It's Been 10 Years Since We Saw That Dance

We all know the dance. We all had the tshirt. We all know his name. We all wanted to draw ligers. At least all those die hard fans do and did.

'Tina you fat lard come get some dinner!' Most quoted line apparently.

Apart from a very bitter writer from The Wire, there has been positive articles about the 10th Anniversary of the now classic cult hit Napoleon Dynamite. Back in 2004 I was quoting this film like crazy with a few friends who had seen the low budget marvel.

For those who have not seen this gem, the story is set in a non-descript town and is about the title character Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder). There isn't really much of plot apart from Napoleon trying to help his friend Pedro become Student President at school. To me its a series of great moments joined together by a group of believably weird people. Jared Hess, the director and co-writer (with wife, Jerusha Hess), actually wove some real life moments from his life into the film. Such as he was really apart of the Sign Language club and his family's cow really was shot in front of a school bus full of children.

After seeing the above poster, I was slightly put off but after reading about the film showing at Sundance and the small article in Empire (which I had, at the time, started reading religiously) I changed my mind. I found the film on sale in HMV and went ahead and bought it. I was hooked and intrigued at the same time from the moment the famous food credits started. Those now famous food credits were actually shot after the film was shown at Sundance. They were shot and designed by the DP, Munn Powell and the actor who played Kip, Aaron Ruell.

Obviously the crowning moment is at the end when Napoleon does 'the dance'. I don't want to spoil anything because I'm hoping that this will convince you to watch it. All I'll say is its amazing.


 To commemorate the 10 year anniversary, 20th Century Fox had a special screening, with Will Forte hosting. They also placed the creepy looking statue (see below) on the studio lot in LA. At least the gesture was there.

The film spawned an animated TV series with the original cast providing the voices. But alas it wasn't to be, FOX cancelled the TV sitcom after 6 episodes. I managed to catch a couple of episodes and I thought it was great but I suppose it was just me and 9 million other people who watched were the only ones. 9 million wasn't enough for FOX.

Anyway, back to the positives. Napoleon Dynamite definitely deserves cult status and will live on!

 #napoleondynamite  #10years  #film  #cultfilm  #cinema