Little Miss Sunshine

A- (8.8)

How does it feels to live in a family where everybody is totally f**ked up and you just didn't care because you have won or went into a prestigious event like a beauty pageant. Well it will take a car trip, suffering, wacky situations and failings in it to know the answer. You want to know the shortcut. Watch Little Miss Sunshine.


Little Miss Sunshine is an indie flick from 2006 distributed by the studio which gave us Juno, (500) Days Of Summer and Black Swan. Its focused on a family the Hoovers on the edge of failings and who have already failed. SO they are a family of failures or losers. There's the matriarch Sheryl (Toni Collette) who is overworked and is pro-honesty. Her husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker and he want his family to become winners, not losers and more of pro-success. Her brother Frank (Steve Carrell) a Proust scholar who attempted suicide because his lover went for another man. And then there's her kids. Her teenage son Dwayne (Paul Dano) who came from another marriage is silent until he becomes a test pilot and daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin). Richard's dad Edwin (Alan Arkin) is evicted from the retirement home for using heroin. When Olive is selected at the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California, they take a 500 mile trip with their Volkswagen since they have little money and cannot leave Frank, Dwayne behind. During the trip they face death, disasters and glitches.


Little Miss Sunshine is directed by Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Plume and written by Michael Arndt. Arndt's screenplay seems to have worked because like he wrote for Toy Story 3, it's really dark but at the same time its realistic (well not for Toy Story 3) and holds an honest portrait of one really fractured family and when entering the real world it will hold you back. But it also have heart and compassion and gives us a harsh message. Dreams can't come true.


Greg Kinnear show idiosyncrasy in his character who suffers when he realizes his motivational success program collapses. Alan Arkin is hilarious as the grandfather who supports Olive all the way to the paegaent and Abigail Breslin whose character has little flaws while everyone has troubles steals her scenes and gives us a surprise from what he taught her. Most of the cast are great. This is Carrell's best performance of his career so far and Dano is really wicked as the regularly distant son who like Kinnear suffers when his goals are ruined. Dano's character feels like he's has Aspergers because he is distant from everybody and still he's tightly into his interests. And Collette makes a great impact as the overly supportive mother.


Little Miss Sunshine has a bit of undertone from American Beauty. It's the question of what's beauty and the fact that in Little Miss Sunshine everyone breaks down where conflict, suffering slowly destroys their dreams. More importantly it's more into the insight of these people as the search of the American Dream is wrecked. 


But when the've finally reached the beauty pageant you'll know that it's going to be full of snobby contestants and mothers that once the Hoovers found out, its either enough is enough or let Olive do her own thing. LMS is hilarious where Arkin actually is the majority of the humor and the glitches they've faced is also part of it.


It may goes into the old cliche where you are reaching your dreams the most important thing is the people supporting you, which is your family. But where the Hoovers are really dysfunctional and conflicted it's really understanding and connecting. 



LMS has this somewhat political stance where it's really liberal with Sheryl's pro-honesty stance and conservative with Richard's pro-success beliefs which kinda has let down this movie. but otherwise it is great movie and I recommend to anyone who's dreams are cursed and are pretending to be normal.

Movies You Should See Before You Leave School (Part I)

With 2 weeks until the beginning of the Spring holidays and end of exams for me, there are some movies coming out. There's Buried about Ryan Reynolds in a coffin, The Town, a movie about police robberies in Boston and so much more coming soon.

But there was one thing I was disappointed with everyone at school. And that is...

NOBODY HAD SEEN INCEPTION!?!?!?!?

Seriously it's not hard to see a very good movie if you have read the reviews on the Net, newspapers whatever material there is about movies. Inception is really good and yet you're too afraid because the story's complicated and too challenging for you.

I know kids don't actually have time to watch movies but seriously. You're seeing The Expendables? It has nothing but action. You've seeing The Karate kid on the holidays? You would've seen the original Karate Kid from the 80s and it's better than that. You've seen Grown Ups? It's a movie that has jokes of waste, literally. You've seen the Twilight movies? Really? And you're seeing Tommorow When The War Began? Well, it's alright.

Ok. Sorry for being judgemental, but there were so many good movies out there from the past that you would actually watch. You might learn something there like life's tough, get a job. But maybe you might enjoy them. I don't know. IT's your opinion and your choice.

So I'm counting down the top films you should watch before you leave school. Anytime, it's either when you finish Year 12 or going to uni.

1. Sin City (9.5/10)

Before Kick Ass, before we've seen The Dark Knight, before Natalie Portman shaved her head for V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's graphic novella Sin City tuned into a movie that is so seductive, so sadistic, it's almost a teenage boy's pumping wet dream... in black and white. With Jessica Alba as a stripper, several vixen hookers with semi automatic weapons fighting for justice in a hugely corrupt city and an ensemble cast such as Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Elijah Wood that would impress, Sin City is a visceral movie any cinephile cannot miss.

