Tribute: Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

There's no way I can let the passing of Roger Ebert go by without a word of regret and astonishment. Along with his Sneak Previews/At The Movies cohort Gene Siskel (who passed away in 1999), Mr. Ebert was honestly my main inspiration in becoming a commentator on films.  I began watching their weekly show sometime in 1978 or so, three years after it had migrated from their hometown of Chicago to PBS (and eventually syndicated) outlets all across the United States.  Then a 12-year-old kid with a voracious appetite for movies, I don't think I had ever considered writing and talking about them as some sort of career path.  With their wry rivalry, obvious passion, and singular charisma, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel changed all that for me; as a sometimes lonely teenage movie buff, each episode made me feel as if they were kindred fanatics talking to me exclusively, teaching me how to take in and discuss a particular film's merits.  Looking back at television history, it seems clear they really changed that medium's landscape.  Siskel and Ebert were the natural outgrowth of "Point/Counterpoint," the contentious 70s-era 60 Minutes debate segment with Shana Alexander and James Kirkpatrick, and were thus also the precursors of such argumentative shows as Crossfire and Politically Incorrect.  But, here, these talking heads--the bald one and the fat one--were not talking politics (not directly, anyway) but instead were debating my favorite subject, and doing so not lightly, but with such intelligence and deep concern over what profound effects movies have on our lives.

When Siskel passed--way too young--Ebert did not let that crumble his world.  Instead, he reveled in the snarky friendship he had with his newspaper rival (Gene wrote for the Chicago Tribune, Roger for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he won the first ever Pulitzer Prize for film reviewing).  Ebert mourned the loss of his friend openly, with great affection and, as always, impeccable honesty.  It was one of the first signs of utter grace from this journalist who, in the years hence, would impress us first with his prolific writing (in the last year of his life, Ebert clocked in a record 306 film reviews on his website rogerebert.com), his embrace of the internet as a communication tool, his loving relationship with his steadfast wife Chaz, and finally with his open battle with cancer that cost him his speech and his lower jaw, but not his ability to reach out to his readers in such a way that, even beyond his film reviews, you really got the sense that you knew everything about the man, and from the man's own hand.

Ebert's approach to writing was always well-reasoned and breezy.   He was able to make even the normally boring parts of a review (the recounting of a film's story) into essential reading, in that he blended such necessities so seamlessly (and often hilariously, in the case of his glib negative reviews) with the recounting of his dynamic opinions.  Though his observations could occasionally be puzzling or infuriating, he was never too academic in style--he had an everyman kind of voice.  Even so, he was always able to engender thought about the greater meaning of a movie, about its effect on the culture, or on how we view movies in general.  In his later years, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and launched Ebertfest--a passion-driven annual celebration of both new and classic movies held yearly in Champaign, Illinois--while continuing to dominate bookshelves with scores of tomes examining both the great and the not-so-great films (plus he penned an autobiography, Life Itself, and even a cookbook--after he'd lost the ability to eat solid foods--called The Pot and How to Use It).  He was some sort of unlikely Superman.

And so now, after writing one classic film (Russ Meyer's 1970 cult epic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), and after revolutionizing film criticism, television, movie marketing ("Two Thumbs Up" changed film adverts forever), the internet, and even the concept of bravery itself, Mr. Ebert is gone and it just feels as if the projector lights in movie theaters should go dark as tribute.  But, of course, he would not have wanted that.  He was much too devoted to having people see all the great stuff, and to having them avoid those titles that deaden the soul.  He reminded us there is often something to like in even the most mundane of films, that sometimes there is reason to question even the most acclaimed ones, and that there are always both old and new masterpieces in the ether to be endlessly adored--movies that could literally change who you are and how you thought about the world.  In that way, he might be my most treasured influence.  I started my own blog, Filmicability, in 2007 with the high-minded intent of leading readers to only the best movies.  The proudest days in this blog's history was one during which I noticed my hit count had shot up in the neighborhood of 7000 hits.  After some investigation, I realized Roger--as he had surely done with countless other film bloggers--had generously tweeted about one article I had written.  Having worked in relative anonymity, I was astonished the man had taken the time to appreciate my efforts.  I never got to meet him, sadly, but that event really felt like he had reached out from his Chicago home and, through the computer screen, patted me encouragingly on the back.  I'll never forget Roger, or Gene.  I miss them both terribly, and the world will always be indebted to them for showing us film lovers--the professionals and the hobbyists--exactly how to celebrate the movies.

