Xixax Film Forum

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Trailer here. (http://pdl.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2007/juno_024692/juno_trlr_01_700_dl.mov)

Release Date: December 14th, 2007 (limited)

Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Olivia Thirlby, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Rainn Wilson

Directed by: Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking)

Premise: Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual and bizarre decision regarding her unborn child.

The Alaska thing was maybe the funniest thing I've seen in a trailer this year.

indie knocked up.

Quote from: pete on September 15, 2007, 11:38:42 AM
indie knocked up.

exactly.  but i still think this is going to be REALLY good.

saw the premiere of this too. met jason, diablo and ellen afterwards. because a girl gets pregnant and they didn't plan for it doesn't make it an another knocked up. the focus of the movie is entirely different. knocked up is about a couple and how they deal with growing up and dealing with a baby.. juno is all about ellen page's character. michael cera is hardly even in the movie. i'd say jason bateman has a heavier role in the film than cera.

but yeah, the movie was great, got a standing ovation from the crowd on all the nights it played. ebert said ellen could be looking at an oscar nod but i would predict diablo for her screenplay before anything else.

mini linda cardellini.

Telluride Interview: Jason Reitman, Director of 'Juno'
Source: Cinematical

Jason Reitman's second feature film, Juno, turned out to be the surprise hit of the Telluride Film Festival, before moving on to Toronto. Reitman took time out of his last day at Telluride to sit down and chat about his film, why it works, and why guys just don't want to grow up.

(NOTE: This interview is a discussion of the film that contains spoilers, so if you don't want to know anything about it before you see it, stop reading now.)

Cinematical: Let's talk about how you found the Juno script to begin with and why you wanted to film it.

Jason Reitman: I was fortunate enough that I had Mason Novack (Diablo's manager) found Diablo, and I knew Mason, and so I had a copy of the script as soon as it came out.

Cinematical: And what did you like about the script? What did Diablo do right?

JR: What she did right was this: She took a very tricky piece of material and made interesting decisions at every turn. Every time a character had a line of dialog, every scene, she made the interesting, unexpected decision. Not the usual decision, but that was not precious, but that was honest and real and sometimes very funny. That's what I liked about Thank You for Smoking. That film turns on the world of cigarettes, and Chris Buckley makes those kinds of unusual, hilarious decisions at every turn. Diablo does the same thing, and she's very good at it.

Cinematical: Do you look specifically for that in choosing what scripts you want to work with? That angle?

JR: I love the tough stuff. I'm really attracted to movies about tricky subject matter, where it's dealt with in ways that are unexpected, that aren't too dramatic and precious. That's not to say that this movie doesn't have heart, it does have heart, and I think the ending is very moving. That said, it's the fact that she took on tricky material and didn't treat it that way.

Cinematical: I want to talk about the casting. When you first read the script, did you know from the start you wanted Ellen Page?

JR: I'd read the screenplay, had not really pictured anyone, and then saw Hard Candy and I was like, that's the girl.

Cinematical: Did you see her in An American Crime?

JR: No, no, noooooo. I've heard that's raw. I've heard that's really tough to watch. When it came time to cast, I got Michael Cera, JK Simmons, Olivia Thirlby, and I brought them to over, set them in front of a black backdrop shot 45-50 pages, all in one day, and then cut it together, then I showed it to the producers at Fox and said, this is the cast I'd like to have. And they said okay.

Cinematical: Well, that was easy.

JR: Yeah, it really was. It was kind of in lieu of an audition process.

Cinematical: You cast Jennifer Garner, and she's not necessarily the first person I would have thought of, but she gives a fantastic performance.

JR: I'm really proud of what Jennifer did in this film. What she did was very subtle, very complicated. It's through the honesty of her performance that everyone else around her was able to be very funny. The casting of that role was tricky, because it's a woman of a certain age, who you can buy as desperately wanting to be a mother. Someone at you at first find to be a little pushy and unlikeable, and then by the end of the film, it flips, and you've just fallen in love with her. It was very tricky.

Cinematical: Exactly! You start out thinking you know how you feel about those characters, Mark and Vanessa – that she's irritating and uptight, and he's laid back and cool, but then suddenly you realize your feelings have changed.

