Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

September 20, 2006 at 9:01 pm (A mute character, Child beauty queens, Dramedy, corpse hiding, dance number, gay character)

Abigail Breslin …. Olive Hoover
Greg Kinnear …. Richard Hoover
Paul Dano …. Dwayne Hoover
Alan Arkin …. Grandpa Edwin Hoover
Toni Collette …. Sheryl Hoover
Steve Carell …. Frank Hoover
Bryan Cranston …. Stan Grossman
Marc Turtletaub …. Doctor #1
Beth Grant …. Pageant Official Jenkins
Jill Talley …. Cindy
Brenda Canela …. Diner Waitress
Julio Oscar Mechoso …. Mechanic
Chuck Loring …. Convenience Store Proprietor
Justin Shilton …. Josh
Robert O’Connor …. Pagent Judge #1

Tagline: Where’s Olive?

Memorable quote:  Frank: Frederick Nietzsche? You stopped talking because of Frederick Nietzsche? Far out.

Little Miss Sunshine is an emsemble movie about Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), an ambitious, yet crappy motivational speak, his wife Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette), the character who tries to keep everyone together, even when it seems hopeless, Frank, Sheryl’s recently released from the psych ward brother.  Frank is gay, he fell in love with a grad student and was rejected, which sparked a serious of events which resulted in his attempting to commit suicide. Grandpa Hoover is a foul mouthed old man whom was recently kicked out his nursing home for doing drugs.  Dwayne Hoover is the son of Richard and Sheryl, who isn’t talking until he is allowed to enter flight school.  He hates everyone.  everyone.  And then, there is Olive Hoover.  Olive wants to be Miss America.  Olive the runner up contestant for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.  When the original contestant can’t make it, Olive bursts with excitement to find out that she is up for the contest and everyone is along for the trip to California in a VW Bus.

Everything seems wonderful, well, okay at the beginning. Yeah, everyone is crammed in a bus. Yes, it is hot. Yes, they are going to have to drive for hours and hours to make it to California on time.  However, it is tolerable.  Even though Richard is constantly edgy and critical, pushing Olive to think of winning as the only possible option, even critcizing her for eating ice cream, because she might get fat.

Things begin to go awry with the van.  The gears are fuckt.  There is no way to get the van into first.  So, the solution?  Push the van until it is going fast enough to start it in third. That entails parking on a hill, everyone pushing the van, and then jumping in.  Words don’t do the visual justice.

Frank runs into his infatuation at a gas station and is forced to hide while the grad student and his new lover turn to look at him in the gas station.  Frank is completely crushed after this incident.

Richard cannot get into contact with a fellow businessman who was to help jumpstart his idea.  He rides a moped all the way to where the gentlemen is to confront him.

After Grandpa goes over Olive’s routine the night before the pageant, an unforeseen event occurs and a sudden grim tone overtakes the film.  How will the family still get to the Little Miss Sunshine contest?

They manage to work with the situation and continue onward towards California, when Dwayne learns that he may not be able to attain his dream and becomes extremely upset. This is yet another obstacle that the family must overcome.

After one hell of an trip, the family manages to make it to the pageant in the nick of time. Olive’s performance is amazing!!!

First thing first: the acting. Superb.  Steve Carrell was amazing. I believed his character. Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin as the results of a completed screwed upbringing were wonderful. Grandpa brings much comic relief and Greg Kinnear, though I usually think he sucks, did a wonderful job as an overbearing prick.

Secondly: The humor.  This film is so funny on many levels. I laughed throughout the entire thing.  It was so hilarious.

Thirdly: I was sad.  You could feel the character’s pain. Steve Carrell and Paul Dano especially.  It was an unbelievable sadness.

The beauty of this movie is that it is nothing but your average, screwed up family, hanging onto a little girl’s dream as each one of their dreams is systematically fucked with and broken apart on the journey.  The whole event seems to be a catharsis for everyone, however.  I recommend this movie, for the richness of the layers and the humor that it provides to the audience.

Overall grade: A-

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Brothers of the Head (2005)

September 17, 2006 at 10:08 am (1970s punk music, Book Preceeded, Conjoined Twins, Mockumentary)

Harry Treadaway …. Tom Howe
Luke Treadaway …. Barry Howe
Bryan Dick …. Paul Day in 1970’s
Sean Harris …. Nick Sidney
Jonathan Pryce …. Henry Couling
John Simm …. Boatman
Ken Russell …. Himself
Brian Aldiss …. James Greene
Elizabeth Rider …. Roberta Howe
Luke Wagner …. Young Zak
Anna Nygh …. Zak’s Mum/Rita Bedderwick
Howard Attfield …. Zak Bedderwick
Edward Hogg …. Chris Dervish (as Ed Hogg)
Nicholas Millard …. Tubs
Ken Bones …. Henry Couling

Tagline: From some people… Rock & Roll was always a freak show.

Brothers of the Head is a mockumentary about conjoined twins Barry and Tom Howe who become rockstars in the 1970s.  I’ll give you a minute to digest that…………….

Are you okay with that?

Okay, good.

So, the brothers are conjoined around the midsection/chest area. They are sent? to a castle in England to learn about music and become rock stars.  Tom, the more docile twin, is taught to play the guitar, while Barry, the more abrasive, explosive of the two is the lead singer. Their group is called The Bang Bang and they travel around, becoming a huge punk sensation.

This is a movie within in a movie. The actual movie is a retrospective on a documentary done about the Howe brothers in the 70s. Present day characters often talk about what it was like with the Howe brothers 30 years prior, while most of the time, you are seeing the “documentary” that was made.  The brothers are followed, relentlessly, to the point of them being filmed while attempting to bathe.  They are watched while rehearsing, sleeping, playing, fighting, and when they are trying to be alone, from the eyes of the world.  Over the course of the film, you really begin to pity them, as they are praised more for their sideshow freakishness then for their value as human beings.

While at the castle, Laura Ashworth enters the scene.  She comes to observe the men, as she is there to gather information that is she writing in an academic journal about the exploitation of the disabled. Barry is very rude to her, and this only escalates after she and Tom fall in love.  Barry is forced to be privy to their sexual acts.

The relationship begins to get very intense, just as their band begins to get very popular.  In conjunction with the pressure of the success of the band and the relationship with Laura, the twins, especially Barry, begin to drink heavily, use drugs heavily, and their relationship turns more distant and violent.

A letter to a doctor regarding the possible separation of the twins ends Tom’s relationship with Laura and the movie spirals downward from there.  Barry is injured at one of the gigs and they are both forced to go home so that they can be taken care of.  The last fifteen minutes of the movie are so grim. I normally don’t divulge endings, but the Howe brothers die. That is all I will say.  There are more details in the film, so I will leave it at that.  This is really not a secret, as the tone of the entire film is that they are dead.

The concept of this movie, conjoined twin rock stars, great idea. Very fresh. Who in the hell would have thought of such a thing.  The film work is very experimental and the movie is very artsy at times, which is also fresh.

The execution of this movie could have been so much better.  The Howe brothers did an excellent job of acting.  Very believable. Here is my main objection: I never really knew anything about the Howe brothers.  They are observed from far far away.  I believe that was the point of the film.  However, in order to truly empathize with a character, it does help if the audience is allowed to delve deeper into who the observed is as a person.  Everything is very surface in this movie.

The movie is also slow in parts and doesn’t sustain the focus on anything long enough for you to truly absorb it.

I recommend a watch as an exercise in experimentation, but I will you know now, you will probably walk away dissatisfied.

Ingenuity: A-
Execution: D
Overall: C

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