BRAVO said so

[BizzleLuvin]

i was watching BRAVO channel's 100 Greatest Comedies (or something like that)
and for thier number one pick, they chose Animal House.
I disagree!
My number one pick would be Napoleon Dynamite. its obscurely unique, but totally something you can relate to. not to mention the humor touches every base. every time i watch it, i laugh harder than i did before. ten years from now, Napoleon will be a classic.
what's your pick for the greatest comedy??

[bedake]

Honestly, I'm not a fan of animal house nor am I a fan of napoleon dynamite. Animal house was ok, not #1 worthy but I also hold a grudge against it for helping give birth to all the teenie bopper college movies. Thats just my personal opinion.

I didn't care too much for Dynamite either, I recognize its obscurity and originality but I just think its overated, and the amount of people quoting it afterwards was horribly irritating.

I can't put my vote on a best comedy because I have no clue what I think is best, that must void my opinions.

[bedake]

6 more posts bizzle and you will be 1337

[BizzleLuvin]

i heart u bedake, for posting

[HazardousToking]

Animal house was a decent flick, cant complain


Napoleon Dynamite on the other hand was a half assed lazy movie. Maybe if your under 25 you have an excuse to like the movie but come on, dont give praise to where it isnt deserved.

Heres a review that i whole-heartedly agree with

What the sh*t is this? An exercise in neo-postmodernism? Yes, it is that. It's also the great equalizer. A polarization force that has parted most audience members like the Red Sea sailor of a menstruating vagina. You will either hate Napoleon Dynamite to the very bottom of that bowl of Chex Mix in your soul. Or, you will strangle it with geek love. Yeah, if your name is Lenny, this will be your cinematic rabbit of choice. That's the effect it's having on certain individuals.

Scary. Scary.

One problem, though: An army of hipper-than-thou street fashionistas have called this cool, pulled straight out of the box, without even taking the needed 88 minutes to look at it in whole. Judging from some of your toutable hype, most of you wannabe cinematic art faggots are claiming an affinity for Napoleon without having delved too deep, or far, into its luscious core.

Your praise has been screeched across the American landscape like a crying jackelope, shot in the head and dying on the sidewalk. A shameful pet put to rest before it even had a chance to walk. I know exactly why this is. It's because you jerks like to say, to anyone that will listen, "I only watch Independent films at the Art Cinema." Yeah, you like to say it, but you don't mean it. And I hate you. F*cking crack whores trying to fake the cool dip...

I made my trek up that hill today. I sat in my local Art House cinema waiting to watch Napoleon Dynamite. My god, the trailers beforehand nearly killed me off before the real movie even had a chance to start. They just kept coming. My eyes were viscously waxed with some foreign crap about a Guatemalan girl having an abortion. Then there was some other film by a director named Le Cunt, about a lady in need of therapy, and the man that pretended to be a therapist. They fall in love, don't you know? It's all set to subtitles and dentist chair music that had my upper teeth aching like a knuckle bruise. These tiny morsels of "things to come" looked like parodies within themselves. They crawled across my vast mind like separating strokes exploding at the apex of my skull.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

No wonder you spacky flanges are peddling Dynamite as the must see film of the year. It's the only Independent Project playing the Art House Cinema you'd actually want to sit through. And you see it as sweet relief. You don't really care if it's good or not. You've been waiting desperately in your self-stated chair for something that wouldn't bore you into a coma. You couldn't back down and go to the Maitreyaplex for a bit of popcorn fluff. Oh, no. Then how would you sound to the overanxious ears at the Bright Spot on Sunday morning, talking so loudly that everyone can hear you? Napoleon Dynamite is great in that it gives you faggots something that you might actually enjoy. Print this up, quote whores: "Napoleon Dynamite is this year's Popcorn Flick for the Art House set."

"So, Orange? What you're saying is fine and all. But you've claimed it a love or hate enterprise. Which side of the fence are you on? Take it? Or leave it? And don't say you're middle ground, 'cause nobody wins at absolute zero!"

