Gosh, 'Dynamite' is clean

If you're not sure why it seems like kids and teens in Utah County are saying "gosh" a lot (well, a lot more) lately, you must not have been introduced to "Napoleon Dynamite." The character, born at a Brigham Young University student film festival, took the nation by surprise this summer, driving over $43 million in U.S. box office revenues.

Be prepared for even more movie quoting, because the film was released on DVD Tuesday and is sure to be a popular holiday gift. "Napoleon Dynamite" was among the top 10 movies in the country for several weeks in September and drew many viewers multiple times.

The DVD will feature commentary from the cast and director, as well as deleted scenes, possibly including "Peluca," the short film that started it all. The short won several awards at festivals, which enabled producer Jeremy Coon to secure funding for a full-length feature, filmed in Preston, Idaho, last summer.

It has been a wild ride for the cast and crew of the film, most of whom are LDS, and many BYU students. Since its premier appearance at Sundance in January, director Jared Hess' first feature garnered praise from film critics across the country, who called it "deadpan hilarity" and found the film "quirkily endearing" and "resonant." From the New York Times to Rolling Stone, reviewers commented on the movie's oddball comedy, remote geeks and, ofttimes, the filmmaker's membership in the LDS Church.

"Napoleon Dynamite" is not another Mormon movie — far, far from it, in fact, with its quirky humor and nary a mention of the "M-word." But most of the film's cast and crew — co-writer/director Hess, lead actor Jon Heder, co-writer Jerusha Hess and producer Jeremy Coon — are products of BYU's film school, a fact that kept "Napoleon Dynamite" squeaky clean.

"A lot of Hollywood likes how it's so innocent," said Heder. "There are a few scenes where it feels like it's about to turn a dirty corner, and it doesn't. The film is so different, but it works. It goes to show that people do like clean movies. There's a lot of material that could be in there that's not — sex, swearing."

Hess said that introducing those elements would not only have been out of character for him but for Napoleon as well. "As a writer you try to do what's appropriate for the characters in the story, what makes sense for the story you're trying to tell," Hess said. "This is a movie about a kid who was raised not to swear, so he comes up with amusing alternatives like 'flip' and 'fetch,' all the token ones we're used to."