Shining star

One of the more original movies of 2006 has finally come to DVD shining as bright as its yellow cover. After receiving great acclaim for its character-driven plot, "Little Miss Sunshine" has lived up to all of the hype and is worthy of its two Golden Globe nominations, Best Musical or Comedy of the Year and Best Performance by a Female in a Musical or Comedy (Toni Collette).\nThis dark comedy is about Olive (Abigail Breslin), who is simply a girl with a dream of becoming Miss America. After being invited to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in far-off California, Olive's relatively unusual family rallies behind her in an attempt to see her wear the crown. The trip to the pageant in their old VW van is harder than they thought it might be, as they come across many roadblocks along the way. The Hoovers include her dad, Richard (Greg Kinnear), who is failing at his attempt to become a motivational speaker; her mom Sheryl (Toni Collette), who rarely sees eye to eye with Olive's dad; her grandfather (Alan Arkin) who is her cocaine-addict pageant coach; her brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), is nine months into taking a vow of silence; and her uncle Frank (Steve Carell) just got out of a mental institution after attempting suicide. Even after car trouble, feuds and life plan changes, this family sticks together for just one goal: to see Olive win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.\nThe movie itself is relatively good, but the DVD is lackluster at best. It of course has the normal director and writer commentaries, which aren't a rare find on DVDs nowadays -- it's even more rare to find someone who regularly watches them. Then to cap it off, there are three alternative endings not even worthy of being watched. The directors admit that they stopped the filming one of the endings of halfway through because it was so horrible.\nAs far as a movie, this is quite a good one, but that's where it ends. "Little Miss Sunshine" isn't necessarily the funniest, but it is definitely something you haven't seen before. If you are at the video store, I suggest you pick up this movie off the shelves, but don't expect much in the special features.