{"id":1892,"date":"2005-01-23T02:17:52","date_gmt":"2005-01-23T07:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2005-01-24T00:29:21","modified_gmt":"2005-01-24T05:29:21","slug":"napolean-dynamite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2005\/01\/napolean-dynamite\/","title":{"rendered":"Napoleon Dynamite"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am probably the last person here to have seen Napoleon Dynamite<\/em>, but my daughter rented it on Friday, and I saw it twice over the weekend. I am still laughing. This movie has the infectious quality of Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/em> that makes it funnier with repeat viewings. And like the Holy Grail<\/em>, it is very quotable<\/a>. The funniest scene on first viewing was probably when the busload of children witnessed the shooting of a cow, but I cannot even begin to choose the funniest line. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the video scene quite a bit. Uncle Rico, Kip, and Napoleon are watching a home video of Uncle Rico throwing a football:<\/p>\n

Uncle Rico: So what do you think?
\nKip: It’s pretty cool, I guess.
\nUncle Rico: Ohhhh, man I wish I could go back in time. I’d take state.
\nNapoleon Dynamite: This is pretty much the worst video ever made.
\nKip: Napoleon, like anyone can even know that.<\/p>\n

Jeremy has a pretty thorough post<\/a> on the film way back in June, but I found only a couple of references to it in our comment archives. Of course, Rosalynde may worry that I am lowering Times & Seasons to the level of a teen chat room after her insightful interview with Neil Labute<\/a>, and Eric<\/a> may think that I am trying to divert our collective attention from his attempts to have us focus on LDS films for families. But I am willing to face those potential embarrassments because I have a question: has Napoleon Dynamite<\/em> had a special influence on Mormon teens?<\/p>\n

The youth in my ward are just coming around to it, but I had already heard many of the lines before I saw the film. Other than Napoleon’s “Ricks College” t-shirt, the Idaho setting, and the Mormon expletives (“Gosh!” and “frickin'” … or was it “flippin'”? Or both?), I didn’t notice anything uniquely Mormon<\/em> about this film. Even so, I sort of like the idea that Mormon youth can claim something “hip … almost avant-garde”<\/a> as a product of their own culture, and I am curious whether Napoleon<\/em> qualifies for that role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am probably the last person here to have seen Napoleon Dynamite, but my daughter rented it on Friday, and I saw it twice over the weekend. I am still laughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}