Most Overrated Picture of the Year

Rating: 4/10 (1 March 2007)

Throw a bunch of characters together, each with one characteristic amplified to the point of grotesqueness and you have most of the middling movies from the faux-indieville of the last decade. Distilling them all down into one bewilderingly crowd-pleasing debacle, we have Best Picture nominee "Little Miss Sunshine." Never mind that the actual best picture of the year "Children of Men" was only nominated for one thing, the Oscars are a crock, but let me let some of the air out of your VW bandwagon tires, ye of too much misplaced faith: Paul Dano: Why doesn't Paul Dano talk? Because of Nietzsche. Man, that's hilarious. Wait. Did Nietzsche say anything about not talking that makes this funny? No? Oh, I get it, it's shorthand for pretentious existentialism that the audience can laugh at and feel superior to.
Why would someone that reads Nietzsche want to join the US Military? I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely, but we at least could have an explanation.
How would he never have been tested for color-blindness? Impossible.
Steve Carrell: Have you ever noticed that in order to make a general audience understand that someone is smart they always use shorthand? If you're a scientist, you can't just be a great and respected scientist, you have to have won a Nobel. Writers have to have the Pulitzer. And Carrell's character has to be the top Proust scholar in the world. And those repeated gay jokes? Just a way for the writer to try to get away with them. And they weren't funny.
They happen to run into the second top Proust scholar in the world at a gas station. Right.
Greg Kinnear: They seem to have forgotten to equally distribute the dysfunction. The Kinnear character is the only one that really causes strife in the family. His character is abusive, grating, repetitive, unbelievably and not funny. Most of this isn't Kinnear's fault. But a lot of it is. They would all be happy if they got rid of him at the beginning of the movie.
Toni Collette: She is supposed to be the anchor of the family and she does a good job. But she doesn't convey to us why she is married to this guy, and she isn't playing anything most of the time, they forgot to give her a character. Her trait is "level headed" and that's it.
Alan Arkin: I'm not sure why it's funny or endearing that we find out a grandfather has had his granddaughter dancing for him like a stripper for months.
Abigail Breslin: How exactly did she win runner-up at the previous competition? I really can only think of two moments in this whole movie where I actually laughed, one was in response to Carrell's droll delivery of one of the many sub-par lines he rose above; the other was when Olive screamed upon finding out she made the competition. And by the way SHE WAS WEARING A FAT SUIT!!!
I stress that I did not walk into this film with preconceived notions, except what it says about a film these days when it has been a hit at Sundance. It was simply not fair that a middling, terribly written movie like this cynically manipulating the format of indie-lite was so highly and undeservedly praised.