JR: Right, it flips, and you're like, "Oh my God!" I talked to Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner about The Queen, and how successful they were at doing that switch. At the start of the film, you're thinking that Tony Blair is wonderful and charming, and the Queen is stodgy and set in her ways, and not open-minded. And then by the end of The Queen, it's switched, and you realize the queen is very aware, and that she has this whole global perspective, and it's Tony Blair who is being very short-sighted. They pulled the rug out from under the audience, and that's what we wanted to do.

By the end, you realize he's incapable of growing up, and when you realize that, and that her desire to be a mother is sweet and sincere, you can't help but fall in love with her. And it's very hard to deal with Jason Bateman's character, because it's a very real thing that a lot of guys do. You know, a lot of people ask me what this movie's about, and it's about the moment at which you realize you want to grow up. Ellen Page's character Juno is given the opportunity to grow up at the age of 16. She could become a mother at the age of 16, to become a grownup and deal with some real shit. And a lot of teenage girls deal with that – teenage girls are growing up faster and faster. And in a weird way, this is a movie about teenage girls growing up too fast, and 30-year-old men who don't want to grow up.

Cinematical: I want to get back to the character of Mark. When I talked to Diablo about the script, she said she felt she didn't write that character quite as negatively as you portrayed him and that you really disliked the character.

JR: I actually liked the character a lot, even though he does very unlikable things. I think the things he does, they're very honest. Look, I'm a guy who became a father throughout the process of the making of this film, and I understand the anxieties he's going through. I went through some of those anxieties, but I came around and embraced the idea of fatherhood, I adore my father. And Mark is a guy who caved into those anxieties, who made the wrong decision.

Cinematical: Do you think he made the wrong decision? Or did he make the right decision, in being honest about who he was and about just not really wanting to grow up?

JR: That's what makes it sophisticated. I think if Mark is too likable, it's not interesting. What makes it interesting is that, perhaps he makes the right decision. Perhaps if he stayed with Vanessa, a few years down the road they'd be getting a divorce and it would have been harder on that family. And perhaps he makes the right decision. It's that complicated, real shit that excites me.

Cinematical: A lot of guys in that late 20s-early 30s demographic seem to really struggle with that in this generation. I mean, guys from my dad's generation, your dad's generation, they had babies in their 20s, they went work and supported their families. What's up with this generation?

JR: Yeah, and I don't know if my perception is skewed because I live in Los Angeles, where in their teenage years – they enter their twenties earlier, but they leave their twenties later. The twenties are kind of extended from 15 to 35 in Los Angeles. And I'm not sure if that's a national epidemic of if that's only in Los Angeles, but a lot of guys are blooming later, they're pushing off the idea of marriage and pregnancy, and they're being allowed to, which makes it worse.

Cinematical: Allowed by whom?

JR: It's somehow become culturally okay. Divorce is epidemic, and somehow in line with all that, the whole concept of what marriage is and when it happens has become more flexible. This is a country that really pushes people to be individualistic, and that might weigh on it.

Cinematical: Do you feel differently about Mark as a character now, as a husband and father, than you would have a few years ago? When you were 25, could you have made this movie?

JR: No, I definitely have a different perspective now. And I think there's something to be said about that, about when people should make certain films and the life experience you need to tell certain stories. I empathize with Mark, but I also empathize with Vanessa – the idea that you're not a whole person until you have a child. And I empathize with Juno, the fears she had about bringing a child into our world. Simply the idea of going through a pregnancy. It would have been nowhere as honest, nowhere as emotional, back then.

Cinematical: I wanted to touch on how you worked with Diablo in making this film. You involved her much more than screenwriters often are able to be involved in films.

JR: You know, sometimes directors are scared of the writers. I like writers, I get along with writers very well, I trust writers. With Thank You for Smoking, I really wanted Chris Buckley to be involved. And with Juno, Diablo's voice was so important to the script. And there were times that I would be like, I need a moment that does this, and she'd bang it out right, she'd write a scene write there on set. Or I'd need to make a decision – this character needs to wear a set of clothes, or listen to certain music, what would it be?

Cinematical: There's a lot of Diablo in Juno.

JR: Absolutely, she is that voice. And there's no way that I could emulate that voice. It's funny, Nick Naylor (from Thank You for Smoking) was a character whose voice I could emulate. With Juno, here was a story that I loved, but that voice is not mine. And I would never think to try to write a Juno scene myself. It's just not my voice.

Cinematical: Did you like working on someone else's script versus doing your own?

