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afghan23226
Reviews
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Great for straights; so-so for subversives
Maybe it's me. This isn't a bad movie; I was only moved to write a neutral/negative review after reading page after page of gushes. Somebody's publicist really deserves a raise!!! I don't know - I was expecting/hoping for something more like Death To Smoochy or American Beauty or Memento. You know; a tried and true plot with a unique, dark and twisted POV. Well developed characters, often playing against type. Strong dialogue. Great performances from a good ensemble cast.
I have no beef with the cast or the performances. Toni Collette's reputation made me sit through most of Sixth Sense. She still owes me for that! She's great here, as usual. The rest are good to great (little Olive); Alan Arkin, Toni Collette's godfather of sorts, does a lot with what should have been excrement.
The film succeeds, I suppose, by being good enough for viewers like me, who didn't really like it, to bother commenting on it. Call it disappointment, I guess. I know that I'm usually in the minority, especially when it comes to films. I can see the staple marks, the editing, the overacting, and I've never even wanted to be a film student or actor. I'm just a fan.
Over 90% of the people whom I saw the film with loved it. That has to carry some weight. 59 million people voted for Dubya Bush even after the tragedy of his first term. So I'm not telling you what is or isn't good for you. If you like good, mainstream movies you'll probably like this. If you like indie films and have a generally positive attitude, you'll like it. If you like a good strong cast and the mashing together of lots of scenes you've seen before in dozens of other movies, you'll like this.
If you're expecting subversion, nuance or good old fashioned noir, you'll probably feel ripped off.
Bukowski: Born into This (2003)
I just wanted to vote
I caught most of this on cable the other night. Lots of rare footage and no cinematographical errors that I could discern. My contribution to the general Chuck discussion may be only that he 'sings' his words like Christopher Walken or many stutters. I didn't know that, and I'm glad I could watch this movie and discover that for myself. It may explain a lot; it may not. I'm going to pee, pet my cats and drink another beer.
PS - this entry wasn't long enough. I hope that it is soon. I don't need to pee that much but I'm tired of typing and I want to go back to surfing the internet. Hopefully now it is almost long enough. Did I mention that I really like amazon.com and I purchase many consumer goods on their site on a regular basis?
Boat Trip (2002)
If it was so bad, why did everyone watch it?????
This film is not perfect, but I really enjoyed watching it. Sure; it is offensive, crude, weak, etc in places, and that drags it down in the final analysis, but buried amongst the crap was a good idea and some really funny one liners and situations.
Obviously, if you voted for Pat Buchanan you won't like it (for maybe precisely the same reasons Horatio Sanz's character freaked out at first - too scared to look inside and at least consider that you might be gay (like all true reactionaries BTW)), but Boat Trip reminded me a lot of Saving Silverman, another funny ass film that got unfairly savaged. Consider the cast - any excuse to get Horatio Sanz, Cuba Gooding (an underrated comic actor - see Rat Race), Artie from Howard Stern, Will Farrell, Lin Shaye and the fat dude from Herman's Head together to curse and be lewd and crude HAS to be worth at least a couple stars...(and don't forget Roger Moore preceding David Suchet in the remake of The Inlaws as serious-British-actor-doing-a-great-job-at-playing-a-flamer) The Afternoon Specialish attempts at overcoming prejudice and looking within yourself blah blah blah were ham handed and corny, but hey - most gay bashers don't understand complex thought and seeing a big fat funny regular guy literally scratch his head and say "gosh, I always thought I HAD to hate gays...." before learning how to live and let live might actually have convinced someone out in Montana or Nebraska that they DON'T need to beat the tar out of some nelly guy to figure that out for themselves and who knows - it might have saved some innocent guy from being the next Matthew Shepard? So in that context, was sitting through a partially bad movie and laughing your ass off at a couple of dick and sperm jokes really that much of a price to pay? I didn't think so.