Little Miss Sunshine= Amazingly Good

[eatmyshorts]

I just saw this movie. It was awesome. has anyone else?

[blinkfan]

I am planning to see it, It looks fantastic but I do live in a small town so I will probably have to wait until it's on Dvd same with Clerks 2 sadly.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

I saw it today. Very very good. It's definitely one of the best movies so far this year.

Steve Carell, simply put, kicks butt. He hasn't made a bad career move so far (I see Bruce Almighty as more of a "mediocre" choice than a "bad" choice).

[Big T]

I just saw this amazing film and felt the need to bump it up, even if it is for the last time. I would just be repeating what has already been posted but I do hope that Paul Dano continues to make movies, I have yet to see him play a poor role.
Yep, awesome flik.

[Al]

Yeah, easily the best movie I saw this year. Funny, touching, familiar yet different, all that good stuff. And hooray for Steve Carrell. Just thought he deserved mention.

Al

[Ms. Jellybean]

Steve Carell, I have decided, is my real father. Because he's just so cool.

Just saw this over the weekend and adored it. I even liked the little digs at the pageant culture in the end, because it's completely 100% true. I'm in a region that produces lots of useless crowns for little girls wanting attention.

[starwenn]

Just saw this with some friends last night and loved it. It's so weird, and yet true-to-life. (I'm lucky there's a movie theater about a half-hour from here that specializes in indepdenant and foreign movies and documentaries, or I'd have to wait for video for this one. It's a really nice theater, too, with a coffee shop right across from the concession stand.)

[sarahbot]

I have to say, I didn't like this as much as I had hoped. Good stuff first. Steve Carell was - I think I need a new adjective to describe this man. Carelltastic? I like him, a lot, and he did not let me down. And I'd never heard of Paul Dano before (according to IMDB he's going to be in a version of Where the Wild Things Are!), but he was awesome too, especially in his big scene. You know the one I mean. I thought the scene with the two of them by the beach was the best, just before they decide to go back to the pageant. I wish the whole movie had been like that.

Greg Kinnear - well, I guess he was good. props to not playing his normal fairly likeable guy. My view of him as an actor may be tempered by the fact that I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him quickly. Generally slowly is preferable, but I didn't want him to allow him to torture this family any longer.

Things I didn't like:
The grandpa. It's an old person saying dirty words! That's a joke that seems way out of place for this movie. He didn't seem to fit to me.
As soon as it was revealed the son had taken a vow of silence, I thought "He's going to break it. And I know what his first word is going to be." I shouldn't be right. I do this sort of thing with only about 5% of the movies I see. I'm not good at this. If I'm right, there's a problem there.
The pageant. At least the movie makers wanted me to not like this part. But I hated it so much my rage was distracting me from the movie.
And finally, the little girl's routine. OK, we knew it was going to be a surprise because we didn't see it before the show, hence a reveal. But after this horrorshow of a pageant, I couldn't help but be horrified that here was this sweet little girl who you can't help but fall in love with through the movie, up on the stage doing her routine. I liked the way her family supported her, I have to admit that. But other than that? Pain.

It may have been my expectations. I was expecting something more like The Royal Tenenbaums, I guess - something tempered with comedy at times. But when I hate the dad and grandpa as characters, and when everyone else is ripping my heart out, there isn't anything that would make me return to this movie, finely acted though it may be.

I also freely admit I may have liked this better had I seen it in a theatre. I was babysitting an insomniac.

[varana]

I loved this movie so much. Too bad none of our wonderful reviewers have pick it up yet (hint!)

[aargmematey]

Yeah, this movie was one of the best ones I saw in theaters in '06. I loved everyone one of the family members, and there were quite a few bits that had me cracking up (Olive's pageant routine, and the bus were two of my favorites). Also, toward the end of the movie I was worried that it was just going to be a big, depressing , "now I want to kill myself"-palooza, and I loved that it actually ended happily (kinda).

Overall, great movie.

