see this.

[IrishGOP]

I have seen it and it is quite funny. I was impressed that a movie for teens was done without profanity, sex or violence, and it started on MTV of all places.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

A coworker and I usually loan each other DVD's and he was asking if I'd seen it yet. I'll wait till he loans it to me, then I'll decide if I want to buy it myself.

[Strategerist]

He also trashed the (quite good) Alamo without having actually seen it.

I'm beginning to suspect WingNutDaily is some sort of massive hoax by some DUers to embarass the right.

[aardvark1]

Unless I missed something, Farah didn't trash South Park, but the poster did.

BTW, I'll be happy to trash SP without watching an episode of it. I do it with a lot of things: murder, Desperate Housewives, WWE, rape, radical Islam, most any Fox TV program...

[OXENinFLA]

But it is funny. [No, it's not.]

Very, very funny. [No, it's not. Don't waste your time.]

Very strange and very, very funny. [Strange? OK I'll give it that but it's NOT Funny.]

[wildwood]

i rarely see movies even twice. i have seen this movie 6 times and now own it. it's awesome. GAWSH!!

[Kozak]

My daughter loves it. I'll have t o sit down with her and watch it.

[The Teen Conservative]

My family rented it but I never got to watch it...gotta wait till the next opportunity comes around, I guess.

[puppets]

That movie kicks serious ass. I first saw it while visiting NYC this summer, then it went into wide release and I turned a bunch of my friends on to it and ended up going to see it 2 more times. 12/21/04 when the DVD was released I bought it first thing. Its a great movie with a lot of heart, its hilarious without being pretentious.

Napoleon is a dork who thinks he's cool, and it ends up making him pretty cool. Of course he lives in Idaho, where the most popular boy and girl in his highschool are pretty dorky themselves, so the bar isn't that high.

I don't see the Seinfeld connexion at all. This movie is everything anti-Seinfeld; its not smug, its not condescending, its characters don't feel they are hipper and smarter than everyone they encounter. Its also nothing to do with Southpark; its not preachy, there is no grossout humor, no booger or scat jokes, no one has a foul mouth, its done with quality and decent production values on a low budget (everything Southpark is not).

I don't know why you would even mention Nap Dy and Southpark in the same sentence, they occupy different universes. Southpark is all about popular culture and celebrities and political figures and social commentary. Napolean Dynamite occupies its own little world in Idaho and pretty much ignores the outside world. The songs are all 80's (Cindy Lauper, When In Rome) and the fashions are timeless T-shirts and jeans of the 70's-00's. The movie makes much simpler messages about friendship and family and cornily enough, being true to yourself and things turn out for the best.

Plus its the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. My gf and I quote lines to each other constantly, its that kind of movie. I highly recommend it.

[mathluv]

My 13 yo grandson compares it to 'Monty Python'. It is rated PG. It was sold out one place, but we found it at Best Buy.

[dawn53]

My son has a friend who looks like Napoleon Dynamite, fortunately, he doesn't talk or act like him, LOL.

I'm hearing the movie quoted almost as much as I hear them (teenagers hanging out at our place) quoting Monty Python's Holy Grail.

"Grandma says you have to leave because you're ruining our lives and eating all our steak" is replacing "I'm King of the Britons...king of the who...who are the Britons?"

[Tolik]

I did not see the movie myself, but I like Orson Scott Card's reviews and well rely on them. ( http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/printer_friendly.cgi?page=/osc/reviews/everything/2004-09-12.shtml ):

I wasn't going to see Napoleon Dynamite. When the first promo popped up on a movie screen several months ago, it looked to me like somebody's sad little homemade video designed to make fun of people who are clumsy or socially awkward.

The title character, desperately in need of orthodontia and a clothing and hair makeover, carried nerdiness so far that it seemed cruel to laugh.

Especially because the actor's expressionless, nearly monotonous delivery seemed to be modeled on someone suffering from Asperger's Syndrome, a borderline autistic condition that makes it difficult for its victims to show normal emotions and to make correct judgments about what is socially appropriate.

