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Author Topic: Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 08-19-2006 07:51 PM                        CINEMA: Harkins Northfield 18, Denver, CO AUDITORIUM: 12 PRESENTATION: 35mm/Dolby Digital PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Slightly grainy picture; annoying woman in audience yelling "Wait! Your Slushee!" at the screen during the gas station scene RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four) WARNING: There are two types of people in this world...Winners, and Spoilers In 2000 years, the planet's climate will have changed. Continents will be altered, civilizations laid to waste. But this scratchy Herculon seat fabric will still be here, good as new. This place kind of reminds me of if Regal decided to cross-breed an Edwards and Century plex with an emphasis on tackiness, then abandoned the project in time for AMC to come in with their presentation equipment. No...AMC has better sound. "Little Miss Sunshine" is a road flick that builds to a single joke. The joke is one of the funniest things projected onto a screen this year. Getting to it isn't a complete waste of time, but it's a bit bloated. There's one other moment where the audience collectively laughed out loud in the film, and it's the line leading into the joke. There ARE other laughs, but based on audience reaction, they're mostly left to the individual. You know what I don't understand? Why Toni Collette is attractive. She IS attractive...I just can't figure out WHY.  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-31-2006 04:38 PM                        I liked the horn bit on the VW bus. The end was pretty predictable, but funny in an "oh no!" sort of way. It reminded be a lot of "Vacation"  |  IP: Logged William Clark Film Handler Posts: 19 From: Mililani, HI, United States Registered: Aug 2006 posted 09-03-2006 09:41 AM                     I kind of interpreted the film as a sad social commentary. Either way, the movie just kind of puts you off. It's a pretty messed up movie, depicting a rather dysfunctional family. I may have not laughed out loud much at it while I was watching it, but I just keep thinking about it. It's a hilarious film. I loved it.  |  IP: Logged Don Anderson Master Film Handler Posts: 312 From: West Bend, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 09-08-2006 12:56 PM                     Gee, it kinda reminded me of my family! Disfunctional to the max! Loved the film. Real individuals dealing with real situations. Gotta love the Miss Sunshine pageant. Society at its best, nothing but asshole parents push push pushing their kids into something that is not realistic, by any means. Grandpa's coaching and dance tips were a blast. Kind of a you to the rest of the group. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A must see film by any means. 5 stars.  |  IP: Logged Anslem Rayburn Master Film Handler Posts: 476 From: Yuma, AZ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 09-09-2006 05:41 AM                     Great. Every member of the cast was perfect. Writing, directing, it was all great. Best movie I have seen this year. I'm glad we are playing it, and it has kept the same level of business since we got it (good, but not great). I can see this playing for a long time at a decent level. Word of mouth is fantastic, I have yet to hear a single negative comment about it from anyone in town.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-09-2006 10:32 AM                        Good show. This is one of the few current films that is actually worth seeing. I really enjoyed it.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 09-10-2006 06:03 PM                        Cinemark 17 in Springfield, 1:15PM today, House #6, SR-D. Trailers were very scratched and dirty, feature was intermittently scratched (horizontal) with too many black flecks of dirt. FilmGuard needed. Attendance around 40. I liked it a lot. The bit with the stuck horn had the audience rolling in the aisles. Well anyway I did a little rolling. The writing and acting were perfect. Highly recommended.  |  IP: Logged Ian Bailey Master Film Handler Posts: 317 From: Nambucca Heads, Australia Registered: Jun 2003 posted 09-13-2006 05:25 AM                     Sam Toni Collette is like the rest of us Aussies-Ugly but beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!  |  IP: Logged Steve Scott Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1300 From: Minneapolis, MN Registered: Sep 2000 posted 09-13-2006 12:31 PM                     Maybe I'm just too desensitized to emotional situations that try to come across as dark, but Sunshine never took off for me. Just a lot of forced situations highlighting a lightly quirky, accurately average family... Oh sure, it's a well assembeled film. No aspect of of the story is hidden from the shot. Though nothing in the film really carries the weight or the individuality in any of its characters; I think that's where the underlying humor and style didn't go deep enough for me. By the end of the film it was like I had seen a rough portrait of a more average family than the satire was working lightly to sell. I hardly laughed at all & was only warmed over by the road trip sequence. That was genuinely respectable. No other aspect of the film seemed to succeed in working it's magic on me. Overrated. I hope Lagoon's other print of Sunshine isn't as in the crapper as the one I saw. An absolutely awful plate cut, too. I won't go on about the lamp or reflector, or whatever's making #1 dim, there. Another low-level SR presentation, too. Though, in digital the right channel doesn't seem to be present... At least there weren't any reversions.  |  IP: Logged Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 09-17-2006 08:19 PM                     I thought it started off pretty slow, but the last two reels were great.  |  IP: Logged Jennifer Pan THE JEN! Posts: 1219 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: Nov 2003 posted 09-22-2006 01:42 AM                        Just got back from seeing it and I really enjoyed it. I wasn't too sure what to expect... I kinda expected it to be weird. But I really liked it. The silent kid.... hot.  |  IP: Logged Carol May Film Handler Posts: 48 From: los angeles, ca, usa Registered: Nov 2006 posted 12-17-2006 10:32 PM                     I've seen maybe a dozen movies all year. I'm starting to catch up a bit with DVDs, but there is an awful lot of mediocre and sub-mediocre stuff out there. LMS is by far my #1 pick of the year. The characters unquestionably had "issues" but they were not bad people. They were trying. Best of all, I loved the pagent. When all the mothers were aghast at Olive's strip tease that her grandfather taught her, not comprehending that they were raising little wh*res themselves, it was wonderful.  |  IP: Logged Jerry Axelsson Expert Film Handler Posts: 107 From: Stockholm, Sweden Registered: May 2005 posted 01-05-2007 08:16 PM                     ... simply overrated  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-27-2007 06:03 PM                     I didn't get to see Little Miss Sunshine in theaters, just had to settle for watching it on DVD. Overall, I thought this was a very good character driven comedy. Viewers can interpret it on a more than a couple levels. The whole road trip angle is a common metaphorical device in lots of movies, and it threatens to become a cliché for its overuse. Luckily the characters in this movie had enough unique charm (not to mention great performances) to make the road trip device work. I loved the payoff in the end in how it made a mockery of child beauty pageants. Abigail Breslin's performance as Olive was great. It took a little while for me to figure out where I saw her before: as the little girl in Signs who tells Mel Gibson in deadpan form, "Daddy, there's a monster outside my window." While this is a good movie, it is not perfect. I give it three out of four stars. I must deduct one star from the rating for two reasons. One (most important): the non-stop pile of obstacles along the road trip had me thinking "audience manipulation alert" from time to time. Sure, all movies are about manipulating audiences. But when you feel like the manipulation is coming from a contrived area then you get pulled out of the movie. Two (not quite so important, but it's an issue that really bugs me): for a road trip movie, this show had a very retarded sense of geography. Just what the hell kind of circuitous route did these people take to get from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach? 33 minutes into the movie, they're shown driving past an Eastbound entrance to Interstate 10. Then they're driving on some two lane roads. Just a few shots later, they're driving on I-40 through the I-17 interchange in Flagstaff. Huh? Why go anywhere near I-10? When driving from Albuquerque to L.A., anyone will stay on I-40 to Barstow and not see I-10 until hitting San Bernadino. Did the filmmakers not see Cars? I-40 is a highly influential route! Maybe the filmmakers really loved that particular location. They must have liked it enough to put it in the movie trailer. Perhaps it was a 2nd unit pickup shot done sometime later. At any rate, any filmmaker should know better. Frame the shot without the damned I-10 sign in there. Or spend a little money on some CGI work to change that I-10 sign to an I-40 sign. Or better yet, find another beautiful, mountainous shot along I-40 itself. There's mountains all over the place between Albuquerque and Barstow. Lots of movies pull this kind of shit with geography and I spot it all the time. Just who do they think they're fooling?  |  IP: Logged Jason Black Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1723 From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 03-11-2007 02:13 PM                        Just watched this flick last night... Thought it was a good mirror of modern society. If you are the prettiest you are often overlooked by most in society. It's a truly sad fact that this is how most folks look at you today... No matter what, as long as you are true to yourself.. which Olive was, you will always be a winner... I did find the final act hystercial... LOL.. dirty old granpa... LOL  |  IP: Logged

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