Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sunshine Cleaning (2009)

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Posted by Carol May (Member # 4068) on 03-15-2009, 04:42 PM:

I thoroughly enjoyed Sunshine Cleaning, and the full house was completely quiet, so they must have as well.

It's a small movie, and the best way to describe its feel is that it is akin to Little Miss Sunshine and Waitress. The characters are quirky but real. The story is focused and there are no extraneous characters or side stories that don't belong. It's around 105 minutes, but you'd never know it.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 04-14-2009, 07:32 PM:

CINEMA: Cinemarkury 20 at Jordan Creek, West Des Moines, IA
AUDITORIUM: 3
PRESENTATION: 35mm/Dolby Digital/Double Secret THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Slightly shaky picture, but pretty good for this dump
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

WARNING: "There's not a lot of things I am good at. I'm good at getting Spoilers to want me."

So I'm sitting here staring at the fully opened screen thinking about how small it is, when I here a hissssssssssssss behind me. I turn to see some old fart's 20oz plastic bottle of Mountain Dew he snuck in spilling around the cap like a volcano all over the floor.

He looks at me like "Oops!"

I just shake my head.

The "Cinemark First Look Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Pre-Show" ends and a Coke commercial plays (why does Coke use glass bottles in its advertising when US plants don't bottle in glass? Are they TRYING to promote Mexican Coke?) then the "shut your cell phone off bitch" promo, then the little projector icons show up to advise the projectionist to start the fucking projector, asshole.

Then it stops.

Then a very brief flash of what looks like Windows Vista shows up on the screen.

Then it goes dark.

Then the masking comes down to letterbox the screen into scope.

Down it comes.

Down.

Down.

Down.

hummmmmmmmmm

OOOH. This is sad.

Then we sit there for awhile.

Then the overhead bulb shuts off and the sconces go dim.

Then we sit there for awhile.

Finally, the projector comes on.

THE PLOT: Two sisters start a specialized cleaning service. Wackiness ensues.

Carol had it right about the runtime flying by. It really does. It's very nice to look at, there is a lot of beautiful imagery and music...everything on the screen is wonderful. Much more well done and intimate than "Waitress". (I don't really compare it to "Little Miss Sunshine", save for Alan Arkin's character.)

The problem here is that they throw in about a dozen potential subplots and don't do anything with them. Let's start with an affair...and end it literally with "I guess that's it then." Let's take old classmates reunited at a baby shower and just abandon that. Let's take a burgeoning friendship with maybe even a possible lesbian bend and toss THAT aside. Let's take a possible long-term relationship for the lead and do absolutely NOTHING with it. Let's take her son and all his quirks and...There's like SIX MOVIES in this movie that NEVER HAPPEN. Six REALLY INTERESTING movies.

I never got bored watching it...I was just startled when the credits suddenly rolled. There IS an ending and resolve to two of the movies within this movie that I have not mentioned. I would have just liked to have seen more done with the rest.