Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543403319
Format: Color
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-12-19
Running Time: 103
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2006-08-18

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Painfully unfunny
Comment: I am a pretty big fan of Greg Kinnear as well as "different" movies, but this one is just not good at all. In fact, it's difficult to find any redeeming qualities about it whatsoever. Very weak script!

Customer Rating:

Summary: One of the funniest movies in a decade!
Comment: Mix a marguerita, sit back and enjoy the ride! Laugh 'til your farts don't stink...

Customer Rating:

Summary: Little Miss Sunshine
Comment: There is something inherently creepy about beauty pageants for young girls. 7 year old girls in high heels, in their bathing suits, with their bigger than their head hairdos and not to mention the balls to the walls make up. I mean honestly whoever thought this was a great idea? That was like every pedophile's Disney Land. But for selfish reasons, I'm glad it exists because otherwise there would be no movie like this that satirizes the absurdity of this whole thing with such charm and heart.

I can actually sum of the movie in one sentence. Crazy family heads to the little miss sunshine pageant! In between states and cities, we get to see the craziness up close and personal. Like how Dad (Kinnear) tries to manipulate our little Olive (Breslin) into hating ice cream so that she won't get fat, or the visual gag of the malfunctioning van (hard to explain, you've got see it), or the non-talking, exercise freak older brother.

Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin was cute as a button. I was really surprised how good she was because most of the clips that I saw were the scene where she was screaming uncontrollably apparently after hearing that she won the prelimenaries. Her performance as a whole is much better than that, don't be fooled by that useless scene. Steve Carrell showed another side of his comedic range. His performance on "The Office" was dead on especially in terms of how he was able to find the depth in a very broad and caricaturish character. And just how he consistently developed the nitty gritty of the character. Here in this movie, he is totally believable as the suicidal and reticent brother/uncle. And then there's Alan Arkin who gave the most touching speech ever to his grandaughter about how he thinks she's beautiful inside and out.

The movie appropriately hit its climax in the beauty pageant itself. It was touching when the rest of the family sort of had an "aha" moment about how this pageant is going to damage this little girl's self-esteem. But our little miss sunshine doesn't care, she wants to honor grandpa (who died during the road trip, BTW). Funniest line ever was when the emcee asked Olive where her grandpa is, her reply: "He's in the trunk" (literally)! But the absolute funniest scene was when Olive started to do the "stripper" routine. Apparently that's what grandpa and Olive have been practicing all along. The look on everyone's face was priceless. To offset the scandal, the rest of the family started one by one to join Olive and just lose themselves in the dance. It was sweet and moving at the same time. And of course a crazy way to end this little sunshine of a movie!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Dark Comedy
Comment: Exceptionally Funny Comedy. This comedy is dark and delicious about dysfunctional family realtionships. There are several turns and twists in the movie. When I was first watching this movie I thought that it was going to be a sleeper. I was truely surprised at the turn of events.

Customer Rating:

Summary: WAIT FOR THE ENDING
Comment: CHICK PICK DRAMEDY! If you need a good film to watch and do not want to take the chance on a dud, you can pick this one BUT- this is a painfully slow at times-with a " wait, wait, it gets better" kind of flick. The ending is key because it leaves you with the spirit that ALL of our families are crazy and that we all still have to get along in life and find our own way. Its characters are a quirky mob of oddities entangled into one car trip to see the youngest family member attend a beauty pageant. It is painfully obvious to only the audience that she is not a beauty pageant kind of girl. The only really SANE people in this cast of antics are the little girl Olive who the movie is titled after and her Mother who holds everyone's straight jackets at bay. You will see a lot of stereotypes of some of the people you have loved and hated in your life: the nutcase adult brother who tried to commit suicide and is moving in, that dope smoking grandfather who is getting laid everyday at the nursing home, the father who wants to be a motivational speaker, the teenager who is living in persecution, AND you will see the story of how hard it is to feel beautiful as a young girl growing up in a madhouse of American-ideal expectations of what is pretty little girl. RICH CHICKS writes reviews for the public to help you make the right choice for your entertainment dollar. Check out our other reviews for more straight talk. This is movie is worth buying second hand, it would be a nice gift brand new, and don't forget to wait for the ending...

More Reviews

Editorial 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 Little Miss Sunshine, 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.-- Robert Horton

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