Little Miss Porn

The Nav Log ^ | 9/3/06 | ltn72

[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.”

Complete Article

[MeanWestTexan]

"don't have any redeeming qualities, yet they all pull together in the end."

Sounds like almost everyone important in the Bible (with notable exceptions).

[samtheman]

I'll comment on anything I feel like commenting on anytime I feel like commenting. Thank you for your comment.

[gotribe]

'Bout time! I've been waiting for a good kid's show to hit the theatres.

[ARA]

Whatever... Just thought you might want open your closed minded noggin and relax a bit... the pressure must be intense...

[brazzaville]

Good morning.
"Rent 'Secondhand Lions' ..."

Just buy it. If 'Secondhand Lions' doesn't make you feel good about life, you are hopeless.

Michael Frazier

[samtheman]

You see. You're calling me names and insulting me and know nothing about me.

Did I call you a name?

Did I call this film a name?

Did you notice that my original comment, the one that now has you calling me names, was a general statement about Hollywood?

Do you read comments, or only attack them?

Thank you for attacking me.

[Mark was here]

Go see the movie... it's funny and farcical...

It is not a movie for little kids, the language is rough, but there is not one boobie to be seen.

The movie it self had some funny scenes and was entertaining.

[No Blue States]

Thanks, Ill check those out next time.

Even most of the good movies are littered with curse words
and Im just really fed up with it.

[BigBobber]

Michael Medved recommended it, so it's hard to believe it's as bad as this other reviewer says.

[raybbr]

Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Directed by Jonathan Dayton Valerie Faris Writing credits (WGA) Michael Arndt (written by)

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Showtimes:12:00pm | 1:50 | 3:40 | 5:30 | 7:20 | 9:00 (more)

Genre: Adventure / Comedy / Drama (more)

Tagline: Where's Olive? (more)

Plot Outline: A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus. (more) (view trailer)

User Comments: Simply perfect (more)

User Rating: 8.2/10 (7,397 votes)

[Popocatapetl]

I have a rule of thumb for abysmally bad movies. It is the late-middle-aged Jewish comedian-who-was-never-funny rule.

Alan Arkin and Albert Brooks are at the head of the list. Men who continually look like they are in pain with intestinal problems and whine, nag, or complain with every line of dialogue.

For the most part, Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon were that way, too. And while you might laugh at their torments in the movies, you are left with the feeling of "what a miserable person, living a miserable life."

[MHGinTN]

Yup, just a funny film ... human degeneracy is such a funny topic.

[ARA]

Sam:

Your comment was a broadbased hit derived from a discussion about a film that you haven't seen but still, like a sheep, follow a few people and condemn those who are part of hollywood. It's always the same with a few people here... Open your noggin and don't lop everyone into one stereotype.

I never called you a name. And I do know something about you... you are closed minded. Which is what I am responding to.

You can make an comment and I sir can respond.

No name calling and not attacking. Just pointing out facts.

ARA
Hollywood, CA

[Sarah]

It's funny,I was just checking out James Bowman's site (his movie reviews). He's famously difficult, and to get a 'worth seeing' two stars is about impossible (5-10 films a year.)
www.jamesbowman.net .
All his old annual lists did not dissapoint, but recently I've found he's totally swayed by sexual content: Intolerable Cruelty (CZJones) etc. and also this 'little miss' one.
I'm so happy you posted this, I actually was going to make this one of my (bi-annual?) film treats.
Did you see: 'Va, Vie, Devinir'? If it's translated into English it's a MUST.

[ARA]

Have you seen it? or are you just basing your comments on the words of others?

[Jalapeno]

the characters don't have any redeeming qualities, yet they all pull together in the end.

This movie could have been excellent, but goes way downhill when the grandfather dies.

The charaters do not have redeemable qualities, and are not redeemed at the end of the film. They are, losers in the end as they were in the beginning, and you have to think they will kill each other on the slow trip back home.

Also when the grandfather dies, what happens till they get to the hotel is not very believable, and really less than funny, original, or believable.

The pageant and the little girl's recital are an interesting and hilarious commentary on such events (why are the attendees and judges outraged at her dance when it is really all the same thing), but it really does little in the end to redeem anyone in the film...except to show the highly probably fate of innocent, lovable Olive in such an environment.

My mother said the AARP had a review calling it "fun for the whole familiy" which I finf very difficult to digest. Alot of marketing dollors were spent on this film. Alan Arkin is superb, Greg Kenear is absolutely horrible as always. There is even a scen with Kenear on the phone talking to someone, only he puts the phone down before he says a line - I was surprised the director missed that.

[Old_Mil]

But my nation is dying from the infection.

It is...and we conservatives are to blame. We achieved power, and then never dismanteled the Department of Education and the liberal educational power structure that would sow the seeds of our own demise.

[NYIslander]

The reviewer completely misses the point of the movie. She also misses the satire. What's ironic is that many of the jokes the reviewer missed had points that the reviewer clearly agrees with.

[xp38]

Check out Bride and Prejudice. Loads of fun.

[OpusatFR]

I'll bet Madonna takes little Lourdes to this flick! Such wit and au courant culture!

Oh wait....Madonna doesn't allow her children to view flicks or television...too much trash..

Of course, the rest of the entertainers wouldn't allow their children to view trash. ~They just want yours to view trash...and pay for it.