Here is a link to MOVIE GEEKS UNITED's fine appreciation of Mr. Ebert...

And here are only a very few of my favorite Siskel and Ebert TV moments:

Their review of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas:


A wonderfully negative review of Rob Reiner's North:


Their look at David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which Ebert was offended by:


A very memorable look at Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre, which really helped that movie's critical standing:


Siskel and Ebert go at it over Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket:


A rave of the Coen Brother's Fargo:


Another Rob Reiner film, This is Spinal Tap, is gushed over here:


Their slam of Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls:


An entertaining compilation of negative reviews with Ebert, Siskel, and Siskel's TV replacement, Richard Roeper:


Finally, nothing says more about the Siskel/Ebert relationship than this collection of outtakes from some promo pieces they were doing for their show.  They could hurl nasty insults at each other, and then could be laughing and shaking hands soon after.  What a hardy and unique pair they were: 

Bad projection and good ol' Roger Ebert

I went to the movies the other night with my friend Tim O'Donnell. We attended one of Atlanta's premier movie venues, The Tara (now run by Regal Cinemas). Great theater, the Tara--always has been. But even they have their woeful moments.

There are four houses at the Tara. The two over to the right of the ticket taker are the bomb. The first one to that side is a gigantic, many-rowed but somewhat thinly-sliced house that always shows the best of the best. The throw range for the projection is incredibly long, but always bright (though the projectionists sometimes get the horizontal framing incorrect; I can still remember seeing Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear there with Saul and Elaine Bass' opening credits falling off into the black masking around the screen; the management told me "it was made that way" which is bullshit, considering it's Saul freakin' Bass).

The second right-hand house (pictured at the bottom of this post) is the finest of the bunch; it's wide-berthed, and its dimensions are just right to insure, almost always, a crisp and accurate projection that's comfy to watch. This said, when I was working at the Tara back in the early 90s, that very house was projecting the 50th anniversary re-release of Casablanca all wrong; they had no idea what a 1:33 projection lens was, and were instead showing the film in the present-day standard 1:85. This was anathema for a film that was composed with a 1:33--or essentially square--format to be converted to 1:85's slight rectangle. This meant that Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman's faces were being cut off at their exquisite chins and foreheads. With Bogart's lower lip falling off frame when he spoke in close-up, this situation made Casablanca look badly directed to a new viewer, and we all know that director Michael Curtiz was on his game in an radical fashion there! It ain't Curtiz's fault, it's the projectionist's, and the theater's. But damned if I could convey that to them, even as an employee.

The third and fourth houses at the Tara, over to the left of the ticket taker (the third house is pictured above), are somewhat of a hastily-built, wholesale disaster. Their dimensions are bizarre. The seats, even in the middle of the houses, are too close to a screen that's too high up on the wall for neck comfort; it's a very claustrophobic film venue. Even when I was working at the Tara, I regarded those houses as a place where lower-performing films were dumped (they were built as add-ons to the theater in 1983; the building itself, which is spectacular and now has a slightly overstuffed lobby, was built in the early 60s as a single, and twinned in 1975). So I groaned in disappointment when Tim and I discovered that the movie we just paid 12 bucks to see, Tom McCarthy's amiable comedy Win Win, was playing there.

I still ended up liking McCarthy's movie (it's difficult not to like, but slightly difficult to absolutely love). But, while watching it, not only did the rush of memories about why I abhorred the house's layout smack me in the forehead, Tim and I also had to deal with the piss-poor light coming from the projector. Win Win is a movie that'll probably work better on the small screen, but that doesn't mean paying customers at the theaters should be subjected to a screening that looks like abject mud. It was obvious that the Xenon bulb used to throw the projection onto the screen was either (a) giving out completely or (b) being dialed down to extend the life of the bulb. This made the colors in this modest film look that much MORE modest. In fact, they looked downright drab. I thought to myself "I'm sure when I watch this on DVD, it'll be a revelation." And we're not talking about a movie that trades on its look very much.

