Thursday night is shopping night. A trip to Tesco for food and whatnot. It is also often DVD renting night, assuming there is something we fancy seeing and we have a bit of cash.
Last night we got
Napoleon Dynamite out. I'd heard a bit about it when it was released, and that it was quite popular in a kind of underground, cult sort of way. We didn't get around to seeing it at the time, so we figured it'd be worth a shot now.
I have to say it was one of the weirdest films I have ever seen. It's about a loser guy at school in Idaho. He's got a Mexican friend who's running for class president, a weirdo dad who's got a girlfriend on the Internet, a crazy Uncle making money any way he can, and a girl who kinda fits in there somewhere. And... um... that's about it.
It has to be said that not an awful lot happens. No one dies, the world doesn't get saved, robots don't take over... next to nothing. It made me think a bit of Lost In Translation in that whole
nothing happens but hey - that's real life for you sort of way. So on the one hand things are quite normal, but on the other hand everything and everyone around him is a bit weird.
The whole weird thing worked well for me - I found it very funny. The characters are quirky and peculiar and the circumstances and happenings are very amusing, but in a normal sort of way, as opposed to Hollywood's usual teen comedy
with hilarious consequences! kind of way. The dialogue was very funny, but in a kind of offbeat way - it was all fairly obscure and out there. So... yeah. I thought it was hilarious. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. It was also quite an endearing film, and the characters had a lot of humanity to them. I think most people could find someone in there to relate to, as I think it's fair to say we've all felt like a loser or a fish out of water, or been surrounded by weirdos or whatever.
Anyway. It's probably not for everyone, but I think it's worth a shot if you like kinda kooky films.
Look at what I'm wearing people. You think anyone wants a roundhouse kick to the face when I'm wearing these bad boys? Forget about it!
Genius.