JR: It's a little bit different, in that you're carrying someone else's baby into the world, and in a weird sense that it's even more precious. You don't want to fuck it up, you don't want to be that guy who ruined something that was beautiful, who ruined something that someone else created. So you're careful, you want to do it right.

It reminds me of when Thirteen came out except it sounds like there's a good movie to follow up a good story this time.


Toronto #10: Cinderella story with a twist

/ / / September 15, 2007

By Roger Ebert

TORONTO, Ont.--It's the Cinderella story of this year's Toronto Film Festival. Girl is born in Chicago, grows up, graduates from college, moves to Minneapolis to join her boyfriend Jonny, who she met on the net. Works in advertising, finds it boring. Starts working as a stripper, doesn't find it boring. Changes her name to Diablo Cody. Starts a blog. Works as a phone sex voice. Writes book, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Quits the sex biz, marries Jonny, moves to suburbs. His daughter is their flower girl at wedding.

That's all boiled down from her bios at IMDb and Amazon. But now we get to the Cinderella part. I am hearing about it from Jason Reitman, the director of "Juno," which in my guess is the most popular film of the festival, and is written by Diablo Cody.

"She met this guy, he was supposed to be a producer, she wasn't sure, but he tells her she should write a screenplay," Reitman tells me. "It takes her two months. She sends it to Hollywood, where it goes all over town and everyone wants to make it. It is one of the best screenplays around."
Reitman, the son of famous director Ivan Reitman, was planning to direct his own screenplay for his second film, after the success of his 2005 written-and-directed "Thank You for Smoking." But he reads "Juno" and knows he must direct it.

His wonderful, funny movie, which I wrote about a few days ago, stars Ellen Page in an Oscar-caliber performance as an intelligent, sassy 16-year-old who gets pregnant. Her father and stepmother don't yell and scream at her but just want to help her out all they can. That, and many other elements of "Juno," are unlike most films about teenagers. Very unlike. I will write more about the movie and my full interview with the likable Jason Reitman when the movie opens around Christmas. Now back to the Cinderella story.

"Juno and her stepmother (Allison Janney) are very close," Reitman says. "That was Diablo's thinking. She thought stepmothers always got a raw deal in fiction. It was the Cinderella model of the stepmother as a witch. But now Diablo is a stepmother herself, and she and her stepdaughter really like each other."

Reitman says when he read her screenplay he thought, "She really nailed the New Nuclear Family. In the movies, families used to be mom, pop and the kids. In real life today, it's often more complicated. You have stepparents, half-brothers and sisters, children of single mothers, every kind of family. But she doesn't write about this in a political way, just in an honest light."

The heroine's family, in fact, us one of the most lovable families in recent films. Whatever Diablo Cody's background was, she wrote a positive, human, hilarious story. "Sometimes I just had to trust her," Reitman said. He gave the example of the scene where Juno tries to commit suicide by hanging herself with licorice rope. More I will not reveal. "I didn't understand it," Reitman admitted, "but I figured if I loved her screenplay and it was in there, she must have known what she was doing. It gets one of the biggest laughs in the movie."

And...Diablo Cody? That's what everyone calls her?

"Even her parents now," Reitman said.

Telluride Interview: Diablo Cody, Screenwriter of 'Juno'
Source: Cinematical

First-time screenwriter Diablo Cody was the "Cinderella story" of the Telluride Film Festival. A former stripper who got her first break writing a book about her experiences in that line of work, Cody's first script, Juno, made the rounds of Hollywood, got a deal, and then got director Jason Reitman, fresh off his successful feature debut, Thank You for Smoking, hot to make it into a film. Cody took time out of a whirlwind schedule at Telluride to hang out at the gondola station, catch some rays, and talk about her script -- and what it's like being the writer of the film everyone is talking about.

Cinematical: Your film is getting the best buzz I've heard so far at Telluride.

Diablo Cody: It's just amazing. I was surprised, to be invited to this festival. It has a reputation for being a sort of highbrow fest, heavy, a fest for cinephiles. I think people are enjoying it because it's kind of an alternative to the heavier stuff that's being offered. For me to even be here to see all these amazing films is a real privilege. But, yeah, I think that Juno is kind of a lemony palate-cleanser in between all the paralysis and Holocaust stuff.

