Today at the airport I watched as a male ‘security’ guard had the wrapped attention of three female gatekeepers. That is three women were listening to him tell them about whatever he was saying. Kindly lending him their attention.
In an attempt at humor he yelled out to one of the pilots or co-pilots (uniform wearer that looked authoritative), “Autveterstien! I think that’s ‘hello’ in Korean!” Chuckles went all around the small group. Dang, that’s just not funny. Sometimes I’ll be responsible for that sort of humor, but I’m embarrassed by it now and will work to keep the humor of a higher quality.
Last night I watched Napoleon Dynamite with Jessica at the recommendation of my brother and a mutual friend, Michael Nelsen. Whoa! Really, really not what I expected. Most of what is funny is the awkwardness of the actor. However, there’s no intensely strong moments in the movie. It comes and goes, but the dull life of the main character, ironically named, Waterloo Fuse* is just awkward. There’s strange humor involved, but its more of the subtle, “that would be a funny thing to have as a side joke,” sort of way instead of the laugh your head off because frankly that just is the funniest thing I’ve seen since [some funny event in your life here]. The movie continually built up to a place where I was ready for a great whity line, a funny moment or a great heroic thing. However, the movie builds up to one moment of stage flapping. It was almost as funny as I expected the whole movie to be with the hype that the movie had gotten from some and the hype that my brother and Mike gave it. So, in the end, it was well worth my two hours in comparison to (you knew this was coming) Eks Verses Sever (Balistic).
Now, this wouldn’t be a fare review if I didn’t give some constructive criticism so I’m going to offer the writers and directors some ideas:
- Please don’t rely on duldrums to emphasize the mundane
- Please consider using jokes in movies that are supposed to be funny. Bike crashes that place the protagonist’s groin up against the post of his buddy’s bicycle are not enough to carry the whole movie.
- Please bring in more actual dialog. Sure, teenagers often feel awkward, and sometimes the thoughts of a teenager are hard to speak, but I’m pretty sure that what was said in the movie could have been augmented with an actually full script.
Apologies to the actual writers, actors and directors if I’ve just crushed your egos (yeah, right). I’m highly impressed with the concept of your movie. There was incredible potential in this movie, there really was. I just didn’t get to laugh like I expected.
* not really. However, Waterloo was the end of Napoleon and a fuse usually will do in a stick of dynamite… or so I’m told.