Me? I'm in the "take it" camp. I dug the sh*t out of this stacked crate of dy-NO-mite! Yet, at the same time, I found the overall weight of its timing a bit slow. Kind of like the great state of Idaho itself, which is canvassed with Napoleon's precious, artistic eye. First Jon Peter Lewis, and now Jon Heder (playing the part of Napoleon; he's from Salem, Oregon, which is cool as sh*t and makes perfect sense, especially if you've ever spent time there). I might have to visit this potato state aboard an Amtrak train, blitzed out of my mind on a Quilmes high. If for nothing else than to people watch; my favorite thing to do in the entire world. Almost.

That's what this movie caters to. It's like sitting down on a park bench to voyeuristically watch a bunch of freaks frolic in the grass.

There is no story. There is a through-line, which connects each scene like a dot. But literally, there's no viable plot to speak of. It has a classic structure, though. Napoleon Dynamite is a bizarre staging of tiny moments; a string of short films that live individually amongst themselves. You could throw each fabricated beat in the air, and watch them land like mixed-up puzzle pieces. It wouldn't matter in what order they fell. It's a pitch-black jigsaw. There's a very viable give and take to these proceedings. You could literally rip chunks out of its flesh, and it wouldn't matter. It's the perfect drinking film; if only that were a genre. Example: There's one scene where Napoleon goes to work on a chicken farm. This tiny breath of cinematic air has no real reason for existing. It's quite literally inconsequential to the proceedings. Yet, the film wouldn't exist without this exact type of biological moment. That's what makes Napoleon so awesome. For its entire running length, I just sat in my chair, mouth agape, dumbstruck in awe, asking myself, "What the fuck are they going to pull next." I've heard from many a source that you can see some of these jokes coming from a mile away. That type of statement is bullsh*t posturing. It is simply not true. This is one of the most unpredictable car crashes ever put to film, and the only reason you might sit there, thinking your smart, thinking you know what's coming next, is because you've already read a hundred reviews that give most of the kick-ass moments away.

"You, son, are f*cking brilliant!"

Most of these same reviews are throwing the harsh criticism that ND is a Rushmore rip-off. That director Jared Hess is trying desperately to emulate Wes Anderson. Comparisons to Wes are notable, but semi-unfair. There are slight similarities, yes. But this thing is a wholly opposing beast. I guess people have a desperate need to associate images they don't quite understand. It makes them feel good to call a certain sameness on something that stands out as odd and different. Too bad, it distracts them from looking at the entire picture.

It's easy to hold Napoleon against a blueprint of Anderson's Max Fleisher character. They're both oddballs. Sure. But Christ, people, these are two extremely different characters. If anything, Napoleon is the antithesis of Max. One is an over-achiever, the other is an under-achiever. You might actually want to hang out with Max. You wouldn't want to get near Napoleon; instead you'd rather hide in the bushes and watch him without his knowledge of your sweet peeping skills. Both Anderson and Hess over-use their neo-postmodern pretentiousness. Anderson threw a sixties vibe and hand-dragged it through the late-nineties. Hess does the same thing, only he cops an 80s feel and mixes it with Computer Chat rooms and the "current-present". There is a certain semblance being worked up between the two camps. I won't argue that...

But to be more thematically accurate, I'd rather relate Napoleon back to the works of Harmony Korine. This thing plays like a G rated Gummo. Watching it had about the same effect on me. I really like that type of Home Town Entertainment. A white trash lesson for all involved. For some reason, this also reminded me of My Body Guard. I'm not sure why. I do have another one for the Quote Whores: "Jon Heder is a Chris Makepeace for the 04s!!!" (Someone, somewhere, told me never to use three exclamation points in a row. I think it was my literature professor...No, wait. It was Dr. Mark Chilcoat.)

Where's Ruth Gordon in the lane when you need her?

Basically, what it comes down to is: Napoleon Dynamite is a character study. A great one. And I'm basically a good kid. Like I said before, though. It's not a film for everybody.

