These movies are too few nowadays

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2006)

I was expecting the movie to be a drab movie saved by Alan Arkin. In fact, Arkin was just one character in an extremely funny movie. Not only is this movie funny, it also critiques modern America. The story revolves around a seven year old who dreams of being Miss America. She is not the "barbie doll" type. She wears glasses. Her crazy family all piles in to an aging VW van to head from Albuquerque, NM to Redondo Beach, CA. There is the uncle, a man who became depressed after the second foremost Marcel Proust scholar left him for another man. There is the teenage brother, who worships Friedrich Nitzsche, and has decided to talk to no one until he makes it to the Air Force for pilot training. There is the father, who goes all over the place with his "seven steps to success", but is a failure in life (but still drives everyone nuts with his seven steps). Then, there is the grandfather, who doesn't care what he says, no matter how offensive. The movie is clever, and perhaps the funniest moments deal with the problems with the vw van that they have along the way. The movie showed that in today's World, we all want to be successes, but we all have to deal with the craziness of life along the path to our dreams.