The same night, Tim and I decided to pay another 12 bucks to see a 2D version of Werner Herzog's new 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. We debated, at the ticket booth, whether to see this movie in 2D or wait until it was exhibited in 3D at another theater later on. Even though I had heard from Roger Ebert that it was a film that used 3D uncommonly well, I decided that seeing it in 2D was the wiser choice. When we see, these days, movies in 3D, the brightness of the screen is reduced by at least a quarter. And I didn't want to see a movie filmed in an ancient French cave with 1/4th less projection light.

It turns out that it was the correct choice. Cave of Forgotten Dreams looked great and, while I wanted to see Herzog's first foray into 3D, I'm happy I made the choice that I did. The movie is more important than that beside-the-point effect. Yet I couldn't help but wonder: what IF the 3D looked great? What IF Herzog was the first director to use the format to perfection? What had my distrust of 3D projection cheated me out of here?

Often, when I'm in the movie theater and something is wrong with the projection, I'm the only one who complains. It could be something as seemingly miniscule as the framing (a common thing so-called professional projectionists get wrong), something as wholly crucial as focus (I've had flat-out arguments with managers over whether or not a movie is in focus), something as esoteric as projection lens choices (as with the Casablanca case), or something as obvious as whether a film has broken. I've often found that, in these cases, I'm the only one willing to get up and tell the management that there's a problem; this blows my mind. At the Lincoln Center 13 in NYC, I was the first and only person to get up out of their seats to notify the management when the newly-released print of The King's Speech broke two reels--that is, 40 minutes--in.

I think when people pay to go see movies, they rightfully expect (given the high price) that they are to get what they pay for. But this is not necessarily the case all the time. Maybe in big cities like New York and L.A. they can expect this (and maybe not even then---depends on the theater, and how much its staff cares). But in the rest of the country, it takes people who give a shit to stand up for those who don't know enough to give a shit. These people may exit the movie--which may be great--not liking it so much, but not being able to put their finger on WHY they disliked it. Imagine watching Casablanca for the first time, expecting a masterpiece, and then being subtly irritated by the faults I've underlined. It's not that the movie is bad; it's the PROJECTION that sucks. This is a hairsplitting matter for most filmgoers, but not for film geeks like myself.

Roger Ebert's May 24th post on his indispensable Journal blog out of the Chicago Sun-Times, might stand as one of this treasured writer's most valuable posts. Aptly titled "The Dying of the Light," it illuminates many of the major problems that movie theaters face these days in competing with increasingly more satisfying home theater set-ups. Perhaps the most important piece of film journalism written in the past decade, it concerns itself with highly technical matters, but ones that are as important to movie theaters as getting the right sear on a piece of beef is to your average restaurant's customers (even if they don't KNOW the sear is important). Ebert's post (which reveals some troubling facts about digital projection, a format I've always distrusted) is an informative, honest, and scary piece about where the business of film exhibition is heading if it doesn't get its act together. Where is that? Down in the dumps. Massive layoffs. Abandoned theaters. Total sadness.

I personally cannot do without the movie exhibition business. I want to see movies projected, preferably via the richer 24 fps film, and projected correctly. Otherwise the revered millions of bucks and thousands of man hours being spent on their production means diddly squat. Godammnit, if the owners, managers and projectionists can't bothered to get passionate about what they do, then what the hell are we paying our money for?

Thanks to the great Jack Coursey for his photos of the 2nd and 3rd houses of the Tara theater, featured on his encyclopedic Cinemas Georgia website.

Who Should Win the 2012 Honorary Oscars?

I chime in every year on filmicability in regards to this yearly question, which these days is usually arrived at around the end of August. It was a bit controversial, the Academy's recent decision to fete the Honorary Oscar winners with the separate Autumnal ceremony prior to the February/March competitive Oscar show. But, in many ways, I kind of like how they're handling the Honorary Oscars now. Those moviemaking legends who're chosen get a warmer ceremony that doesn't try and rush the honorees off stage (and which internet-savvy fans can watch almost in full on the Academy's website). And they still get to be a substantial part of the wider-seen Oscar party come the new year. Best of all, this allows the Academy to hand out three or four Honorary Oscars per year, since eating up time on the rilly big shoo isn't an issue anymore. This also frees up the Academy to be more adventurous in their choices. In the end, I'd much rather see more artists deserving of the award actually receiving it, regardless of whether they can be seen getting it on television. TV exposure is beside the point; these people who've given their lives to the filmmaking art deserve recognition. If it means we need to trade off TV time for the opportunity for three or four artists a year to receive their due, then I think this is fair.

