What the title of this thread said....

What about that new Jim Carey film? I want to see somthing really funny or Christmasy this week.

Jim Carey Is Always A Good Bet. Hes Insane

haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite, but I trust Roger Ebert's reviews enough to know this one could very well be a stinker. Ebert sometimes goes overboard with praise, but nine times out of 10, when he hates a movie, I tend to agree.

Jim Carrey's new movie is aimed at junior high or so aged kids and is more fantasy than comedy, if you're talking about Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you're talking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (not sure which is in current UK release), I highly recommend that one.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040618/REVIEWS/406180306/1023

Napoleon Dynamite


BY ROGER EBERT / June 18, 2004

Cast & CreditsNapoleon Dynamite: Jon Heder
Uncle Rico: Jon Gries
Pedro: Efren Ramirez
Kip: Aaron Ruell
Deb: Tina Majorino
Summer: Haylie Duff
Ilene: Ellen Dubin
Trisha: Emily Kennard
Rex: Diedrich Bader


Fox Searchlight Pictures presents a film directed by Jared Hess. Written by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess. Photographed by Munn Powell. Edited by Jeremy Coon. Music by John Swihart. Running time: 86 minutes. Rated PG (for language and thematic elements).

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There is a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor, and Jared Hess' "Napoleon Dynamite" pushes it as far as it can go. Its hero is the kind of nerd other nerds avoid, and the movie is about his steady progress toward complete social unacceptability. Even his victory toward the end, if it is a victory, comes at the cost of clowning before his fellow students.

We can laugh at comedies like this for two reasons: Because we feel superior to the characters, or because we pity or like them. I do not much like laughing down at people, which is why the comedies of Adam Sandler make me squirmy (most people, I know, laugh because they like him). In the case of Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder), I certainly don't like him, but then the movie makes no attempt to make him likable. Truth is, it doesn't even try to be a comedy. It tells his story and we are supposed to laugh because we find humor the movie pretends it doesn't know about.

Napoleon is tall, ungainly, depressed, and happy to be left alone. He has red hair that must take hours in front of the mirror to look so bad. He wants us to know he is lonely by choice. He lives outside of town with his brother Kip (Aaron Ruell), whose waking life is spent online in chat rooms, and with his grandmother, who is laid up fairly early in a dune buggy accident. It could funny to have a granny on a dune buggy; I smile at least at the title of the Troma film "Rabid Grannies."

But in this film the accident is essentially an aside, an excuse to explain the arrival on the farm of Napoleon's Uncle Rico (Jon Gries), a man for whom time has stood still ever since the 1982 high school sports season, when things, he still believes, should have turned out differently. Rico is a door-to-door salesman for a herbal breast enlargement potion, a product that exists only for the purpose of demonstrating Rico's cluelessness. In an age when even the Fuller Brush Man would be greeted with a shotgun (does anyone even remember him?), Rico's product exists in the twilight zone.

Life at high school is daily misery for Napoleon, who is picked on cruelly and routinely. He finally makes a single friend, Pedro (Efren Ramirez), the school's only Latino, and manages his campaign for class president. He has a crush on a girl named Deb (Tina Majorino), but his strategy is so inept that it has the indirect result of Deb going to the prom with Pedro. His entire prom experience consists of cutting in.

Watching "Napoleon Dynamite," I was reminded of "Welcome to the Dollhouse," Todd Solondz's brilliant 1996 film, starring Heather Matarazzo as an unpopular junior high school girl. But that film was informed by anger and passion, and the character fought back. Napoleon seems to passively invite ridicule, and his attempts to succeed have a studied indifference, as if he is mocking his own efforts.

I'm told the movie was greeted at Sundance with lots of laughter, but then Sundance audiences are concerned with being cool, and to sit through this film in depressed silence would not be cool, however urgently it might be appropriate.

Yea, but if its stupid, i like it! Im a big Tom Green fan.

does Meet the Fockers (meet the parents 2) open in the UK this week, too?

Yea, its funny.

Aaah, i forgot about that one!

DANG!..........

okay what in the hell was so damn funny about Napoleon Dynamite ?

it was the fricken' tots what do ya think?!

okay what in the hell was so damn funny about Napoleon Dynamite ?I need an answer to this too...I think you need to be high.

uncle rico nuff said

tis a proven scientific fact. folks that dont think napoleon is a funny movie lack a sense of humor and are more likely to die alone and penniless :D

The problem with the movie is that its a SNL skit that went on TOOOOO long. In a small dose, it might be cute and make me crack a smile. But its not cool to make it more than an hour.

The problem with the movie is that its a SNL skit that went on TOOOOO long. In a small dose, it might be cute and make me crack a smile. But its not cool to make it more than an hour.
well put ....kinda like [night at the roxbury] and [IT's Pat]

Some get the humour. Some dont.
People that keep saying "it aint funny" or "tell me why its funny" are dumb.

Some get the humour. Some dont.
People that keep saying "it aint funny" or "tell me why its funny" are dumb.
oh really, or is it just the simple minded that find humor in a dumbass movie

oh really, or is it just the simple minded that find humor in a dumbass movie

No.
Im not saying that stupid people dont get the humour. Im saying different people find different things funny.

Its got nothing to do with intelligence.



I get pissed off with people asking for an explanation as to why somthing is funny.

No.
Im not saying that stupid people dont get the humour. Im saying different people find different things funny.

Its got nothing to do with intelligence.



I get pissed off with people asking for an explanation as to why somthing is funny.
aw okay yeah i get you ...well i was just asking what part of the movie made it funny or what character other then the lead ...i did kinda like the uncle and the dance part was a little funny