Has anyone else seen this yet? We watched it on DVD on New Year's Eve, and really enjoyed it. A great road-trip with a thoroughly dysfunctional family. Wonderful cast, too.

I saw it at the theater in this summer and posted this review back then:

Little Miss Sunshine
I really liked this movie. I clapped and cheered at the end. The Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest was hysterical and little Olive was a standout participant. The movie examines strained, twisted family relations, and through exaggeration illuminates the mistakes we can make so easily with those we love most. Alan Arkin is great. I wish he'd make more movies. He's one of my all time favorite actors. Everyone in the cast was terrific. I heartily recommend "Little Miss Sunshine."

I saw it at the theater in this summer and posted this review back then:

Little Miss Sunshine
I really liked this movie. I clapped and cheered at the end. The Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest was hysterical and little Olive was a standout participant. The movie examines strained, twisted family relations, and through exaggeration illuminates the mistakes we can make so easily with those we love most. Alan Arkin is great. I wish he'd make more movies. He's one of my all time favorite actors. Everyone in the cast was terrific. I heartily recommend "Little Miss Sunshine."

I watched it last night; it is delightful. As Maggers says, the cast is the primary reason it separates itself from similar fare, but the script also had a little more meat on its bones than most road trip movies. The van is one of the better running gags I've seen in a while.

And Alan Arkin was great, it made me want to see The Slums of Beverly Hills again.

[SIZE="3"]I found the children's beauty pageant VERY disturbing. As the father of 2 daughters, seeing little girls tarted up like that made me uncomfortable. (Which is exactly how the filmmakers wanted you to feel...like you'd wandered into a pedophile fantasy.) I don't understand parents who put their kids through that. It's sick.[/SIZE]

[SIZE="3"]I found the children's beauty pageant VERY disturbing. As the father of 2 daughters, seeing little girls tarted up like that made me uncomfortable. (Which is exactly how the filmmakers wanted you to feel...like you'd wandered into a pedophile fantasy.) I don't understand parents who put their kids through that. It's sick.[/SIZE]

Can you say Jonbenet-Ramsey? That type of stuff is profoundly disturbing indeed. It helped show them their family wasn't so messed up afterall, though.

[SIZE="3"]I found the children's beauty pageant VERY disturbing. As the father of 2 daughters, seeing little girls tarted up like that made me uncomfortable. (Which is exactly how the filmmakers wanted you to feel...like you'd wandered into a pedophile fantasy.) I don't understand parents who put their kids through that. It's sick.[/SIZE]

I think similar sentiments fuel the neverending interest in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. Bad enough a little girl was killed, but people are fascinated by what JonBenet was put through by her mother for years beforehand, enduring all that tarting up for those child beauty pageants. There was a series on a cable channel about these child pageants. Disturbing doesn't begin to describe it.

[SIZE="3"]I found the children's beauty pageant VERY disturbing. As the father of 2 daughters, seeing little girls tarted up like that made me uncomfortable. (Which is exactly how the filmmakers wanted you to feel...like you'd wandered into a pedophile fantasy.) I don't understand parents who put their kids through that. It's sick.[/SIZE]

No two ways about it. The parents are using their precious little one for 1)money or 2)some sort of weird psychological fullfillment. I don't know which is worse and I really can't bear to think about it anymore.

Just now I watched [SIZE="3"]Little[/SIZE] [SIZE="4"]Miss[/SIZE] [SIZE="5"]Sunshine[/SIZE] on DVD.

What a wonderful movie! I love this movie! Well written script reminded me of National Lampoon's vacation series. And great actors & actresses, they played memorable characters. Especially Alan Arkin, he was excellent.

I also checked 4 different endings in bonus material. They were hilarious!

[SIZE="3"]I found the children's beauty pageant VERY disturbing. As the father of 2 daughters, seeing little girls tarted up like that made me uncomfortable. (Which is exactly how the filmmakers wanted you to feel...like you'd wandered into a pedophile fantasy.) I don't understand parents who put their kids through that. It's sick.[/SIZE]

Yeah, I agree. In this movie, Olive was cute, because she is natural. But other girls were a little creepy....they look like a hand made robot.

Olive should be winner.