Cinematical: When I interviewed Jason after Thank You for Smoking, we talked about how he didn't feel comedy was respected enough, especially at film festivals – that comedy can be just as artistic as drama, and he wanted to prove that. It seems Juno is a step in that direction.

DC: I think Jason has a lot to do with that. He's really elevated the material. I know a lot of people feel it was a strong script, which is a great compliment and I'm really happy about that. But to me, Jason just came in and took the script and he really built on the material. Jason and I, we come from very different spaces, I tend to be the one who's, you know, making the joke about the condom making the guy's dick smell like pie. I tend to be a little more ... well, and Jason is a trained filmmaker, and some of his points of reference are more impressive than mine. Well, that's not really what I mean. What I mean is that's good that he and I are different and that we balance each other well.

Cinematical: The dialog in the film was one of its strongest points, a lot of people have been talking about it.

DC: I'm glad that they enjoyed it. My dialog has a tendency to ... it sounds very natural to my ear, and then other people hear it and to them it sounds very stylized. Which I'm glad they do – it makes it appear as if I'm doing something very innovative and creative, when it fact it's just the way I think coming out on the page. And I'm like, "Really? Because to me this just sounds like very realistic dialog."

Cinematical: Can you talk about Ellen Page and how she brought Juno to life?

DC: She is just amazing! Anyone who saw her read for the part unanimously agreed that she just is Juno.

Cinematical: You really can't imagine anyone else playing the part after seeing her in it.

DC: No, you can't. She's the one and only and she's so natural and she's so authentic, to use a word that's kind of trite in the film community. But she is. She just is the character. She's sharp as a tack, right? And one thing I found interesting about this movie is that a lot of the actors had a kinship with their characters that I can't imagine happens in every production. There's a lot of Juno in Ellen Page, there's a lot of Pauly Bleeker in Michael Cera, from what I know of him. He just is a really gentle person. And even Jennifer Garner, who is just this incredibly lovely, graceful person, she has this vulnerability. I think it's one of her best performances.

Cinematical: Maybe it's because she's a mother herself now, and she was able to bring that tenderness, that deep longing to be a mother, into that role.

DC: I'm not a mother myself, so I'm glad she was there to bring that to it. I am a stepmother, and I brought a lot of that angst into the character of Brenda, who Allison Janney plays. I am kind of that no-nonsense, shit-talking Midwestern step-mom, in a lot of ways. So that character was really important to me.

Cinematical: Would that be you at the ultrasound?

DC: Absolutely. I would have kicked that woman's ass. My best friend, when I was in high school, had a baby at 17, which is the incident that inspired a lot of events in the screenplay. And that's one of the things I remembered is her coming back from doctor's visits having been treated like a pariah. And she still, to this day – her son is 10 now – and she still gets people treating her weird, they do the arithmetic and then they treat her weird.

Cinematical: Now this is your first screenplay, but you wrote a book before this.

DC: I wrote a book before this which was this fun, trashy sort of memoir about stripping. That was actually a really cool experience.

Cinematical: Did you do burlesque?

DC: No, I was a hard core stripper, worked at peep shows, did phone sex. Which for me, was actually really transformative and an ultimately positive experience, even though there was a lot of really filthy stuff along the way. And it was after coming off that, that my manager discovered me, lonely and naked in obscurity, and said, why don't you try writing a movie. And that's where Juno came from.

Cinematical: So your manager says write a movie, your memory of your friend was the seed of the idea ...

DC: I don't remember where it came from, actually. My experience with my friend assisted me, but I don't think that's what inspired me directly. Actually, what happened was that one day, I was sitting in my kitchen thinking about writing a screenplay, and every idea I came up with felt like it had been done already, which is something a lot of writers go through. And so I was thinking, what is something that's contemporary, but nobody's really done a movie about it yet. Because I kept hearing about people doing this open adoptions, and instead of it being this cloak-and-dagger experience that it was in the sixties. Suddenly adoptive parents were meeting the birth mother. And I was like, that's gotta be a really weird dynamic, the dynamic between these adoptive parents and these pregnant women. I think I originally intended it to be a lot darker, but I'm just such a ding-a-ling, that it ended up becoming a comedy.

Cinematical: Is there a lot of you in Juno?

DC: Yes, definitely. Absolutely.

Cinematical: So you and Ellen probably got along famously.

