★★★ Napoleon Dynamite

[Twinkletoes: 3.5, Tiny: 2.0, Gino: 3.0]

Twinkletoes says: "This was a really weird film. It was sort of like if a coherent David Lynch had a sense of humor and directed Ghost World. Napoleon is a wonderfully relaized character and all in all this was a hugely funny comedy. But, at times I couldn't get over the feeling that there was really no forward thrust to the story, and that got annoying. And without giving anything away, it seemed like he was trying to build the film around this dance scene which is admittedly cool and kind of funny but felt shoehorned into the film. Anyway I think I'll give this a 3.5 leaning more towards a 4 than a 3. Also, I think this could be a great DVD. The structure of the films leads me to believe they maybe left a lot of other stuff out."

Tiny says: "Maybe I'm just getting old. I thought this movie was stupid or odd for its own sake too often to qualify as art, or maybe not quite often enough. There is a glimmer here and there of something greater, and that was actually frustrating. On the plus side, Napoleon is a very complete, three dimensional character, and the portrayal is brilliant. One problem I had was that for the first hour I wasn't sure if I was supposed to like Napoleon or not, leaving me with no one really to root for in the movie (except maybe Pedro). There are a few pretty funny parts. Those moments and the overall nice work with the main character saved this from a lower rating. I loved the soundtrack's style."

Gino says: "It is always weird to review a pop culture phenomenon way after its waning (my review is years later than Tiny's and Twinkletoes'). There is not much here in the way of a story or anything. And the laughs (for me) were more of the smiling kind than the laugh-out-load kind. However, I admire the film's ability to take one truism (that extreme awkwardness and consumer objects that are 20 years old are intrinsically funny) and really stick with it. The 'attention to detail' was impressive. "