[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "Juno". Please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.

All HTF member film reviews of "Juno" should be posted to the http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...ew-thread.html.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.


Crawdaddy

[ZacharyTait]

As I said in my review, I loved this movie. Ellen Page gives the best performance of the year, male or female. Diablo Cody's screenplay is smarty and witty.

The only bad thing I can say about this movie is that Michael Cera and Jason Bateman don't share a scene together.

[Patrick Sun]

It would have been great if Jason Bateman could have just given Michael Cera a raised eyebrow about the whole pregnancy situation if they did share a scene together (given their former father-son relationship from Arrested Development).

[Holadem]

This thread is surprisingly empty for all the noise this gem has made.

Pretty strange that some of the most fun I've at the theater this year has involved pregnancies in comedies (Knocked Up, Waitress and this).

--
H

[JonZ]

I plan on seeing Juno this week.

[Robert Crawford]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonZ

I plan on seeing Juno this week.

So do I.





Crawdaddy

[SD_Brian]

At the risk of providing this thread's first dissenting view of "Juno," and particularly Diablo Cody's overpraised screenplay, here goes:

I know my opinion will be in the minority and I know there are--and will be--a lot of people who genuinely love "Juno" and more power to them, especially since I will never convince them otherwise. I wasn't in the "Little Miss Sunshine" fan club either so maybe I'm just bitter and have given up on life.

Like "Little Miss Sunshine" before it, I enjoyed "Juno" but was completely annoyed by it at the same time. Frankly I wanted someone to slap Juno in every single scene but nobody ever did.

Apart from Ellen Page's performance (basically the same performance she gave in Hard Candy, only without the sadism) the dialogue is what has garnered the lion's share of "Juno's" praise but, from a screenwriting point of view it has one major weakness: every single character sounds exactly the same. That's a pretty common flaw in first screenplays, so this is somewhat understandable and hopefully Cody's next script will be an improvement but the director, Jason Reitman, should have intervened and sent it back for a polish.

Even the guy from the convenience store speaks in the same pseudo-hipster tongue as Juno. So do her boyfriend, her stepmother, Jason Bateman, etc. When Juno's stepmother gives the smackdown to that poor hospital worker, she no longer talks like Juno's stepmother, she talks like Diablo Cody. It is unfortunate that this screenplay will probably win the Oscar because it will not only validate Cody's hipster-speak dialogue but it will serve to encourage other screenwriters to imitate it, much like what happened in the post-Pulp Fiction days.

Another problem is Juno's knowledge of pop culture from the 70's-80's. It is quite impressive considering that, if the movie takes place in present day as it seems to, she wouldn't have even been born until the 90's. Though I'd like to think there are 16-year-old girls living in small Minnesota towns who are well versed in the films of Dario Argento and know all about Thundercats minutia, I just don't believe it. It sounds like the screenwriter's voice, not the character's.

I also don't believe Juno's parents--at least in the characterizations given here--would take as much crap from her as they do. Perhaps the casting is the problem: if the actors playing the parents played them as some of those hippie parents who let their kids get away with murder, it would have been more believable. Perhaps if Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner were playing them instead?

For me, the best, most believable and well-played character in the movie was Jennifer Garner's. She was the one character who I genuinely wanted to find a happy ending. Every other character I wanted to slap. Hard.

[Scott Calvert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SD_Brian

At the risk of providing this thread's first dissenting view of "Juno," and particularly Diablo Cody's overpraised screenplay, here goes:

I know my opinion will be in the minority and I know there are--and will be--a lot of people who genuinely love "Juno" and more power to them, especially since I will never convince them otherwise. I wasn't in the "Little Miss Sunshine" fan club either so maybe I'm just bitter and have given up on life.

Like "Little Miss Sunshine" before it, I enjoyed "Juno" but was completely annoyed by it at the same time. Frankly I wanted someone to slap Juno in every single scene but nobody ever did.

Apart from Ellen Page's performance (basically the same performance she gave in Hard Candy, only without the sadism) the dialogue is what has garnered the lion's share of "Juno's" praise but, from a screenwriting point of view it has one major weakness: every single character sounds exactly the same. That's a pretty common flaw in first screenplays, so this is somewhat understandable and hopefully Cody's next script will be an improvement but the director, Jason Reitman, should have intervened and sent it back for a polish.

Even the guy from the convenience store speaks in the same pseudo-hipster tongue as Juno. So do her boyfriend, her stepmother, Jason Bateman, etc. When Juno's stepmother gives the smackdown to that poor hospital worker, she no longer talks like Juno's stepmother, she talks like Diablo Cody. It is unfortunate that this screenplay will probably win the Oscar because it will not only validate Cody's hipster-speak dialogue but it will serve to encourage other screenwriters to imitate it, much like what happened in the post-Pulp Fiction days.

Another problem is Juno's knowledge of pop culture from the 70's-80's. It is quite impressive considering that, if the movie takes place in present day as it seems to, she wouldn't have even been born until the 90's. Though I'd like to think there are 16-year-old girls living in small Minnesota towns who are well versed in the films of Dario Argento and know all about Thundercats minutia, I just don't believe it. It sounds like the screenwriter's voice, not the character's.

I also don't believe Juno's parents--at least in the characterizations given here--would take as much crap from her as they do. Perhaps the casting is the problem: if the actors playing the parents played them as some of those hippie parents who let their kids get away with murder, it would have been more believable. Perhaps if Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner were playing them instead?

For me, the best, most believable and well-played character in the movie was Jennifer Garner's. She was the one character who I genuinely wanted to find a happy ending. Every other character I wanted to slap. Hard.

Wow. I wish I could have written this post. The smartass hipster dialogue and the pop-culture references come off as smarmy rather than endearing. The standard indie flick quirks (animated titles for the different seasons, etc) are annoying as well.

I hated Little Miss Sunshine too.

[Patrick Sun]

Well, in this day of the internet where if you show enough of an interest in something, you can pretty much become well-versed in it by consuming all the info from webpages/list-servs/groups, and then acting on the lists of CDs/films recommendation that would be of interest to you, and thus becoming well-steeped into that bit of pop culture, no matter if it's 20-30 years beyond your own existence. I think kids like Juno are part of that ever-expanding pop-wank fanbase these days. Sure, they didn't "live" it, but they have otherwise dug in deep and can repoire with the best of the old-timers. It's all about appreciating the work, and whether that piece of art/cinema/music speaks to you, decades after it was originally created and put out "there".

That being said, I liked the film, but didn't love it as much as most of the critics do. For me, it just doesn't ask enough of the big questions, and Bleeker is just such a strange vacant entity in the 9 months of pregnancy, even though they are in close proximity with one another enough to have some truly deep (for them at the tender age of 16) conversations of what the impact Juno's pregnancy has on them, both as people and in relation to one another. I guess I just needed Bleeker to have a little more backbone to his character and offer something beside his sperm to the situation.