Little Miss Bullshit (reprise)
Finally, someone talking a little sense about this movie. It is mind-bendingly awful...so trite...so cliched...so smug...so 'look at me and how delightfully quirky I am'. This movie sucks balls that a seal would have a hard time balancing. I hated this movie, I hated this movie, I hated myself after I watched this movie. And now it's being nominated for an academy award.
I hate my life.
There's something annoyingly self-congratulatory about the Academy's nomination of "Little Miss Sunshine," as if its members were enormously pleased with themselves for daring to recognize an indie picture. Of course, four of last year's five best picture nominees were indie pictures (at least in the broad sense, given that the lines become more and more blurred each year). But this year, "Little Miss Sunshine" is the sole indie picture among the best picture nominations, which gives the movie more weight than it deserves -- or can possibly carry. Somehow, despite the fact that it was practically hurled like a cannonball out of last year's Sundance, and then marketed more aggressively than most action pictures are, "Sunshine" has achieved Little Indie That Could status. Audiences were supposed to feel good about having stumbled onto this allegedly charming weensy treasure, even though avoiding it would have taken a hell of a lot more work. And now the Academy members follow suit, proving, perhaps, that they're even more susceptible to marketing pitches than we are. Maybe that's comforting, a little like those old Hair Club for Men ads in which the smiling, well-coiffed Sy Sperling would announce, "I'm not just the Hair Club president -- I'm also a customer!" Or maybe it just means that the members of the Academy don't get out of the house enough.
I hate my life.
There's something annoyingly self-congratulatory about the Academy's nomination of "Little Miss Sunshine," as if its members were enormously pleased with themselves for daring to recognize an indie picture. Of course, four of last year's five best picture nominees were indie pictures (at least in the broad sense, given that the lines become more and more blurred each year). But this year, "Little Miss Sunshine" is the sole indie picture among the best picture nominations, which gives the movie more weight than it deserves -- or can possibly carry. Somehow, despite the fact that it was practically hurled like a cannonball out of last year's Sundance, and then marketed more aggressively than most action pictures are, "Sunshine" has achieved Little Indie That Could status. Audiences were supposed to feel good about having stumbled onto this allegedly charming weensy treasure, even though avoiding it would have taken a hell of a lot more work. And now the Academy members follow suit, proving, perhaps, that they're even more susceptible to marketing pitches than we are. Maybe that's comforting, a little like those old Hair Club for Men ads in which the smiling, well-coiffed Sy Sperling would announce, "I'm not just the Hair Club president -- I'm also a customer!" Or maybe it just means that the members of the Academy don't get out of the house enough.
posted by Basil Epicurus at 11:52 AM
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