Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Jon Heder is the eponymous high school student who lives with his brother "Kip" (Aaron Ruell) at the home of his grandmother (Sandy Martin). Now she's a bit of a game girl and manages to come off her buggy whilst racing in the sand dunes and so their womanising tupperware salesman uncle "Rico" (Jon Gries) turns up to provide them with steak and keep them in check. "Kip" has fallen madly in love with a girl he met on the internet; his sibling - a bit of a geeky loner - alights on school newbie "Pedro" (Efren Ramirez) whom he decides to help defeat the school sweetheart "Summer" (Haylie Duff) to the prestigious class presidency. This is a little bit on the edgier side of the frequently saccharine-filled MTV movies, and Heder is actually quite good as the drippy but quite switched-on young man increasingly infatuated with "Deb" (Tina Majorino) - whose hair appears to grow at right angles from her skull! There are a few titters to be had, but I fear this hasn't aged especially well and for those non-Americans amongst us, the humour has pretty much evaporated into a series of predicable skits and characterisations that possibly challenged convention twenty years ago, but fall pretty flat in 2024. It passes ninety minutes easily enough with a soundtrack to elicit a nice dose of nostalgia for Alphaville, Cyndi Lauper and even the "A-Team" but I doubt I'd watch it again.

Original, unique, bizarre, hilarious! * I love all the whacky and authentic and heartwarming characters from this movie. * I think it has a kind of bedroom pop vibe to it. Alot of bedroom pop music videos look and feel similar with the fashion and ideas they riff on. * I love the environment they're in. Wide open, sparse midwestern town. The American landscape is big and cool. * This movie is a brilliant example that art doesn't need a huge budget to transcend mediocrity.