In the years since this blog has existed, I have posted two articles trying to predict the winners of this award: here in 2008 and here in 2010. Each time, I have been able to predict at least one of the winners. Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Ennio Morricone, Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, Jerry Lewis, Jean-Luc Godard, and Gordon Willis have all been on my wish lists, and all have garnered their Oscar (or Hersholt, or Thalberg awards).

So, this Spring, I choose to highlight just ten more names to add to the ones I've already stated should be considered for Honorary Oscars. Just in case you haven't clicked over to my previous choices are (and these are the ones who haven't been chosen yet): Frederick Wiseman, Albert Maysles, Liv Ullmann, Max Von Sydow, James Ivory, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Peter Bogdonovich, Albert Finney, Kyle Cooper, Burt Reynolds, and Woody Allen. Here are my 10 choices for this year, in no preferential order:

Douglas Trumbull, special effects artist and director. KEY FILMS (as FX supervisor): 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, Silent Running, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner; (as director): Silent Running, Brainstorm. For his brilliant engineering of special effects for movies (including his return to FX this year for Malick's The Tree of Life); for helping develop the IMAX format; and for his groundbreaking work on a variety of film-based theme-park rides.

Roger Ebert, film critic and screenwriter. KEY FILM: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It might seem unusual to posit Mr. Ebert for a Special Oscar, given that his involvement in the meat-and-potatoes of film production is minimal. But who else out there has promoted the love of motion pictures more? He's given his entire life to the art form, and continues giving through his annual Ebertfest and his popular online presence. The guy has conquered newspapers, television, and the Internet with his analysis of all things cinematic. He was the first movie critic to win the Pulitzer; I think he should become the first one to win the Oscar, too. By the way: this would be a HUGELY popular choice.

Paul Mazursky, actor, writer, and director. KEY FILMS: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Alex in Wonderland, Blume in Love, Harry and Tonto, Next Stop Greenwich Village, An Unmarried Woman, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Enemies: A Love Story. An indelible voice on film throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Mazursky has a style all his own, and it's time it was recognized for its colorfully humanistic verve.

Gena Rowlands, actress. KEY FILMS: Shadows, Lonely are the Brave, A Child is Waiting, Faces, Minnie and Moscowicz, A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night, Gloria, Tempest, Love Streams, Another Woman, Night On Earth, Something to Talk About, Hope Floats, The Notebook. One of our greatest actors and, lastly, our deepest connection to Mr. Cassavetes.

Christopher Lee, actor. KEY FILMS: Hamlet, Moulin Rouge, The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Mummy, She, Rasputin: The Mad Monk, The Magic Christian, The Devil Rides Out, Scream and Scream Again, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Hannie Caulder, The Wicker Man, The Man with the Golden Gun, 1941, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Triage, Alice in Wonderland, Hugo Cabret, The Hobbit. For a breathtaking body of work that continues, after six decades, to make its mark on the medium.

John Boorman, writer, director and producer. KEY FILMS: Catch Us If You Can, Hell In the Pacific, Point Blank, Leo the Last, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, The Emerald Forest, The General, The Tailor of Panama. A brilliant director, through and through.

Doris Day, actress. KEY FILMS: Young Man with a Horn, Calamity Jane, Young at Heart, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Pajama Game, Teacher's Pet, Pillow Talk, Midnight Lace, Please Don't Eat The Daisies, Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink, Move Over Darling, Send Me No Flowers, With Six You Get Eggroll. For being a singular presence in film for two decades, often in which she was the #1 box office attraction.

Ken Russell, writer and director. KEY FILMS: Women in Love, The Music Lovers, The Devils, The Boy Friend, Tommy, Altered States, Crimes of Passion, The Lair of the White Worm, The Rainbow. For being a lovably wacky author of one-of-a-kind motion pictures.

Owen Roizman , cinematographer. KEY FILMS: The French Connection, Play It Again Sam, The Heartbreak Kid, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, The Stepford Wives, Network, Straight Time, True Confessions, The Electric Horseman, Absence of Malice, Taps, Tootsie, Havana, The Addams Family, Grand Canyon, Wyatt Earp. His remarkable resume says it all; the one totally technical award I think deserves to be given, to a man who's been nominated five times but never has won.

