A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

I HATED, HATED, HATED THIS MOVIE: Given its long-standing success at the box office, and my general enjoyment of quirky indie comedies, I decided to check out "Napoleon Dynamite" this evening. And my god, does this movie stink. And we're not talking "bad air freshener" stink. We're talking horse turd stink.

The movie attempts to be a sort of cross between "Rushmore" and "Election," two of my favorite films of recent years. One minor problem--while in both of those movies, the characters were smart, funny, and genuinely witty, here, every single character in the movie (with one possible exception) is annoying and stupid--in many cases, so stupid that you wonder how they've managed to survive for so long. Even more baffling is the nonsensical continuity--for all but the last act of the movie, it seems clear from the production design, costuming, music choices, etc., that we're in the mid 80s. Then, in the final 10 minutes of the film, we have not one, but two, utterly inexplicable dance numbers--one to "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys and the other to "Cosmic Girl" by Jamiroquai--both late 90s hits.

The direction borders on incompetent--unlike a director like Kevin Smith, who works within his limits and knows how to do it--director Jared Hess can't even hold a steady shot--in the final dance sequence, even though there's only one dancer, it's clearly about 6 takes pasted together into a moderately coherent whole. And I--not normally attentive to these sorts of things--noticed several cameo appearances by Mr. Boom Mike.

Truly sad? This has a 7.3 rating on IMDB, and there was a large and rowdy group of people my age in the theatre with me who had obviously seen it before and loved enough to return.

In happier news, on my way home, I picked up former Second Daughter Kristin Gore's novel, Sammy's Hill. I'm only one chapter in, but can already say that if the rest of the book keeps it up, I hope and pray someone brings this to TV as a regular series--smart, funny, and intelligent--the way West Wing used to be.