A man approached me in the Nordstrom bathroom and asked if I had a coconut. He was wearing a bright red jogging suit and baseball cap and I assumed "coconut" was a code for cocaine or a sexual favour. I said no, and it was only after he'd gone that I realised the whole room smelled like coconut . . .
Trisa visited San Diego last week. We had a pleasant time, she has a very nice new haircut, and we watched Napoleon Dynamite.
I was expecting to have a much stronger reaction to the film than I did. I expected to hate it or love it. It turned out my feelings were slightly warmer than lukewarm.
There's a sweetness about it--I get the impression that the filmmakers had a genuine affection for these characters, that they were not sadistically exploiting them as many reviews for the movie insist.
Perhaps this misimpression arises from the fact that none of the characters really become more than mild caricatures--you can see the kinds of guys they're trying to be, but they never quite pull it off.
The movie is a very mild comedy. The best jokes make you smile or sort of chuckle. One of the film's problems is an over-reliance on the comedy of tedium--especially in the first two thirds of the movie, there are endless static shots of people standing very still speaking in slow monotone. There were several instances where I got the joke midway through the delivery, but the movie insisted on dragging it right along anyway.
It was, on the whole, a pleasant movie, but I think by the third viewing I'd jump out of a high window. It's a little like Braveheart.
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