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Napoleon Dynamite
Produced by Jory Weitz, Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, Sean Covel
Directed by Jared Hess
Screenplay by Jared Hess
Screenplay by Jerusha Hess Premiere Date: January 2004 Length: 95 min.
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| Production Type: |
| Mormon Contributor(s) |
| Content Types: |
| Narrative Film No Obvious Mormon Elements |
| Distribution Types: |
| Commercial Theaters |
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Summary:
From the DVD cover:
"Napoleon Dynamite is a new kind of hero, complete with a tight 'fro, sweet moon boots, and skills that can't be topped. Napoleon spends his days drawing mythical beasts, duking it out with his brother Kip and avoiding his scheming Uncle Rico. When two new friends enter Napoleon's life--shy Deb and mustachioed Pedro--the trio launches a campaign to elect Pedro for class president and make the student body's wildest dreams come true. But if Pedro is to beat stuck-up Summer, Napoleon will have to unleash his secret weapon..."
Annotations:
See Mormon Film: Key Films of the Fifth Wave
Peluca, the short black and white film on which Napoleon Dynamite is based, was shot in Preston, Idaho over a single weekend by a few BYU students like Jared Hess and actor Jon Heder in early 2002. It proved popular at the student film festival Final Cut, and Hess and after graduation Hess and his wife Jerusha decided to make a feature. Scrapped together for $400,000, Napoleon Dynamite proved a surprise hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It was picked up by Fox Searchlight, Twentieth-Century Fox's classics division, and went on to gross $44.5 million in domestic box office alone, making instant celebrities of Hess and its stars.
Though there is no LDS content more explicit than a Rick's College t-shirt or a trip to the local Deseret Industries, many Latter-day Saint film enthusiasts have claimed it as their own and extensively discussed it as a model for LDS filmmaking, particularly in crossing-over. For their part, Hess, Heder and the others have moved on to other mainstream projects; the only participant to return to something with even a slightly Mormon flare is nonMormon actress Tina Majorino, who has a recurring role as the LDS friend Heather Tuttle on HBO's series Big Love.
Quotes:
He's out to prove he's got nothing to prove.
Awards:
Best Movie, MTV Movie Award 2005; nine other wins and eighteen nominations
Additional details at Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/
View BYU Library catalog record
http://catalog.lib.byu.edu/uhtbin/ckey-search/3539576
HBLL Call No: DVDMM 251
Medium: 35mm color
Cast Members: Jon Heder - Napoleon Dynamite; Jon Gries - Uncle Rico; Aaron Ruell - Kip; Efren Ramirez - Pedro Sanchez; Tina Majorino - Deb
Music Composed by: John Swihart
Film Editor: Jeremy Coon
Cinematographer: Munn Powell
Country: USA
Language: English
Certification: MPAA: PG
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
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