20th Century Fox

Gosh!

Can anyone else believe Napoleon Dynamite is 13 years old? I can’t. Today’s nomination from Annemarie is three years old, but let’s hope she’s still behind it (hee). Here’s her case for its cushion on the PFM Couch Of Fame.

• lengthy? 96 minutes.
• familiar/frequent? Played often on Comedy Central and E!, sometimes on MTV and VH1. Some stations won’t show the five-minute epilogue at the end of the movie, which is tragically eliminates the “Wanna have a catch” moment (see below).
• classic/award-winner? Nominated for several Independent Spirit Awards; won Best Movie at the MTV Movie Awards and Teen Choice Awards. So you know it’s a classic.
• “Greetings, Professor Falken” (big payoff/long-shot victory a la WarGames)? “Your speech is up next. Your skit had better be good.” Well, it wasn’t a skit, but oh was it good! Reminiscent of the African Ant Eater Ritual which Ronald Miller rocked at the Homecoming Dance in Can’t Buy Me Love, it starts with “huh?” and ends with “Yessssssss!”
• “Wanna have a catch?” (Pavlovian tear-jerk; anything with dads opens the ducts for this guy)? “We met in a chat room | Now our love can fully bloom | Sure the World Wide Web is great | But you, you make me salivate | Yes, I love technology | But not as much as you, you see | But I still love technology | Always and forever.” Sniff!
• quote-fest? “You wanna play me?” “Your mom goes to college.” “How much you want to bet I can throw a football over them mountains?” “Break the wrist, walk away.”
• caper-ish or -adjacent camaraderie? “So me and you are pretty much friends by now, right?” “Yes.” “So, you got my back and everything?” “What?” “Never mind.” Sniff!
• “forget you, melon farmer” (you own it, but will still watch bowdlerized TV verzh) My husband and I bought the movie and brought it to our friends’ house to watch together. We have similar senses of humor, we thought, surely they’ll love it as much as we do. Five minutes into the movie we’re giggling (“Whatever I FEEL like I wanna do. Gosh!”) and they’re like…really? About a year later we get a call from them all, “You HAVE to see this movie. You might not like it, ’cause it’s out there, but…anyway it’s called Napoleon Dynamite? Have you seen it?” Gah!

This one isn’t a CoF-er for me, but I do remember enjoying it when I first saw it — and I think I rented it from…Block…buster? So this is how long ago that was — and it’s definitely still on on cable a lot. I can also attest that it still speaks to people; you still see Vote For Pedro shirts for sale out in the world.

But I also recall a lot of people haaaaaaaating it, so let’s see whether a vote for Pedro is a vote for the Couch Of Fame!

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[Update 12/15/17: A little too much Napoleon, not quite enough dynamite for this one.]

The Poppy-Fields Movie Couch Of Fame is here. To nominate your own PFM, email bunting at tomatonation dot com with a rundown of the criteria and your argument for why it deserves a cushion. If I use your entry, free loot shall be thine.

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