Little Miss Sunshine (2006), co-directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, follows a dysfunctional family on their journey to get their 7 year old daughter to the finals of a beauty pageant across the country in their VW bus. The film was nominated for 107 awards including the Academy Award for best picture and the Golden Globe for Best Comedy Motion Picture, and won 68 awards including the Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Original Screenplay. This middle class family from Albuquerque, New Mexico consists of Olive (Abigail Breslin)- an awkward little girl with high hopes of being a pageant queen, Richard (Greg Kinnear)- a motivational speaker failing in life, Sheryl (Toni Collette)- a mother of two who is …show more content…
The front view is shown again and at this point the diegetic voice of the announcer is overheard as the girl is mimicking the reaction and actions of the beauty queen presented on the TV. The voice of a man overlaps the girl’s actions and cuts of a close up of a man giving a speech explaining his nine-step program towards success. This is Richard. The camera zooms out revealing his presentation, framing him in the middle of the screen and following him as he walks around the stage. He is in a confident stance and the camera remains lower than usual, giving off the impression that he is in a position of power. The non-diegetic music continues as he gives his speech. A high angle camera shot is used showing him standing in front of a dark audience, but when the lights turn on, it reveals a mere ten people in the audience that appear bored. Quickly cut to a close up of hand on a bar, appearing to be a teenage boy of a relatively weak physique, bench pressing. This is Dwayne. The camera says at a close up aerial view, but quickly switches to a frontal view and he sits up. Again, there are multiple quick cuts presenting different exercises he is doing. The wide angle shows what appears to be his bedroom, consisting of much fitness equipment, and draws focus to the large portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche on the wall. The camera follows the boy to a calender where he crosses off a number in the upper 400s. As
“Steel Magnolias” is a story about the close-knit relationships between six eccentric Southern women living in a small town in Louisiana. The film has a home spun, unpretentious feel to it. The plot alternates between humorous, everyday events with good-natured quips and the seriousness and heartaches to life’s unexpected crises. Through the laughs and tears, the six women learn to endure hard times and emerge from the struggles with grace and dignity. The film is set in the 1980’s with a tight knit homespun atmosphere. The Southern belles who are goofy on the outside but strong enough inside to survive any challenge that life deals them. Friendships help with a
The film Little Miss Sunshine, Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris, explores the lives of a regular American family and how they change their lives in front of us in the ‘Combie’ van on the road to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The film examines the issues of winning and losing, and what it means to be a winner, throughout many sequences in the film as well as exploring the value of family. The directors and the cinematic team use an extreme range of camera techniques, costuming, and sound techniques to reshape our understanding of winning and losing in the world we live in today.
Sixteen candles was written by John Hughes, this movie was his first 1980s teen movies. Hughes was inspired by Molly Ringwald, to write the screenplay. As, he was finishing up writing the screenplay for Mr. Mom and National Lampoon’s Vacation, Hughes' agents at ICM gave him a stack of photos of young actors. When he was going through the stack he noticed Molly Ringwald, then began write the screenplay for the Sixteen Candles. John Hughes finished the script over a single Fourth of July weekend. Hughes also was so impressed with Anthony Michael Hall's performance in National Lampoon's Vacation that he created the role of Ted “The Geek” just for him. Michael Schoeffling got the role of Jake Ryan, as the leading male because of his good
Hello, my name is Valerie Faris, and I am one of the co-directors (along with Jonathan Dayton) of the film, 'Little Miss Sunshine'. When making this film, my co-director and I heavily aimed to portray the different ways we as human beings search to find our place in the world. We focused on the conception of building relationships and trust within the concept of a family. We wanted to convey the concept that when it comes to family, its never too late to re-connect and belong.
Every family functions in their own unique way, even if they attempt to model themselves after the social norms of what a family “should be”. Little Miss Sunshine gives insight into how individuals with their own variety of dysfunction manage to function within the family. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Little Miss Sunshine in the context of four different ways of communicating as explained in the textbook, Family Communication: Cohesion and Change. The following paragraphs, organized into sections by theme will explore the Hoover family’s system, the degree of adaptability and cohesion within the family, the productive or destructive ways they manage conflict, and their use of power or decision making processes. Each section will contain a brief review of each of the aforementioned topics that apply, concepts that exist within those topics that appeared in the movie, and examples taken from the movie.
Film noirs describe pessimistic films associated with black and white visual styles, crime fiction, and dark themes. Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 film noir directed by Billy Wilder. Sunset Boulevard presents many themes that are common with the genre film noir, but also introduces some differences from the typical movie in that genre.
