Okay, enough with the Wes Anderson stuff. Seriously.
Wes Anderson’s films, even the sadly derivative Life Aquatic are in a whole other league than Little Miss Sunshine.
Little Miss Sunshine wishes it could be a Wes Anderson film. It wishes it could spell Wes Anderson. But it lacks the wit and the heart and the…
Oh forget it. It lacks the Wes Anderson.
“Suck my dick, ass man.”
-Amanpour
Tom…you are a fucking fuck monkey. Fucker.
Ball breath.
Fuck.
Haven’t seen it.
Don’t those costs cover things like instruments that allow pilots to “see” what’s going on without looking outside of the cockpit. I bet they could paint the windows black and the pilots would be just fine. Fi-hine I say.
“The Pretentious Club just called - they’ve revoked your goatee”.
Amanpour is no longer allowed to spread his butt cheeks to impossible lengths for shocking photographs!
See to me, it was supposed to be LOL (maybe not always slapstick) funny at times. Why else do the leave the girl behind, have a foul-mouthed grandpa, do the schtick with the dead body, the whole routine with the van, have all the characters be total comedy driven charicatures? For my taste, the comedy was too by the numbers, I’ve felt like I saw this before in other movies but better done then.
As for the drama, this part was even weaker. Problems resolved conveniently in the next 3 minutes, one of the worst offenders was the scene right after the son starts talking. The mother fails to console him, then says, “I don’t know what to say!” The girl walks down and says… nothing. Just a hug. It just all felt so artificial.
I actually dug the film until they decide to take the roadtrip. The dinner scene and things up to that point were pretty good.
Yes, there were definately some funny moments, but I wouldn’t call the movie a laugh-riot, and I really don’t think it was trying to be one. It felt pretty fresh to me, although there were definately ideas borrowed. It’s almost impossible to do a road trip movie without getting comparisons from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, or even Tommy Boy or Road Trip, to a far lesser extent.
You are not a big brother that has a little sister then. In real life, semi-disfunctional families don’t carry huge grudges against each other. They fight, they fogive, they go back to being the family they always were. I don’t really know what other problems you’re reffering to that resolved in three minutes.
At least you’re not completely out to lunch. The dinner scene was not just a great scene because of the great dialogue, but because it basically set this whole movie up in under twenty minutes, without feeling like the movie was just telling you what this family was about. It lets you discovery it in an entertaining way.
I don’t think this is the greatest movie ever, I though it was just a great little independent, low-key, cute movie. Even my mom and my younger sister loved it, it’s not often we can all agree on a good movie.
It’s writing like this which is why I usually can’t read music reviews.
They still wear those? I thought they moved on to neck-beards or something.
My favourite facefungus-related neologism is ‘bloatee’ for the beard designed to simulate a jawbone for the larger-boned among us.
No kidding. Why can’t they just tell me if something sucks or rocks?
Seriously, though, was Amanpour’s point just lost on you? Little Miss Sunshine cheats by presenting serious situations and then wrapping it up with a funny bow, playing it all for laughs. Grandpa died? Let’s go all Weekend At Bernie’s! Yuck yuck. Gay heartbreak and porno! Haw haw. Creepy pageantry? Nothing a wacky kiddie slut dance can’t defuse! Whee!
The movie is played mainly for laughs, and everything else kind of loiters on the sidelines, looking glum. Which is fine, even if it’s ultimately pretty superficial.
-Tom
There are stars and numbers there for a reason. You shouldn’t even be allowed to comment on this, when was the last time you read a music review?
You make it sound likes it was soooooooo crazy and just like Weekend at Bernie’s when the Grandpa dies. Sounds like you’ve lived a boring, uninteresting life, or you’re not aware of what the fuck people do out there for their family. And then they totally made him dance at the pageant by casting a voodoo curse on his corpse, right? Plus, isn’t it odd that so many dramatic movies have an ending? A happy ending even!? Just bizarre, really.
You haven’t seen enough bad movies if you can’t enjoy this. Go watch House of D, and take it like a man.
I think the reason some people are missing out on this movie might be gleened from the spoiler line in the Gleiberman review:
If you go into any movie with preconceived notions you risk ruining the experience, and I think LMS suffers from that. I see where the “artificiality” criticisms are coming from, but I think it’s because those critics are expecting this movie to say something it’s not going to. In fact, I believe it’s deliberately trying to stop you from getting to that “deeper” conclusion.
All of these characters want to dwell on something. They all want to turn inward on their own condition, but something keeps interrupting them. This movie serves up a lot of difficult moments like the family getting notified of the death and then shouts LINDA!!! For me, it ties back in with the “Life can’t stop” theme in everything. I don’t see resolution in this movie at all, that’s why we’re treated to stiff gags when it should have been the end of the road. It’s the movie preventing you from dwelling on any moment too long. For me, it works brilliantly.
The characters in The Squid and the Whale didn’t seem terribly genuine to me. Slightly moreso than LMS, but at least LMS was funnier and had a more interesting (if somewhat ridiculous) plot.
OK, posted in the wrong forum. But now that I’ve found the right one: I was really surprised at the movie after seeing all the accolades and awards. It was OK, but no more than that. No desire to see it again, to watch a second time for nuances or camera work, etc. that I missed the first time.
And how in the heck did Alan Arkin win best supporting actor? I like him, but he was barely on screen, and then it was a few throw away lines. Sheesh.
Artificial family and commentary on social values not withstanding, I totally stopped caring for the family when you realize they had no idea what the Grandpa’s dance routine consisted of.
I think the movie finally broke at that point.
Good moments, flawed overall package.
I finally saw this.
It had good parts, but it’s really a terrible film from a writer’s point of view. They set up all this drama with the characters and fail to resolve any of it. The family is totally fucked at every turn, and they remain fucked at the end of the film. Dad is a failure, the son is screwed, the daughter is banished from competition. The Proust remains is a suicidal mess.
The dancing on the stage isn’t going to resolve any of that. You just get a “transcendent moment” because it’s filmed that way. Cute, but lazy.
In fact the only genuine resolution is Grandpa, and that’s because he’s dead.
I get that some stories are meant to be abstract and unresolved, but in this case they basically shoplifted their ending without actually paying for it. I also get that Olive is better off for not being allowed to compete in these creepy pagents, but why is the film suddenly making a commentary on that? Where did that come from?
I’d take Tom’s comments one step further: It’s a Lifetime Network version of a Wes Anderson film.
I was under the impression that everyone (But Olive) knew it was ridiculous bullshit from the beginning, but they decided to push through with it anyway. You know, just like everybody’s life and stuff.