| RICHARD CORLISS, Time Magazine, says: But those who have seen Thornton as Karl Childers in Sling Blade can't get that face out of their bad dreams. The skin is celibate smooth, the eyes clamped shut to keep the demons out, or in. And when the pursed mouth opens, it speaks... of dreadful sins with Old Testament vengeance. | |
| Karl Childers: Billy Bob Thornton, Doyle Hargraves: Dwight Yoakam, Charles Bushman: J.T. Walsh, Vaughan Cunningham: John Ritter, Frank Wheatley: Lucas Black, Karl's father: Robert Duvall. Written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton. Running time: 135 minutes. Rated R (for strong language, including descriptions of violent and sexual behavior). | |
| Thornton spins a complex, yet simple story about a retarded man, who 25 years earlier killed his mother in a rage after finding her having sex with a very abusive man. Upon his release from a mental institution, Karl befriends Frank (Lucas Black), a fatherless boy whose kindly mother (Natalie Canerday) has shacked up with an abusive man, Doyle. Doyle is wickedly portrayed by country legend Dwight Yoakam. Doyle drinks, lambasts his adoptive family and threatens others with physical violence. There is never much doubt about the Judgment Day event that concludes the story. But getting there makes for a very compelling spiritual adventure. | |
 | |
| Karl carries books with him: the Bible, a book about Christmas, and a book on how to be a carpenter. Very interesting, I thought. When Karl meets the abusive Doyle for the first time, Doyle asks Karl about the books that Karl always carries with him. "What's all them books?" "Never mind. One of 'em's a Bible," replies Karl. "Do you believe in the Bible, Karl?" "Yes sir, a good deal of it." "I don't understand none of it. This one beget that one and that one beget that one. Beget. Beget. Lo and behold. Just how retarded are you?" This dialogue represents a major shift in Hollywood. Here the abusive bad guy is not also a religious Bible thumper. Instead, the sympathetic character carries a Bible and believes in it. This was rarely the case in Hollywood films just a few years ago. Also, alcohol is not portrayed in a favorable light as it is linked to the abusive man. | |
 | |
| Robert Duvall plays Karl's natural father, Mr. Childers. Karl visits him, hoping to reconcile their relationship. The father ignores his son. Childers had also secretly murdered his new born baby son (Karl's bother) years ago. Watching this film causes one to wonder what real insanity is. It's Childers and Doyle who are insane! Both are abusive, cruel, heavy drinkers and they both reject Karl believing that he is insane. | |
 | |
| There are so many spiritual overtones in this film. Karl meditates, goes to the high places and wants to be baptized. He wants atonement. A Pentecostal type of evangelical preacher baptizes him. Again, Hollywood is respectful. This shift in attitude is amazing. In the past, only Roman Catholics were portrayed seriously in film, never Evangelical Christians. Evangelicals have been portrayed as hypocrites, money lovers and mentally unstable. This welcomed shift can also be seen inThe Devil's Advocate, Contact, and The Apostle. | |
 | |
| I recommend this film highly. The film's focus on Karl's spiritual journey is complex and very compelling. |
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Next class...
Storyline
A partially handicapped man named Karl is released from a mental hospital, about 20 years after murdering his mother and another person. Karl is often questioned if he will ever kill again, and he shrugs in response saying there is no reason to. Now out of the mental institution, Karl settles in his old, small hometown, occupying himself by fixing motors. After meeting a young boy named Frank who befriends him, Karl is invited to stay at Frank's house with his mother Linda- who views Karl as a strange but kind and generous man. However, Linda's abusive boyfriend Doyle, sees things differently in the way rules ought to be run- normally insulting Linda's homosexual friend Vaughan as well as Karl's disabilities, and having wild parties with his friends. As Karl's relation with Frank grows, he is ever so watchful of Doyle's cruel actions. Written by commanderblue
Taglines:
A simple man. A difficult choice.Box Office
Budget:
$890,000 (estimated)Opening Weekend:
$36,644 (USA) (1 December 1996)Gross:
$24,475,416 (USA) (27 July 1997)Sunday, November 20, 2011
A Final Word...
The Evolution Of Sin Has Changed Our Lives And Communities
I'm not a fan of television these days. Reality television...really? There is nothing “real” when a person enhances their appearance and adjusts his or her personality for an audience. I haven't watched television with any sort of regularity for around ten years. The exception would be College football, and TVland. Good ole' Andy Griffith...hey, now we can get a glimpse of what the good old days were all about. White lies were a regular main ingredient in the script on the Andy Griffith show, but usually the truth came out at the end of the episode...sometimes.
