little miss sunshine | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Due Date

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Darren

I have to admit that I quite enjoyed Due Date. It’s a straight-forward comedy road movie – nothing more, nothing less. It’s the standard template: two unlikely comrades find themselves embarking on a cross-country journey where they learn a lot about each other and themselves. As such, Due Date is the younger sibling of films like Trains, Planes and Automobiles or Midnight Run – it’s also a genre which hasn’t, to be honest, been played entirely straight in quite some time. Sure, there have been variations on theme – Little Miss Sunshine, for example, played the road movie with far more subversive comedy; Get Him to the Greek was this concept with rock stars. As such, perhaps the simplicity of Due Date is part of the appeal – it’s a tried and tested formula, so why tinker with it?

What does Robert Downey Jr. bring to the table?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Big Lebowski, Due Date, film, Hangover, little miss sunshine, Movies, non-review review, planes trains and automobiles, review, robert downey jr, Todd Phillips, Zach Galifianakis | 4 Comments »

My Top 50 Movies of the Decade…

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Darren

Alright here it is, my top fifty films of the decade. I’ve decided to stop complaining about Donal Clarke’s list in the Irish Times and just let rip myself. There’s more than a few crazy choices down there, but – after a week in the works – I’m happy with it. I doubt that a lot of other people will be.

Like the Oscars, but... you know, better...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: (500) Days of Summer, 1 hour photo, 28 days later, a history of violence, anchorman, apocalypto, batman, batman begins, battle royale, best movies, best movies of the decade, best movies of the naughties, burn after reading, casino royale, collateral, coraline, crash, crouching tiger hidden dragon, dark knight, doubt, downfall, eternal sunshince, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, finding nemo, frost nixon, frost/nixon, gladiator, gone baby gone, good movies, history of violence, in bruges, infernal affairs, inglorious basterds, inglourious basterds, inter mission, intermission, juno, kiss kiss bang bang, little miss sunshine, Momento, moon, mystic river, naughties, no country for old men, one hour photo, pans labyrinth, phone booth, prestige, shaun of the dead, sin city, spider-man 2, spider-man ii, sunshine, team america, team america: world police, The Dark Knight, the departed, the good the bad & the weird, the good the bad and the weird, the incredibles, the lord of the rings, the lord of the rings: the two towers, the mist, the naughties, the noughties, the prestige, the two towers, there will be blood, top 50, top fifty movies of the decade, training day, tropic thunder, twenty-eight days later, zoolander | 16 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Little Miss Sunshine

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Darren

I think everyone has family issues. They’re a bunch of people in your life who you never chose to be close to you. And you’re stuck with them, for better or worse. I think that’s why Little Miss Sunshine strikes the chord it does. That, and it’s an astonishingly good film.