TheColumbia Valley - Columbia Valley Pioneer

10 • The Columbia Valley Pioneer December 22, 2006
MUSIC • VISUAL ARTS • DINING • BAR SCENE • ENTERTAINMENT • PERFORMANCE ARTS
TOY OF THE WEEK
Skullduggery
A swashbucklingly good game!
Gone
HOLLYWOOD
V I D E O
NEW YEAR’S MARDI GRAS
Tickets $15 (before 10:00 p.m.)
Sunday, December 31 st
• Great Specials • Party Favours
• Midnight Snacks
Located in The Best Western Invermere Inn
1. Talladega Nights
2. The Devil Wears Prada
3. World Trade Center
4. The Da Vinci Code
5. Little Man
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Warmest wishes and
a big thank you to you,
our customers, neighbours
and friends. Your support
means the world to us and
we hope you enjoy a truly
memorable holiday season and
all the best in the new year.
from the
team!
Gone Hollywood’s
TOP FIVE OF THE WEEK
Last Week’s Top 5 Rentals New Releases Dec. 19
1. Little Miss Sunshine
2. My Super Ex-Girlfriend
3. All the King’s Men
4. Wicker Man
5. Jet Li’s - Fearless
By Brian Geis
Pioneer Staff
Movie Review:
Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine is funny. It
is rare for me to laugh out loud during
movies, but Little Miss Sunshine
had lots of laugh-out-loud moments.
I loaded the disc expecting to not like
it.
On the surface, it’s a dysfunctional
family film with a road trip twist, but,
just below the surface each character is
struggling with a personal demon.
The husband is struggling financially,
hoping to cash in as a fad motivational
speaker. The Nietzsche-obsessed
son has taken a vow of silence.
The plain-jane daughter aspires to win
a beauty pageant. The potty-mouthed,
live-in grandfather has taken up casual
drug use. The suicidal uncle was just
released from the mental ward and the
wife and mother is struggling to keep
the ship afloat.
When the daughter wins entry
into a pre-teen beauty pageant in California,
the entire crew sets out from
Arizona in an old Volkswagen bus to
support her.
Things are pretty bad when the
movie begins, but along the way things
go from bad to worse for each of them.
The ensemble cast delivers a robust, en-
New Releases Dec. 26
1. Jackass #2
2. The Black Dahlia
3. The Descent (unrated)
4. The Last Kiss
5. The OH in Ohio
tirely believable performance, especially
Alan Arkin in the grandfather role.
There is no weak link in the bunch.
Funny man Steve Carell, of NBC's
The Office and The 40-Year-Old Virgin,
is great in this mostly unfunny
role of the suicidal uncle, with baggy,
bloodshot eyes and wrists wrapped in
bandages.
I love movies with a visual theme
and this movie has it in spades. Little
Miss Sunshine is, well, sunny. The
bright, canary yellow colour of the
family Volkswagen is bathed in warm
oranges and reds and plays out everywhere
from sunbeams to interiors and
cosumes to the DVD packaging. The
sad story lines juxtapose nicely against
the brightly coloured backdrops. It
look like the American Southwest.
Anyone who has had to push start
a vehicle through the duration of a
road trip, myself included, will have
plenty to laugh about.
This DVD is rated R and, as a bonus,
contains four alternate endings in
the special features section.
RATING: 4.5 OUT OF 5 HEADS
Food bank concert a success
The annual Lakeside Pub's benefit
concert was held last Sunday
afternoon and raised $1,575 and
three boxes of food for the local food
bank.
"It was a full house and everybody
was happy," said owner Guido
Hochheiden.
It was the sixth year for the popular
concert which featured perfor-
mances by local musicians, among
them John Cronin, Bruce Childs and
Fraser Smith. The master of ceremonies
was Bill Cropper.
The food bank is located behind
the public library and is open from
1 to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Please remember that the food
bank needs donations all year. To donate,
call 342-0850.
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503 - 7 th Ave., Invermere
342-0057