The Culture Club (Film: Little Miss Sunshine) March 1, 2008

This is the next study session in a series of culture studies where something from the media (e.g. a book, a film, a music album) is discussed from a Christian perspective but the session is for people of all faiths and people of no faith at all who want to explore the message behind the media.

The session will start at 5:30pm when we will watch the film on the big screen and the discussion starts at 7:30pm.

There is no charge for this event.

FILM INFO
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The following text is taken from the Damaris Culture Watch study guide:

When Michael Arndt’s screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine came into the hands of producers Marc Turtletaub, David T Friendly and Peter Saraf of Big Beach, they knew they had a winner. Friendly says, ‘I think there is only one other time in my entire life I had such a visceral reaction to a film as I did with this one. The feeling in my gut said that I had to make this movie. It's a very rare thing to find a film that really makes you laugh and then can turn around and make you cry like this one.’ They eventually handed the film to husband and wife directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. This was their first feature film, having already made their name as directors of music videos and commercials.

Jonathan Dayton says, ‘A lot of people had come to us with style pieces, but we liked that Little Miss Sunshine felt very distant from that world. Sure, we wanted to do something with style, but we loved these characters and that was the most important thing. We wanted the experience to be drawn from what we love most in movies, one that celebrates human eccentricities.’ Valerie Faris agrees: ‘The story instantly struck a chord with us. We had always wanted to make a film that would ride a lot of tones; that would have a strong emotional life as well as lots of humour. We felt that Little Miss Sunshine was a story that shifts much in the same way that life shifts, moving from drama to farce to reflection and back to farce again. . . . Without all the things we loved about it – the raunchy language, the outrageous behaviour – it would have been the perfect family comedy. But we wanted to make a film not about family values, but about the value of family.’

Little Miss Sunshine has been a huge success for an independent film, wowing many critics. David Rooney, in Variety, praises it as, ‘A quietly antic dysfunctional family road trip comedy that shoots down the all-American culture of the winner and offers sweet redemption for losers – at least the ordinary folks often branded as such.’ Richard Schickel writes in Time Magazine that, ‘It comes closer to the truth about the way people really live – on the edge of fantasy-driven desperation – than our sanctimonies permit us to think.’ Little Miss Sunshine has been nominated for Best Original Screenplay in the 2007 Academy Awards; Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin have also been nominated as Best Supporting Actor and Actress. However, not everyone is impressed. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian laments that, ‘Each spike of satire is fitted with a safety-cap of feelgood reassurance.’

Trailer :



Previous Sessions
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This series continues to be popular. Previous evenings have looked at "Evan Almighty" (film), "Babel" (film), "The Zahir" (book), "Paradise Now" (film), "Life on Mars" (TV series), "Collateral" (film), "Arthur and George" (book), "Moulin Rouge" (film), the Robbie Williams album "Intensive Care", "Lost in Translation" (film), "Whale Rider" (film), "The Incredibles" (film), "The Da Vinci Code" (book), the U2 album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and "Chocolat" (film)