DC: I'm very intimated by her. That was the thing, I felt connected to her, I hope the feeling was mutual. But just shooting the shit with her, I was very intimidated. She is needle-sharp. She's really an exceptional talent.

One of the important relationships to me in the movie was between Juno and Leah. Because you meet so many teenage girls these days, they are so mannered, so corked up. When I was a kid, me and my friends, we were just wild, there was such a sense of play. We were running around town stuffing people's mailboxes with Tic-Tacs and harassing the clerk at the gas station, and moving furniture from one lawn to the next. Just being goofy. There wasn't a lot of vanity there.

Cinematical: Do you feel that teenagers today are more self-aware, that there's more of a need to keep that pretense up, to be Paris Hilton?

DC: Absolutely. There's that influence, the Paris factor. But it's also that the economy caters to teens in a way that it didn't even ten years ago.

Cinematical: These teenagers today, their all running around with their rhinestone-studded cell phones, their salon-streaked hair, manicured fingers and pedicured toes ...

DC: Yeah, I didn't have a manicure until I was, like, 25! I can't imagine having one when I was a kid. They don't get to be kids anymore.

Cinematical: But in your story, Juno's not like that. She's pregnant, but she's still very much a kid.

DC: She is a kid! She is, and she knows that she is. I love that she still rides a bike. I love her hoodies. She's like, "I'm ill-equipped." She understands that. Maybe I was trying to recreate a teenage archetype from 1994, when I came of age.

Cinematical: She also operates in this little bubble of utter lack of concern for what other people think, which is also not terribly common in teenagers today.

DC: I just really loved her as a character. And I also really loved Pauly Bleeker, who was inspired by the guys that I knew in high school. The guys that I knew in high school -- when you watch these high school movies coming out today, they're portrayed as horndogs, as wolverines, as these desperate, horny, oily creatures. And the guys I knew weren't like that at all. They were just cowed by me.

Cinematical: I think Pauly's a lot more accurate a portrayal of what teenage boys are really like.

DC: I think so. I hope so. The character of Mark, I have to say, he was a lot more sympathetic as I wrote him. But then Jason (Reitman) came onto it and gave it an edge. He projected quite a bit of male guilt and male angst onto that character, and made him quite a bit more representative of men's failings as husbands and fathers. That was one interesting change I noticed from the script to the final project. That was his direction. He disliked that character, which was interesting. You would think it would be women who would be more wary of that character, but I was the one constantly apologizing for Mark – "he's a really a good guy, he's just scared ..."

Cinematical: You think Jason was irritated by that character?

DC: He was irritated, yes! That character just struck a nerve with him. And I was the one – I am the one still defending Mark. And a lot of Mark's personality were based on my husband, and then, when he saw the film, he was like -- what the fuck? I'm the character the entire audience gasped at when he (edited for spoiler)? And I was like, well, babe, the character kind of ended up changing in the execution.

Cinematical: Can you talk a bit about the process of the production of the film? I know you worked closely with Jason (Reitman) and that you were able to be a lot more involved than screenwriters often are with films.

DC: I was so incredibly lucky, I had such a wonderful experience on this film, and I'm spoiled for life. Writers usually completely get the shaft. They're kept on the perimeter for a reason. That's the way it goes. And I say I've been spoiled. If I ever collaborate with another director again I cannot imagine it will be this inclusive, this positive. Every time I speak with Jason I am amazed that we're the same age – and I mean that in a completely reverant way. He is just a person you meet and you can immediately trust him. Totally non-pretentious. I always say that, you know, I am a much bigger douchebag than Jason. And I come from a middle-class upbringing in Chicago, and I certainly have a much bigger entitlement complex that he does. He's a family man, I admire him in many ways. He was a great influence on me.

Cinematical: So in the process of filming Juno, he let you have input on the set?

DC: Absolutely, that was important to him – he felt that the script was so specific, that the person who wrote it simply had to be involved.

Cinematical: How did he get it?

DC: It really made the rounds, that script was all over Hollywood, I think everyone read it. My manager read it, he wasn't, you know, how do I say this? I love my manager so much ... he was realistic. He was like, you know, there are some people who might like this. And the response was surprising, we sold it pretty quickly. And there was another director on it for a bit (Brad Silberling), who is a wonderful guy and a great director. But that didn't work out, so Jason ended up coming in right away, he'd been watching the project and he came right on. And it was a great decision.

