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+ Best Dance Movie of the Year + Best Dollar Return of the Year: 115.25 Times the Cost + Best Idahoan Movie of the Year + Best High School Movie of the Year + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Low-Budget Movie of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year
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| Jon Heder looks, well, ridiculous in moonboots and a brown suit on this funny poster for Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite |
In small Idaho town Preston, Napoleon lives with his grandmother and uncle. His best friend is Pedro, who is running for student president at their high school. And a dance there is fast approaching.
Napoleon Dynamite is written by Jerusha Hess and her husband, debuting great Arizonan co-writer/director Jared Hess (Don Verdean (2015)). This cursing and sex-free teenage romcom lights up with originality and humanity in all of its groovy parts.
We are invited to get to know all the weirdos, all the imperfect people of Preston, and if the script is a bit lean, the film makes up for it with wonderful music and precise, memorable photography full of good, static compositions, (by Munn Powell (Gentlemen Broncos (2009))). And, of course, Jon Heder (Wildlife (2014, short)) is a dancing sensation as the title character, and Efren Ramirez (Mad Families (2017)) is hilarious as his buddy Pedro.
Related post:
Jared Hess: 2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cost: 400k $
Box office: 46.1 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 115.25 times its cost)
[Napoleon Dynamite premiered 17 January (Sundance Film Festival, Utah) and runs 95 minutes. The film is inspired by Hess' short film Peluca (2003). Shooting took place in Idaho, including the real Preston, and in Utah in 23 days from July - August 2003. A reportedly substantial part of the tiny budget was spent on music rights licensing. Heder was paid only 1,000 $ for his performance but later renegotiated and received an undisclosed cut of the film's profits. The film opened #29 to a 116k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #8 and in 1,024 theaters, grossing 44.5 mil. $ (96.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 1 mil. $ (2.2 %) and Australia with 0.38 mil. $ (0.8 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to 4 notches worse than this one. It was nominated for 3 Independent Spirit awards and a Grammy, among other honors. The cast and filmmakers returned with a same-titled TV-series in 2012, which was canceled after 6 episodes. Hess returned with The Postal Service: We Will Become Silhouettes (2005, short) and theatrically with Nacho Libre (2006). Heder returned in 2 shorts and a TV-series, before he returned to the big screen in Just Like Heaven (2005). Napoleon Dynamite is fresh at 71 % with a 6.31/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Napoleon Dynamite?
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