is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Winning Losers: Another Double Feature

Over the summer I managed to see, in a two week period, Little Miss Sunshine once and Talladega Nights twice. You may question my decision-making abilities about that second one, but you already knew that I love Will Ferrell, right? Plus the movie Caroleen and I wanted to see that night was sold out and we really wanted to get our hands stuck in some popcorn containers, so we shared the Ricky Bobby love twice. No regrets.

At the time that all this happened, I meant to write something about how the two movies make a good double feature despite all the differences between them. I mean, they are both comedies so they aren�t that different. But Little Miss Sunshine is a blackish comedy meant to get you to think about what you value and compare that with what you actually expend your energies on, whereas Talladega Nights is not meant to make you think about anything.

(However, any mainstream comedy should make you pause and think about what it is we �Americans� are supposed to find funny.)

The reason why the films go well together is that they both show how wanting to win makes you into a loser. Not that winning=losing, but that winning for its own sake rather than for some reason of greater importance to you is a shallow and bankrupt kind of a goal, and so it turns you into a loser, even if you bring the trophy home. Ricky Bobby�s stupid slogan �If you�re not first, you�re last,� is a case in point, and I take it as a lighthearted commentary on �American� �values.� Ricky Bobby spends his whole life trying to live up to that bumper sticker he read on the back fender of his dad�s car as his dad left him in the dust, and then, years later, when he re-encounters his dad and tells him about his goal, even his loser-drifter dad says, �That�s stupid! What about second place? And third and fourth and fifth?� Furthermore, what about the way in which you enjoy driving cars really fast? Shake and bake! That just happened!

But, while we�re on Talladega Nights, how far can you take the joke about the gay French �Formula Un� driver? Sure, everyone�s BF Sasha Cohen can carry it off better than most could, and he can even almost upstage Will Ferrell, but they milked that series of gay jokes as if it were a cow that never runs out of milk. As if. And, sure, if you�re an �American,� French people do seem funny, just as if you�re �French� Americans seem ridiculous. But that cultural disjoint could have been made funny here and there in more subtle ways. It�s not that I expect subtlety from Will Ferrell (though he is capable of it� think of the scene where he�s being interviewed for the first time and he doesn�t know what to do with his hands, etc.), but that the jokes about the French racecar driver would have actually have been funny instead of painful if they were done well.

But Little Miss Sunshine! You won�t find it in a cineplex. You�ll have to go to one of the smaller Landmark Theatres where the language of film is universal. And you should. It�s worth it. Man, when I think of all the earnest and pushy advice given to the child by her terrible terrible "motivational-speaker" loser father, argh, it's so very SADfunny. Plus, Little Miss Sunshine might be the only comedy this year that features a teenage boy who is obsessed with his own misinterpretation of Nietzsche. Teenagers and Nietzsche. When they met, it was moiduh.

11:11 p.m. - October 23, 2006

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