anyone else seen this? watched it a couple of nights ago. don’t really know what to make of it, but i did enjoy it. like something todd solondz might make if he wasn’t a miserable git–skirts the lines between caricature, affectionate identification and satire, seems to cross them from time to time but never quite falls completely into any of those modes. i wish i had more interesting things to say about it.
i have now seen two movies made by people from idaho: this and “twin falls idaho”. that was a non-sequitur.
Uh-oh. Squuib’s got an opinion here.
I am noncommittal about this film. I laughed early on, then kept checking my watch later. But I found it unoffensive, and a sweet amalgamation of the genres AC mentioned (satire, cartoon, and schmaltzy empathy).
That said: this seems to be incredibly popular among the kids. I’m not sure why, but I must have had 30 students tell me I needed to see this movie. What the cult appeal is, I’m not sure…
I found this film to be trite, juvenile and offensive. The audience I saw it with gleefully laughed at the characters from a position of urban superiority. It was like watching John Waters directing an episode of HBO’s Carnivale with a script written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor.
squuib, i didn’t laugh at the characters. however, i have no trouble believing your experience with it–let’s not forget either that reynolds’ beloved farrely bros.’ core audience is also mostly fratboys laughing at the “freaks”. but i don’t know that i’d be comfortable saying that the film is laughing at these characters from a position of urban superiority, not consistently anyway.
something i found very difficult to translate into comedy: the bit at the beginning when napoleon tosses the action figure out of the bus and drags it behind the bus with a piece of twine. from the little of the commentary that i listened to i know it is something the director/writer and his brother did as kids but i can’t separate it in my head from real live black people being dragged behind cars by real live racists.
Yeah, there were so many visual non-sequitors that did not work for me. The lunch scene at the chicken farm (was it a chicken farm?) with the raw eggs and the scary sandwiches and the toothless old men and the flies . . . I just didn’t get any of it. As far as race goes, I thought the film ran into some really prickly areas when the urban black woman takes a bus into Idaho to transform her white geek online lover into a pimp daddy. The teenagers in the audience got a big kick out of that, but I was perplexed (sly comic satire or buffonish cartoon). There were also strange undercurrents of homophobia floating around in the film as well. I don’t remember it very clearly to be honest–I saw it last summer–but I do remember the strong urge to walk out of the theatre, and I’ve only walked out of the cinema once (Pet Semetary). I’m not sure what the filmmakers intentions were (let’s make a film and get the hell out of Idaho?) and Mike is right . . . my students really liked this film too. Then again my Aunt Khaki from South Carolina said it was the funniest movie she’d every seen. She “laughed her ass off.” Wait . . . I did walk out of I, Robot but only because Harold and Kumar was starting and that’s the movie I really wanted to see. And by the way, Squuib has lost its flavor. My name is Jeff Turner, and I teach theatre studies at Hamline and if you’re accepting new members to your club, I’d like to join.
You have an Aunt Khaki? She should meet my Uncle Madras.
how could you walk out of Pet Semetary? not bad at all, plus it had a decent Ramones song: “I don’t wanna be buried/In a pet cemetary/I don’t wanna live my life underground…”
I don’t know . . . maybe it was the creepy spina bifida (sp?) girl or the idea of watching a dead baby being buried in order to return from the dead. Was it Mary Lambert who directed? I’m not sure why I went in the first place, but I do like the Ramones even if they were punk rock Republicans.
Watched this last night for the first time, and I don’t intend to restart the discussion on this. But –
I really like Arnab’s initial decription of the film; “something Todd Solondz would make if he wasn’t a miserable git.” I have to admit I was kind of touched by the whole thing – a film where the worst cruelties visited upon a full-on unapologetic freak like Napoleon is that he gets shoved against a locker several times and people laugh at his story about hunting wolverines in Alaska. And why wouldn’t I ask him to tell me again “what he did last summer”? It’s a funny story. I’d want to hear him tell it again.
I grew up in a rural town with people trapped in time as well, and while there was some familiarity in what I saw here, I never got the impression this film was being made to mock the setting and people from a position of supposed superiority. I certainly can’t interpret dragging a buff white He-Man type action figure being dragged behind the bus as coded racial bait.
It will be interesting to see how the writers follow this up. I would have said it will be interesting to see how Jon Heder follows up this role, but unfortunately Benchwarmers answered that all too clearly.