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“I
wanted to tell the story of the awkward kid that sat next
to you in math, who you never spoke to.”
– Jared Hess, co-writer/director Napoleon Dynamite
This
is what happens when the wrong kind of aspiring filmmaker
[1] watches Welcome
to the Dollhouse, i.e. a movie about funny weirdos for
us to laugh at instead of a movie about genuine outcasts for
us to relate to. It’s the fictional flipside of the
equally reprehensible documentary American Movie (which
real deal Todd Solondz savaged in Storytelling) as
well as the epitome of fake klook.[2]
Enter MTV distribution and lazy hipster appetites, and you’ve
got a sleeper hit designed to lay bare the non-distinction
between TRL and Williamsburg Brooklyn. Not as bad as Gregg
Araki’s godawful Doom Generation, but Doom
Generation is holding a spot for it in the Cinemaffected
Hall of Shame.
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[1] Though I'm sure
Jared Hess is a nice guy and means well.
[2]
fake klook: a Mick Barr coinage for forced weirdness,
why be normal?ness, “Look at me I'm wacky”ness,
etc., though Mick prefers the variant spelling ‘fake
ckloock’ as an ironic nod to the fake klookiness of
the term itself.
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