You know you're in trouble when I'm laughing. I'm a notorious non-laugher when it comes to any type of cinematic fare (I like to continually point this out). I'll admit; this bad bitch had me squeaking out barely audible chuckles at revolving intervals. And there are two moments that literally had me on the floor making noise, loudly. Thing is, I was the only one busting a kidney punch to the lungs. Actually, there were two of us in attendance that laughed at the movie. About sixteen audience members had shown up all together (maybe these fifteen other people were trying to keep a pose; this is Hollywood and you have to act rather nonchalant and uncaring to live here). Me and the other gentleman that were finding this thing humorous, though...We never laughed at the same thing. Not once. I even had someone sitting in front of me turn around and give me an off-handed glare.

I can't chuckle up the beef at the back of my throat? Sh*t. I paid my admission price. Sign says it's funny. I'm not supposed to laugh, now? F*ck you, guy in front of me.

Well, that's unfair. I think he was looking at me because he couldn't figure out what I thought was so damn funny. You see, there's this guy named Pedro in the film. His take on Speedy Gonzalez had me cracking up. He's, like, the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie. I might be the only one that feels as strongly about Efren Ramirez's on-screen persona. But he had me in his hands.

"You're the only person in this school that has a moustache."

That's brilliant writing on so many obscure levels, it's incomprehensible. What kicked me in the balls, though, was one certain segue. There's this part where he shaves off his hair because he's having hot flashes. He's sitting on the lawn, with his hood up over his head. Boom, it was like a tsunami ripping across my chest. A genuine laugh squeezer. That guy in front of me didn't know why I was laughing. Neither did I, to tell you the truth. There was just something internally gratifying about seeing Pedro sitting on the lawn with that hood pulled over his head. It hurts my tongue thinking about it as I type.

The other moment that raped my sense of humor was when Napoleon's Uncle buys a time machine off of Ebay to go back to 1982. This whole segment is so deliciously f*cked up, I couldn't help but stare in chalked ice delight. The best way I can put it...If you like the Conan O'Brien Show, you're going to love almost every minute of this nasty little blue-baller. (Sorry, Blake Snyder, but I think you're going to loathe it with an iron keyboard.)

At the end of the day though, Napoleon Dynamite made me kind of sad. ND gets a girl. A cute girl. This guy is the biggest loser I've ever seen. And he lands that hot bitch from Water World (She's all grown up now). God, the way she pulls her ponytail to the side of her head; delicious. I can't even get a cockroach to sit on my foreskin. And this guy scores. So much for someone I can relate too.

Actually, a lot of critics are having a hard time relating and adjusting to Mr. Dynamite. Some say he's such a character that he'd never exist in real life. Not true. Alan Wiggley. That's not a made up name. He was the Napoleon of my school. Robert Killington, too, was quite the oddball. These were the types of people you stared at; actually thinking they may have come from another planet. I had to wonder what their home life was like. Did they act like this all the time? Were they different at home? Jared Hess offers us a chance to peer into that off-type of life. Now I know that Andrew Goodemoot behaved with the exact same mannerisms at home, in front of the refrigerator, as he did in the cafeteria. Napoleon isn't necessarily someone you'd want to spend time with. 88 minutes is enough. This is a provocative showcase. Very voyeuristic. I don't want to be these people's friends, but I do want to stare at them from behind the bus stop to see what they're up to.

I give ND a big fat fist up your mom's ass...

Also, I like that fact that it's rated PG. It's a truly funny film that doesn't cop or stoop to playing dirty pool just to tease you in. It doesn't go for the PG-13, or R rated, gross out. It doesn't need to. It stands on its own. Call it refreshing. I mean, when was the last time we saw a PG rated film that played like this and retained its integrity? Not since the mid-80s.

Thank god, and Jared Hess, for this tiny time killer. I'll watch it again, and again. And if you don't like it, you can lick the rest of the peanut butter off my taint. I think Jennifer's dog missed a few drops...

[bedake]

i heart u bedake, for posting


I love you too bizzle :)

[hempsmoker25]

man, im 16 and i dont like napolian dynomite, i mean i watched it and it just really pissed me off.Especially having to deal with the napolian junkies at school with their "Vote For Pedro", for all i care pedro can take a big dick in the ass.

[Maui Wowie]

Napolean can suck my choclate salty balls.

I havnt' seen Animal House in quite a while, is that the one with Jim Belushi(sp?)?