FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: Little Miss Sunshine [DVD] [2006]

Little Miss Sunshine [DVD] [2006]
enlarge	Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris Actors: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Steve Carell Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Category: DVD List Price: ~~£17.99~~ Buy Used: £0.69 as of 25/11/2009 20:53 GMT details You Save: £17.30 (96%) New (50) Used (106) Collectible (1) from £0.69 Seller: william_barola Rating: 141 reviews Sales Rank: 1332 Format: Anamorphic, PAL Languages: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), English (Original Language) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 2 Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 98 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0 Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5039036029667 ASIN: B000JU9OJ4 Theatrical Release Date: 2006 Release Date: January 22, 2007 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Reviews Pile together a blue-ribbon cast, a screenplay high in quirkiness, and the Sundance stamp of approval, and you've got yourself a crossover indie hit. That formula worked for ILittle Miss Sunshine/I, a frequently hilarious study of family dysfunction. Meet the Hoovers, an Albuquerque clan riddled with depression, hostility, and the tattered remnants of the American Dream; despite their flakiness, they manage to pile into a VW van for a weekend trek to L.A. in order to get moppet daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) into the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Much of the pleasure of this journey comes from watching some skillful comic actors doing their thing: Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette as the parents (he's hoping to become a self-help authority), Alan Arkin as a grandfather all too willing to give uproariously inappropriate advice to a sullen teenage grandson (Paul Dano), and a subdued Steve Carell as a jilted gay professor on the verge of suicide. The film is a crowd-pleaser, and if anything is a little too eager to bend itself in the direction of quirk-loving Sundance audiences; it can feel forced. But the breezy momentum and the ingenious actors help push the material over any bumps in the road. I-- Robert Horton/I

