Along with "Babel" and soon "The Queen", I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" primarily because it has been nominated for Best Picture this year. It was a heart-warming, quirkily-funny, psudeo-inependent, family/road comedy. Maybe that's all I really should say. There wasn't really anything new here except instead of the typical pessimistic world view indy comedies generally have, this one actually saw the value of family and life. I would only really reccomend the movie for that reason, especially to people overwhelmed by dark, depressing, downlifting (?) comedies. Personally I understand why people like dark comedies, there's so much fluff out there, but it seems that there are only the two extremes nowadays. So in that way, "Little Miss Sunshine" does break the mould.
The best thing about "Children of Men" is that the filmmakers were able to create a county twenty years from now, playing upon all the fears that we have today. Take all the things that the news media is trying to scare us with; a flu pandemic, illegal immigration, Muslims, technology, Republicans, roadside improvised devices, genetic manipulation... and you've got "Children of Men" Now for me, atmosphere, scenerey, costumes/makeup and special effects all help tell a good story, and if done right can make an incredible difference in wether or not I'm going to like the film. Some movies have the news reports on televison, and the headlines on newspapers, but usually the filmmakers think we're idiots. The whole screen is taken up by Wolf Blitzer telling us about the most recent imprtant world event, or the newspaper spins around, banging into the camera, announcing the health crisis. Here Alfonso Cuaron (director) lets the newsbites, soundclips and headlines be background information. Now he does this clearly and inentionally, you might miss some of the information, but you get enough to know what's going on. I liked this because it's like real life, and it contributed to the sense that the characters in the film were getting the bits and pieces of news and piecing it together in real-time. Overall the movie was quite depressing, and it's sad to know that people are dealing with the exact same living conditions right now; refugee camps, immigrant discrimination, health epidemics, warzones in their streets... Will these problems reach London, or New York, or Indiana? I think everything in this movie is 100% possible, it's not a flood destroying the entire Earth, it's us not knowing you to live peacefully with each other, and that's been going on for quite some time now.
1 comment:
I saw Little Miss Sunshine and I think that most indie films are the same and the try to act like there not. They all seem to have this super crazy disfunctional family, and there all filmed the same, have the same kindof music, and are all.... artsy or somthing. I think the movie that seems to be a weird indie film, but really broke the mold is Napoleon Dynamite. It's got the same type of music and the same weird long camera shots that seem to focus on nothing. I kinda liked Miss Sunshine, but after you've seen two or three of these movies the start to get old.
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