10 Successful Low Budget Films (That Weren't As Good As You Think)
2. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Remember all those words ago about how people who get super mad when somebody points out Clerks wasn't perfect do so because they confuse a movie's "quotability" with its quality? Now, imagine that same issue but instead of witty dialogue you have barely coherent memetic pablum that can easily be turned into a shirt in Hot Topic's "Viciously Beaten Dead Horses" section. Voila! You are now imagining the reason Napoleon Dynamite wasn't a good movie at all. Not only did it unleash Jon Heder on the world, but it made an entire generation of people think that saying "gosh" in a funny voice is a perfectly acceptable substitute for a punchline. At least Jon Heder is doing a pretty good job as the Philadelphia Eagle's quarterback now though. Good for him. Napolean Dynamite is a movie about poorly written characters saying nothing interesting for an hour and then a reminder that Jamiroquai existed. It is actually more catchphrase than movie. Sometimes it's nice to imagine that this is the version of Gummo made in the Darkest Timeline by a Wes Anderson robot clone and painstakingly marketed towards people who think The Big Bang Theory is the pinnacle of sitcom humor.
Gavin Bard was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambiance of his home city of Los Angeles. His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. In 1986 Time called Bard a "laureate of American lowlife".
Wait, crap, hold on a second. That is Bukowski. Sorry. Gavin plays too many video games, thinks pro wrestling is the world's best performance art, and considers Hunter S. Thompson a better journalistic influence than Edward R. Murrow.
