Last night we rented Napoleon Dynamite—after a couple people recommended it to me. A few weeks ago, we rented Garden State—another recommendation. Is this a new trend in movies/story telling? It seems to me that both movies were less plot driven and more about letting these odd characters just take the movie wherever they happen to go.
I really didn’t clue into this until last night, but I immediately equated Dynamite with Garden State—as being similar in style. I think Dynamite takes the oddity further though. I had no clue what the point of the movie was supposed to be (or even that it was about to be over) until the last scene—all three guys find their soul mates, right? In Garden State, Zach Braff (and by the way, I felt much better about the movie at the end when I found out that Zach wrote and directed the film) decides in the last scene that his life doesn’t need to be only about himself.
A few months ago, we rented About Schmitt and I think, to a lesser extent, it is a similar type of movie. They all have me thinking “I have no clue what’s going on here.” I find it hard to judge the time (and timing) of the movie and the significance of the scenes. I expect some big twist to give the movie direction and it never comes. In some ways I’m disappointed at the end of these movies, but last night, I watched Dynamite twice.
So, these are character driven movies, where the point is only revealed at the very end. I dunno, I guess they still baffle me. PS: Zach’s dad was played by Bilbo.
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