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 141 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...29 Next » "Don't apologize. It's a sign of weakness." December 20, 2006 M. J Leonard (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) 75 out of 83 found this review helpful In a movie with some of the most beautifully drawn characters I've seen in a movie this year, Little Miss Sunshine proves that being a success in life often comes from deep within the heart and that love can come where you least expect it. It doesn't take long to figure out that dysfunction is the order of the day in Hoover family of Albuquerque, New Mexico. br / br /Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is a bitter old hippy who swears profusely and does heroin. Dad (Greg Kinnear) has hopes to publish a dreary nine-step program that asks people to banish their inner losers and be winners. Chubby little Olive (a lovely Abigail Breslin) is determined to become a prepubescent beauty queen, the winner of the Little Miss Sunshine. br / br /Olive's sullen brother (Paul Dano) wants to join the air force and hasn't spoken for nine months and his uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is America's most renowned Proust scholar who has just tried to commit suicide after his boyfriend dumped him. br / br /Leave it to Mom (Toni Collette) the only one of this weird bunch who seems to be grounded yet who gravitates between simmering resentment of her husband and an aching desire to keep her family together. She obviously loves them all but she's too distracted to cook; it's all KFC and Pepsi night after night. br / br /But when the cute owl-eyed Olive finds out that she has a serious chance of winning the Little Miss Sunshine contest in California, no one can decide who should go with her, so the whole Hoover bunch piles into a Volkswagen bus so that Olive can take her shot at the crown. br / br /Thus begins their wacky road trip, which full of trouble, where death lies just around the corner and some family secrets are better left unsaid. Beautifully acted by this superlative ensemble cast - the timing of all six leads is impeccable - Little Miss Sunshine sort of gravitates between black comedy and a kind of benign sadness. br / br /Obviously these are all frustrated people, their lives up until now seem to have peppered with frustrations and disappointments, and none of them have really achieved their dreams, which makes their desire to get Olive to the pageant in time, all the more auspicious. br / br /For all the exaggerations in Michael Arndt's script which has been dashingly directed by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris - the movie comes closer to the truth about the way people really live - on the edge of fantasy-driven desperation - than any other film to be released in recent years. Perhaps this is why the film has managed to touch so many hearts. br / br /Obviously, the beat-up and broken down old Volkswagen is a metaphor for this family, who when we first meet them seems to be breaking apart at the seams. Yet they seem to struggle along and cope, even though, as with they're likely their means of transport, only the third and fourth gears are functioning. Their trip is indeed peppered with many disappointments, but in the process they do indeed discover what it really means to be a family. Mike Leonard December 06. br / Sunny, funny joy November 30, 2006 Ian David Curry (London, UK) 32 out of 35 found this review helpful Little Miss Sunshine is an appropriate title for a film which burst onto the independent cinema screens like a surprising, welcome and thoroughly enjoyable slice of art-house comedy. This is a tightly written, well scripted, excellently acted and hilarious film, at turns darkly and self-assuredly black and then riotously slapstick and self deprecating. br / br /The storyline centres around the trans-American adventures of a less than ordinary American family. With Transamerica, the unconventional road trip is obviously the comedy medium of choice in the independent cinema world. The film's very own Little Miss Sunshine is the gloriously unglamorous, vivacious and joyous Olive (Abigail Breslin), the youngest of the family. She wins the opportunity to attend the final of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant after the state winner is disqualified for diet pill abuse. br / br /This should send warning bells for the type of contest she is entering. This is the very dark, very disturbing world of American beauty contest. Eventually the truth is revealed, but first the family have to get there. This involves the suffering rock-like figure of the mom Sheyl (Toni Collette) and the can-do go getting, but ultimately failing author of a self-help book and seminar, the nine steps, dad Richard (Greg Kinnear) eschewing air travel for cost reasons, and loading the family in to a VW camper van. br / br /Along for the ride, and in perfect comedy unison, is the drug snorting, care-home evicted grandfather (whose eventual death provides the central slapstick, and whose last gift is a dance routine for the talent segment of the show that has to be seen to be believed), the mute, difficult teenage brother, who hates the world, his family and loves Nietzsche, and just wants to escape to flying school. Sheryl's brother is also brought, mostly because after a failed suicide attempt he can not be left alone. He provides much of the dry, darker humour that is very reminiscent of the best of the Royal Tennenbaums. He is a homosexual expert on Proust, who grates against the dad but eventually seems to come back around to enjoying life on the trip. br / br /The film is at once a wonderfully life-affirming slice of an atypical American family, and a refreshing change from the dysfunctional middle-class families that have obsessed Hollywood for the past decade. It is also a masterpiece of characterisation and casting. The characters are honed to comic perfection, and the casting of each actor and actress is a masterpiece for the roles. Of especial note and perfection is Breslin as Olive. To find a child actor so able to play this role without self consciousness or precocity makes her extremely endearing and an easy character to root for in the bizarre world of child beauty pageants. But each of the other main characters is also extremely well executed. br / br /The darkest elements of the film come in the portrayal of the pageants. They seem to suggest a sickness at the heart of middle America, where these children, none older than eight, are sprayed, preened, brushed and made up to be like miniature dolls. They wear their sickly smiles, their horribly suggestive outfits and are paraded in a pageant that features the oddly paedophilic compare and the horrendously competitive mothers. br /In short this is an extremely enjoyably film, and it would do it a massive disservice to simply label it as `feel good', but it does have this effect. Together with a brilliantly talented cast and a tight, wonderfully executed script this makes the surprise comedy hit of the year. Hilarious and heartwarming! December 14, 2006 Charles Wolf (Italia) 21 out of 23 found this review helpful This was a little less indie, cast-wise, but was jarringly real in a way that Hollywood rarely fosters. The story is of a limply-functional family, whose good leg is dysfunctional, and of the way that their love for each other is solid, somewhere underneath the varying shades of crazy. This film. Oh, this film! I have never laughed harder, and at such true-to-life comedy--nothing silly or goofy or forced or fake about the lines. It felt more like watching a documentary (minus all the familiar faces) and every time the laughter became almost unbearable, a little dash of agony or melancholic sadness was thrown in, and spawned aching tears. I sigh still, thinking of how completely in control of my insides that cast, that writer, that director all were. They owned my ass, and I will love them forever for it. br / br /I can't wait to see it again. Do NOT miss it. this movie cheered me up when I least expected it July 15, 2007 Thomas Moore (London, UK) 27 out of 30 found this review helpful This is a story about about a pretty screwed up family. The young (not very pretty) daughter gets selected as a stand-by entry into a child pageant and the family set off to get her there on time. Lots of silly things happen along the way. br / br /While all families are not like this, there are elements here that most will recognise. And while the movie is about the personal development of all the characters (for the better), it is really just a very funny movie at heart. br / br /So don't take it too seriously, enjoy the movie and expect to laugh out loud. Especially at the end. Best movie I've seen in ages. The Best Road Trip movie for many years May 31, 2007 Tim Bentley (Shetland, UK) 13 out of 14 found this review helpful Little Miss Sunshine is in my opinion one of the best road trip movies I've seen. The tale charts the transit of a closet dysfunctional family - the Hoovers - comprising the overworked Mom (Toni Collette), the Dad with his unworkable dreams and plans (Greg Kinnear), the crazy Grandpa (Alan Arkin), the surly uncommunicative teenager (Paul Kano), the suicidal [...] uncle (Steve Carrell) and the lynchpin of the movie, the young girl Olive (Abigail Breslin) who wants to win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Throw in a faulty VW combi van and the Grandpa's drug addiction, spice with the typical family arguments, and raise the temperature of the road and you have an extremely funny dark comedy indie hit. This movie was made on a (relatively) low budget, no special effects, and no action scenes - it just goes to show what intelligent film makers can do with their craft without resorting to gimmicks. br / br / br /Living as I do on an island way out in the North Sea, movies tend to take their time to get to us. "Little Miss Sunshine" reached our cinema a week before the DVD release, and so rather than suffer the uncomfortable seats and noisy sweetie wrapper rustlers I bought this movie instead. I am so glad I did - I laughed so much in some scenes that I had to rewind on occasion because I missed bits. I just loved the recalcitrant Alan Arkin and the voluntarily mute Paul Kano - his note writing was inspired. The extras on the disk were pretty good, some deleted scenes and a few alternate versions of the ending, although I agree with the director in the choice of actual endings. br / br /A brilliant film, one I happily recommend you buy on DVD so you won't miss any of the superb dry dark wit. Five stars from me. br / Showing reviews 1-5 of 141 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...29 Next »

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