LEAVE WORK IMMEDIATELY AND GO SEE LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (At Your Earliest Convenience)
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006
I feel stupid for giving any glowing reviews to any other movies this year because, in retrospect, they’re not worth the paper their tickets were printed on. “But surely…you still love The Squid and the Whale, right?” WRONG. And now I have to go back and reconsider all my Netflix ratings because Little Miss Sunshine has caused me to recalibrate my scale.
I will admit, however, that my enjoyment of this excellent film was heightened by the fact that the World Champion of the Best Fat Man Laugh finals was sitting directly in front of us, and I’m pretty sure that at least half of the laughs that came from the audience were because of this man, not the movie. He deserves his own review. He made my day.
That being said, this is still the best film I’ve seen all year. It’s funny while still managing to be fresh, and it’s fresh while still managing to be relevant. I get very tired of films about people who feel alienated and people who feel numb and blah-de-blah (see “Steve Martin Wrote Shopgirl, so Phil in Marketing Didn’t Have To"), and instead of embracing this hackneyed, hackneyed device, directors Dayton and Faris slap guys like Zach Braff in the face and tell them to quit whining and dance inappropriately around on a stage with your little sister.
Yes, the film is about failure and losers and might seem kind of depressing when you take that into consideration. But the main message is, even when you’ve done everything you can, sometimes things just don’t work out. Look straight at the coming disaster. The world isn’t against you. It’s just bad luck. And since there’s nothing you can do about it, you might as well drop all the lame bitterness and move on. F sulkers!
I don’t even want to go into any details, because they’re all so choice that I don’t want to spoil it for you. I laughed, I cried, I laughed at the guy laughing in front of me, I cried when he stopped laughing. I also laughed at the crying of others, but that’s just because I’m mean.
Posted in Comedy, Independent
August 25th, 2006 at 11:36 am
As I read this all I could think about was Conan O'Brien's 'What if they mated?' and what if Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell mated? Their offspring would be in every single movie. 'Stuck on The Office' 'The 40 year old Matador.' 'Little Miss Sunshine II: The Legend of Curly's Gold' Somehow Billy Crystal will weasel his way into that too.
August 27th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
You'll be mildly interested to know that the directors of this film directed the "Tonight, Tonight" video for the Smashing Pumpkins and "All Around the World" for Oasis.