Vote for Pedro

before the next heavy post (I'm still feeling the last one; strange dreams, some fear)...a quick note on the two latest netflicks.

I have to confess how charmed I was by Napoleon Dynamite. What is it about that strange little movie? I watched it twice. A color palette which reminded me of The Royal Tennenbaums, but also the 1980's (stirrup pants) when I was as angry and felt as dorky as Napoleon himself. The way he speaks, eyes closed, too pissed and insecure to look at you; his martial arts fantasies, his inability to talk to girls, I love that guy. And the honesty of Pedro. The lowriders. Rico's wierdness. Of course, Deb's smile captured everything, just everything. All the warmth and love and beauty...the need for which seems to move in some boy's genes at that age. Or any other age. What most of us don't know we have when we have it. The first stirrings of the promise of home, family, of someone who comes and does not leave.

The girl who rides her bike up to Rico's van out of nowhere at the end, same thing. That is almost a religious moment for geeks like me. The people who made this movie made, and remade, myth.

Hope I haven't dropped in anyone's estimation.

I also saw Sideways, though, and did not dig. Even as a (recovering) wine geek. Sure, it demystified the wine industry/community very accurately: wine is the new poetic drug of the American middle class; we drink its art, and sometimes it makes us eloquent, sometimes just hot and stupid drunk. Also, it's an agricultural industry first and last. The stuff really does not spill out of Bacchus' holy mouth. But I hated the two main characters. Too realistic for my romantic tastes? Maybe. I love realist, even naturalist, fiction. Maybe for movies it's different. I just didn't think this one was pulled together well.

But if you haven't seen Napoleon, give it a whirl. Vote for Pedro.

Comments

twila said…
I liked it, too. I kept cracking up, bursting out with occational, "I KNOW that guy! I grew up with these people"! My hubbie found it funny but didn't recognize the characters from his own history. Maybe because I've always felt like a bit of an outsider I could identify. And it feels good to laugh at ourselves.
6:17 AM
KMJ said…
Totally dug N.D. too. (And Pedro was so charming in his forthright innocence.) Now, I have only do work on my 'skills.'
6:35 AM
scooter said…
I was loaned the movie by one of my students. Let me just say that now, I wear a "Vote for Pedro" pin on my school ID card lanyard, and I have a keychain with a photograph of a plate of deep-fried potato bits with the legend "GIVE ME YOUR TOTS" emblazoned across the bottom. Vote for Pedro, indeed!
10:22 PM
KMJ said…
We visited my nephew at his boarding school in Utah Sat & Sun. The "family weekend" included a talent show by the students. The gals in the school all performed the dance that Napoleon does at the end of the movie... move for move. It was hysterical (and really well done). Anyway, it just confirmed that Napoleon Dynomite is to this generation what Sixteen Candles/Breakfast Club was to ours.
11:26 PM
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