Thursday, April 28, 2005

Post it on the fridge, this is a good one.

Have you ever truly wondered what the world would be like without the influence of peers? Before you so quickly jump at this, think about it, I am not talking about peer pressure. Peer pressure generally involves some (insert synonym for JackAss here) trying to convince you that the previous umpteen years of your life are worth less because you have been without (insert what that slang term for donkey is trying to get you to take). Peer influence is more the little things in life, such as movies music and........ movies. Think about it how many times have you seen a comedy movie that was not as funny as you led yourself and others to believe just because everyone else said it was funny. Still not flowing with me? Hence example 1: Napoleon Dynamite. I know what you’re saying, "Oh my God he is not going to try and take credit away from the funniest movie ever, Gosh, what is he retarded!" (I am under the agreeance with Paul Shirley that the exclamation point is the most overused punctuation mark. So it shall only be used for points of true emphasis.) Yes I am going to take away from that movie. First I saw it three times in theaters, the first of which occurred after 2........ (What’s the word for friends that are not really your friends....... no not acquaintances......) "buddies" that said Napoleon Dynamite was "The funniest movie they had ever seen." I saw it and laughed, but not that good Dumb and Dumber laughing, that Hot Shots Part Duex laughing. You know, the one where you laugh and yet kind of look around and make sure everyone else thought it was funny and worth a laugh, and from there the laughter grows because everyone now is laughing at each other and not what truly made them grin in the first place. This I shall now call the Napoleon Dynamite Effect (N.D.E.)

Easily the funniest part of the movie was the very end (for those who have not seen the movie this spoils nothing as it is impossible to spoil a movie about nothing.) where he is break dancing at the school assembly. This is a genuinely funny moment (G.F.M.), More than likely because we all are either the school nerd who actually was faced with that situation, or you knew the school nerd and flashed back, like Vietnam, to your school days and re-lived the moment. Outside of that one G.F.M. the rest of the film is filled with bad acting, pointless direction, and Mormon cussing (which is only funny if you are close friends with a Mormon). Still I saw this "movie" three times in theaters because I bought into the chants and memorizing phrases of "funniest movie ever." Only after I bought the movie on DVD and sat and watched the movie ALONE in my room, did I come to the realization that I got fooled into seeing it three times in theaters and buying it on DVD all because some "buddy" of mine who's movie review I for some reason, unbeknownst to me, respected.

Here’s where this is coming from, three days ago I saw the movie Never Been Thawed (N.B.T.), a local budget film that has been dubbed "This years Napoleon Dynamite!" Jumping out of my comfortable bed at the ridiculously early hour of 11 am on Monday I ran to the local Harkins and sat ALONE in the theater and watched N.B.T. The plot of the movie was a group of people collect frozen entree' as a hobby, and on the side the lead character is the front man for a Christian rock band. If that does not strike you as hilarious I don not know what will. The movie turns out to be a poorly filmed extremely budgeted movie making fun of the hypocrisy of Christians and the lameness of collecting things. In it' lone G.F.M. a mom introduces her boy scout son to a deaf man and informs the ill hearing man that her son needs to learn sign language for boy scouts to earn a badge and she wants him to learn from someone who is actually deaf. She queries the man to see if he would help her son, to which he looks up at the kid raises his middle finger and says. "(insert non Mormon cuss word for what only moms and dads are supposed to do) YOU!" The rest of the movie hardly got a laugh out of me. I truly genuinely fear the N.D.E. (see above) to kick in for this movie. I fear those "buddies" in all of our lives who will see this movie and say it is the funniest movie ever, and fool you into actually believing it is. I will say this, the review got it right, it is this years Napoleon Dynamite, I just do not think they mean that in the same light as I do.

Stay tuned, as soon I will blog about how non conformist are truly more conformist than the ones that are conforming.

6 Comments:

At 1:55 PM, Blogger Mark said...

Where are the paragraphs? This reads like the Unibomber manifesto.

 
At 2:06 PM, Blogger Mark said...

Sounds like you need to get some new "buddies"

 
At 2:08 PM, Blogger Yarsh said...

I agree with Mark. I want to kinda go into the "Droz" from PCU bit:

Paragraphs - they make it easier to read and don't turn off other readers from reading your blog again (meow).

Spell Check - learn to use it.

"Classes, nothing before eleven. Beer, it's your best friend, you drink a lot. Women? You're a freshman, so it's pretty much out of the question. Will you have a car?... Someone on your floor will. Find them and make friends with them on the first day."

 
At 2:09 PM, Blogger John Doom said...

I think Napoleon Dynamite was rather dumb and drawn out. I won't see Never Been Thawed, and low budget films suck.

(High budget films only suck if they star Keanu Reeves)

 
At 4:39 PM, Blogger Yarsh said...

Low budget films only suck when they are not directed by Kevin Smith

 
At 4:03 PM, Blogger Jason said...

More people say this about Naploean than almost any other movie, or that they hated it outright, but enjoy quoting it with their friends. Personally, I love it for itself. The humor is not just slapstic like Dumb and Dumber (which I love too), it's subtle things like the way people interact and tensions. Which is why I love every Wes Anderson movie too, and why nothing is as funny as Arrested Development.

 

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