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Naploean Dynamite

Damn True

Damn True

Monkey Pimp
Sep 10, 2001
4,015
3
Between a rock and a hard place.
Ok, I tried again to watch this movie.

I walked out of it in the theatre because I found no part of it entertaining.

But, so many people have said, "Oh its great." "You gotta see it." yada yada that I thought Id give it another chance.

So netflix brings the DVD, I watched it all the way through and have come to the following conclusion:

That movie is a steaming pile of dung.

Seriously, what is the attraction?
What have I missed here?
 
ioscope

ioscope

Turbo Monkey
Jul 3, 2004
2,002
0
Vashon, WA
Did you like high school?
If you were like 90% of us and hate(d) it, then you can relate to Napoleons character.
 
chicodude

chicodude

The Spooninator
Mar 28, 2004
1,054
2
Paradise
Damn True said:
Ok, I tried again to watch this movie.

I walked out of it in the theatre because I found no part of it entertaining.

But, so many people have said, "Oh its great." "You gotta see it." yada yada that I thought Id give it another chance.

So netflix brings the DVD, I watched it all the way through and have come to the following conclusion:

That movie is a steaming pile of dung.

Seriously, what is the attraction?
What have I missed here?
Click to expand...


If you have to ask, you'll never get it..............
 
Spunger

Spunger

Git yer dumb questions here
Feb 19, 2003
2,257
0
805
I too rented this Friday night. I wanted to see what all the talk was about.

I rented 3 movies, and watched this one first.

At the end I wished that Blockbuster would give me my money back for this. That movie sucked big time. There were some funny parts in it but it was nothing like I thought it was. People everywhere talked about how funny the movie is and such but the only funny thing about it was how horrible it was to watch. I think I got dumber in the 90 minutes of it playing.

Then I watched Friday night lights which was better and Wicker Park which wasn't all that bad. I had to watch 2 movies that night to make up for Naploean Dynamite being so sucky.
 
MudGrrl

MudGrrl

AAAAH! Monkeys stole my math!
Mar 4, 2004
3,123
0
Boston....outside of it....
I think Ioscope hit the nail on the head.

I actually knew a kid like Napoleon, his name was....Aljo.
Completely harmless, but would make a ton of things up.

He once told my mother that his mother had locked his father in the coat closet and was starving him to death.
 
stosh

stosh

Darth Bailer
Jul 20, 2001
22,248
408
NY
I think the best advice I had going into it was to not expect anything no plot, nothing...


It's funny, I work with a Jehova Witness and they hate Mormons well they hate all religions but it's funny because I let him borrow it and he hasn't watched it yet but his whole family has and a bunch of other JW's and they all love it because there isnt' any sex, or cursing, I'm debating when to tell them that it's made by mormons.
 
Lexx D

Lexx D

Dirty Dozen
Mar 8, 2004
1,480
0
NY
I own it watched it again last night and it still cracks me up. I don't listen to people about movies since there probably somebody here who couldn't wait for the next JLo and Affleck movie.............Besides DT you need a sense of humor to like the movie.
 
stosh

stosh

Darth Bailer
Jul 20, 2001
22,248
408
NY
Lexx D said:
I own it watched it again last night and it still cracks me up. I don't listen to people about movies since there probably somebody here who couldn't wait for the next JLo and Affleck movie.............Besides DT you need a sense of humor to like the movie.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree, it's people who give movies like this bad reviews are the ones who put on Grammy Awards and stuff....
 
MikeD

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,735
1,819
chez moi
I just watched it. I got it, but I just didn't think it was that great. It was shot with an attempt at a Wes-Anderson style visual, which was fairly successful, and pretty much made to be a series of quotable one-liners for people in the know to fire off at one another for the next few years.

It had its amusing parts, but it just wasn't a great movie.