Ned Beatty, actor. KEY FILMS: Deliverance, Nashville, White Lightning, All The President's Men, Network, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, Silver Streak, Gator, Superman, Superman II, Wise Blood, Friendly Fire, 1941, Back to School, The Big Easy, Hear My Song, Rudy, Cookie's Fortune, Spring Forward, Sweet Land, The Walker, Charlie Wilson's War, The Killer Inside Me, Toy Story 3, Rango. I liked how the Academy opened up the Special Oscar field last year to include an essential character actor like Eli Wallach. If they were going to do the same sort of thing this go round, I'd like to submit consideration for another great American actor who's rarely gotten his due.

For the Thalberg award (which goes to producers alone), I'd go for either the Weinsteins, Scott Rudin, Lawrence Bender, or Ted Hope. For the Jean Hersholt Award, for humanitarian effort, I'd nominate George Clooney, Sean Penn, or Angelina Jolie.

Film #97: Napoleon Dynamite

A reprint here of the interview Dark City Dame (of Noirish City fame) conducted with me in November 2009 regarding one of my favorite movies of the 2000s!

DarkCityDame: Let me start off by asking you this question: why did you select the film Napoleon Dynamite to be #23 on your list of the top 30 films from this decade?

Dean: It's really quite simple: no movie of the 2000s made me laugh harder. I cackled all the flippin' way through. I marveled at Jon Heder's mouthbreathing lead performance, at Aaron Ruell's whiny Kip, and at Jon Gries' way-too-confident Uncle Rico. I laughed at the bargain-basement shirts Napoleon wears, his shaded drawings of ligers and farting unicorns, and at Napoleon's obvious bliss at miming the flapping bird wings during a sign-languaged classroom performance of "The Rose." I laughed at that memorable dialogue, and those rigid camera set-ups. And I seriously almost burst a blood vessel guffawing at Napoleon's on-stage dance toward the film's end; that's a split-second in a theater where I thought I might choke from glee (it's a movie that benefits from seeing it with an audience, like any great cult film does). I mean, I could go on and on talking about all the merry details of this movie, extraordinarily well-directed by Jared Hess. Have you seen it, Dame?

DarkCityDame: Yes and no. While channel surfing I’ve stumbled upon it in the middle and watched it to the end.

Dean: It’s an easy movie to pick up on in that way. It makes for perfect television. I think one of the best things about Napoleon Dynamite is that, in its ease, it refrains from making fun of its characters. It finds them funny, yes, but it treats them as humans, not just as the butt of hateful jokes as in a movie like Welcome to the Dollhouse, for instance, which I think is quite cruel to its nerdy characters (and which is a movie I absolutely abhor--one of the meanest of all time, in my opinion, though that may be part of its point). By the end of Napoleon Dynamite, we find we've fallen in love with Napoleon, Pedro (the terrific Efren Ramirez), Kip and Deb (Tina Majorino) and even the wonderfully-named "villain" Summer Wheatly (Haylie Duff, Hillary's sister). Hell, I even loved Summer's always-incredulous-faced boyfriend Don, smartly played by Trevor Snarr (every time that guy came on screen, even as part of a huge crowd, I smiled). This is a movie that really has no villains. It's just too lovely for that. 

DarkCityDame: I liked the character portrayed by Jon Gries--Uncle Rico.

Dean: Yeah, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for his work, which is superb. On the DVD commentary, Gries (the son of Emmy-winning director Tom Gries, who did Helter Skelter, Will Penny and so much more distinguished work) talks about how he had to eat a lot of bloody steaks in his role as Uncle Rico. Rico is definitely a meat eater. Only problem is, the actor's a vegetarian, so he had to spit the steak out after each take. If you notice, you never see Gries swallowing anything. And that character of Rico is such a gloriously phony, lovable tough guy. I adore how he screams really high-pitched when Napoleon nails his ultra-cool van with some rotten fruit! And the goofy little fey pose he offers up when Deb takes his photo is pure genius. It make you root for him! 

DarkCityDame: Hahaha!

