Perfect Friday Night Movie

Rating: Null/10 (23 November 2006)

I'm going to invent a new category of film. Forget Film Noir, Date Movies, Chick Flix and Romantic Comedy. Think instead Friday Night Movie.
The Friday Night Movie (and I'm talking here about something watched on a public cinema screen, not on the DVD at home.) is a movie which provides good entertainment without actually insulting the intelligence of the viewer. It is worth spending $10 of your hard earned cash on a ticket after a tedious week at work, but won't cause you to spend the drive home interrogating your date on who said what, where, and when, and whether your inability to follow the plot is a function of encroaching middle age. A Friday Night Movie should  ideally  see you leaving the movie theatre smiling not cringing. It should not be so long that you spend the last third with your legs crossed, and it should set you up for the weekend, not send you diving into the nearest pub to drown your sorrows.
Little Miss Sunshine is the perfect example of a classic Friday Night Movie. I loved it. Perfectly written, not a word was out of place, stylishly acted, witty and entertaining, it didn't tax my concentration too much. But I didn't have to make lame excuses for watching it either. I laughed out loud throughout most of it, and smiled wryly in many other places. My sister used to own a Volkswagon mini van very similar to the one featured in Little Miss Sunshine. An ex-German post office van, I took it on many adventures to pop festivals back in the 70's. The automatic choke possessed a mind of its own and used to suddenly stick on "full" - usually when you were driving down a narrow one way street in the middle of London - meaning that every so often I had to pull up abruptly on the side of the road, run around the back (rear engine) to adjust the choke, and then leap back into the driving seat before the traffic piled up too much behind me. The horn sounded JUST like the one in this movie! This movie was so well observed. I just know the writers must have owned a Volkswagon of a certain age. Possibly they bought it off my sister..
The whole cast were fabulous, the characters were slightly over the top but not so far as to be utterly unbelievable. I especially loved the episode where they are wrestling Grandpa's body out of the hospital window.. the final scene on stage at the pageant is maybe slightly too long but that's a very nit picky criticism. Great fun. I hope it makes millions for all concerned.
Other good Friday Night Movies I've seen over the last few months include The Devil Wears Prada (Meryl Streep was fabulous), The Queen (Helen Mirren was fabulous), Look Both Ways (everyone was fabulous) and maybe  just maybe  Borat, although I think the jury is still out on that one. I definitely was cringing in places during Borat. And I feel vaguely guilty at admitting how much I laughed. Especially in the first 30 minutes.
It's Friday tomorrow. Work will be over for the week. TGIF. I wonder what's showing at my local theatre? Probably nothing as good as Little Miss Sunshine.