But then I started hearing from people whose opinions I usually respect that the movie was, in fact, truly funny and wonderful. I was skeptical in the extreme. Finally, though, not quite kicking or screaming but utterly without hope, I tagged along with my daughter, her roommate, and a friend, who had already seen and loved it, to catch a matinee.

I was not wrong. But neither were they.

Napoleon Dynamite is not Revenge of the Nerds set in an Idaho high school. And it is not cruel, in the sense of standing outside someone's unfortunate life and laughing at him.

Instead, we are forced inside his sad, sad life, and the laughs seem to be mostly rueful ones, sympathetic ones. We're not laughing with Napoleon. He's not laughing. His life is very serious to him, his pain is real, and when he lashes out in frustration, we wonder that it took him so long. The audience laughs in an "Oh, no, not again" kind of way.

Except me. I could hardly laugh at all. I'm afraid I identify with characters like this so completely that it becomes almost unbearable to watch. At the very moments when people were laughing the most, I found myself with tears in my eyes, aching for people in so much pain.

In some ways, this movie is almost a documentary. The spread-out landscape, the drab architecture, the sense of isolation -- this is eastern Idaho the way it looks to people who live there.

And it's definitely not a Beverly Hills high school comedy, where it's all about plastic rich kids persecuting the poor or nonconforming. Everybody in town is just getting by.

The pretty and popular girl who seems destined to win the class election works after school at the checkout counter of a store. She has a job. If the person at the pinnacle of the social pyramid needs to work to have spending money, we know we're not in the usual high school comedy.

A truly shocking moment, to the contemporary film-goer, is when Napoleon asks one of the popular girls to be his date to a dance. She is appalled -- as any rational teenage girl who did not know him at all would be. But -- and this is the shocking part -- her mother, believing that Napoleon is mentally challenged, requires her daughter to accept his invitation.

When did you last see a teen comedy in which parents actually expect their children to make morally generous choices? In the real world, that's what good parents do; but on Planet Movie, teen flicks show parents only to mock them for being utterly ineffectual.

There are a lot of things arguably wrong with this film. The older brother is played so effeminately and repulsively that when his online romance finally meets him, it's hard to believe she would actually find him acceptable. Both of Napoleon's friends are almost as flat-affect as he is -- which is simply not true of shy kids in high school, who are as animated as anyone when they're with their friends.

It's unfortunate that the actor playing Uncle Rico is unable to match the honest performances of the other actors. He tries too hard to be funny, and the result is usually the opposite.

The good things, however, outweigh the bad. I can't promise you a screamingly funny laff riot. But I can promise you a story about an inept young man and his two friends who muddle through and, quite accidentally, achieve something rather fine.

And even if the film were worse than it is, it would still be worth it to see the well-earned climax at the election assembly.

[Lurking in Kansas]

My daughter loves it. I'll have t o sit down with her and watch it.

Ditto.

I'd never heard of this movie until my 17 year old daughter brought it home. She was one of the 1.35 million kids that bought one the first day.

It. Was. Hilarious.

I think the reason is because all of us have a little Napoleon Dynamite in us. Unfortunately, it did bring back some of my memories from high school.

[rogers21774]

Sweet!

[conservativeharleyguy]

I watched it over the weekend with my 18 year old daughter. At first we were both a bit skeptical, but it is such a great portrayal of the angst of late adolescence that it won us over. I laughed throughout, because it reminded me of my "kidhood", and I was able to see things that both of my kids dealt with through their eyes.

The characters and their conflicts are all very exaggerated, but if anyone rem,embers the drama of adolescence, that's how it felt at the time. Only time and the realities of life dampen the intensities of teenage problems.

Silly, but fun.

[puppets]

All I can say about this guy is he is full of crap. He totally missed the point of the movie, and I would suspect he's too old and of a generation that completely missed what Napoleon Dynamite is all about. He sounds like someone who saw the movie who went to highschool in the 1950's and looks at everything from that worldview, if he remembers highschool at all.

You can't explain how the point of something to someone who just doesn't get it. This guy doesn't get it. His criticisms aren't even valid. He seems to think anyone who isn't a macho man is gay or something, he completely misses Uncle Rico's performance and what its all about. If you relate to this kind of review, then do yourself a favor and DON'T see it, you won't get it either. It's probably a generational thing.