12 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, August 14, 2006 Shouldnt miss - 'Little Miss' By Amanda Andrade Daily Arts Writer In "Little Miss Sunshine," an only-slightly-contrived lit- tle gem of bittersweet indie nirvana, the best moments are the quiet ones. Those are the moments when charac- L ters hewn from the deepest bedrock of the Little Miss American middle class sit with each other Sunshine in a mercurial haze of love, hate, expec- At the Showcase tation and impatience - a mix the film and Quality 16 comes to assign as the peculiar domain of Fox Searchlight both family and life itself. The family, in this case,is the Hoover clan fromAlbuquerque. To enter ambitious budding beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin, "Signs") in the titular junior pageant, the Hoovers embark on a cross-country road trip to Los Angeles in their sunshine-yellow VW bus. Somewhere along the long flat asphalt of the South- west,the family,teetering on the edge of dysfunction and disinte- gration, gets a few decided prods from bad luck - most notably the breakdown of their archaic transport, forcing the family to get out and push every time the bus stops. But bad luck has a hard time destroying the Hoovers; it so hap- pens that they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves. The palpable tension between these characters, which actually lends the film much of its dramatic conflict and command, emanates directly from the eclectic mix of personalities brought so vividly to awkward and imperfect life. Here is the heroin-snorting, sex-mad grandfather benevo- lently showering his doting granddaughter with loving words and beaming smiles. Here is the recently suicidal Proust scholar meditating on suffering and purchasing gas-station pornography. The father is obsessed with winning, and quietly stifling his chil- dren. The mother is constantly in battle while the children take refuge in beauty pageants and the collected works of Friedrich 0 MUSIC NOTEBOOK Reissue label digs up righteous soul The VW bus: more American than independent film. Nietzche (respectively). As much as they might read like the calculatedly off-kilter stereotypes of quirky modern dramedy, there's not a character in this bus who doesn't feel authentic - and that's important since we're asked to sit with them for the duration of the trip. For all the brilliance "Little Miss Sunshine" mines with its wittily epi- sodic screenplay and often-uproarious situational laughers, what lingers far after the screen has dimmed is the nakedly tenuous nature of the connections that bind these characters together. That's thanks in no small part to an ensemble of actors both exceptionally talented and delightfully well cast (funnyman Steve Carrell as the suicidal academic stands out as a particularly inspired choice). Understanding just how far life has pushed each one, and how far they have pushed each other in turn, means appreciating the wild devotion that keeps them all pushing their bus toward California. It should come as no surprise that the film is an independent, boasting death, depression and 12-year-old contortionists on one screen (not to mention a soundtrack as likely to drop Sufjan Ste- vens as Rick James's "Superfreak").But quite apart from the plot elements, independent film seems the only realm in which char- acters are routinely given space to grow in flawed and occasion- ally irritating realism. Perhaps it's a studio risk, but it's "Little Miss Sunshine's" great accomplishment. By Lloyd Cargo Daily Arts Writer There aren't too many record labels around with quality control quite like the Numero Group. Founded in 2003 by the trio of record-collecting cogno- scenti Tom Lunt, Rob Sevier and Kevin Shipley, the label releases rare gems for music lovers, by music lovers. Numero Group, only nine releases deep, with a 10th forthcoming Aug. 29, can pretty much guarantee that while you may not know any of the artists on their com- pilations, each and every single one is worth picking up on the strength of their excellent taste alone. On their website, www.numero- group.com, the label explains "There is no 'Numero' sound; instead, Numero offers an aesthetic. A shelf of Numero discs feels less like a 'record collection' and more like a library. The library to date is a mix of thrift-shop soul, skin- ny tie pop, Belizean funk, and hillbilly gospel. Numero makes records for people who may have everything from indigenous Central American drum- ming to Canadian chanteuses stacked next to their CD players." Indeed, Numero Group has yet to produce anything remotely approach- ing a sub-standard release, with the Eccentric Soul series proving to be a particular treasure. Numero #001 (a second annual se 1 Ok ea? eoNtt Try to find the "Fake ad" in today's paper and throughout the month. if you think you have found the ad, e-mail your guess (with your name and page number of the ad) to: displayamichigandaily.com (subject: fake ad contest) Contest sponsored by Papa John's Pizza. Winner will receive i Free Large Pizza Winner will be chosen at the end of each month and will be contacted by e-mail. 27Any questions? Campus Information Centers First Floor, Michigan Union Lobby, Pierpont Commons 764-INFO: www.umich.edu/info/ info@umich.edu Order Your Textbooks Online Today And Get... 4 First Choice On All Used Books A 25% Savings When You Buy Used Convenient Delivery or Pickup Extra Free Time Why Wait? Log on Now to: www.whywaitforbooks .com Michigan Union Bookstore 530 S.State - Ground Floor @ Michigan Union profile of Ohio's Capsoul Label) and Numero #003 (The Bandit Label) set a high standard for the series that recent releases Numero #007 (Miami's The Deep City Label) and Numero #009 (Detroit's Big Mack Label) lived up to and exceeded. Each compilation is a crate-digger's wet dream - true excavations of the highest order. The Big Mack release, for example, collects highly coveted 45s from a long-forgotten-by-most Detroit label rescued from a flooded basement - the record obsessives equivalent of black gold. And the music truly does live up to the beautiful packaging and the in-depth liner notes lavished upon it. Most of the songs from the Eccentric Soul series were the respective art- ists only recordings - and most of them are scorchers. Each release is further mind-blowing evidence of the amount of forgotten soul music that remains un-reissued, and the tremen- dous service Numero Group provides by doing so. The next must-have comp the label is foisting upon the public might be the best yet. Titled Good God! A Gos- pel Funk Hymnal, the album assem- bles 18 burning praise-the-lord soul cuts that will have non-believers on their knees in no time. Every track is killer, but songs like the Voices of Conquest's "O Yes My Lord" and the Modulations's "This Old World is Going Down" really deliver on the promise of a fire-and-brimstone R&B union implied by the title. The Voices of Conquest consist of a choir and a Bernard Purdie meets John Bonham drummer named Benjamin Wilson, and their slice of soul per- fectly epitomizes that marriage of holy components. Pair high quality music like that with gorgeous photographs and informative linernotes that partner each song with a story and you have another great Numero Group release. As an added bonus Numero #010 will be the first issued on vinyl, in a gate- fold the label promises will be per- fect "for seperating your seeds and stems on." The label isn't the only one delivering great reissues these days. it's just the best and most consistent. The love Lunt, Sever and Shipley have for the music they're releasing is evidenced by the diligence with which they research every record. remaster every song and reimburse every single artist. Following Good God! A Gospel Funk Hymnal is the next release in the Eccentric Soul series, a profile of an Arizona Soul producer/song- writer Mike Lenaburg and his crew of performers. Eccentric Soul: The Mighty Label drops on September 26 and will undoubtedly be a sun- soaked gift to fans of good music and another big success for Nume- ro Group. The label has yet to dis- sapoint and has certainly reached buy-until-they-disappoint status.