Little Miss Sunshine

So far Little Miss Sunshine is the best comedy of this summer. Calling it a comedy is actually misleading. It was probably categorized by the studio’s marketing department rather than by the creators of this wonderful movie. I think writer Michael Arndt, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have not made the movie to fit into any neat group and mainly intend to show us a piece of life, bittersweet one moment and hilarious next.

Little Miss Sunshine not only reinvigorates the whole road movie and family drama genres, but also mines some new fields. If we have to call it a comedy, it is a kind of comedy that is rarely made by the studios any more: it neither has gross out humor nor employs over-the-top antics; instead it completely relies on real life moments to provide the comic relief. Even during some sad moments, we could still chuckle about the silliness of life.

The movie stars a dysfunctional family: dad Richard (played by Greg Kinnear) is a struggling inspirational speaker who doesn’t tolerate losers but is somewhat of loser himself; mom Sheryl (played by Toni Collette) is clearly exhausted by the family and financial problems; older son Dwayne (from Sheryl’s previous marriage) deals with his own inner anger by stopping talking; younger daughter Olive (played by Abigail Breslin) is obsessed with beauty pageants. Rounding out the rest of the family are grandpa (played by Alan Arkin) who is a drug addict and has a potty mouth and Uncle Frank (played by Steve Carell) who is a suicidal gay scholar of Proust. With the help of Arndt’s brilliantly understated script, Dayton and Faris draw us into the intimate lives and situations of these realistic characters. The dinner scene at the beginning of the movie is a masterpiece and feels so real. I am sure every one of us would be able to identify with some of the conversations, bickering and tension at that dinner table.

Dayton and Faris show their ironic tone very early on. Teary Frank sits in a wheelchair in his hospital room while the title Little Miss Sunshine slowly rolls across the screen – where is the sunshine here? Later on, there are many ironic shots in the movie. Richard teaches his 9 Step program and encourages listeners to be a winner, but when the camera turns to his audience, only a few are scattered around the room – who is the loser in this room?

The cast is absolutely A-list. Kinnear has perfected his portrayal of an ordinary person feeling bigger than he really is. Collette has been my favorite actress ever since Muriel’s Wedding. Some critics think she is sometimes too energetic for her roles, but I just adore that spunk in her attitude. She also has real women’s looks and curves that make her just that much more authentic for any role she plays. After a sidesplitting turn in The 40 Year Old Virgin, Carell has gone completely opposite and turned in an astonishingly restrained performance. Uncle Frank could be counted as Carell’s first major dramatic part instead of a comic one. However, veteran Arkin gets all my attention whenever he pops up on screen. My big complaint with this movie is that we don’t get enough of grandpa. Breslin makes me a little queasy. She is cute as a button, a la Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment, but whenever I see a child actor act so precocious for his/her age, it always make me wonder if we are robbing their childhood at the expense of our own entertainment.

The last quarter of Little Miss Sunshine diverges slightly from the family drama and delves a little bit into the whole ridiculous child beauty pageant culture in this country. It does not diminish the movie in any way. Actually the ending shows that a family who dances together stays together.

Strangers with Candy

Strangers with Candy gives a well-worn idea some fresh twists and stands out in a whole bunch of return-to-high school movies.

Chicago’s famous Second City alum, Amy Sedaris, is Jerri Blank, an ex-con and ex-junkie who goes back to high school for a fresh start in hope that would wake her father up from a 32-year long coma. Two other Second City alums, Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello (also the director of the movie), along with Sedaris, wrote the script. They also play important roles in the movie.

Strangers with Candy is one of those rare comedies that combine funny dialogue with physical gags to produce maximum enjoyment. It takes all the worst situations in high school and exaggerates them another 100 times. The movie also tosses away all political correctness and unabashedly exposes all the racial stereotypes and homophobia in our society. The black principal in the movie is simply called Mr. Blackman. One of Jerri’s few friends is an Indonesian American called Megawatti Sacarnaputri (“not THAT Megawati Sukarnoputri”, a joke for high-browed audience). When Jerri first meets him in the hall, she simply assumes him as Filipino. When he tells her his origin, she simply rolls her eyes. It clearly means the same place in her minds. For the science fair, Koreans and Jews are automatically picked for the team.

All the main characters in the movie are played by experienced comedians. Their comic timing is perfect and they interact with each other seamlessly. Sometimes the movie feels like a long improv skit. Sedaris is sublimely clueless as Jerri, Colbert unbelievably self-centered as science teacher Chuck Noblet and Dinello sweet and conniving as a child-at-heart art teacher. It is so satisfying just to watch them show their comic skills.

