Pocket Reviews: Little Miss Sunshine

Greg Kinnear! Toni Collette! Alan Arkin! STEVE CARRELL! Really, do we have any other reasons NOT to watch Little Miss Sunshine?  

Indie films have always featured dysfunctional families, but they couldn’t be more endearing than the one featured in Little Miss Sunshine, a road trip movie that is really a richly-layered parable of acceptance and consumerist exploitation.

Introducing the paragon of America’s Dysfunction: There’s the father, Richard Hoover (Kinnear), one of those self-help gurus with all of Chopra’s ideas but none of his money; Sheryl Hoover (Collete), the mother who tries to keep everything together; Frank Ginsberg (Carrel, in a career-best performance), a suicidal Proust scholar, Grandpa Edwin Hoover (Arkin), a heroine-snorting, sex-crazed war vet; Dwayne, (Paul Dano), an existentialist pilot wannabe, and Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin), the most unlikely beauty pageant candidate. All endearing. And all out to conquer California so that little Olive could have a shot at the titular crown.

All actors turn in strong performances, but the revelation was Breslin herself, who didn’t need to play it cute just to get audiences sit up and notice, especially with her final, side-splitting performance in the pageant. (Four stars) 

Note:  Photo Courtesy of IMDB

Pocket Reviews: Mamma Mia!

Vapid, supermodel-thin plot does little to save a movie that barely tries to float above the Aegean under the weight of hammy acting and frenetic, false energy. The big-screen adaptation of the musical Mamma Mia! revolves around bride-to-be Sophie , who on the eve of her wedding has invited her three possible fathers (played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard).  

The cast of heavyweights, led by Streep (whose mere blink can earn her an Oscar) could keep the ABBA-soaked musical from being shoved into a dustbin along with kitschy ‘80s disco, and the forced frenzy and the embarrassing musical numbers that director Phyllida Lloyd imposed upon her actors did little to salvage the movie.

Any self-respecting adult with squirm while witnessing James Bond croaking SOS, but ABBA fans have a lot to look forward to. (Two out of four stars)  

Note: Photo Courtesy of IMDB.

Pocket Reviews: Wanted

Talk about smart yarn. This one ain’t.  

But it sure is damn entertaining. James McAvoy sheds off his faun costume to play Wesley Gibson, a nobody on the verge of a meltdown who discovers that he could bend ‘em like Beckham – the bullets, that is. Soon he was recruited to a secret organization of assassins calling itself the Fraternity that takes orders from – get this – a loom, which weaves out names of its targets.

Borrowing thematic elements from Fight Club and Star Wars, keeps the yawns at bay with fantastic special effects that bend the laws of physics faster than you can say “Matrix”. With Angelina Jolie as the foxy assassin Fox (not related to Megan) and a slumming Morgan Freeman trying (and succeeding) to lend class to an otherwise forgettable outfit, the movie teeters between the slap-your-head absurd and flat-out entertaining. But it’s really McAvoy’s earnestness and simmering charisma that makes the movie more enjoyable than it really is. (Three out of four stars).

Ayn’s Take: (Swoon) Never mind the ridiculous plot. James McAvoy is MINE!

Note:  Photo Courtesy of IMDB.