FilmStew.com Napoleon Dynamite

FilmStew.com Napoleon Dynamite

I've read some pretty harsh criticisms of this film. Most the people who hate this movie make comments that tell me that they really missed the boat as far as understanding the characters and scenes. I'm just a little younger than the director, live in Utah and have cousins in Idaho that I visited while growing up. This film is more a picture of life for a teenager in small-town Idaho during the 90's than some critics give it credit for. Listening to the commentary on the DVD should make this a little more clear for some.

Larry Carroll of filmstew.com is pretty far off base.

Larry complains about the llama...

"David Lynch would just be a guy who likes to have a llama walk through his scenes for no reason other than satisfying his own absurd sense of humor. When Napoleon walks over to his fence to feed his pet llama, that's exactly what Hess has reduced himself to - there's no point to it other than to say, 'Look, a llama!'".

Take a trip to Idaho man, that llama is not random at all.

Larry continues...

"And while that kind of unrealistic self-indulgence may be acceptable in small doses, in this film it's strung together in huge piles of nonsense - a bike pulling a guy on roller skates, a man shooting a cow, a character who shaves his head and then decides to wear an ill-fitting wig to cover his shame - that none of us are likely to see in real life, that have nothing to do with this film's plot, and that do little to make the characters more endearing to us."

In the commentary on the DVD we learn about the street surfing and that the cow being shot in front of school kids on a bus actually happened. Plus there are certainly plenty of people who did something funky to their hair while growing up. Take a trip to Idaho Larry, then you'll be "likely to see [it] in real life"

"What's worse, the central character is an underdog that you very well may not feel like rooting for. Napoleon is a bitter, miserable soul who spends most of the movie complaining while he takes turns putting down those around him and serving as his own worst enemy."

I don't understand where people come off thinking that Napoleon is so bitter and miserable. What teenager isn't constantly annoyed by an older sibling or frustrated by social barriers at school. I guess Larry had a pretty charmed adolescence.

"Hess wants you to identify with him as an outsider; he wants you to hope that Nap and Deb end up together and, to a lesser degree, that Uncle Rico finds love with a severely underdeveloped character whose daughter goes to Preston High."

Larry, here's one where you really missed the boat, that woman whose daughter goes to Preston High, she's married. Uncle Rico's not looking for love, he's trying to make a sale. He's supposed to come off sleazy.

This movie has become pretty popular, I wish more people could see the realism of it, it makes it all the more hilarious.