[DarthShady]

I hadn't seen this movie because I never had the chance when it was in theatres, but I was absolutely DYING to see it! So imagine my excitement when my lil' sis informs me that she'll be visiting for the weekend and sleeping over my place. The morning before she came she picked up Little Miss Sunshine from Hollywood Video and we watched it together.

Not in the least dissapointing!

I was scared for a little, because they were so many ways this movie could've gone wrong. And it wasn't perfect, but the directiona and the acting were superb! I loved the grandpa. He wasn't exactly original, but he was still funny and lovable. I don't want to say anything that would spoil this movie, but yeah, I cried. Also think Steve Carrell needs some type of award for his performance, he broke my heart. Olive was way cuter than Dakota Fanning and totally deserves her Oscar nod, Paul Dano was excellent, and the ending was great, because I was not expecting it. I was expecting the bubbly, perfect ending, but this was somehow happier and a helluva lot truer. Overall I thought it was an honest film, and that's all I wanted from it.

However it was not perfect. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette were great, but I just couldn't fall in love with them like I did the other four characters. Some of the plot seemed very forced. (Kinnear running out of the motel to look for the guy promoting his book felt way out of place and unnecessary.) And certain parts were very predictable and cliche. I'm almost suprised we don't find out the mom's pregnant......with twins, conveniently enough....

Even so, overall I could not help but fall in love with this movie. It evoked the right emotions at the right time, and that is definitely a sign of a good film. And as stated before, it was truthful. I could imagine (most of) these events actually happening, save for a couple of incidents near the middle. And I agree with Sarahbot that the scene with Carrell and Dano on the beach was the best. It was perfect, in my opinion. That scene alone made the whole movie worth the $1.26 we spent on renting it, and more than made up for the bad parts!

Okay, this is getting long and I'm kinda sleepy, so let me euthanize this here. Basically, awesome-but-not-perfect movie, I'd love to see a mutant review of it! ;D

[sirgallahad2]

I liked the fact that the road trip brought the family togrether. This is one seriously cracked-up, dysfunctional family, and they came together. The little girl Olive just absolutely melts your heart. I did have one problem though. That pageant at the end creeped me out. There is NO reason that little girls should be allowed to get tarted up like that. Child beauty pageants are sick parades of depravity that provide fodder for pedophiles.

[DarthShady]

Little girl pageants really are sick, and only lead to tragedies like girls with eating disorders, having a definition of "beauty" resonating around their heads, and of course the Jean Bonnet Ramsey ordeal. they're not even for the girls, they're more for the parents to say their daughter looks better than 15 other 5-year-olds in a bikini....They really are sick. Whatever happened to little girls being little girls?

This is another reason why I so loved this movie. I left thinking "wow, Olive was so much cuter than those other girls, I'd rather have her as a daughter than any of the other girls any day...."

[Big T]

I just need to say that I am always genuinely disturbed by the sight of a girl under 12 years old wearing layers of make up. The pageant was so incredibly disturbing, even more so when I realize that those kind of things exist in abundance.

Although, I absolutely loved the whole scene of Olive's talent.
"This is dedicated to my Grandpa"
"Where is your Grandpa right now?"
"In our trunk."

Edit: just a few spelling and clarification things.

[DocD83]

I liked this movie too, and I wasn't looking forward to it (my brother rented it, I figured I might as well watch).

This was the first thing I've seen Steve Carrell in that I liked. I spent most of the movie thinking "this is where he'll blow it" but he didn't. By the time of the beach scene I was sold that he actually can act, at least a little.

I'm still not going out to rent his other movies though. He wasn't that good.

But Alan Arkin was. He's always a solid performer, and I really liked his character here. He's the only one Olive really connects with, and I really [spoiler? Big T kinda spoiled this one] felt for Olive when he died.

The rest of the cast was good. Not the most demanding of roles for most of them individually, but as a family they worked, and that's not the easiest thing in the world.

Greg Kinnear - well, I guess he was good. props to not playing his normal fairly likeable guy.

*cough*