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.”
FYI: I am baffled by this review. I saw the movie last weekend and it bore no resemblance to the one this guy is describing.
Should I take it off my 'must miss' list?
Yes! Although the movie is dark at times, it's a moral movie that is uplifting by the time it's done. The family members are flawed people who love each other and who stick together despite how difficult their lives sometimes are. The grandfather is vulgar, but his views are not endorsed; if anything, the movie subtly repudiates the grandfather's sexual morals. As for the talk about child pron, if you see the movie, you'll understand how far from the truth that is.
Thanks!
I was rushed to get out my post last night, but reading your response reminded me that I was equally bothered by the other contestants too, although for different reasons. I understand the point the filmmakers were trying to make in juxtaposing innocent Olive doing an un-innocent type dance routine -- versus the un-innocent beauty pageant vets doing innocent type dance routines. I guess in my opinion, the end result was that both were reprehensible -- that Olive was doing such a tawdry dance, and the other beauty pageants were done up the way they were, and the audience was treated to the bizarre extremes these veteran contestants go to in order to win. Those poor girls looked inhuman in their get-ups and make-up.
I don't think there's anything wrong with kids playing "grown-up" as long as it's an admirable "grown-up" quality or tendency that grown-ups have -- i.e., pretending to be a fireman, a doctor, or playing make-believe grocery store shopping. But playing grown-up in order to portray a stripper --- that falls outside of anything I'd want my child emulating or practicing. But that's just my opinion as a father.
The movie was far from perfect, but I laughed a heckuva lot and felt it captured some of the true humanity that exists in all families, however flawed the members of that family may be.
I did find the film's portrayal of the existence of genuine compassion and love of family, despite a predominance of dysfunction among all members, to be enjoyable.
Just saw the movie. Nothing at ALL like this thread indicates.
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.