A Different Time, A Different Life,and A Different Community
1960 compared to 2011, hmmmm...I'd say those years aren't that different when considering the sin susceptibility of human kind. It's the same old 1960 sin, but the evolved 2011 satanic methodology has changed our lives. If we take the time, we can rewind time like a DVD video and then we can see the difference with more clarity.
Have you noticed that most modern homes do not have a functional front porch? Only 20 to 30 years ago we watched out for our friends and neighbors, and they watched out for us...it was the good old front porch era. Folks seemed to care about other people's kids back then, and they had a hand in the discipline of other people's kids, to an extent. The main interface of communication was the person to person conversation previous to the 90's. When you wanted to say something to your neighbor you didn't text them because you could probably just yell it out the window....the older reader may remember that windows were open back then!
An Increasingly Introverted Culture
In these modern times; air conditioning, televisions, and video games have all but silenced the heartbeat of the American neighborhood. Cute little communications devices such as the i-phone have made face to face conversation seem awkward...even unwanted. The modern neighborhood looks abandoned because the way we interface with the world has changed. Nowadays people don't interact with others in their neighborhood like the families of the 50's, 60's, and 70's did. As a matter of fact, families don't even interact with their own kinsmen! Due to modern times; a bad economy, and the ever changing ways of life, families are very much scattered. Family reunions are now becoming by gone events. Fear has driven us to keep our children indoors because we feel that we must hide our kids from the evil potential of the sexual maniac. The non-parental supervised game of street football is nearly a bygone memory. We can't let our kids ride their bikes down the street beyond our eyesight. ... What a rip off, I had that freedom when I was a kid!
Advances in technology have changed the manner in which we relate to the community and world, thus America has eliminated the charm of the front porch. Subtly, In the last 15 years or so, the family has encapsulated themselves within their personal forms of entertainment. Musing has been swallowed by amusement probably because it takes less effort. Front porches are now crazy looking 4 foot while unlock the door rain shelters nowadays. We've even retreated from the family room into our own individual bubbles of personal entertainment, and gadgetry. The dinner table has been replaced by the TV tray in front of your personal television. We continue to retreat further into our own little bubble. The past 7 years has been anenormous step toward a personal entertainment world. I hate that many modern kids don't have that privilege of near total outdoor freedom anymore, what a shame! Nobody seems to care or notice. ... Some wonder why their 10 year old is 120 pounds. Well, ya know. ...
Out Of The Darkness And In Your Face
Evolving sin has destroyed decent morality, and the dark adversary knows how to get to us...he is now rolling out his best master plan of all time. We are becoming more and more closed off as a culture, so what satan has done is he's seized control of the social media and entertainment industry through the minds of the administrators therein. Thus through the social communication and entertainment media, the evil one is also able to influence the politicians who govern humanity. The world governing bodies allow the social media and entertainment industry to further promote tolerance of promiscuity and homosexual lifestyles. Traditional gender role life styles and modesty are laughed at and despised. Sexual expression is badly warped, and it's nowhere near the marriage bed; as a matter of fact, conditions in this modern society resemble Sodom and Gomorrah. What's currently rated PG now was rated R in 1985. The evil one has indeed succeeded in subduing modesty through the entertainment industry and popular culture!
Casual sex discussions and sex play is a growing problem with the youth of America. According to many reports, young children are increasingly likely to have participated in perverted conversations with children, or an older individual previous to their 11th birthday...it is absolutely shocking! I would never let my child have any free reign internet access, nor total freedom with a cell phone...ever! My daughter begs me to get her a cell phone, but I've seen the trouble a cell phone can bring into a 9 to 13 years old's life. Some of the things I hear kids talk about leave me speechless! All youth's aren't subject to debauchery, but we are all human, thus we have that propensity to mess up! I'd really think twice about cell phone use for kids.
Looking Back
In 1980 our family watched television frequently, but we all watched the same television; however, I had much more outdoors freedom as a child than the majority of the kids today. I remember the feel of the peddles on the bottom of my red clay stained bare feet as I rode up Giger Hill, and the sound of the wind as I streaked down the other side. My three dogs would keep pace and follow me everywhere as I rode my bike. My legs were skinny, but they were muscled with no blubber on them. ... I could easily power through the sand and rugged ground on my bicycle. I would actually wear the tread off of the tires of my bike! I had outdoorsfreedom, but I knew it was time to come home when the deep orange sky would que the locusts to begin their shrill call in those Milton, Florida pine trees. I remember popping a wheelie to ride up onto the front porch. At the end of a busy afternoon I went inside to eat supper and watch the one television in the living room.
