Vote for Pedro

The Washington Post has a three page article, 'From Indie Chic to Indie, Sheesh,' out today that suggests indie movies bow their heads, roll over and play dead, and make room for "old school classicism." I say, "Don't do it indies! Show them how it's done!"

Without some of the great films Ann Hornaday references, where would we get our doses of "indie face: grim, expressionless and almost always accompanied by an equally affectless speech pattern," pop culture throwbacks like hamburger phones and tube socks, and a general reprieve from the garbage that's flooding our newspapers? Sorry financial world, but you're just not as funny as a dune buggy-riding, llama-breeding grandmother or an overweight, pre-pubescent girl road tripping with her family across America in a Scooby Doo-esque Mystery Machine.

Hornaday goes so far as to criticize "Napoleon Dynamite," only one of the greatest movies of the 21st century. She writes:

Perhaps the worst offender in copping a derivative indie 'tude is "Napoleon Dynamite." The 2004 film starred a then-unknown Jon Heder as the title character, an awkward, adolescent super-geek with an adenoidal bleat for a voice and a penchant for tetherball. "Napoleon Dynamite," which was another crossover hit, packed in detail after cloyingly "indie" detail: Trapper Keepers, moon boots, a nonstop cavalcade of progressively more eccentric characters, the bleak, featureless backdrop of American exurbia. The film, a self-conscious compendium of "idiosyncratic" stunts and "quirky" set pieces, took indie irony to its cruelest extreme, expressing thinly veiled ridicule and contempt for its subjects and, by extension, its audience.

For shame. I have no words for this woman. I went so far as to name my car after this masterpiece. Jon Heder's portrayal of the title character was so spot on that an ardent TV watcher like myself would GLADLY toss "Gossip Girl" aside for a repeat viewing. This is incredibly disappointing. Where have the days of respectable journalism gone?