Saturday, February 24, 2007

Little Miss Sunshine is a nice little movie about a generally nice little family. Here’s the thing - right after I watched it I liked it a lot more than I do a couple of days later. It’s a pretty good movie for what it is. I came away thinking that Olive was precious and I liked how her family supported and loved her so completely. However, there are things that I didn’t like about this movie that upon longer reflection tarnish that initial fondness for the rest of it all. In particular, most of the stuff surrounding the grandfather (played very well by Alan Arkin, whom I think is a brilliant actor) was very off putting. And my frequent complaint about movies is the profligate use of the F-word. LMS features that particular word a lot.

What I loved was the van and everything to do with the van. And the scary beauty pageant, which I’m afraid is all too real to life. Yikes…

To take a page from Jaynee and her movie rating system, 2.5 car horns out of 5.

The Guardian was on my queue and may never have made it to the top of the list much less gotten shipped to my house except that our pastor is doing a sermon series using movies and The Guardian is next weeks sermon. To avoid the spoilers to come, we watched it last night. It was exactly what I expected in terms of plot, predictability, mediocre acting, and enjoyability. I’m sure recruiting for the Coast Guard increased slightly after the movie was in theaters, but it wasn’t of the caliber of the ultimate military recruitment movie, Top Gun. Although it did have the cheesy romance side plot that Top Gun did, which I found annoying.

Kevin Costner is one of the most, if not the most, wooden actors in Hollowood today. The surprise to me was the quality of Ashton Kutcher’s acting - he’s not too bad. The training scenes were interesting as were the rescues. I liked learning a little bit more about what it is the USCG rescue swimmers do. Oh, and there was a lot less profanity in this military-centric movie than in the family-centric movie. For that, I’ll give the movie a positive enough rating.

2.5 life rafts out of 5.