The Re-birth Of A Godly Community
I say that we should give our kid's the outdoors freedom that they have been deprived of. Most of us likely had the freedom to peddle out of sight and into our world of building forts and getting our school clothes dirty when we were kids, so why can't our kids do something similar? If a neighborhood committee can be started to inform you that your mailbox is the wrong color, why can't parents in the neighborhood step outside and take a shift in watching the kids as they hit your end of the street? For that matter, why do we stay inside all the time? Light the grill, and burn a cow...let's all get to know each other!
If you don't have many neighbors, at least get involved in, or find a church that has an outreach attitude and serve the community...I'm trying to work towards that now as a matter of fact. As long as the denominations of the body of Christ believe that Jesus is Lord and the risen savior, then all Christ Followers should have enough common ground to face a lost and broken worldtogether. We can restore community if we work together in the name of Jesus. If we can restore community as the body of Christ, we can reach the unsaved!
 |
| My House, circa 1980 |
Ecclesiastes 3
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.A Different Time, A Different Life,and A Different Community
1960 compared to 2011, hmmmm...I'd say those years aren't that different when considering the sin susceptibility of human kind. It's the same old 1960 sin, but the evolved 2011 satanic methodology has changed our lives. If we take the time, we can rewind time like a DVD video and then we can see the difference with more clarity.
Have you noticed that most modern homes do not have a functional front porch? Only 20 to 30 years ago we watched out for our friends and neighbors, and they watched out for us...it was the good old front porch era. Folks seemed to care about other people's kids back then, and they had a hand in the discipline of other people's kids, to an extent. The main interface of communication was the person to person conversation previous to the 90's. When you wanted to say something to your neighbor you didn't text them because you could probably just yell it out the window....the older reader may remember that windows were open back then!
An Increasingly Introverted Culture
In these modern times; air conditioning, televisions, and video games have all but silenced the heartbeat of the American neighborhood. Cute little communications devices such as the i-phone have made face to face conversation seem awkward...even unwanted. The modern neighborhood looks abandoned because the way we interface with the world has changed. Nowadays people don't interact with others in their neighborhood like the families of the 50's, 60's, and 70's did. As a matter of fact, families don't even interact with their own kinsmen! Due to modern times; a bad economy, and the ever changing ways of life, families are very much scattered. Family reunions are now becoming by gone events. Fear has driven us to keep our children indoors because we feel that we must hide our kids from the evil potential of the sexual maniac. The non-parental supervised game of street football is nearly a bygone memory. We can't let our kids ride their bikes down the street beyond our eyesight. ... What a rip off, I had that freedom when I was a kid!
Advances in technology have changed the manner in which we relate to the community and world, thus America has eliminated the charm of the front porch. Subtly, In the last 15 years or so, the family has encapsulated themselves within their personal forms of entertainment. Musing has been swallowed by amusement probably because it takes less effort. Front porches are now crazy looking 4 foot while unlock the door rain shelters nowadays. We've even retreated from the family room into our own individual bubbles of personal entertainment, and gadgetry. The dinner table has been replaced by the TV tray in front of your personal television. We continue to retreat further into our own little bubble. The past 7 years has been anenormous step toward a personal entertainment world. I hate that many modern kids don't have that privilege of near total outdoor freedom anymore, what a shame! Nobody seems to care or notice. ... Some wonder why their 10 year old is 120 pounds. Well, ya know. ...
Out Of The Darkness And In Your Face
Evolving sin has destroyed decent morality, and the dark adversary knows how to get to us...he is now rolling out his best master plan of all time. We are becoming more and more closed off as a culture, so what satan has done is he's seized control of the social media and entertainment industry through the minds of the administrators therein. Thus through the social communication and entertainment media, the evil one is also able to influence the politicians who govern humanity. The world governing bodies allow the social media and entertainment industry to further promote tolerance of promiscuity and homosexual lifestyles. Traditional gender role life styles and modesty are laughed at and despised. Sexual expression is badly warped, and it's nowhere near the marriage bed; as a matter of fact, conditions in this modern society resemble Sodom and Gomorrah. What's currently rated PG now was rated R in 1985. The evil one has indeed succeeded in subduing modesty through the entertainment industry and popular culture!