MD
 
Damn True

Damn True

Monkey Pimp
Sep 10, 2001
4,015
3
Between a rock and a hard place.
I got the jokes, just didnt think they were funny.
The physical comedy was the closest thing to actual humor, but after you laugh at an some goofball trying to jump a bike, how funny is the same goofball dancing or flailing at a tetherball?

Bored me to tears.
 
MikeD

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,735
1,819
chez moi
Damn True said:
I got the jokes, just didnt think they were funny.
The physical comedy was the closest thing to actual humor, but after you laugh at an some goofball trying to jump a bike, how funny is the same goofball dancing or flailing at a tetherball?

Bored me to tears.
Click to expand...
And it's not like they set it up for any tension, where the goofball might succeed...you're just wincing, waiting for how badly the goofball will screw it up in a very predicatable fashion. You shouldn't mix Wes Anderson aesthetics and delivery with Dumb and Dumber plotlines...

I guess Dumb and Dumber was similar...but that was a hysterical movie. Something about ND just bored me, too.

MD

Edit: Wow, just checked out the Onion review; best movie review site out there, I find. I wasn't alone in seeing the Wes-Anderson wannabe atmosphere that permeated the movie, either...
http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=7539
-------------------------------
Napoleon Dynamite
Director: Jared Hess (Not Rated, 86 min.)
Cast: Jon Heder, Efren Ramirez, Jon Gries

It's impossible not to admire the commitment involved in making Napoleon Dynamite. Shot on a meager budget in Preston, Idaho, the hometown of director Jared Hess (who co-wrote the film with his wife, Jerusha Hess), the film stays focused on its vision of rural America as a comic wonderland of thrift-store-outfitted wackiness. Sure, it quickly turns into a one-note exercise in laughing at the yokels, but at least it has a vision. Similarly, star Jon Heder settles on a single facial expression—a furrowed, angry brow over open-mouthed befuddlement—to sum up his eponymous high-school misfit, and he holds that look from the first frame to the last. True, it's more caricature than character, and trying to care what happens to him is a bit like trying to get emotionally invested in the fates of Beavis and Butt-Head, but there's no denying that Hader makes simple, clear choices about his character and sticks with them. Whether that can be called acting is another matter.

An episodic revue of calculated whimsy and artificial awkwardness, Napoleon Dynamite has one trick: It puts a cartoonish misfit character in a potentially embarrassing situation, then waits for the inevitable. Sometimes, the embarrassment belongs to Hader, who spends his time sketching fantastical creatures, when he isn't talking up his nunchaku skills. At other times, it belongs to Jon Gries, who plays an uncle so stuck in the past that at one point he orders a time machine to return him to his 1982 football-player glory days. (It doesn't work. What a dumb-ass.) Only new student Efren Ramirez, Hader's only friend, lacks the self-consciousness to feel embarrassed, leading to a seemingly ill-considered run for class president that provides Napoleon Dynamite's only semblance of a plot. It also allows the film to score some unearned points by taking a stand against the inevitable, dull tyranny of the popular kids. If this didn't seem so much like a film made to make those same kids bust a gut laughing at nerds, the ploy might even have worked.

The parade of misfits over a bottomless pit of humiliation suggests that Hess has spent time with the works of Todd Solondz. The formal compositions, out-of-time production design, and attempts at wistfulness suggest that he's familiar with Wes Anderson. But the sweetness that the film manages seems like an afterthought, an attempt to take the edge off the cruelty. Napoleon Dynamite only thinks its heart is in the right place. —Keith Phipps
 
dh girlie

dh girlie

MISS MISSY (geek)
Feb 11, 2002
8,056
0
A state where you never find the dance floor empty
It's ok, True, if you don't like that movie...to each his own. No big deal...like for instance...I cannot STAND quentin tarantino movies...in my opinion, the guy is an egotistical prima donna...I thought pulp fiction was ok, but I would never watch it a third time...I watched it once...then thought...hmmm I don't get why everyone thinks it's so great...then I watched it a second time and I still failed to see what made people think it was this great movie...I didn't hate it, but I didn't care for it...I can't stand Tim Burton movies either...eh...whatever...everyone is entitled to an opinion.
 
chicodude

chicodude

The Spooninator
Mar 28, 2004
1,054
2
Paradise
Damn True said:
I got the jokes, just didnt think they were funny.
The physical comedy was the closest thing to actual humor, but after you laugh at an some goofball trying to jump a bike, how funny is the same goofball dancing or flailing at a tetherball?

