"Little Miss Sunshine"

The movie, "Little Miss Sunshine" is about a middle-class family dealing with financial problems. The dad is trying to support the family by giving people motivation from his nine step program for success in life. The mom tries keeping everyone calm and satisfied without actually helping the money issue, stating that she doesn't have a job. Dwayne, a teenager, is their son, who took a vow of silence until he succeeds with his dream of becoming a test pilot, which his dad thinks he is following his nine step program. Their little girl Olive is just trying to find herself in her messed up family.

The story begins by the mom picking up her brother, who was in the hospital for attempted suicide. They sit down for their evening meal and the family is just plain weird and awkward because they go from the serious father to the son who doesn't speak, and the grandpa who is doing drugs. The parents get in a fight and then Olive gets in the middle because of her Little Miss Sunshine pageant. The entire family decides to go to California for the pageant because the mother fears that another attempted suicide might happen. They don't have a lot of money so they decide to drive their olden day van that barely runs. The van ends up malfunctioning along the entire trip. First of all, it completely stops running, and they get to the point that they have to push the van in order for it to work. They all start by pushing the car until it gains speed so it can start up, and then one by one they jump in the car. Another instance with the van occurs when it honks uncontrollably, and they even get pulled over. They stop at a hotel and decide to call it a night. Olive the little girl interrupts her parents' sleep and tells them that her grandpa is dead.

The family's next course of action is at the hospital with all of the papers to file about the dead body. They only have a few hours until the beauty contest so the family steals the grandpa's dead body and puts it in the trunk. They manage to get to the pageant and are bewildered with all of the girls, who look nothing like Olive. Olive performs her dance routine exactly like her grandpa showed her and the audience is awe struck because it isn't like any of the other girls' routines, it is more of a strip show. Olive's parents are told to take their daughter off the stage but instead they join in on the strip/porn dance. The police end up coming and Olive is allowed to go on the condition that she never enters another beauty contest in the state of California again. The family quickly obliges and is on their way home.

The trip seemed to bring the family together, even though they all did not want to go along in the first place. Even though the grandpa ended up dying, dwayne broke his vow of silence because he found out he was color blind and is now unable to become a pilot. The uncle seemed to be okay with this family even though he saw his ex with the new boyfriend. The Little Miss Sunshine pageant did wonders for the family.

The article entitled, "In High Fear on Low Funds" was an all right article. It dealt with talking about a family with limited means. Most movies don't talk about money issues or if they do, its not a matter because they have so much money. This movie was more down to earth with the middle class folks. The family in this movie didn't have a lot of money, but they still worked things out and tried to make everyone happy.

The other article talked about the five vans that were used in the film. I thought this was a very interesting article. I would never have imagined that they had used five different vans because they all looked the same in the film. I never thought about something going wrong with them but in reality it was an older type of van and it was in a climate that is very warm. Overall, it was a great article and an overall great movie to watch!