Dean: And that scene in the dojo with Diedrich Bader beating up on Kip is a scream (Jon Heder says that's the scene he had the hardest time keeping a straight face with during shooting--if you look closely, you can see Heder in the background trying to hide his laughter). But nothing trumps the moment where Napoleon performs on stage. It's strange to say but it's true: it's one of the most electric dance numbers since Travolta hit the floor in Saturday Night Fever! Seriously, no one in modern movies has such smooth and original moves as Heder sports in this sequence. And I absolutely adore the gentle love affair between Deb and Napoleon. Their slow dance together, to Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," where he comments on Deb's dress sleeves, saying he likes them and that they're "real big," is something so sweet that I look forward to every time I see the film. And that final shot of them playing tetherball together, all to that transcendent closing song, with the school's water sprinklers spritzing delicately in the background, is utter cinematic perfection. It's the kind of perfection that makes me weep with joy. 

DarkCityDame: Too bad Roger Ebert wouldn't agree with you!

Dean: Really? Ebert didn't like the movie?

DarkCityDame: Nope. Check out what he thought over there on Wikipedia about this film. But Rotten Tomatoes gave it the thumbs up!

Dean: Okay, I'm reading it now. Hmmm...I see Ebert also compares it to Welcome to the Dollhouse. He writes: “Watching Napoleon Dynamite, I was reminded of Welcome to the Dollhouse, Todd Solondz's brilliant 1996 film starring Heather Matarazzo as an unpopular junior high school girl. But that film was informed by anger and passion, and the character fought back. Napoleon seems to passively invite ridicule, and his attempts to succeed have a studied indifference, as if he is mocking his own efforts.” But, like a few of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, I don't think this is the case at all!

DarkCityDame: Why not? 

Dean: Napoleon is an individual who's perfectly happy with the world he’s set up for himself. (The film's first lines: "What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?" "Whatever I feel like doing! God!!") Look, he's always trying to improve his station in life--he could use a few more bucks and a few more friends. But he's got plenty of confidence and comfort on his own. Shit, no one could get on stage and dance like he does at the end of the movie without a lot of inherent confidence. Napoleon hears a different drummer, that's for sure, but it's no prob. He's got Deb and Pedro and his hobbies and his pride, and even without that support system, he's devised some way of coming out on top. And, contrary to what Ebert thinks, he fights back quite handily against anyone who's dumb enough to confront him (it's right there in the film). Geez, I feel like the girl in Welcome to the Dollhouse plays the victim a great deal more; she's just a boneless punching bag in that movie. I dunno. Ultimately, it sounds like Ebert wanted this to be one kind of film and it turned out to be another, and THAT'S what he's angry about. He just couldn't get into the goofy spirit of it all. It's too bad. I respect his writing tremendously, of course. However, I never agreed with him every single time. In fact, I should say that Ebert often gave the benefit of the doubt to movies I felt should've been dismissed outright. Why he couldn’t offer a kind little film like Napoleon Dynamite more of a chance is beyond me; it just does not compute. Maybe he was infuriated by the dumb yuks Hess was successful in getting, while ostensibly smarter pictures failed miserably in this effort. But, personally speaking, this sweet, doofy, well-crafted movie represents the rare instance in which I revel in essentially idiotic, but somehow smart spirits. Napoleon Dynamite is like a math conundrum that's already been solved, and yet its solution is so simple few can come close to comprehending it, except to say that it results in truth.

DarkCityDame: Was this film released through a major studio? I wonder how well it did at the box office?

Dean: Fox Searchlight picked it up after it got tremendous buzz at Sundance. They paid for the song rights to the soundtrack, and for a tony credits sequence masterminded by graphic design artist Pablo Ferro, who did the credits for Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange and special sequences for Midnight Cowboy and Being There. About the only thing I don't think really works in Napoleon Dynamite is the post-credits epilogue Fox shelled out for after it became a hit, which has Napoleon attending Kip's wedding to Lafawnda (a fun, unusually mature Shondrella Avery). This epilogue feels like what it is--a stuck-on afterthought--and it has relatively few laughs (though I do greatly enjoy Kip's lame-o wedding song, which really makes it worth watching). But this is a minor point to pick at. In the end, Napoleon Dynamite is to me the most engaging comedy of the past 15 years. It's right up there with This Is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride in its quotability. And, not that it matters, but it did tremendously well at the box office, making $46 million worldwide on a $400,000 investment, easily becoming the most profitable movie of 2004.

DarkCityDame: I know that it's quotable. You can find a ton of t-shirts decorated with lines from it.

