I'd Rather Be Poked in the Eye

I raved a few posts ago about Little Miss Sunshine and upon reflection it TOTALLY deserves every bit of accolade I can give it. Please, go see Little Miss Sunshine...but time your arrival so that you DO NOT have to watch the trailer for Material Girls. Is it possible for a trailer to actually drain your life force in two short minutes? Watch, and you will know the unfortunate answer.

Why they would choose to market this movie to the same audience that has chosen to go to a good movie, I will never know. The plot? Two "celebutante" sisters (Hillary and Haley Duff) have inherited their father's cosmetics company and fortune. They are incompetent do-nothings who simply attend parties and smile pretty for the camera. Fine...that premise isn't much different from that of Tommy Boy. What follows however, appears to be an incredibly, incredibly shallow journey towards adulthood. In fact, that's what Mr. Overdramatic Movie Voice Guy should have said during the trailer...at least then I could have laughed. The company endures some sort of scandal (which looks exceedingly lame), the girls are instantly tossed out on their asses (maybe the one endearing element of this movie, no matter how illogical), and they are forced to learn to live without masseuses on-call, Louis Vuitton and a new cell phone every month. Boo...freakin'...hoo.

What makes this film look like a shallow and meaningless rendering of better movies that have come before (see Tommy Boy) is that from the trailer, it never really looks as though they end up having it that hard, nor does it appear that they end up ACTUALLY working much. Oh, they have to take the bus and wear clothes from last season? Again...boo freakin' hoo. Scheming instead seems to be their big redemptive character trait, as they "work" to keep their company from falling into the clutches of an evil rival played by a totally-slumming-it-for-a-quick-buck Angelica Houston.

Can society's fascination with "celebutantes" please end now? Please? They don't make good movies, good books or even good gossip...and as Paris herself has proven, they don't make good music either. They're just dreadfully, dreadfully boring people who happen to be rich and have good plastic surgeons/stylists.

On another note...what the hell happened to Hillary Duff? Chompers of DEATH I tell ya. My reaction to the trailer of this movie says it all...before it was even finished, I turned to one of my movie-going companions and loudly (I had lost control of the volume of my voice at this point) exclaimed, "I would rather stick knives in my eyes than watch this movie."

Why Haven't I Seen This Trailer Yet?

I was doing a little research for work (no...really) and found the trailer for the new movie The Black Dahlia. How have I not heard of this movie yet? It looks pretty intriguing and has an amazing cast. Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart and Scarlett Johansson? YEAH! Josh Harnett? No yeah for acting but BIG YEAH for just being super-hot. Brian DePalma? BIG YEAH...for slow-mo shots. Anyway, it intrigued me. Check out the trailer and tell me what you all think.

Little Miss Sunshine

Hi - Normally, I choose to write about terrible movies because reviews of bad movies are always more fun to read (and write) than reviews of great movies (or mediocre "blah" movies...see "The Devil Wears Prada"). In this instance, I am going to make an exception. Little Miss Sunshine is a great movie. Starring Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin and Toni Collette, it certainly has a talented cast. Their performances, along with that of young Abigail Breslin as daughter and pageant contestant Olive, are what really make the movie shine.



The Hoovers are a fractured family. Dad is a wanna-be self-help guru whose literary ambitions are in question, Grandpa's been kicked out of his retirement community for snorting heroin, son Duane has taken a vow of silence, and uncle Frank just attempted suicide following the Mother of all bad break-ups. Mom is the harried, but genuine force struggling to keep the family together. When Olive is invited to enter the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant in Redondo beach, the entire family accompanies her on the long road trip from Albuquerque via an aging VW bus.

I don't want to give away any more of the plot of this movie simply because it is so good. Road movies have an element of predictability to them...they nearly always touch upon the themes of exploration, growth and self-knowledge. This one is no different, however it mixes comedy and some very, very dark material seamlessly while giving you an amazing closeness to and empathy for the characters. Are there moments that rely heavily upon the viewer's suspension of disbelief? Sure...but they don't take a thing away from what is an excellently acted, beautifully shot movie the likes of which hasn't been made in quite a while.