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topfive_reviews, posts by tag: beth_grant - LiveJournal
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Starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, etc.
Rated R, 101 minutes


Richard Hoover (Kinnear) is trying to market his “nine steps” to success...success Richard has yet to achieve. He is perhaps most militant in pushing these steps on his daughter Olive (Breslin) in her quest to win the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant. A shock phone call sends the entire Hoover clan to Redondo Beach to compete, including stepson Dwayne, who’s taken a vow of silence; recently-released suicidal Uncle Frank; heroin snorting grandpa...

I'm madly in love with you and it's not because of your brains or your personality.Collapse )
gun
Anton does not abide.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper

Directed by: Ethan and Joel Coen
The review..Collapse )
20th-Mar-2007 10:36 pm - Review of "Factory Girl"
FACTORY GIRL (2006)

Directed by George Hickenlooper
Written by Captain Mauzner, from a story by Aaron Richard Golub, Captain Mauzner and Simon Monjack
Starring Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon and Jack Huston

Review of 'Factory Girl'Collapse )
gun
If it was the Canadian Maple Leaf, Americans would've put it on upside down.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Barry Pepper, John Benjamin Hickey, John Slattery, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell

Directed by: Clint Eastwood
The review...Collapse )

Little Miss Sunshine, the laugh out loud comedy, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and written by Michael Arndt is an inspired work of comedy, acting and cinematography.
A Sunshine Day Collapse )
pale is the new tan
I just got back from seeing Little Miss Sunshine and what an excellent movie it is! I don't really have much to say, but I felt the need to write a review because I really want people to go and see this gem. Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, and Steve Carell star as members of a dysfunctional family who decide to take a road trip to make the dreams of Olive, an eight-year-old who wants to be a beauty pageant winner, come as close to true as they can. Every character is wonderfully, beautifully flawed, and every actor showcases those flaws to perfection. Wacky things happen, though nothing is quite so far-fetched to be unbelievable. Most interesting of all, possibly, is the transformation the audience undergoes, particularly with regards to Greg Kinnear's character, who appears at first to be unsympathetic but slowly sheds his cocoon of distaste as the movie progresses. I had a smile on my face for most of this movie, except a few moments of drama to give our facial muscles a break (what's the number? Thirty-two muscles to smile or something like that?), and I left the movie with, as cheesy as this sounds, a warm, fuzzy feeling inside me. I wouldn't call it inspiring, nor even uplifting, but in a movie with so many downers -- shattered dreams, failed suicidals, drug-addicted grandfathers -- Little Miss Sunshine has something peculiarly 'up' about it.

Go see it. Now. I'm serious. Pretend you're a lemming, and I'm the lemming chief. Follow me to the theater. Come.
Beagle
A review from MISTER Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Starring: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell

Directed by: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
The review...Collapse )
20th-Aug-2006 10:43 am - Little Miss Sunshine, 2006
sometimes y
Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine cast, at breakfast

Abigail Breslin .... Olive

Greg Kinnear .... Richard

Paul Dano .... Dwayne

Alan Arkin .... Grandpa

Toni Collette .... Sheryl

Steve Carell .... Frank

Life is just one fuckin' beauty contest after another.Collapse )
4th-Feb-2005 05:30 am - Movie Review: Donnie Darko (2001)
bandw
Twenty-eight days... six hours... forty-two minutes... twelve seconds. That... is when the world... will end.

Donnie Darko (2001)

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle

Directed By: Richard Kelly
And how did you feel, being denied these hungry, hungry hippos?Collapse )
2nd-Feb-2005 08:16 pm - Rain Man (1988)
Crazy
I'm an excellent driver.
The Cast
Dustin Hoffman .... Raymond Babbitt
Tom Cruise .... Charlie Babbitt
Valeria Golino .... Susanna

In the past day or so I've watched three movies that are in IMDB's top 250, which could be pretty stellar if it weren't for the relative idiocy of the average joe film watcher that tends to populate IMDB. It's a pretty good spot for this movie though, which is a mix of a road trip & a journey of self-discovery. Just so you know, it also won Best Picture at the Oscars.

Hoffman's portrayal of the autistic Raymond (Rain Man, get it?) is heavily loaded with tics & such which is definitely one way to go when portraying someone mentally handicapped. Tom Hanks went the other way with Forrest Gump, but either way, when you're portraying someone mentally deficient in some way, you can pretty much count on at least an Oscar nom.

Not that the movie isn't good or anything. It's a pretty excellent movie, easily Barry Levinson's best directing job ever. I'm not sure about this being Hoffman's best performance or not, since I'm not overly familiar with his older work, but it's still pretty good. Tom Cruise is.. Tom Cruise, playing Tom Cruise. I'll go with a 4 outta 5 for it, because there's something missing there, that I just can't place. Sounds like a cop-out, but it could be a little better in some vague way I can't describe.

Roger Ebert's review of Rain Man (1988)
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