Little Children.

I make mental notes to remember to see a movie when it comes out on DVD or cable but there still are many interesting ones that escape me.

I don't even remember if I heard of Little Children though it was up for 3 Academy Awards in 2006: leading actress, Kate Winslet, supporting actor, Jackie Earle Haley.

I was listening to a review of Watchmen on the radio. The character Rorschach was mentioned (also on the cover of my latest EW) being played by Jackie Earle Haley.

Jackie Earle Haley's name sounded familiar. The reviewer said he had been a child actor and had also been out of acting for quite awhile. Because of the similiar name, my first thought was of Haley Joel Osment (Sixth Sense), but they mentioned a couple movies that were way too old for him to have played in. Wrong actor.

I looked him up. Haley had played a couple of memorable characters: Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears and Moocher in Breaking Away (with Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern,...). Both were misfits of a sort but always a tough, scrappy, little fighter.

(If you haven't seen Breaking Away, put it in your movie que. It is well worth it. College town in the midwest in the 1970's. Reminded me so much of my college years with the college kids and the locals co-existing together.)

Little Children trailer:

81% rating at Rottentomatoes.com

Here is a brief synopsis and plot description:

Adapted for the screen by Field and Perrotta and artfully photographed by Antonio Calvache, LITTLE CHILDREN is a bitingly funny, and nakedly honest, critique of middle class dysfunction. Though the cast is universally superb, it is former child actor Haley (THE BAD NEWS BEARS, BREAKING AWAY) who steals the show.

Set in the imploding minefields of modern suburbia, LITTLE CHILDREN follows several inhabitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood. Numb-to-life housewife and mother Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) finds an outlet for her yearning in gorgeous househusband Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), who is crippled with insecurity over the fact that his perfect wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), is the family breadwinner. When Sarah and Brad meet at the local playground one afternoon, a passionate affair is sparked. In a further attempt to reclaim his youthful fire, Brad joins a night football league with Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), a former cop who has begun to harass a convicted sex offender, Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley)

trivia: Patrick Wilson plays an internet stalker against the quite resourceful Ellen Page in the movie Hard Candy.

(Synopsis of Hard Candy: Hayley's a smart, charming teenage girl -- but even smart girls make mistakes. She's hooking up in a coffee shop with Jeff, a guy she's met on the Internet. And even though he's a cute,... Hayley's a smart, charming teenage girl -- but even smart girls make mistakes.)