Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where

[raybear]

So, what was the big deal with the movie Napoleon Dynamite?

It struck me as just a rip-off of a Wes Anderson film. Or better yet, if Rushmore and Superstar had a baby, it would be this movie, except not in a good way. How about, if DNA merged from Rushmore and Superstar was cloned and it didn't quite turn out right, it would be this movie. I don't think I hated it as much as dommeyourass did (I laughed sveral times, I don't think she laughed at all). But there wasn't much redeeming about any character -- it lacked a certain poignancy I think the subject-matter needed. And a plot.

When I got obsessed with The Postal Service last summer, I downloaded everything I could find. And one of my favorite songs was Such Great Heights. And I downloaded what I thought was just an acoustic version of the song, but it turned out to be a cover by the darling band Iron & Wine. Ok, cool, I can dig it. In the past few weeks, there have been references to this song ALL over livejournal. And now I know why. Garden State came out on DVD.

Today, as part-two of the hipster double feature, we watched this movie. I was a little hesitant at first, in part because so many people around me loved it and it got built up. Especially after the experience with Napoleon Dynamite (save for mintwaster and cocolola, who I believe left the theater before it ended?) Anyway, yeah, the soundtrack is good, but this is because the soundtrack is every song I'm already listening to, so this is pretty neutral fact for me. It almost made me NOT like the movie, actually. I know, I'm weird about music, if by weird I mean picky, and I guess I just hate when film directors use songs in lieu of actual dialogue, scenes, acting. [e.g. most any use of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah in any television show ever.] In my opinion, Zach Braff kind of hovered near that line, never crossing it, or at least not for too long, but I was still overly aware for the music at all times. It didn't seem to be built into the narrative as tightly as I like, but then again, first time director and this has a hint of a vanity project. The movie wasn't "a film for my generation" or whatever the tagline is, and at times I found it to be contrived.

But damn, if I wasn't crying like a baby at the end. Ok, ok, you got me. Despite the flaws I just laid into, it was pretty well acted and written.

So in the end, neither film completely lived up to the hype, but at least I didn't want my money back with one of them.

Comments

[totallysofast.livejournal.com]

napolean dynamite might have been better if they'd been a bit more subtle. it was way overdid. however, i have to admit that i have a slight crush on kip.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

ha! that's funny -- i thought the best part of the movie was the scene after the credits where kip sang that made-up song to his bride.

yeah, more subtlety indeed. it was like "how many freaky habits and quirks and comments can we pile onto one character?"

although...

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

we also said it might work better with less subtlety. like...hell...just go all out. be a "superstar"!

Garden State

[drinkasyoupour.livejournal.com]

"first time director and this has a hint of a vanity project."

How can a film that one writes, directs AND stars in NOT be a vanity project? Ha! I still love it, though.

Re: Garden State

[raybear.livejournal.com]

true true. i think it's more that whole "i love this song and this song and this song just because i love them and want to show how cool they are and i am" feeling. does that make sense? cameron crowe does it too.

and yeah, like i said. crying. like a baby.

Re: Garden State

[drinkasyoupour.livejournal.com]

Totally makes sense. Especially since I think I read somewhere that he said as much: that he wanted to make a soundtrack of a bunch of music that he loved so that other people could be introduced to it, too. Apparently he included a tracklist for the soundtrack when he was pitching the movie.

I know too much about this movie.

I know. I sobbed through the entire credits the first time I saw it. Didn't cry the 2nd and 3rd, sobbed the 4th. Hormonal? Who knows?

[cocolola.livejournal.com]

yes, me and mint and bowdownza walked out of ND. i thought it was so boring and i really don't get the appeal either. everything was Quirky! with a capital bleah.

i haven't seen garden state yet, but yeah - the soundtrack has lots of good bands. iron and wine is one of my favourite bands, and i love their version of such great heights about ten million times more than the postal service one, which is fine but not as perfectly lovely.

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

i REALLY wanted to like napoleon dynamite. i LOVED rushmore. like watched it literally a dozen times LOVED it. i thought ND was going to be my rushmore for the new millenium. it was just...eh. tried to hard. it tried too hard to be clever and i tried too hard to like it.

[cocolola.livejournal.com]

rushmore had so much joy in it, but it seemed like ND was just all about bleakness. i can't say it enough: bor-ring.

daaaaaaaang.

[louche.livejournal.com]

i'm a lover of napoleon dynamite. LOVER. it's a movie i am going to buy, even. i rarely buy movies. anyway, here's a quote from a really good review of it:

But more than anything, the film is an epic, magisterially observed pastiche on all-American geekhood, flooring the competition with a petulant shove. (from the villagevoice.com -
http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0423,atkinson,54121,20.html)

i loved the characters. each of them. yes. quirky. to the core. and solid. by no means am i saying this movie is an epic classic, but it's really really smart. gorgeously photographed. subtle in this way that beats you over the head in its hugeness, but yet quietly subdued in the same way (those neverending landscapes that dwarf the people and community, for example). i love the triumph of the geek. the unfounded yet found confidence of napoleon (he's gonna rule the world and gonna have babes real or imagined at his side always, AND he's a brilliant artist if only of the LIGER). i could go on. but i think have taken up quite enough space.

long live napolEON!

