Napoleon Dynamite

[cranefly]

Ever meet yourself?
I did. Once.
Back in '79. I was living in Phoenixville Pennsylvania. That's the hometown of Alice Cooper, if anyone's keeping track. Anyway, I was in this department store shopping for who knows what, and suddenly I saw him. He had just entered the store and was moving through the racks. I only caught a glimpse of him, but that was enough. He looked just like me.

The next thing I knew I was out on the street. I had veered sharply left and exited the store. I felt faint, and my heart was pounding. I was royally freaked. And I wasn't certain why.

I mean, clones. They're the future. I accept that. I have no problem with that. But when you actually run into yourself, suddenly it gets very personal.

Do I have a phobia?

Fast forward to a couple months ago. I'm eating lunch with a good friend. Her name's Hao. I've known her and her kids for over twenty years. And they know me really well. I mean, they've seen me in my unguarded moments, if you know what I mean. When I'm goofing off, talking to myself, whatever. Anyway, Hao starts telling me that she and her kids just watched Napoleon Dynamite, and they got to laughing so hard. Because it was me. They saw me in everything he did. His speech patterns, gestures -- just his whole attitude and reaction to things. She told me I had to see it. In fact, she wanted to drive us straight over to the library where she had checked it out, to see if it was available. I told her I was very busy at the moment, and later I'd look into it.

Faint, heart pounding. It was happening again. I just didn't want to watch "me" on the big screen. Or even the little screen. The heebie-geebies.
And no, I never did check out Napoleon Dynamite. And yeah, I'll be catching flack for this non-review. Oh well. Just thought I'd try to explain why I haven't watched it.

So then earlier today I get a package in the mail. It's addressed to cranefly. The return address is Doom South. Well, I tear that sucker open, all excited, and then I just freeze. Because it's some sort of Napoleon Dynamite keychain thingy.

The next thing I know, I'm in the car. Lady Cranefly has packed me in, is about to head to the emergency room. Because I'm incommunicado. Well, I snap out of it enough to call off the trip, explaining to her that it was just a mild case of morbid terror. And I've recovered now. Some.

I do intend to see Napoleon Dynamite. Someday. I just need a lot of desensitivation sessions first.

And I do intend to open the keychain package. In a day or two. By the end of the week. No later than the end of the month, okay?

I just need a little time, you know...

--cranefly

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It's all about the skillz. Nunchuk skillz.

The movie blows but the dialogue is memorable..

[Haggis Killer]

When I was about 11 or 12, my cousin and I were playing near our church, which was pretty far from our homes. Not our real neighborhood; our mom's had brought us over for something and turned us loose on the streets. Ah, the 60's.

A kid from the neighborhood came up to us on his bike. He started talking to me like he knew me. Called me by a different name and started telling me all kinds of important local news.

I fell right into the conversation, as if I was who he thought he was talking to. My cousin couldn't keep a straight face and thought I was nuts. Funny, but nuts.

I think it was helpful for me to have realized at a very early age that there was more than one of me. It saved me from what you've described. I'm sure I would have had the same reaction as you later in life, when I learned that someone with the same name as me lived six blocks from me on the same street in Hollywood. I got his mail, he got my phone calls.

Freaky, but not disturbingly so. For your benefit, I'll attribute it to my early indoctrination into the fact that I'm not from a unique mold.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Unless I'm the evil twin.

Since there isn't a whole lot of review and quite a bit of personal problem in the Cranefly missive, shouldn't this have been better started in the Issue section?

Okay, I buy that there might be a clone of you out there, but which one is it? Alice Cooper and Napolean Dynamite? I don't think you could find two more disparate characters escpecially since one is less than fictional.

If you are Cooper, I think you'll enjoy the keychain immensely. It your Napolean, maybe you should see about getting a cut of the merchandise. You could retire a wealthy individual. You might even become a thousandaire.

Regardless, make up your mind which clone is your clone and move on. It's like the Liger says "I need more lasagna if this is going to work"

[King Bob]

I was at an art opening at the San Jose museum and saw my doppleganger. Which surprised me, since I always thought I was unusual looking. My wife noticed him too and also saw the resemblence. Incidentally, he was obviously gay and a much better dresser than me.

As to Napoleon Dynamite, I'm not sure why it was such a huge success. It had funny bits, but on the whole I didn't think it was that great. Perhaps with some editing it would have been better. (But I think that a lot, e.g. Sideways, the Aviator, and any of the Lord of the Rings pictures.)