I'm really happy with how the film came out – the film! (laughs) I don't usually talk like that. The CINEMA! No, really. The movie is everything I wanted it to be. There's not a single line of dialog, nothing that sticks in my craw. And usually I'm such a perfectionist about my work, but with this film, I allow myself to love it, because I think of it as Jason's baby.

Cinematical: What are you working on next?

DC: I'm doing this pilot for a Showtime series, Steven Spielberg is exec-producing it, it's a dark comedy, about a woman with multiple personalities. It's called the United States of Tara.

Cinematical: Other movie scripts in the works?

Yeah, I've written a lot since Juno, I'm sitting on a few spec scripts. I have a script over at Groundswell called Time-and-a Half that's a generational, working stiffs kind of comedy. I was sort of inspired by films like Reality Bites, those films that defined "Generation X." I'm a little overripe to be writing about that age, the characters I'm writing about are 23, 24 ... but I'm fascinated by that period in life when you've just gotten out of college.

anyone else see the banner ads for this around the internet? looks like they're basing their whole marketing campaign around michael cera after the success of superbad, but isn't he hardly in the movie?

Quote from: ddiggler6280 on September 28, 2007, 12:46:40 PM
anyone else see the banner ads for this around the internet? looks like they're basing their whole marketing campaign around michael cera after the success of superbad, but isn't he hardly in the movie?

yes!

Fox Searchlight Screenings:

http://rsvp.foxsearchlight.com/RSVPSystem/screenings.php?MoviesId=55 (http://rsvp.foxsearchlight.com/RSVPSystem/screenings.php?MoviesId=55)

Went to the screening last night. This film is absolutely wonderful. And in a way it addresses and answers problems with contemporary films. You might lump these into 'indie' films, but they aren't always. It's the modern tone and style and treatment of characters and dialogue.

The most striking thing about the film (besides the acting, which is just fantastic) is the dialogue. The dialogue has a distinctive rhythm and slang that doesn't really exist outside of the film, but as I explained to my friend, the playful language lifts the film from it's fairly depressing plotline (a younger version of Knocked Up). The dialogue could easily kill the film, but it works, and I think Jason Reitman and the cast find the humor and the humanity in it and bring it to life.

Ellen Page might polarize some people. She's got this way of acting that lets you know she's acting, but then it's also very compelling. Kinda like Toshiro Mifune. Theatrical, to an extent, but then very human all the same. Michael Cera has developed his empathetic, shy character to perfection, and his most touching moments are in this film. And JK Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno's parents are fucking perfect, they are clever contradictions, embracing mundane existences but also having shrewd honesty and level-headedness that balances the eccentricity of their daughter. But you also kind of see where it came from.

Back to the style of the film, it features the hallmarks that one might see and slap a big 'indie' label on: the dialogue, animated titles (lord, how many movies feature the sort of hand-drawn style seen here, beit in the Royal Tenenbaums, or the posters of Junebug, Me and You and Everyone We Know), awkward high schoolers (christ, Rushmore, Napoleon Dynamite (there's even a character that completely apes Napoleon for about 15 seconds and is never seen again)), the music (is it The Moldy Peaches?), the list goes on.

However, in featuring these elements of modern film, Juno "answers" how these are used. The music doesn't merely line the background of the film with a unique or kitschy sound, it's an integral part of the storytelling. Likewise the dialogue goes beyond the talk of Tarantino or Kevin Smith, who indulge in their own tangents or add verbal flair for the sake of it. Granted, there's nothing too wrong with how they use it, but Juno again offers an alternative to how and why it is used. It's closer to Miller's Crossing than any other film, in this regard, because the language is, or at least feels, completely unique to this universe. It doesn't make feign stabs at poetry, but uses language primarily for comedy. My friend and I noticed that almost every single bit of dialogue is funny, but the film stops the dialogue and takes time for poignant moments, when Juno runs into Vanessa in the mall for instance.

In short, the end had me crying, I belly laughed throughout the whole thing, and I really loved every minute of it.

I know very well the kind of experience you had with the film and I hope I have it too.  It sounds like all the ingredients are here.

it sounds more like the film somehow miraculously succeeds DESPITE itself. huge chunks of your review could be read as negative, and then you go and cut it huge amounts of slack. i'll have to see it.

i accepted Me And You And Everyone We Know for all its similar qualities. and w/o horse rejected Squid for same, so i don't know why he's hopeful.