Casual sex discussions and sex play is a growing problem with the youth of America. According to many reports, young children are increasingly likely to have participated in perverted conversations with children, or an older individual previous to their 11th birthday...it is absolutely shocking! I would never let my child have any free reign internet access, nor total freedom with a cell phone...ever! My daughter begs me to get her a cell phone, but I've seen the trouble a cell phone can bring into a 9 to 13 years old's life. Some of the things I hear kids talk about leave me speechless! All youth's aren't subject to debauchery, but we are all human, thus we have that propensity to mess up! I'd really think twice about cell phone use for kids.
Kids 10 to 14 years old who have 24 hour communication access could potentially be receiving phone calls or participating in dirty little text conversations after bedtime. ... What are parents thinking? How can parents let their kids have cell access 24 hours a day...they will likely get a big shock one day!
Looking Back
In 1980 our family watched television frequently, but we all watched the same television; however, I had much more outdoors freedom as a child than the majority of the kids today. I remember the feel of the peddles on the bottom of my red clay stained bare feet as I rode up Giger Hill, and the sound of the wind as I streaked down the other side. My three dogs would keep pace and follow me everywhere as I rode my bike. My legs were skinny, but they were muscled with no blubber on them. ... I could easily power through the sand and rugged ground on my bicycle. I would actually wear the tread off of the tires of my bike! I had outdoorsfreedom, but I knew it was time to come home when the deep orange sky would que the locusts to begin their shrill call in those Milton, Florida pine trees. I remember popping a wheelie to ride up onto the front porch. At the end of a busy afternoon I went inside to eat supper and watch the one television in the living room.
The Re-birth Of A Godly Community
I say that we should give our kid's the outdoors freedom that they have been deprived of. Most of us likely had the freedom to peddle out of sight and into our world of building forts and getting our school clothes dirty when we were kids, so why can't our kids do something similar? If a neighborhood committee can be started to inform you that your mailbox is the wrong color, why can't parents in the neighborhood step outside and take a shift in watching the kids as they hit your end of the street? For that matter, why do we stay inside all the time? Light the grill, and burn a cow...let's all get to know each other!
If you don't have many neighbors, at least get involved in, or find a church that has an outreach attitude and serve the community...I'm trying to work towards that now as a matter of fact. As long as the denominations of the body of Christ believe that Jesus is Lord and the risen savior, then all Christ Followers should have enough common ground to face a lost and broken worldtogether. We can restore community if we work together in the name of Jesus. If we can restore community as the body of Christ, we can reach the unsaved!
Posted by Thomas
http://thomasg1971.blogspot.com/
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Little Miss Sunshine
In scene 3 A Nice Family Dinner, we're introduced to our very dysfunctional cast of characters as they share a meal together. It proves to be quite an amalgamation of persons with very differing goals and ideals. In many ways it mirrors a very segmented view of community in it's early stages of forming till our characters have time and space to interact with each other and find grounds of commonality and purposes for conformity.
Galatians 5:19-21
19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
In scene 16 End of a Dream, our centralizing protagonist begins to emerge as Olive is called on to comfort Dwayne as he discovers his color-blindness and the apparent death of his dream to be an Air Force test pilot. It is here that we start to learn what centers this cast of misfits and drives them to continue on in this quest that seems foolhardy at best. When words lose their value it's true presence that maintains and it is the driving force in true community.
Philippians 2:1-4
1-4If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.In scene 22 Olive performs the dance that her grandfather had taught her to the protest of Frank and Dwayne. They realize that Olive shouldn't be put through the humiliation of the performance in front of the pageant folks. When the pageant director calls for the immediate stoppage of her dance, community in the form of her family comes to her rescue right when she needs them most.
James 3:17-18
17-18Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.Friday, November 11, 2011
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) | Preview
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) | Preview
Grace in a Broken Van (Manson)
Darrel Manson
The Hoover family really is a group of misfits: Richard has a nine step program to be a winner at life, but he is a complete failure; his wife Sheryl is busy trying to hold everyone and everything together; Richard’s father has been kicked out of the retirement community he lived in because he’d been snorting heroin; Sheryl’s brother Frank has just been released from the hospital following a suicide attempt precipitated by his lover abandoning him for a rival Proust scholar; Richard and Sheryl’s sullen son Dwayne has set his sights on going to the Air Force Academy and flying jets and has vowed not to speak until he’s reached his goal; their young daughter Olive is obsessed with beauty pageants even though she is very plain. This bunch really doesn’t like each other much – they don’t even like themselves.