Most of the movie is taken in Joel’s mind or his memory removal process. Starting from his nearest memory that they broke up till his last remaining memory of Clementine that they first met at a beach. I think the most possible reason the movie is called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is referring to the deepest memory (or say, soul) survived and reserved in their both minds that brought them back to the beach and met each other again. This title quotes entirely from Alexander Pope’s poem which know as describing a very contradictory mood from the unattainable love. So does it, the movie shows Joel wants to remove all memory of Clementine while he still loves her, but then during the process he changes mind and want to try his best to keep these memory which is the “spotless mind”. In my mind, the soul theory is the personal identity that the movie most engage. According to the soul theory, to have a same identical, it’s not necessary to have a same memory, but it’s necessary and sufficient to have the same soul. In the movie, though Joel erased his memory, he still has his soul which makes him fall in love with Clementine again, even in theory he can never love her then. On the other hand, this movie seems to intensely against Loke’s memory theory that sharing a memory of an experience is necessary and sufficient to be a same person. And I think the movie also presents its own personal identity that for one person to be identical to the other person, they should have
The 2006 film, Little miss sunshine, is about a dysfunctional family that struggles to overcome numerous setbacks on an 800-mile road trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, CA in their yellow VW Microbus to get their seven-year-old daughter to the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The directors Valerie fairs and Jonathan Dayton use characters and various situations to satirize aspects of American society. This essay will look at how the film explores and makes comedy out of the concept of winners and losers through the characters of Richard, olive and the pageant scene at the end of the film.
“Little Miss Sunshine” is a comedy-drama film about a 7 year old girl named Olive Hoover, whose dream is to be entered into the finals of a pageant called Little Miss Sunshine and her journey to achieving her dream with the help of her dysfunctional family. Moreover, when she discovers that she’s been qualified for the “Little Miss Sunshine” Pageant that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in 2 days her family face many difficulties. However, even through the various difficulties that arise as they still want to support Olive in accomplishing her dream. Thus, they go on on an adventurous 800-mile road trip in their old yellow Volkswagen Type 2. Despite the many bumps, and setbacks along the road despite they still work together into finally reaching to the pageant almost on time.
Little Miss Sunshine directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is about a family whose cross country journey to the Little Miss Sunshine child beauty pageant teaches them, and the viewer, that real life is about relationships and that these are more important than simplistic notions of winning or losing. Richard Hoover is the character who most exemplifies this message as he eventually recognises that his family and life cannot be defined by his ‘Refuse to Lose’ motivational programme.
It cuts back and forth between the hose and branch and then back to the man as he grabs his neck and collapses to the ground. As he lays there having a stroke (maybe?) on the ground with the hose in his hand, a dog playfully bites the stream and a baby eating a popsicle walks up. It zooms in on the dog twice and the frame rate is lowered. This in a way symbolizes how
In Michael Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the connections between people and memories become the focal point of a very unique romance. Through the use of new technology, the possibility of erasing memories makes painful relationships disappear like they never happened. The tale of Joel and Clementine allows the audience to rethink and question the process they undergo as beneficial or destructive. Though the process might be helpful in eliminating the pain caused from another person, four key scenes show how the lessons learned through relationship experiences are important.
generate moods, and have great psychological affect. This is just as true for the very first series of shots for the film, and perhaps more important since these first shots will give the audience the initial feeling of the film, and set a tone for the picture. The first shot is highly dramatic in its lighting method, and the audience is drawn in immediately to one single detail. A man begins revealing the details of a tragic incident that befell his daughter. We don’t see who he is talking to. There is a spotlight directly above the man, and this is pretty much
Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy movie about a seven year old girl named Olive who aspires to win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. To help make her wish come true, her six-member family takes a road trip from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, California. At the conclusion of the film, Olive and her family learned to trust and support each other, no matter the situation. Olive is the youngest member of her family who is entering middle childhood and adolescence just like her older brother Dwayne. Olive is the type of girl that is cheerful, most of the time and not particularly the kind you would see in a pageant. Olive’s brother, Dwayne, could be described as “emo”. Although he claims that he hates his family, he loves his sister, Olive. Their parents, Richard and Sheryl, and their Uncle Frank are in the process of entering middle adulthood. Throughout most of the film, Richard is considered selfish because he does not want his family to be seen as “losers”. Richard is obnoxious to his family, but he still means well and wants them to succeed. Sheryl is the normal member of the family who does not tolerate anyone's antics. Uncle Frank is very sarcastic and failed at his attempt to commit suicide. He used to be a college professor, so he is considered the smart guy. The sixth member of Olive’s family, her grandpa, dies during the movie due to an overdose, but was entering the late adulthood stage. The members of Olive’s family share some similarities and differences, but since they all vary in age, developmental concepts will be different in a way for each family member.
In this paper, I will write about “Thelma and Louise” (1991) movie. I choose a last scene of the movie which the police came to arrest them in the Grand Canyon (from 122 to 125 minutes).