Grumpire 4, Napoleon Dynamite 0
For episode four, we welcome site contributor Jay Alary. Jay’s done a lot of great work so far for Grumpire, and we were ecstatic to have him on our show — even though this is the first episode we’ve done in which we don’t exactly agree with our guest. Hey, it had to happen sometime!
So join us as we discuss the overt twee-ness of Napoleon Dynamite, how it’s stuck in a time that doesn’t quite make sense, how the film may actually hate its characters, and how Napoleon himself is more superficial than Jay would like.
To counter, Jay presents an anti-dote in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, a movie that (even though, admittedly, its characters are assholes, too) provides more substance as it lays out its story of an awkward teenage boy struggling to come of age.
Be sure to check out Jay’s writing here