Because Olive is suddenly eligible for the regional Little Miss Sunshine competition due to a disqualification, the group takes off from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, California, on a deadline. Soon they discover the clutch is out, so whenever they start the car they all have to get out and push, and once going, they can’t slow down.
That van serves as a metaphor for the family. It’s a mess and it just keeps getting worse, and nobody has the time or the ability to fix it. How it’s managed to stay together so long is hard to imagine. It just keeps rolling along, and in time it will arrive at its destination in spite of everything that is wrong with it.
Throughout the film, the various dreams of the family members are destroyed – Richard’s book deal, Frank’s career as well as his relationship, Dwayne’s future. One by one their hopes fall by the wayside. That may be one of the reasons they are so intent on getting Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine contest, so that she can at least have her dream.
When they get there, however, they discover that that dream may not be worthy of her. When we see these pre-pubescent beauty contestants with their big hair and full makeup, we realize just how empty Olive’s dream has been. The scenes at the pageant are uncomfortably eerie as they exhibit an almost pedophilic atmosphere. As we watch the Hoovers struggle with what is happening on and back stage, we realize that even this collection of misfits is probably more together than the culture that encourages young girls to take on the accoutrements of sex to get ahead in life.
In spite of all the ways each of the family members is mired in the failure of his or her own life, there is a bond between them that allows the whole to be far more than the sum of its parts.
In one scene, as the family tries to deal with Dwayne’s devastation, off in the distance is a faded billboard that reads, “United We Stand”. That sentiment has faded in the Hoover household, but it is still there underneath all the strife and self-centeredness. It is the potential of what they can be to one another that fills the film with hope – hope that is more powerful than all the adversity that has filled everyone’s lives.
Frank explains to Dwayne how Proust discovered that it was the times of adversity in his life that gave life its meaning. The Hoover family certainly has its share of problems. But by the end we see that there is room for them to grow and find the meaning the hardship can bring.
Perhaps we should see that we all spend time in a VW bus with a bad clutch where have to help to get it going, even when we don’t want to be on the journey. Where we have to run to jump in, even when we don’t want to be with the other travelers. Though we may have enough trouble without having to spend our lives with a busload of broken people, in the end, it is sometimes the journey we never wanted that takes us to the places we find love.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) | Review
Sunshine From Misery (Leitch)
Elisabeth Leitch
Little Miss Sunshine pretty much touches on every major variety of misery.
The trials of losing ability, fighting for respect, and seeking purpose in old age—as in the uncensored Grandpa Hoover who still likes the ladies and just got kicked out of the nursing home for snorting heroin.
The challenge of being a successful husband, father, and man—as in the nails-on-the-chalkboard motivational speaker Richard Hoover who cannot even use his success strategies to gain a voluntary clientele of much more than five.
The misery of unfulfilled love and trumped ambitions—as in the acclaimed Proust scholar, Uncle/ Brother Frank, who has just attempted suicide after watching his archrival claim both the love of his life and premier recognition in his lifelong field of study.
The angst and hopelessness of youth—as in the Nietzsche worshiping, Air Force bound Dwayne who suffers through the daily existence of having to live in the same world as his family and has chosen not to speak in over nine months.
The harried life of a hard-working wife and mother—as in the well-meaning Sheryl Hoover who is just trying to keep her ever expanding household sane and together, even if it means the only thing she has energy to put on the table at night is another bucket of fried chicken.
And then, there’s Olive…
For a young girl, she is just as awkward as the rest of her family. She has huge glasses. She probably is not the most popular girl in school. But in a family filled with people who don’t quite fit in to the world they are trying to live in, she is their ray of sunshine.
While the rest of her family may have consigned themselves to thwarted ambitions and unfulfilled dreams, Olive is determined to go to California and win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant…and so, packing her family and all of their miseries into a VW bus, she takes everyone along for a ride that will show them that obstacles do not mean we will not reach our destination, that alternative routes and detours are not equivalent to wrong turns and dead ends, and that final destinations need not look like everyone else’s to be worth just as much.
From beginning to end, Little Miss Sunshine is a hilarious and touching tale of misfits, obstacles, and bizarre situations that reminds us that purpose, value, and success are never confined to normality.Witty lines and bizarre turns keep us laughing and remind us that things are never really as bad as they seem. With very little plot, its characters and the actors that play them carry the movie in a way that only punches up its humor and its inspiration. And, in the same way that Olive gets her entire family out of their misery and up dancing, Little Miss Sunshine leaves you smiling and chuckling in a way that makes your day feel just that little bit brighter.