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

how about this quote?

"It's a simple collection of sight gags and pratfalls that mines the overly familiar turf of awkward adolescence without bringing anything truly original to the experience."
-- Kevin Crust, LOS ANGELES TIMES

i will agree that it was cinematically gorgeous, actually, with the idaho landscape and scenes.

i did have a moment while watching what it would be like if i watched with someone like you, who loved and was cracking up at it. i still probably would have found it overblown and underwhelming in the end, but the experience might have been better.

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[louche.livejournal.com]

that's the point! "underwhelming"!! that's it's most charming features! i love underwhelming!

but yeah. i am often very forgiving of movies that make me swoon visually. such lush color schemes. and we all know what a hopeless color addict i am. ooooh weeeeee.

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

dommeyourass seems to be very forgiving of movies that have lots of visually appealing costumes and fetishwear. which is why she was able to enjoy "Van Helsing" and i wanted to stab myself. instead i just fell asleep.

excuse me...

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

i'm not that shallow. it doesn't have to have JUST costumes and fetishwear, but a little ass-kicking by a female character. that seems to be the deciding factor. i don't consider myself an action-adventure movie lover. but now i've tolerated underworld, van helsing, the tales of riddick, and king arthur all because of fetish wear and strong female characters. damn. truth is unflattering sometimes. ;)

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

actually...it's not smart. because it's trying to be a rip off of rushmore. and not a very good one at that. [snap!]

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[louche.livejournal.com]

psHAWWW.

Re: daaaaaaaang.

[foxycoxy.livejournal.com]

no, i don't think smart is the right adjective. and i don't think it was trying to rip off rushmore in the least. saw them both. think i liked them both, i think ND was a construction of the writer/director's own bizarre humor and it will either appeal to some, or not. i think your analytical skills are too sound for this type of movie, perhaps. with ND, you have to let it all constructs go and as louche remarks, enjoy the abusrdity or the triumph of the geek. i found it really fucking funny, not once, but twice. yet louche and i saw it together both times so go figure.

oh, and...

[louche.livejournal.com]

as for "garden state," i loved that movie, too! sheesh! and i do think it was, in a way, 'a film for our generation' if only for the fact that our generation is plagued by medicating our feelings. i like the message of facing feelings at whatever cost. i guess it could've gone further, but i liked it okay.

i will give this criticism (which nearly everyone i know has given): the ending totally sucked. had it ended five minutes earlier, it would've been a much much better film.

Re: oh, and...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

really? i didn't think the ending sucked. hmmm.

and i guess i'm always going to cringe at the phrase "for our generation" because when applied in the moment by the people who made it, it's pretentious. and when applied after the fact, it's presumptuous that an entire generation can be reduced to one type of experience (and it's usually the middle class white one at that).

Re: oh, and...

[louche.livejournal.com]

hmmm. we have we have different movie taste today... so untwinlike.

ok, but that IS his generation (he's middle class white guy). and i have to applaud him for not trying to represent someone else's experience. so yeah, i guess it might be a matter of semantics. maybe they should have branded it "a film for zach braff's generation" or something.

Re: oh, and...

[raybear.livejournal.com]

and i have to applaud him for not trying to represent someone else's experience.

i need to put the equivalent of a livejournal post-it note on this, because i have so many thoughts around this issue lately.

Re: oh, and...

[dommeyourass.livejournal.com]

OMG!!! i thought the same thing!! i loved the movie and i LOVED that they were going to end it in a realistic way of...let's see what happens...we've only known each other four days. then the ending brought it down a 1/2 star for me.

Re: oh, and...

[mintwaster.livejournal.com]

It completely ruined the movie for me.

Re: oh, and...

[keetbabe.livejournal.com]

i Loved Garden State! however the ending sucked! i was really disappointed but had been charmed by the entire movie that it almost slipped by me. i felt like he tied up the story in this pretty red bow -- "we'll live happily ever after as soon as i work my isht out..." ugh.

I'm glad someone else hated it

[chicagocowboi.livejournal.com]

I heard ND talked up too. When I finally saw it, I hated it. I'm only grateful that I didn't rent it. Somone else paid for it. Maybe I just don't like movies without story lines or something, but ND sucked worse than Shiner. At least Shiner in it's ametuerish style had a plot even though it was still only worth fast forwarding to the nude scenes.

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

"e.g. most any use of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah in any television show ever"
I fucking hate that so much I can't even tell you.
And I don't even LIKE that song so much!
It's just so fucking...facile...to use that song. It's like when in movie commercials they play recent hits, that aren't actually in the movie or on the soundtrack, to pull in the teenage suckers.
In that same way, using Buckley is like a short-hand for "look how cool we are, we want to move you with something hip that only you music nerds will know,cause your cool, just like us!"
Ugh.

[mintwaster.livejournal.com]

So in the end, neither film completely lived up to the hype, but at least I didn't want my money back with one of them.

I want my money and your money back for both of them.

Other songs to add to Hallelujah: Cannonball by Damien Rice, The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice, Volcano by Damien Rice, Cold Water by Damien Rice....