3) Nacho Libre
By now, Napoleon Dynamite is pretty much one of the most beloved comedies of the last ten years. Just about everyone who saw it back in 2004 was baffled, but repeat viewings bring out the jokes. I think once you get the tone it’s going for you can tune into the utterly bizarre wavelength it’s operating on and the strange comedic details are able to make contact with your funnybone. The team of Jared and Jerusha Hess followed it up (with the help of co-writer Mike White) in 2006 with the Jack Black-led Nacho Libre. Once again, it was coldly received, but unlike Napoleon it hasn’t been rehabilitated in the public eye quite yet.
That’s unfortunate, because this is one of those comedies that sustains the kind of humorous tone throughout that you don’t necessarily laugh out loud at (unless you’re with a group of people who aren’t getting it and you want to coax them into laughing by exaggerating your own amusement. Shoot is that what I’m doing now?). But that seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of these underappreciated comedies. They don’t pile on joke after joke but just create this world that feels absurd and interesting, which you appreciate more after the fact, when you can consider the movie as a whole.
That’s not to say they’re without jokes; Steven’s statement of “I don’t believe in God…I believe in science” is pretty surprising and hilarious. Those Hesses have a way with comedy that is entirely fresh and different and always compelling in a bizarre way (for further evidence of this, see Gentlemen Broncos).