I was like, freakin' blown away, what do you think?

Last night Justin, Pounder and myself watched Napoleon Dynamite. It was the first time Pounder or me had seen it, and I was rather unsure of what to expect. I wanted to like it, I expected I would like it, but there's always this reserve I feel about any film, particularly a comedy, which is either praised to heaven or given the bird.

I freaking loved this movie. The entire thing was wonderful. Jon Heder was brilliant. He deserved an award for that role. Jamie Foxx got the Oscar for Ray that year, and that is an injustice. If I were president of the AFI for a day, I'd knock Jamie Foxx's double-exed self so hard when he came to he would be blind, and then I'd grab that Oscar and hand it to Jon Heder and he will say, "Dude, did you get this from Jamie Foxx?" to which I will respond, "Heck yes I did!"

The wonderful thing about Napoleon Dynamite was that it scrupulously avoided having a point at all. A few times Uncle Rico borders on hitting profundity, and once even Pedro endangers the delicate balance of this piece. He asks Napoleon why the school won't let him hang a pinata of the resident cheerleader/social queen Summer for his supporters to beat on. You feel like the next words out of his mouth are about to be, "because they all beat on me, why can't I beat back?" and then the whole thing would have a point. Which would be a disaster. People criticize this movie for having no plot. Justin says that the more he watches it, the more of a plot he sees. I'm not buying. I think the movie can't have a plot and do what it does. It captures an average high school in Swillwater, USA. The life of a teenager isn't always fraught with complications that are bigger than how to get a girl to look at you. I watch movies about high school and you wonder if any of these people on screen have ever been there. I felt like these directors had. They know the whole thing made absolutely no sense. And so Napoleon Dynamite, like a Chaim Potok novel, really has no beginning and no end. There's a progression in the life of the people you meet, but you never really accomplish anything in the movie. It's the journey there that is so gosh-darned funny.

Overall: 9.2 out of 10
Watch for: Sparse foul language, rude humor, a fair bit of suggestive dialogue - including conversations about bust expansion on women, complete with visual demonstration, and Uncle Rico's advances on both his clients and Napoleon's love interest.