From the clips I saw and the nasally, disaffected "Tina! Come get your ham!"-s that rang through my dorm at all hours, I just had a feeling that this movie was not for me. Also, as a fan of Tina Majorino's early work (Andre is a cinematic masterpiece*), I was highly disturbed to see my childhood girlcrush looking so brutal.
I quickly learned not to tell people I hadn't seen the movie, because they'd look at me like I was growing antlers, or accuse me of "hating fun". I politely laughed when a guy I was mildly interested in spent 15 minutes reenacting the scene where Kip scopes out hot chicks online, but I stopped texting him back.
Anyway, I never saw more than a few clips of Napoleon Dynamite. Then it came on in my hotel this weekend as I was packing, and I decided to leave it on for a bit. After about 20 minutes, I came to a shocking realization. I knew almost every line. The parts about feeding Tina, the Glamour shots lie, getting three feet of air off the bike jump, Rex Kwon Do, Napoleon needing Deb to get her product out of his locker to make room for his nun chucks. I had been exposed to the material so many times that not one scene held a shred of originality in my eyes. I don't even know how that's possible, but it's true.
My other conclusion, which was less shocking, was that I hated this movie even more than I thought I would. To be fair, I'd passively been hating it for seven years, so it really didn't stand a chance. Still, I forced myself to turn it off before I got retroactively rageful at the kids on my dorm floor who (when they weren't KY-Jelly wrestling one another in the common room) had apparently ingrained each line deeply into the recesses of my mind. Bastards.
N is for Napoleon Dynamite - if you tell me in the comments to give it another chance, I'm likely to take you out with my bo staff.
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*While reflecting on Tina Majorino in Andre, I suddenly realized that her dad in the film is none other than the actor who played special agent Frank Lundy on Dexter. Is your head exploding right now, too?
4 comments:
Thank god! We should all hate this movie. It's horrendous.
I liked it, but I will not tell you to give it another chance. My feeling is that people should only see movies that they want to see.
I actually love this movie.
I don't know. I guess I like pretty much all or most movies.
But, like Lee says, don't even bother trying it again.
You either love it or hate it. I have friends who hate it. I totally love it, and I am a PICKY movie person. Maybe you had to be a dork in high school to love it? Maybe you had to have been from a small town in the middle of nowhere? I don't know. I was both.
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