Strangers with Candy may not make you laugh non-stop with tears, but it will definitely provide plenty of chuckles throughout the entire movie. At the end, Jerri learns an important lesson about friendship that she still doesn’t strongly believe, but I believe wholeheartedly that Jerri Blank is one of the funniest characters in American cinema this summer.

Murderball (on DVD)

In recent years, documentaries have provided us some most interesting subjects. 2005’s Murderball is another shining example. The movie is about a group of quadriplegics who compete in wheelchair rugby games. Once again, it proves that real life can be far more fascinating than most Hollywood scriptwriters could have ever imagined. This movie gives a glimpse of a world that few of us know much about and presents us a body of complex and genuine characters. As in everyday life, the plot is totally unpredictable. The main players that the movie follows closely easily resonate with the audience because they are inspiring yet flawed just like everyone else. However, there are a few scenes that appear deliberately orchestrated by the filmmakers rather than simple coincidence. There are also a few fast-paced and dizzying edit tricks in the movie so that the audience will not get bored with the story. In my opinion, this is the biggest problem with current documentaries. The filmmakers or maybe the production companies (in this case, MTV is one of the producers) don’t seem to trust people will stay awake for any documentaries. They have to use MTV style of quick cuts to keep people interested. The result is usually just the opposite. It ruins the pace of a good story and serves only as a complete distraction. It reminds me of Winona Ryder’s character in Reality Bites. Her documentary about her fellow Gen-Xers was completely butchered by an MTVish channel in order to keep their viewers’ focus. Those Hollywood executives just don’t get it! In Murderball’s case, the MTV damage is minimal and the movie is definitely one of the best documentaries in 2005.

A Scanner Darkly

In A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater reprised his unique brand of animation which was used in his 2001 movie Waking Life.

A Scanner Darkly is based on famous science fiction writer Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name. The movie takes place in a near future. Undercover police agent Fred (played by Keanu Reeves) is also drug user Bob Arctor, the guy Fred is supposed to spy on. The movie delves deep into druggies’ psyche and by the end Fred/Bob is all tangled up and cannot separate illusions from reality. As any Dick fans would expect, there are many twists and turns in the movie. Things usually are not what they appear to be. Good and evil is a hard line to draw.

Dick was a prolific writer in his lifetime and I have read many of his early works. A Scanner Darkly was written a few years before his untimely death that was largely caused by his years of drug using. I have not read this specific novel or any other of his later works. According to many critics, this movie is the most faithful adaptation of Dick’s works. Its topic is quite different from his early sociological and political themes. Linklater’s breakout movie Dazed and Confused was actually about the same time period in which Dick wrote A Scanner Darkly. Quite a few characters in Dazed and Confused were pretty much stoned throughout the entire movie. Linklater seems to have intimate knowledge and understanding of that whole 70s drug culture. That understanding helps him grasp the mood in his new movie. He even uses Rory Cochrane, the stonehead in Dazed and Confused to play another even more troubled, completely delusional drug addict in this movie.

After his death, Dick started to get the recognition he had long deserved and Hollywood quickly cashed in on him. However, I have been deeply unsatisfied with the Dick stories I read that were turned into movies. Total Recall and Minority Report were all dramatically altered from Dick’s original works, but what bothered me the most was the endings – they all lack the dark and menacing shadow Dick cast in our future world. Even though I have not read A Scanner Darkly, Linklater’s movie has the right tone of a Dick’s story – a sense of despair and hopelessness.

One main thing that bugs me about this movie is the animation. As in Waking Life, Linklater shot the entire movie in a complete live-action version before he started animation. In this way, the audience can easily tell the actors even in an animated movie. Linklater’s animation is really half live-action, half animation. I simply don’t understand why he doesn’t just show us the live-action version. I, for one, would much rather watch that than being distracted by all the cartoon figures. The only good thing about the animation is that it definitely helps Reeves with his acting. On screen, Reeves always has trouble to show more than two or three ranges. With animation, he is actually tolerable and even likable in this movie. However, the same cannot be said about the other actors. I would really like to see Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson in flesh and blood on screen. They are too fine as actors to be buried in silly cartoons.

With A Scanner Darkly, Linklater once again proved that he is an interesting director to watch. Even with the annoying animation, this movie still shines far above the usual summer fares and many other Dick adaptations.