Posted on 09/03/2006 8:38:11 AM PDT by pabianice
Hollywood is all abuzz about “Little Miss Sunshine,” a deftly presented piece of porn pretending to be a “heart-warming Oscar contender.” The bubbly adjectives simply swirl about this recent release: “brilliant, deftly drawn, heartwarming, raucous, superb, human, engrossing, fun, ingenious, brilliantly hysterical, warm, moving, endearing,” and more. The truth is far less sunny. “Little Miss Sunshine” is a $10 million kiddie porn movie that displays just how rotten Hollywood has become and just how far its powerbrokers have moved from America. That it was the hit of the Sundance Festival was pre-ordained.
It’s hard to know where to begin in talking about this movie and what it tells us about the current business of making movies. The cast is, to be fair, very good, the direction competent, the scene dressing excellent. But the movie itself is tasteless and basically disgraceful, an updated version of “All in the Family,” in which evil, stupid Red America is brought up short by savvy, hip Blue America. Alan Arkin plays grandpa, an aging bum who snorts heroin (yuk, yuk) and was expelled from his nursing home because he is a dangerous, in-your-face loser who counsels others to live irresponsibly. One of his character’s two sons has just tried to kill himself because he was jilted by his gay lover (audience eyes tear up because it’s so, you know, sensitive and, you know, PC). The other son is a financially failed, unsuccessful huckster of a step program for self-improvement who is taken advantage of by Evil Big Business. The teenage grandson is apparently a lunatic who is determined to get into the Air Force Academy and who has taken a vow of silence until he is accepted (that there is a huge poster of an F-18 – a Navy airplane – on his bedroom wall clearly escaped the schmucks who produced this film). We never learn how he plans to do well in high school while refusing to speak. In one violent sequence we learn what potential US military officers are really like when this clueless, friendless loner goes berserk. Nice touch, Hollywood.
And then there is the grand daughter, Olive, a perky seven-year-old who becomes the winner of a local talent contest when the winner is disqualified for what sounds like doping (although we aren’t sure). Olive has a routine of which we remain uninformed until the final sequence. During the 800-mile cross-country drive in a rolling deathtrap of a VW minibus (so, so, 60s! you know), grandpa dies of a heroin overdose while baby-sitting Olive (Manson family values are on display everywhere in this film), so the family steals his body from the hospital, wraps him in a sheet, and stuffs him in the back of the bus. This sequence simply sparkles with the kind of wit for which Hollywood has become so justifiably famous and was getting old when it was done in “National Lampoon’s Vacation” thirty years ago. Of course, the bus is stopped by a cop on the road, but no problem. The cop is, as are all cops, you know, a leering, loathsome policeman who, upon finding a stash of porn magazines, trades some comments with dad that are so uncomfortable for the audience as to make grandpa’s death look like an episode of “Teletubbies.”
Maybe so :) My screed was a moral defense of the film, not an artistic one. I personally enjoyed it, but I can understand why others might not. What I can't understand is people who see it as some kind of degenerate, subversive propaganda.
I actually came out feeling pretty good. There are sad moments, but what struck me is how the characters got around them with each others' help. I kind of got the feeling "yeah, you'll face hard times in life, but with the love of family you'll come out okay, maybe even stronger." To me, that is more meaningful and uplifting than an easy feel-good ending.
Another one I really liked was "Big Fish". You can watch either one with your kids and not have to worry about inappropriate content.
Both have a very uplifting message as well.
L
Bwahahahahaa ... project much?
L
Wow....I really wanted to see this. My best friend was telling me she loved it, and she is kinda prudish. I'll have to see this for myself.
The rants accusing movies of degenerate motive are interesting to me.
Popular culture is fragmented today. You can basically find whatever you want. Of course, forty or fifty years ago this was not the case. Movies, television etc. were pretty homogeneous (HOMOGENEOUS AGENDA ALERT!). And that's just not the case today. You have to hunt out what you want to see.
The other thing is that movies have to cater to a worldwide market. They ain't just for Americans anymore. They are a hugely profitable export for America. And those who wish for the fall of American movies would do well to remember they are largely a middle-class blue collar profession.
YMMV. For me (and I'm no prude, I don't even have much of a problem with most adult porn) there's nothing sleazier than the sexualization of children. It doesn't help for me if it's made to appear "cute" and "funny". Everything to do with "kiddie beauty pageants" strikes me as irredeemably sick. Even typing the phrase makes me slightly ill. I for one am glad for the warning.
+
If you want on (or off) this Catholic and Pro-Life ping list, let me know!
It would seem to be of the same species of interest as the fascination with apes or monkeys dressed up and acting like humans. (As was common in television shows and movies some decades ago.) But here these are human children, ferchrissake, being treated and reacted too in the same manner as performing apes or freaks.
Even where not sexual, it's just sick, sick, sick.
Just came back from the flick. My wife and I enjoyed it.
Have you no shame, no decency? What kind of sick, degenerate tastes drive you to see such a hideous spectacle as this movie...and then enjoy it?
Hollywood hasn't made good movies for at least sixty years and I for one refuse to support the corrupt system...
(Sorry, just wanted to see how the other side rants. All that self-righteousness etc. Not as much fun as you'd think...)
Amazing the generalities that fly off this site. It's a nice little movie nothing more nothing less.
Some people live to be offended. I haven't seen a movie since The Aviator that I really enjoyed, but you don't hear me complaining about it.
(Constant Gardener wasn't bad, but glad I waited to see it at home)
Do you even know what the movie is about... jaysus....
Such as?
And the reckless commie filth that passes for "entertainment" in this country ought to get people thrown in jail. But since we can't have everything, we can tax them to death and call it poetic justice. And boycott in the meantime.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.