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Napoleon Dynamite

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Let's talk about Napoleon Dynamite.@richardalexis346d

All the screenshots in this post were taken directly from the movie by me. Napoleon Dynamite is available on HBO Max.

While watching Napoleon Dynamite, there were times when I felt like the entire internet was deceiving me by telling me it was a good movie. However, upon reflection, I think this wasn't a consequence of me finding the film bad, but rather the fact that I was watching something that felt new and refreshing, yet very familiar at the same time.

Directed by Jared Hess (yes, the same guy from Minecraft) and released in 2004, Napoleon Dynamite is an independent film that tells the story of Napoleon, a boy who lives in a rather peculiar town in Idaho.

Presented as a comedy with touches of slice-of-life, Napoleon Dynamite could be called the father of modern indie comedies, characterized by its use of absurd humor without bordering on the exaggerated, while everything is wrapped in a very aesthetically pleasing package.

But what makes it brilliant? For some, it's the unpredictable nature of its script combined with impeccable comedic timing; for others, it's due to the brilliant performances of Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez, who have earned a well-deserved place in American popular culture.

However, for me, the answer is much simpler: Napoleon Dynamite resonated so deeply with its viewers because it perfectly captured the vibes of the early 20th century, as well as the uncompromising life of a rural town in the United States of America—monotonous, yes, but beautiful in its own way.

And while the film can be reduced to those iconic moments we see every day on sites like Twitter or Reddit, I feel it has so much more to offer, especially if you're willing to immerse yourself in the universe it presents.

It's not a very pleasant film for a first viewing, but there's something indescribable about it that will probably make me gravitate toward it a second time.

As an adult, I have a bit of a hard time connecting with his more rebellious side, but I fully understand that this could have been a film that would have completely shaped my sense of humor if I had seen it when I was 16.

This score was taken from my Letterboxd account.

Twitter/Instagram/Letterbox: Alxxssss

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›Film Review: Napoleon Dynamite (2004)@drax754d

In the unpredictable world of film-making, one of the most frustrating aspects is the uncertainty of results. As William Goldman famously quipped, "nobody knows anything," and this phenomenon has led to many a costly, heavily promoted film with reputable stars flopping at the box office, while low-budget, offbeat independent projects with little fanfare capture the hearts of audiences and earn cult status. A prime example of the latter is the 2004 comedy Napoleon Dynamite, which has become a cult classic and presented a challenge for streaming services to recommend films of a similar nature, introducing the term "Napoleon Dynamite problem" into modern vocabularies.

The origins of Napoleon Dynamite can be traced back to 2002 when Jared Hess, a film student at Brigham Young University, created the short film Peluca as a school assignment. Shot on 16mm black-and-white film, the quirky and offbeat film starred Hess' friend Jon Heder as an awkward teenage outcast named Seth. Intrigued by the character's potential, Hess decided to expand Peluca into a full-length feature film. He left school to co-write the screenplay with his wife, Jerusha Hess, and rechristened both the film and its protagonist as Napoleon Dynamite, with Heder reprising his role as the titular character.

The plot of Napoleon Dynamite is set in the small town of Preston, Idaho, where 16-year-old socially awkward protagonist Napoleon Dynamite lives with his grandmother Carlinda (played by Sandy Martin) and his even more socially awkward older brother Kip (played by Aaron Ruell). Despite his dorky looks and unusual speech patterns, Napoleon attempts to fit into regular life at the local high school and even tries to date the popular girl, Trisha (played by Emily Kennard). When Carlinda is hospitalized due to an injury, the brothers are taken care of by their uncle Rico (played by Jonathan Gries), whose get-rich-quick schemes begin to endanger Napoleon's reputation among the locals. Undeterred, Napoleon manages to make new friends, including shy girl Deb (played by Tina Majorino) and Pedro Sanchez (played by Efren Ramirez), a Mexican exchange student whom he helps run for class president.

Like many feature directorial debuts, Napoleon Dynamite is far from perfect, and like many low-budget independent comedies with "quirky" characters, it might be an acquired taste for large segments of the audience. The episodic nature of the script might test someone's patience, and the characters might at times look too quirky and too eccentric for the film as a whole to be taken seriously. Even the protagonist, with his strange speech and unusual antics, might start looking annoying after a while.

