Regarding Napoleon

Okay, it's a week late, but here it is.

Overall, I liked Napoleon Dynamite. Funny, slightly heartwarming. I get it. And, dude--the dance scene. Oh, Darrin's Dance Grooves. Classic.

Things that bugged me:

Above all, the pace. SO ANNOYINGLY SLOW. Timing, people, timing! This was a 30-minute short stretched to 88 minutes. I realize that this may have been an artistic expresion of life in Preston, Idaho--it may truly be slow as molasses--but I'm glad I watched this on DVD so I could watch it with the forward on the slow parts.

Related to timing--the action. Plot, people, plot. Get to the point. I've got two kids to feed, bathe, and put to bed while folding three loads of wash and cleaning up dinner. If I give you 90 minutes of my life, I want ACTION. (I don't mean an "action movie"--just a really moving or hilarious plot)The plot was good, but again, it was only enough to fill a half-hour.

Mean-spirited/ Inside joke. In all the funniness, I felt that the characters you're supposed to sympathize with were almost unloveable caricatures (overboard on the costuming and anachronisms--but again, maybe that's Preston). Except the girl--man, she was really good. And of course, by the end, you like all the heroes and stuff, but it takes so long for them to do the heroic stuff! Holy cow, I was like, "wake me up when it's the election day!" It was hard to like anybody in the movie until the end. The movie also felt like a big inside joke between high school friends. When I went back and watched some of the movie witht he commentary on, I found out that's pretty much what it is.

So for a really long SNL skit written by boys making fun of their home town, it's really good. I will watch it again sometime, but that doesn't mean it wasn't annoying as heck.


PS: Coolest thing about the movie--the cinematographer was my next door neighbor in Provo '95, and that guy is the most fun, elf-like person I have ever met. He used to dance when he saw his finacee (now wife) coming because he was excited to see her. And they had the coolest wedding announcement I have ever seen. Hmm. Fun coincidence.