Guys with Skills

I didn't like Napoleon Dynamite when I first saw it in a bridal suite at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Vegas. Sure it made me laugh a lot, but I kind of felt like it was a rip off.

Since it came out on DVD, I've had a strong urge to see it again. It finally grew to the point where I bought it last night on my way over to Tim and Desiree's house. After the second viewing, I love it. I love it for all the reasons I didn't like it before.

There's no real plot. No character development. It's just a series of events.

That's what makes it so great. It's just a chunk of a life in a very specific world, and that world is the world I grew up in: lined notebooks full of drawings, metal folding chairs at high school dances, gravel roads leading to houses in the middle of nowhere.

I tried to explain that to Tim and Desiree (more her because she'll keep asking if she doesn't get it). I guess it's just one of those things from living in the middle of nowhere. By the time pop culture reaches you, it's stale. I think satellite TV and the internet have gone a long way to bringing the Midwest up to speed, but there was this sort of timeless gap when I was a kid.

They still found the movie funny but I think for different reasons then I did.

I just love how real it is.