| Starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, etc. Rated R, 101 minutesRichard 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 ) |
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| 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 )- Keywords:best_director, best_picture, best_supporting_actor, beth_grant, coen_brothers, josh_brolin, movies, stephen_root, tommy_lee_jones, westerns, woody_harrelson
- Sites and Sounds:Neil Young - Old Man
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| 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 ) |
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| 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 ) |
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|  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 ) |
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| - Keywords:alec_baldwin, ben_affleck, beth_grant, cuba_gooding_jr., jennifer_garner, jerry_bruckheimer, jon_voight, josh_hartnett, kate_beckinsale, michael_bay, movies, tom_sizemore, william_fichtner
- Mood:hungry
 - Sites and Sounds:Neko Case - Wayfaring Stranger (Live)
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| 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. |
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| 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 ) |
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| The CastDustin 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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