Quote from: Pubrick on October 31, 2007, 09:13:38 PM
it sounds more like the film somehow miraculously succeeds DESPITE itself. huge chunks of your review could be read as negative, and then you go and cut it huge amounts of slack. i'll have to see it.

i accepted Me And You And Everyone We Know for all its similar qualities. and w/o horse rejected Squid for same, so i don't know why he's hopeful.

It's not so much cutting it slack, rather the film seems to take on the challenge of featuring these characteristics that could be very annoying, played out, or cliche by now, and shows, maybe proves, that they all can be salvaged and meaningful. In a way, the film chooses to ride this line between nuisance and brilliance and shows it has balls (long balls).

And you provide a good example, I hated Me and You, though many seem to love it the same way I love Juno. Do you ever think if you saw a certain movie on a different day you would have a completely different opinion of it? I feel that way sometimes. With Juno, I just fell in love with these characters. I bet Rocket Science would fall into this category of the adolescent art film, but I didn't see it.

I only really started to settle into Juno about halfway-in when the 'cleverness' of the dialogue subsided enough for me to properly appreciate the interaction of the characters. Perhaps this was just me becoming accustomed to Ellen Page's (and the script's) styling because by the end I had genuinely warmed to her character. It's hard to relate her to an everyday reality because she is supposed to be a unique teenager but certainly her dramatic scenes strip away the unnaturally cooler-than-thou vernacular and make Juno a much more interesting character than you'd expect.

Quote from: GamblorIn a way, the film chooses to ride this line between nuisance and brilliance and shows it has balls (long balls).

I think you may be right but I need a second viewing to make sure it isn't leaning to the former too much.

Jason Bateman came off as the funniest performance to me as well as showing some dramatic range that I haven't even seen him ever attempt (at least not since Teen Wolf 2).

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Quote from: Redlum on November 01, 2007, 09:52:19 AM
Jason Bateman came off as the funniest performance to me as well as showing some dramatic range that I haven't even seen him ever attempt (at least not since Teen Wolf 2).

See, I dunno, his performance was just appropriately funny (Cera steals funniest performance, or maybe Juno's parents), but his dramatic range? I wasn't terribly convinced. It wasn't anything unlike what we've seen on AD.

Quote from: Pubrick on October 31, 2007, 09:13:38 PM
it sounds more like the film somehow miraculously succeeds DESPITE itself. huge chunks of your review could be read as negative, and then you go and cut it huge amounts of slack. i'll have to see it.

i accepted Me And You And Everyone We Know for all its similar qualities. and w/o horse rejected Squid for same, so i don't know why he's hopeful.

I was thinking Little Miss.  Which I liked.

I was supposed to be going to a screening of this last night. I got my free preview ticket from Fox Searchlight, and headed off to the cinema, only to be told there was no preview there. So I don't know who messed up, but I wasn't too happy. Fortunately the manager there was really good and gave me free tickets to see another film instead. Apparently they do have a preview but not until December and the writers and director will be doing a Q&A.

Sleepless...If the theatre you were referring to was the Magnolia then that manager was none other than myself (small world.) I'm actually the Dallas PR person for Landmark but no need to split hairs. The Q&A screening will be on Thursday December 6th at 8pm and will feature Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. I will put you on the pass list so just go ahead and show up that night and ask for Clayton. How's that for theatre service??? I think what happened was that Fox was going to book a screening here but since a film festival started last night we couldn't accommodate and they moved it to the Angelika but obviously not before they sent some passes out listing the Mag as the venue. Sorry for the inconvenience but it's always nice to meet a fellow Xixaxer and not even realize it.

whoa fellow landmark slave!  I used to be one!  paper tickets!

I was the same as Redlum. The first 15 or so minutes were almost unbearable for me. The quirky dialogue was way overdone in the beginning, but eventually it becomes part of the characters instead of a way to squeeze in a silly cameo by Rainn Wilson. I agree with a lot of what Gamblour said. I went into the screening expecting to be entertained for two hours by a film pretty much like all of the quirky "indie" films of the last 5 or so years that Gamblour listed, but it ended up exceeding those expectations. The way the characters speak in the film is kind of unnatural and unique to the world of the story, but it exists as a kind of shorthand that Juno uses to communicate with her friends and family. Bateman and Garner's characters don't speak that way because they're removed from her world. The dialogue works best in the scenes where Juno talks to them because it serves to show how contained and naive she is and how she's definitely not ready to have a kid. The language also speaks to the way that a lot of people today seem apprehensive towards honesty, masking everything they with a thick layer of apathy and sarcasm. This is very apparent in a lot of contemporary films, especially comedies (see Superbad). In Juno, that kind of language isn't just the screenwriter being afraid to come off as corny and sentimental, it's her characters feeling that way. And in the end, for me, the film is about these characters trying to break that barrier and learn to communicate with each other honestly. And it's great.

