spacekadet blog

I must admit that the movie Napoleon Dynamite was pretty much lost on me. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school and missed out on the awkward high school dynamics that occur between boys and girls, geeks and jocks, freaks and meatheads. Napoleon Dynamite is all about bizarre weirdoes, class elections, and the high school prom. The only thing the movie and I have in common is the bizarre part. Replace the jocks with nuns and the prom with a volleyball tournament, and I might have laughed out loud.

I can’t deny, however, the brilliance of the soundtrack. It perfectly summarizes the awkwardness that is being a bit of a geek in an outwardly “cool” world. That its siren songs are 80’s classics makes the point even sharper. Two songs stand out in particular: Yaz’s “Only You” and Alphaville’s “Forever Young”. Also notable is Sparklemotion’s admirable cover of Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time”. Are you swooning yet?

The CD also ties in some synth pop to keep you from crying in your pillow in a fit of hurts-so-good nostalgia-induced heartache. And let’s not forget the classic Napoleon one-liners that echo in your ears for weeks, especially when everyone around you keeps repeating “YESSSSS” and “Gosh!” all the time. (You can just skip those tracks when you add the CD to your iPod.)

Related posts:

1. babylon
2. he’s here: The Phantom of the Opera
3. Why don’t you do what you dreamed, Bastian?