Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Father Richard is desperately trying to sell his motivational success program...with no success. Meanwhile, "pro-honesty" mom Sheryl lends support to her eccentric family, including her depressed brother, fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers - the seven-year-old, would-be beauty queen Olive and Dwayne, a Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a vow of silence. Topping off the family is the foul-mouthed grandfather, whose outrageous behavior recently got him evicted from his retirement home. When Olive is invited to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in far-off California, the family piles into their rusted-out VW bus to rally behind her - with riotously funny results.

I’ve been meaning to see this one for quite some time now but I’d become so jaded with HD that I refused to watch it until it was released on Blu-ray. Sad huh? It was worth the wait though. This one had us laughing out loud throughout the film and manages to capture the sad portrait of the human drama and American family in a way that few films can. I loved the cast and the adult humor here and each sub-story just brought more and more to the overall picture. A great dark comedy.

The HD presentation is good but has a few quirks that keep it from being in the reference category. The contrast levels are a bit exaggerated at times and obvious white clipping was noticed. This wasn’t much of a distraction, but I noticed it from time to time. The image has a bit of a processed look at times with some minor sharpening artifacts showing up here and there including faint ringing in longer shots. I loved the stylized color palette though and fine detail in close ups is quite good. The image has a nice sense of depth and dimensionality overall isn’t too bad.

The DTS-HD soundtrack provides a compelling soundstage and the soundtrack selections add a lot of fun to the film. Dialogue is the key player here and tonal balance and timbre are very natural. Surrounds do a good job with the spatial aspects of the mix and you do get some rich atmosphere from time to time.

Quite a few extras included with this one including a pair of audio commentaries and no less than 4 alternate endings. Some music features are included for fans of the soundtrack and a making of feature is also included.

This film was a lot of fun and Fox has done a good job with the presentation overall. It is great to see more of their independent film library reaching the Blu-ray audience.