Sometimes it may be hard to believe in hope. As Dwayne’s bright yellow “Jesus Was Wrong” shirt tells us, it often feels impossible to believe in anything beyond the things, abilities, and circumstances that have already let us down…but then, even after the worst detours and road trips imaginable, life goes on, past our failures, towards something new, and with the knowledge that we are never alone in this crazy life that we lead.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Box Office
Budget:
$8,000,000 (estimated)Opening Weekend:
$370,782 (USA) (30 July 2006) (7 Screens)Gross:
$100,221,296 (Worldwide)Did You Know?
Trivia
The Emcee at the pageant is a parody of the official emcee at the child beauty pageants,Tim Whitmer (aka Mr Tim) whom can be seen or heard in various child beauty documentaries. See more »Goofs
Continuity: Before getting back in the van after yelling at his family, Dwayne has an orange band on his left wrist. The next shot of him lying down in the van, the orange band is on his right wrist. See more »More than a fresh ray of sunshine!
Here is a film that lives up to the expectations of a very funny trailer. It's an oddball comedy, and it's dark, and it's funny, and it's touching, and it will charm the pants off many in the audience. Here is a simple story in which our lovely contestant and her family try to find their way to California so that she can prove to the world she is not a loser! The premise itself can lead to years of therapy for a family that should get a group rate in psychiatric care.
Expert editing and superb comedic performances from all the principals involved will have many overlook the fact that the plot line is a little too contrived at times. The set pieces will have the audience howling with laughter as we see different characters trying to overcome some pretty irreverent obstacles. The scene at the gas station contains moments of deep sadness and offbeat humor, something that Carrell pulls off wonderfully, and none will be able to look at the trunk of a car, some dubious literary material, and highway patrol the same way after seeing the infamous scene in the film.
The best is of course, saved for last, and by this time we are waiting for something outrageous which "Little Miss Sunshine" delivers unapologetically. A classic track will probably be recharged for a new generation, as the bonds of family precariously balance a moment that could be as tacky as they come.
"Sunshine" is one of the best things to come out of American cinema this year, an original film that relies on a script that understands the differences between generations in the same family. It doesn't explain why each character is as quirky as can be, and it doesn't build much background because it is not needed to make the film work. Kinnear, Colette, Abigail, Arkin, and Correll are a fine team and keep the film's feel fresh throughout the film. Here is a family that has no special qualities or powers, a family that will make us rejoice that creativity is still alive in Hollywood, a film that will provide us with plenty of much needed sunshine in an otherwise pretty dull summer.
Expert editing and superb comedic performances from all the principals involved will have many overlook the fact that the plot line is a little too contrived at times. The set pieces will have the audience howling with laughter as we see different characters trying to overcome some pretty irreverent obstacles. The scene at the gas station contains moments of deep sadness and offbeat humor, something that Carrell pulls off wonderfully, and none will be able to look at the trunk of a car, some dubious literary material, and highway patrol the same way after seeing the infamous scene in the film.
The best is of course, saved for last, and by this time we are waiting for something outrageous which "Little Miss Sunshine" delivers unapologetically. A classic track will probably be recharged for a new generation, as the bonds of family precariously balance a moment that could be as tacky as they come.
"Sunshine" is one of the best things to come out of American cinema this year, an original film that relies on a script that understands the differences between generations in the same family. It doesn't explain why each character is as quirky as can be, and it doesn't build much background because it is not needed to make the film work. Kinnear, Colette, Abigail, Arkin, and Correll are a fine team and keep the film's feel fresh throughout the film. Here is a family that has no special qualities or powers, a family that will make us rejoice that creativity is still alive in Hollywood, a film that will provide us with plenty of much needed sunshine in an otherwise pretty dull summer.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Next class (11/18)...Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American comedy-drama film. The road movie's plot follows a family's trip to a children's beauty pageant.
Little Miss Sunshine was the directorial film debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. The movie stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, and was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of US$8 million.[1][2] Filming began on June 6, 2005 and took place over 30 days in Arizona and Southern California.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, and its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Picturesfor one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival.[3] The film had a limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006, and later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18.[1]
Little Miss Sunshine received critical acclaim and had an international box office gross of $100.5 million. The film was nominated for fourAcademy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and received numerous other accolades.
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