2. UP (9.6/10)

Toy Story 3 may have taken the crown of Pixar's best movie so far, but Up is worth a watch. It's funny, cute, clever, smart and why would we waste our time with the oddest couple in animation? Because they have a lot of heart and soul we would totally look down to. Up is a simplistic film yet truly emotional, it's has a wild imagination that roams around releasing that inner child and giving us that uplifting and motivating one-liner "Adventure is out there!"

3. Amelie (10.0/10)

This was the first foreign movie I have seen and it is great. IT is about a young woman's journey to change everyone's lives for the better while she is trying to make her life better by making a love interest chase after her. It's instataneously clever and humourous, insanely erotic and yet at all times, it focused on not only the title character Amelie but also on everyone around her as we look in depth about each character. The music score is excellent, the cinematography's as bright as ever, Amelie bound to be your delight.


4. Little Miss Sunshine (8.8/10)

Being in a family that are full of nutcases is tough, but one moment with them will make you feel better and is a lot of fun. That's the lesson learnt in Little Miss Sunshine about a struggling family taking their little daughter so she can participate in a beauty pageant. But the whole family would have to take a malfunctioning van along and many things happen. Keep in mind that each member has a problem. From suicide, drug abuse to post traumatic stress but when we go into thier journey all the way to California, we get to know them better. Until the finish of the film, Little Miss Sunshine is smart and funny in many ways.

5. Donnie Darko [Director's Cut] (9.0/10)

Two people in this school has seen this movie, possibly out of curiousity. When Donnie Darko is warned about an apocalypse by an imaginary bunny rabbit called Frank, he commits a series of crimes from his manipulation and he even gets nosey about time travel. Since this concept was so hard to tell and that it was released during 9/11, Donnie Darko was re-released with a director's cut three years later so that everybody finally knows what the hell is going on! Whether you like cult classics, Jake Gylenhal or the song "Mad World", Donnie Darko will give you a head trip.

6. Where The Wild Things Are (8.5/10)

The much-loved children's book is turned into a movie where a boy named Max dressed like a rabbit escape from his house to an island where he meet The Wild Things. When it was released, it initially polarized people because it was not appropriate for kids since many of The Wild Things are incredibly depressed. But I don't care. It gives and teaches us many lessons about neglect, isolation and also to feel free when you escape from people who won't let you be. It was one my favourite movie of 2009.

7. Juno (8.9/10)

I really loved Canadians (except for Bieber). They're really the most underrated people on this planet. Juno is actually a Canadian movie starring Canadians, directed by a Canadian but written by a stripper. Juno is about teenage tomboy (Ellen Page) pregnant by her shy fitness freak (Michael Cera). She decided to not have an abortion, but to put the baby up for adoption and she found the perfect couple who are yuppies desperate for a child. Emotionally and almost honest, Juno teaches us values on feminism, pro choice and pregnancy rights and also a lesson about teenage sex and its consequences. Ellen Page and Michael Cera are really dynamic in their roles making them two of film's current bright stars. Oh, it also made orange Tic Tacs and hamburger phones fads. As well as a popular soundtrack, controversy involving the movie glamorising teenage pregnancy and becoming the highest profitable movie of all time, Juno is jolly good.

8. The Matrix (8.2/10)

Here's an interesting fact. The matrix is also a mathematical formula. But in this case, The Matrix is actually mathematical with its concept aking itself what is The Matrix. What's the truth? And why are so many of us wearing sunglasses? So thanks to that, shot in Sydney before the city head off for the Olympics, and impressive special effects involving slow mo, this prove that computer nerds (which is the main audience) rules the cinema. So if you didn't see the matrix, get out of here and go watch it.

9. The Breakfast Club (10.0/10)

John hughes is a master of teen fillms. Some of Hugh's favourites were Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pretty In Pink. But this is John Hughe's masterpiece that is considered a movie defining its generation. When five students went to detention on a Saturday, they don't know each other very well. There's the athlete, the brain, the princess, the criminal and the basket-case. Once the film progresses we see that they hated their parents so much that it might have resulted being in detention. The Breakfast Club nails its characters, developing at the right pace and doesn't go in between margins. This movie describes the angst of a teenager and Hughes does a great job as he understands more of the teen.

10. 500 (Days) Of Summer (8.4/10)

As romantic comedies becoming older, this movie has become bolder! 500 Days Of Summer is a rom com that isn't niched for women, but it is also for men who complains about these movies as not their thing. If 500 Days Of Summer gives us a true life lesson (true love doesn't happen the way we wanted to), has an awesome soundtrack and add charms to its central characters while giving us surprises towards the end, this 90 minute indie flick is clever in its own right.