Dean: I know! "Vote for Pablo." I'd wear that shirt anywhere. That's because the film rings so true, even if it is delivered in a highly unusual manner. "My lips hurt real bad." I like that line especially. And I swoon with laughter when an irritated Napoleon has to go out and feed his grandmother’s llama--“Tina, you fat lard, come and get your food. EAT THE FOOD!” In fact, Hess (who penned the script with his wife Jarusha) staunchly admits much of the film's moxie hails from he and his brothers' own high school experiences in Idaho, where the movie was filmed (and, yeah, that’s Hess' mother’s llama). That basis in reality shows up in surprisingly believable ways, even though this is a very stylized movie. Actually, I should note here that I find Napoleon Dynamite quite beautiful to look at, which is not something one can say for most comedies. Every cloud in the sky, every Idaho hill, every telephone wire and chain link fence seems to be just-so placed in the frame (and the camera never moves!). Amazing! And I love the way everything in this small town is fifteen years behind the times. They have the internet, but the Dynamite family still doesn’t have a cordless phone? They still look at videotapes? They still listen to '80s music and sport '80s fashions? It's all so wonderfully weird, and yet not outside the realm of possibility.

DarkCityDame: It's almost like they're caught in a time warp!

Dean: Exactly. In fact, one of the funnier moments in this rather episodic movie has Uncle Rico, who painfully longs to be back in his '80s-era football hero days, bringing home a "time machine" which Napoleon tries out. (In the DVD commentary, Hess said that he and his brothers once purchased a machine very much like this--"Wait, let me add the crystals"--and all it did was shock them!)

DarkCityDame: Hahaha!

Dean: Good stuff. The DVD has a terrific commentary and lots of nifty extras, including the 10-minute black-and-white short that inspired the film. And Napoleon Dynamite has a splendid soundtrack, bedecked with a poppy original score by John Swihart. I'm not much a fan of '80s music, but the film sports some choice picks from that era, as well as from the '90s and 2000s (a White Stripes song, "I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends," opens the film). And it closes with “The Promise,” a catchy one-hit-wonder by When In Rome that I just can’t get out of my head after the film's over. I love that song so much I think I’ve got it committed to memory. Ahh, that ending to this movie...it's majestic.

Dean: I have to say, I've found myself wishing Hess and company would mount a sequel. With so many needless continuations out there, I could see so many places for this character to go! Here's a perhaps pedestrian idea: I’d like to see Napoleon travel to a bigger city in Iowa to compete in a tetherball or dance championship or something like that (although that might be a little bit too much like those bad sports comedies that have been coming at us in the wake of Dodgeball). Still, I bet Hess could make it work (now, it's too late, though--the actors have aged out of the roles). I liked very much Hess' wrestling movie follow-up Nacho Libre, starring Jack Black, even though it wasn't half as engaging as Napoleon Dynamite (Gentleman Broncos came much closer to matching Hess' original promise, but by the time that accomplished film arrived, it certainly felt like the director's heat had diminished). Admittedly, he and his wife Jarusha (the writer of the more recent Austenland) might have to try very hard to deliver a work as good as this one. But I still maintain high hopes for them both. Napoleon Dynamite is just a really charming, uproarious movie throughout. I'm passionately rooting for the Hess team to rise again, because I believe in my heart that subsequent works could be comedy of the first order.  Actually, in my mind, Hess is already at the apex.

Dean: And I have to reiterate: That dance scene at the end. Oh my gosh. It's perhaps the greatest solo dance scene in extra-modern movie history. And the way it functions as a kind of unexpected Rocky-like ending is just like nothing one could have imagined. It's so simply filmed and, other than that strikingly zoomy A-Team scored sequence, is the only time we see any movement from the camera. Jon Heder, moving with such exquisite precision to Jamiroqui's incredible "Canned Heat," while in those moon boots that were so beat up on set, they were nearly falling apart--oh my lord...what a dynamic bit of movie making we have here. Just incredible. I have no further words for it. I'm done.

DarkCityDame: Thank you, Dean for talking to me about this incredible comedy.   

Dean: Thank you, Dame, for giving me the opportunity to go on and on. Napoleon Dynamite is a piece of film work I could gush about endlessly. Literally, every shot in this movie makes me wanna go on a rant about how moving and hysterical it is. It's strange--there's a part of me that tells my soul it's a movie made for me, and only me. That so many others love it--worship it, even--just completely devastates me with silly ecstasy.

The End: 150 Great Climactic Movie Moments

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