Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Two Geeks and a GIT Classic Movie Reviews

The second film in our salute to the late Alan Arkin is the one that netted Arkin an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (it also took the award for Best Original Screenplay)! Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valarie Faris, 2006's "Little Miss Sunshine" chronicles a road-trip from New Mexico to California with what is, perhaps, the most dysfunctional family ever captured on celluloid. Young beauty-pageant contestant Olive (Abigail Breslin) has become the winner of a local pageant for Little Miss Sunshine thanks to a disqualification, and needs to get to the final competition in California. Accompanied by her would-be motivational speaker father, Richard (Greg Kinnear), her mother Sheryl (Toni Collette), her brother Dwayne (Paul Dano) who has taken a vow of silence, her previously-suicidal uncle Frank (Steve Carrell), and her well-meaning but out-of-touch grandfather Edwin (Arkin), the group sets off in a VW Microbus for the competition. They face repeated obstacles and setbacks along the way, but arrive in the nick of time for Olive to compete! The competition, however, doesn't go quite as everyone expected. The film also stars Chuck Loring, Paula Newsome, Dean Norris, and Bryan Cranston! Plus, the gents reveal which two horror franchise originals they'll be reviewing for Halloween 2023!