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Napolean Dynamite was a better film retrospectively. While watching the film I was completely bored. But talking about the lines later, was very enjoyable. You couldn't pay me (well if you paid me enough) to watch the film again. But I derived great pleasure from the talking key chain. If only it had the Nunchuk line, then all would be right with the world.

[King Bob]

My wife has a talking Mr. T keychain, which I find to be superior to the Napoleon Dynamite keychain. For example: "Don't give me none of that jibber-jabber!" or "First Name Mister, Middle Name Period, Last Name T!" And it seems louder than the ND keychain.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

King, shouldn't you own the Mr. T keychain. If not, something is seriously amiss in San Jose.

I agree with you on all counts over the merits of the various keychains. Except that Napolean has slightly more relevance at this point than Mr. T. That was why I went in the Dynamite direction.

[cranefly]

Yeah, I suppose I should have posted the Napoleon Dynamite thread under Issues rather than DVDs. But I put it here to compensate for mistakenly putting my review of Old Boy under Movies rather than DVDs.

So it all works out.
Though I suppose I deserve a demerit. Maybe 2 demerits. But Drunk Monk doesn't believe we should have demerits, and now I agree.

Rationalization is a wonderful thing. Then again, maybe not. It's the modus operandi of our administration. But dang, it sure seems to work.

Okay, here's the deal. I'll watch ND by the end of the month. Then I'll post the review on this thread. The train will be put back on its tracks.

Just in time for the tunnel that's only painted on the mountainside...

--cranefly

[Drunk Monk]

i confess i enjoyed napoleon. the whole rex kwon do thing had me laughing out loud. i'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. i can totally see why it became such a cult hit and i'm happy that martial arts were mocked throughout it. if it didn't have rex, i probably wouldn't have enjoyed it that much.

for the record, i see no parallel between napoleon and cranefly. i see a parallel between a young yeti and weird al yankovic. i see a parallel between king bob and the first guy that dies from joker's laughing gas in batman. i see a parallel between el dingo and the electronics dude (another first guy who dies) in running man. cranefly and napoleon? no way.

btw, my kid absconded with my nd keychain immediately. i'm beginning to think that she might actually enjoy that film. i'm trying to think of objectionable scenes and none are coming to mind right away... am i forgetting something?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

You are forgetting everything. It's the way life goes.

[King Bob]

Okay it's off topic, but Gene's doppleganger is the Iron Chef guy. (Remember that for Halloween, Gene.)

[Drunk Monk]

No way, man. Ken used to say my doppelganger was the villain with the double-barrelled dragon pistol in Zatoishi meets Yojimbo. Nowadays, my co-workers seem to think I'm Dark Cloud from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I had this flash that cranefly's doppelganger was Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched - only she's just a little more hysterical in the Freudian sense of the word.

[El Dingo]

I saw myself in an airport once. I looked like a pretty nice guy. Now I know why strangers ask me for directions and to get things off the top shelf at Target.

Napoleon Dynamite finally came up on my Netflix queue.

It was amusing. I laughed a few times, but mainly kept wondering "What is this guy going to do next? He's not exactly the man of a thousand faces..."

I found Pedro more interesting. I would like to see more of his home life.

Kip reminded me of a 'columnist' from The Onion. He is an insurance accountant/wannabe gangsta. Looked identical. Let's see if I can't find a link...one moment please...ahh, here we go:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/view/kornfeld">http://www.theonion.com/content/columni ... w/kornfeld</a><!-- m -->

Anyway - I think they should have milked this as a TV series. There are endless plot opportunities with the characters.

I couldn't really identify with Napoleon. I was a geek in high school but not in that way. Actually I was one of those pioneers in 21st century Geekdom. Waiting 4 hours in line for the first showing of Star Wars, counting down the days till Devo released their first album, sneaking into "Wizards" and "Phantom of the Paradise", dressing up for "Rocky Horror" outings and, of course, Dungeons and Dragons. My character had a crystal hand.

A FUCKING CRYSTAL HAND! BEAT THAT FOR AWESOMENESS!

We were the cutting edge of Geekdom. Napoleon Dynamite was more of a social misfit.

Watch for my next dead thread revival as my Netflix queue progresses.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I can't beat a crystal hand for sheer awesomeness. Awesome-osity. Awesome-aciousness. Whatever. It was awesome.

Still a nerd after all these years. Bless us every one.

PPFY, ZY