Thoughts on Juno

i don't have much to say about juno - mainly because i've ranted myself out over the past 8 months since i first saw it. unlike waldo i sat through the movie twice - well, partially twice. the second time i tried to ignore it because the wife wanted to see it, so i just sat at the computer browsing the internet and trying to keep my comments to myself. but unlike waldo this at least means that i saw the ending, which was probably even worse than the rest of the movie.

i HATED HATED HATED the language in the film. diablo cody made the rookie writer's mistake - the one that we all made in junior high and then grew out of...she made every fucking character in the film interchangeable from a language standpoint. every person in the movie was that hipster douchebag you see in coffee shops in big metroplexes. but somehow, in this magical little white trash town, everyone knows every underground band of the past 30 years, everyone has seen every movie ever made, underground or not, and everyone talks in a hipster jargon that would even make a 16 old roll their eyes - at least i would hope so, but judging by the giggling in the theater, idiots like hipster jargon.

home-skillet. pork sword. a preggo eggo. these are phrases that i never thought i would hear used with a straight face in my lifetime, and there they were up on the big screen in an oscar nominated movie...a fucking oscar nominated movie. and it made my teeth grind a little.

this movie exists only to make generic people feel like they're edgy, by throwing out mildly underground - but safe - references in order to make people feel like they're way the fuck out there. case in point. juno has lunch inside of the school trophy case...

IN THE TROPHY CASE!!! SILLY JUNO! YOU CAN'T EAT IN A TROPHY CASE...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

fucking piece of shit movie. anyway, so as juno and her friend are eating their lunch in the trophy case, and as her friend is talking the camera keeps pointing over her shoulder to a jauntily placed ramones sticker on the wall. and you could feel the glee rising up in the assholes in the theater as they told themselves "that's the ramones! i know that band, because i'm familiar with the underground!" and then they look around and they tell themselves "i bet no one else in here knows who they are. diablo cody made this movie just for me!"



now, imagine this same thing, but with movies, "street slang", and every other thing that they could throw in to make the users seem cool, and you've got juno. it's got the full indie poser checklist going:

quirky indie soundtrack - check! (if i were a tree...really?!?!)
quirky actress - check!
"fuck you mainstream hollywood" attitude - check!
mainstream hollywood ending - check!

this is what little miss sunshine wished it could be. i had so much hope for ellen page after hard candy. to be able to anchor a movie that dramatic at her age i thought she could do no wrong. but this was just horrible. and the worst part of it is that because she was so successful in it every script that came her way afterwards was the same horrible type of movie. and judging from what i'm seeing, she's taking every one of those roles...another great actress down the tubes way too fucking early.

i dunno. i guess i could bitch more about it, but why? i'm just wasting valuable time that i could be using to watch good movies instead. diablo cody, you should be ashamed...

(rob)