Paperjam

The Electric Cinema and Little Miss Sunshine

Film // Jim // 14th September 2006

I have been trying to go to the Electric Cinema for ages and never quite managing it, something always comes up, or they are not showing a film I actually want to see. As a result the place has taken on a kind of mythical film paradise status in my fevered imagination.

A few weeks back I went over to see Raiders of the Lost Ark but, just as I got to the door and was almost able to peek in, they announced it was sold out. Gutted.

This time I didn’t take any chances and got there in plenty of time to see the 2pm matinee showing of feted US comedy Little Miss Sunshine.

The Electric is a groovy, art deco looking building situated down the steps next to New Street station, near a big sex shop, which must be handy for the cinema-going masturbator, dominatrix or geography teacher about town. The whole affair seems to be run by one highly efficient geezer, who does the tickets and mans the bar. Yes, you read that right, there is a bar, where you can grab yourself a beer, some posh cake, some tortillas with salsa and maybe some olives - all of which was purchased by the lady before me. Apparently they do absinthe too, which might be interesting if you are watching something a touch trippy.

When you head into the screen the first thing you come to is a whole bunch of sofas of varying sizes, which if you pay a bit more than normal, you can slouch on with a number of close personal friends while your food and drink is ferried in and out (presumably by the same ultra efficient geezer). Bit difficult to justify this if you are on your own so I settled for the normal seats, which are functional but comfy enough. The leg-room seemed pretty good, but then I am quite a short-arse so the leg room always seems OK to me.

The screen isn’t massive but it doesn’t need to be, at a rough guess I would reckon that you wouldn’t get more than about a hundred people in here. Cosy is probably the best description.

Electric cinema: Cool, sofas

All in all a really cool place to go and watch films, nicely suited what I went to see. Little Miss Sunshine is effectively a comedy road movie about three generations of a quirky family driving a long way in a VW camper van so that their daughter can appear in a ghastly beauty pageant for little girls.

The family includes:
- Rather stressed out mum.
- Failing motivational speaker dad.
- Suicidal, Proust scholar uncle.
- Nietzsche reading teen son, who has taken a vow of silence.
- Sweetness and light personified daughter.
- Randy, drug-snorting grandfather.

The opening of the film introduces all of them in turn and then brings them together for a slightly uncomfortable extended dinner sequence in which the tensions in various relationships are nicely exposed.

Following some reason or other it surfaces that little Olive has made it to the finals of the titular event and they are all going to have to pile into the van to get there. We then get a series of entertaining turns as the family are thrown together, spark off each other and (as you just know they will) start to have some kind of collective group therapy.

By the time they get to the beauty pageant it is clear that there is going to be some kind of cathartic event where everyone realises that actually they all get on, after all.

This may all sound sickeningly sentimental but he film is surprisingly sharp. The humour is sarcastic, a bit harsh at times and ultimately gently subversive. Kiddie beauty pageants are held up for ridicule (which is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel), as is bland officialdom in its many guises, a key example being the “Bereavement Liaison” who appears at one point.

The really clever thing here is the casting of Alan Arkin as the grandad, at once lovingly devoted to his grand-daughter, whilst also being a bit of a wild-man with a pleasingly course turn of phrase.

Grandad has been kicked out of his carehome for snorting heroin and he ain’t too happy about it. The first we hear from him is a rant about having “Fucking chicken!” every night and its not too long before he is loudly passing on sage advice to his pale grandson “Fuck a lot of women, trust me. That is all that matters.” Told to be quiet he refuses citing the fact that he still has Nazi bullets in his ass.

This is exactly the kind of rogue grandfather we’d all like to have known and Arkin is absolutely superb in the role. Every moment he is on the screen is a complete delight, the key moment being where he advocates hard drug use while warning the others not to touch them; “At your age you’d be crazy to do this shit. At my age I’d be crazy not to.” Suddenly he is an older, slightly wiser Yossarian, turning Catch-22 to his own crafty advantage. Brilliant.

Little Miss Sunshine: Not twee, Arkin superb

The rest of the cast are on good form too, Steve Carell as the academic uncle is dry and tragic while Greg Kinnear is good as the terminally annoying father, although you do get the urge to kick his teeth in.

All in all this is a really good comedy-drama that manages to stay on the satirical, edgy side of twee, without ever turning into more of a black comedy. I laughed quite a lot, felt happy at the end and I am generally considered to be a right miserable git. So there you go.

Links that, like me, are in complete denial that they really like that Sufjan Stevens song on the soundtrack...

Official Movie Site

Not bad actually, loads of info and it looks nice too.

The Electric Cinema

Cool place to watch films, they are showing Ghostbusters at some point soon.

Alan Arkin Interview

A chat with the multi talented Mr Arkin, courtesy of the AV club