However, what ultimately rescues this film is the obvious fondness Hess feels towards the characters and the world in which they live, and that fondness reflects in Napoleon Dynamite in general emanating a positive attitude and a lot of irresistible charm. Made with barely $400,000 of budget, on authentic locations during an unusually hot summer, and with friends and relatives supporting the production, Napoleon Dynamite is a labour of love, and as such, it was, consciously or unconsciously, recognised by the audience, which in Napoleon and his saw little bits of themselves.

A big part of the success should be credited to the diverse and mostly unknown cast, with Tina Majorino, former child actress who had appeared in some major Hollywood films a decade earlier, being the only notable name. Jon Heder, in the iconic and demanding role, is helped by more experienced Jonathan Gries as the sleazy uncle Rico and Efren Ramirez in an understated but effective role as the protagonist's best friend.

Napoleon Dynamite is a film that has defied expectations and captured the hearts of audiences worldwide. While it may not be perfect, it remains a testament to the unpredictability of the film-making industry and the power of low-budget, independent cinema to create lasting cultural impacts.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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›Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Movie Review - Just A Perfect Frickin Movie, Man@cyberdemon5311397d
▶️ Watch on 3Speak

timeless!

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›REVIEW : "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004) - Movie by Jared Hess@mandibil2554d
The early part of the new century of cinema (wow that sounds serious), gifted us with a slightly new trend of movies. This is what I call the Wes Anderson style, that has strains as far back as the Expressionist Weimar movement and could be seen as reinvetion of it, since it tends to be both highly stylized and often deals with existential themes that can be hard to portray otherwise.

I will admit though that the style has never been one of my favorites, since it seems to me a bit too easy to cover up difficult cinematography, which the expressionists solved brilliantly, with pretentious style, that is nothing more than just that, style to cover up a lack of original ideas.

Napoleon Dynamite is one such movie and it sits smack in the middle of this new trend ... but it has a hard time delivering what it kind of sets out to deliver.

This nerd of nerds called Napoleon Dynamite, lives in a remote smalltown in Idaho, where the quirky personalities is the rule rather than the exception. He has no sense of the world or any kind of individual self, or at least not as we get to know him in the first half. His brother is almost if not more quirky than him and his grandmother, with whom they live, is almost completely out of the picture.

His uncle Rico, who has weird ideas of timemachines and sells tupperware to the local pathetic population, is the overblown selfcentered wannabe "manly" man who is actually unsuccesful in everything he does. He is pathetic but not nerdy.

In school Napoleon is treated like a piece of shit by the psycho´s and completely ignored by the hot girls (and the not so hot´s). His only access to social life is through the extremely introvert Deb and the equally mindnumbed mexican, Pedro.

The movie spends the first two acts setting up all these and more characters and the quirkyness of the smalltown mentality and the corruption of the school environment. The idea is fine as such, I am sympathetical to it, but when it all comes down, it does feel rather prejudiced and formulaic.

Heder does portray Napoleon very convincingly and to be honest his character is the only one that has any really interest, seen from an acting point of view. Yes the other ones are weird and quirky and funny at times, but it quickly becomes strenuous and pretentious. The cutting between the scenes don´t always work for me either, as I am more than a few times, drawn out of the movie, from this.

The sidestories, like that of the online "babe" adventure of his brother, is not really bringing the story forward, even if their tete a tete on a bench, is quite ridiculously funny in an overblown fashion. Too much of the movie goes with establishing the characteres and sidestories that dilutes the already weak plot line. It seems to me the director and scriptwriter wanted primarily to make a "Wes Anderson" movie and then tried to stick something at the end, that does its best to give the characters an arc and just some kind of plausible closure.

At the point when you finally feel some sort of interest for the situation and the characters, the story is about to end, making me think it is unbalanced and cut of short either due to the ending just being a necessary part fitted on out of necessity or that they simply did not really care for telling a story, but rather just throw weird characters and behavior at you. This could have been so much better, if the development of the characters had been cared for and the overall structure had been better balanced.

The cinematography is at times very good, if just a bit simplistic and stylized maybe to cover up a fear of going all in. But it does work well most of the time. The main character is by far the best actor and the rest are just mediocre to actually quite weak. It is one of those kinds of movies I want to like, but have a hard time convincing myself that I do. it may enter my dvd player once more in the future but it is not a given.

5/10

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