DVD of the Week: Little Miss Sunshine

How anyone could not adore this sweetly foolish comedy masterpiece is beyond me. It’s one of the best written, acted, and directed films of the year. More importantly, it’s not a dense skulking meditation on human nature. It’s not the traditional “four star” Oscar contender film. However, it is just as good at being a wild and funny slapstick adventure as any more somber film is at its high art drama. Every now and then a comedy comes along with the sort of lively unstoppable charisma that moves us all. This is one of those movies.

Also new to DVD is Richard Linklater’s trippy, innovative and weirdly animated A Scanner Darkly. The story, based on the work of Phillip K. Dick, follows a futuristic drug inspector getting lost in addiction and losing himself within the guise of various identities. It’s dark and unpleasant, but it’s something very much worth seeing.