Alright here's the thing with Juno and why it made me so incredibly when I went to see it at the Best Picture Showcase this year. It sort of works like this. They started off the day by showing Michael Clayton. This was the movie I knew the least about and had the lowest expectations of but boy did they prove me wrong, I thought it was a really good film. Up next was There Will Be Blood. Anyone who has listened to me talk about movies since February knows how I feel about this movie. It is FanFuckingtasFuckingtic. Hands down THE movie of 2007 which, as I mentioned before, is an impressive feat since 2007 was the rare year chock full of great movies. So 2 movies in and I am running on all cylinders. I've seen 2 great movies in the span of 5 hours. Things are looking good.
Then came Atonement, or as I like to call it, The Lunch Break. I was at this thing with my buddy Rob and my buddy Jeremy and none of the above were interested in watching this movie. We tried, Rob and I sat through the first 45 minutes and then we just couldn't take it anymore. We went outside and checked our watches and realized that through some trick of witchcraft, we had actually been in the theater for 15 minutes, not the 45 we initially thought. Even so I was not angry at Atonement being included in the Best Picture Nominee List. I was not angry because this was a long drawn out boring period piece and the Academy gets their panties super wet for shit like that. So I gave Atonement a pass figuring there was nothing I could do about it and Rob and I went into the mall to pass 2 and a half fucking hours until that thing was over. Perhaps more on that later. If I'm in the mood. We ran into Jeremy while we were there and he laughed because he knew better than to even attempt watching that shit. Smart man that Jeremy is.
So we go back to the theater and Juno is next on the list. We return to our seats and there are about 15 minutes left before Juno starts. There are these 2 girls sitting in front of us who attempted to convince us that there was a really awesome tracking shot at the end of Atonement and it was worth it if only for that. This was a ruse commonly used by creatures with vaginas to convince creatures with penises to watch bullshit fucking movies and I wasn't falling for that for one fucking second I can tell you.
So bear in mind, I had already seen 2 awesome movies that day and now Juno was up. I was looking forward to seeing this movie, I really really was. I had heard all about how it was a smart, witty, comedy that would really appeal to the highbrow indie film crowd. Bloody Fucking Hell that's me. This should be great. Rob and I barely made it through the opening credits before that feeling of defeat started to sink in. This was not what I had been told it was. This was a lie of epic proportion. Someone would pay for this. Someone would pay indeed.
10 minutes in and all of the douchebags in the theater were howling with laughter at every bullshit thing that any character on the screen said. And all this is supposed to take place in Generic Suburbia yet all of the characters are chock full of artificially obscure pop culture references and they all talk to each other as though they were practicing for another Saturday at the Algonquin Hotel. I'm not buying it. You mean to tell me that there is not one idiot in that whole fucking town who really tries to say something witty but can only muster up a really loud, "Fuck you faggot?" I don't believe it one bit.
So like I said 10 minutes in and Rob and I can't take it anymore. Both of us are visibly angry. We decide it's time for a smoke. Jeremy was laughing his ass off. Not at the movie, but at watching Rob and I shoot each other are you fucking kidding me looks every 30 seconds. The three of us step outside into the comforting, Juno free air, and start to bitch. Loudly. I bitched extra loud so as to try to protect anyone who may be headed for the ticket window with the intent of purchasing a ticket to Juno. "Don't do it", I would yell. "It's a trick. Save yourselves."
Here's the thing, if Juno hadn't had critical acclaim heaped all over it I would have most likely dismissed it as just another shitty movie that I could ignore. I could throw it on the pile with things like Napoleon Dynamite and Superbad. Those must see comedies that everyone says you have to see but that inevitably suck balls and make me question the intelligence levels of the people who say that I should see them. But Juno was different. This was getting recommended by people I typically respect when it comes to their cinema opinion. Let that be a lesson to me.
It was just that this movie was so predictable and so ridiculous at every point. Oh here's a really sappy moment that we will break up with a zinging wisecrack. That'll get the crowd going. Diablo Cody is a fucking hack, plain and fucking simple. No two ways around that. But she is a clever hack. She filled a marketing niche and took it over quite nicely. She made a movie that really worked for people who wanted to have some indie cred but didn't want to have to actually work for it.
Like I said, had this movie not been nominated for Best Fucking Picture, it wouldn't upset me in the least that it was made. But it was nominated. In a year full of great films, someone had to get passed up to make room for Juno. Are you fucking kidding me. Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, one of the most beautifully shot films you will see in your life, seriously, it is Kurosawaesque in its beauty, couldn't get a best picture nod. Had to have Juno in there. Gone Baby Gone, Away From Her, Sweeney Todd, none of those could get a nomination. Hell even Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which I though sucked with the exception of lots of scenes that had a naked Marissa Tomei in them, could have been nominated over Juno. At least it had Sidney Lumet directing it.
So that is the key right there, really good films and for that matter even mediocre films, got passed up so that everyone could trip over their dicks talking about how great Juno was. And that infuriated me. We went out to smoke and then returned to watch the rest of Juno. Blood pressure steadily increasing, we made until about the last 20 minutes. Then I was too agitated by the commoners surrounding me in the theater and I had to go out and smoke again. We did that and made it back in for the very tail end of the credits. No great loss there I can tell you. I have no idea how Juno ends, and I don't really give a shit. I haven't been that angry about a movie existing since the Matrix came out and I doubt that I ever will be again.