Bored me to tears.
Click to expand...
Ah, then you don't get it. Not really.


getting a joke and understanding it are two different things
 
S

scurban

Turbo Monkey
Jul 11, 2004
1,052
0
SC
"This bikes' got everything... Pegs, Suspesion,.....LUCKY! you ever take it off any sweet jumps?"

Pretty much sum's up everyone's life here on ridemonkey.

I thought it was a great movie
 
Kornphlake

Kornphlake

Turbo Monkey
Oct 8, 2002
2,632
1
Portland, OR
I'd heared the negative opinions before watching the movie, my wife had heared the positive, in the end we were both unimpressed, for me it was better than I expected, for my wife worse. The only parts that really made me laugh was where the farmer kills the cow right in front of the elementary school bus, and where Pablo says that the school needs more saints, the bit about his aunt seeing el santo nino de antocho, that one actually got an audible chuckle out of me but that's just my wierd sense of humor I guess. I understand the Napoleon character, I was the lanky geek in school, I didn't make up stories about myself or others though. Something about the whole "just when you think yesterday was the worst day of your life..." humor got pretty tiring after about the first 20 minutes. For a low budget film it wasn't the worst I've seen, even for a film with a bigger budget it wasn't the "worst" but certainly not up there with any other movie I've seen in the last several months.
 
mack

mack

Turbo Monkey
Feb 26, 2003
3,674
0
Colorado
Yeah not funny. Some parts were funny, but in order to be classified as a comedy i have to laugh throughout the movie, because i also laughed in Jeepers Creepers, and that wasnt a comedy.

Here are some comedys:
The Big Lewbowski
Caddy Shack
 
H8R

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Simple:

If you were a total dweeb in school, then you identify with the characters. Then you'll laugh at yourself.


If you were a popular kid who hated dweebs in school, (and kicked their asses too) then you will find this movie un-amusing or even annoying.


High school sucked either way.
 
M

mtbpaint

Monkey
Jan 17, 2005
158
0
University of Connecticut
my sis and i rented it off paper view at 12 am. I mean it had no plot and it wasnt back to back funny but i think it was a movie that just got people to repeat the lines in school. Everyone is upsessed with Gawd..Idiot!
 
MikeD

MikeD

Leader and Demogogue of the Ridemonkey Satinists
Oct 26, 2001
11,735
1,819
chez moi
H8R said:
Simple:

If you were a total dweeb in school, then you identify with the characters. Then you'll laugh at yourself.


If you were a popular kid who hated dweebs in school, (and kicked their asses too) then you will find this movie un-amusing or even annoying.


High school sucked either way.
Click to expand...
Wow, I must have suppressed my memories of being cool in high school...

Sweet! I wasn't a dweeb!

MD
 
J

JRB

Guest
Dude here at work hated it, but bought it instead of renting, so I am getting the hook up. :thumb: yee haw (I don't just toss that around)
 
Kornphlake

Kornphlake

Turbo Monkey
Oct 8, 2002
2,632
1
Portland, OR
MikeD said:
Wow, I must have suppressed my memories of being cool in high school...

Sweet! I wasn't a dweeb!

MD
Click to expand...

Yeah, me to. I guess being in the band really was cool, calculus was the class all the hot chicks took and that lonely planter I ate lunch at with freshmen and sophmores was really the elite spot to eat lunch. Hey I'm glad I didn't get that movie, I'm cool.
 
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