PLAYING WITH 'DYNAMITE':
BYU STUDENT HITS THE BIG TIME WITH HIS FIRST MOVIE
Even Jared Hess wasn't entirely convinced about the commercial prospects for "Napoleon Dynamite," his offbeat, low-key comedy about high school misfits and outcasts, which was very loosely based on his experiences growing up in Idaho.
Ref. https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C...74407%2C00.html
This is a movie that gets funnier each time you watch it. I enjoyed it when I first watched it. It reminded me of small towns everywhere. Of course, it helped that I grew up 30 minutes north of Preston, ID, where the movie was filmed, so I recognized the area.
My oldest daughter hated it the first time she watched it. Then someone convinced her to watch it again, and she loved it. A lot of people have had that experience.
I think the point of it is that the real geeky guy shows that he could come out ahead in the end.
3
I just did not find this movie to have enough substance that it has been called such a "cult classic." The title "cult classic" should be reserved for films so cutting-edge that it sustains time and culture to be passed down. This film was just.. not funny in my opinion and the fact that it is quoted so often on tee-shirts and other things is even more a puzzle to me. Maybe you need to watch it a lot of times, but I had a hard time sitting through it even once. While I respect others' opinions, wow -- I really couldn't get this one.