Little Miss Sunshine

This week's assigned reading was Indie Opposition: Happiness vs. Juno.  In this section, we learned that not everything that is presented to us as "Independent" may not be completely independent.  We read about how  even though a film may come from a independent film maker, the film maker may be making the film under a production company that gives the film maker a big budget.  These films are so similar to Hollywood films that they are actually blurring the line between Indie and Hollywood films. 

In this week's class we watched Little Miss Sunshine .  I think that this film by far, is my favorite film we have watched this semester.  I believe that the reason for this is because, it is more of what I am used to seeing in Hollywood-style films.  Although this movie was not completely similar to the big budget studio films we are used to seeing at the theaters, it is typical yet quirky enough to pique the interest of any film goer.
To be completely honest, I can not decide whether to categorize this film as Independent or Hollywood.  This film definitely contains elements of a mainstream Hollywood film, but then it contains all the quirk that is characteristic of Independent films.  The way the story flowed was very Hollywood  like, with no unconventional methods of story-telling or episodic narrative structure, and was very straight forward.  Even though the story line was very streamlined, there movie was filled with quirk and oddities that are characteristic of Indie films.  The characters themselves are the only source of quirk in this film.  One example of this is the uncle Franks suicide, for someone who was distraught enough to take his own life, he seems to be very positive.  Another example of the quirk in the film is the family's display at the pageant.  Olive is not as glitz'd up as the rest of the girls in the pageant and to some, she sticks out like a sore thumb.  I thought that Olive was actually the prettiest girl there because she was natural, and not wearing three wigs.  Her performance was truly unique thanks to her Grandpa, and soon into her performance the whole family joins in.  Another example that I thought was hilarious was when the family stole grandpas body.  Now that is something you won't see in a Hollywood style film!