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Off the Stripper Pole and Into the Movies
By DAVID CARR; New York Times

IF you are a fan of the indie version of the human drama, it would be tough to top the one about the plucky Midwestern girl who used a stripper pole to shimmy her way up and out of a drab office cubicle and grab her piece of the Hollywood dream.

A few years ago, Brook Busey-Hunt was typing copy at a Minneapolis advertising agency and walked by the Skyway Lounge, a skeevy strip bar where desiccated women grind out a living a dollar at a time. Good Catholic girl that she was, Ms. Busey-Hunt saw an ad for amateur night and had a naughty epiphany. And the rest is, well, a stage name, a blog, a book and a screenwriting career.

Now named Diablo Cody, she wrote a screenplay that became "Juno," a film directed by Jason Reitman set for release by Fox Searchlight on Wednesday. The story of a maniacally verbal 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant and decides to give the baby to a childless couple, "Juno" is on most every short list for an Oscar for original screenplay.

Sitting recently at the Rainbow, a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles draped in rock history, Ms. Cody, 29, did not pretend that her life was anything other than a fairy tale, albeit one where the role of the glass slippers is played by a pair of stripper's stilettos.

"You make this really unexpected, half-cocked decision and all of a sudden it creates this weird energy that turns into something else," she said during lunch. A self-described geek who had led a very insular life, she said that getting naked for strangers was her version of self-improvement, a way of transgressing her upbringing and opening up other doors. Unlike many strippers who resemble balloon smugglers with very large hair, Ms. Cody is a crisscross of tattoos and post-punk fashion, sort of Suicide Girl meets Riot Grrrl.

Those trips down dimly lighted runways, followed by a short stint as a phone-sex worker — "You have to convince them that your parents don't know you are on the phone and that you are just aching to get with your physics teacher" — became an unmentionably titled blog. Mason Novick, a talent manager from Benderspink, a Los Angeles agency, came across the blog and eventually put her in touch with a New York literary agent, who sold "Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper," which was published in 2005. Mr. Novick suggested she give screenwriting a crack, and she bought a copy of the "Ghost World" screenplay so she could correctly format what became "Juno."

The movie has all the hallmarks of an art-house film — endlessly quirky dialogue with a soundtrack to match — but contains an old-fashioned moral center. At a time when many films about teenagers are a mess of machinations and hookups, "Juno" ends in a very tender hug.

Ellen Page, the young Canadian actress who starred in "Hard Candy," plays Juno, a teenager who can't get through a sentence without coining a metaphor. Juno becomes pregnant after a single sexual experiment born of ennui and friendship, and proceeds to waddle her increasing heft through the rest of the film while using her mouth as a plaything and weapon.

In one instance she turns it on Michael Cera (from "Superbad"), who plays her so-geeky-he's-sweet boyfriend. When she finds out he is going to the prom with a girl he admits "smells like soup," she is livid and trapped. "I am wearing a fat suit I can't take off. I am a planet," Juno says, a huge belly protruding under her vintage T-shirt.

Apart from the pregnancy, the character is heavily autobiographical, with her thrift-store fashions and kitschy taste; Ms. Cody's beloved hamburger phone gets a cameo. And like Juno, Ms. Cody has an ability to capture the human transaction between genders and generations. In Ms. Cody's case, she understands the nature of the compact between the demanding lout with a dollar in his hand and his objectified temporary fantasy. Stripping, she wrote in her memoir, required her to "bounce like the phantom cheerleader in the vault of every man's memory."

Ms. Cody smiles plenty, but she is all done preening for the benefit of others. She now prefers creating characters on the page as opposed to the stage. Especially after her first script fell into such eager, talented hands.

Her new life may not always be so sweet, but the work is plentiful. Her future includes another book; a pilot for a series about a woman with multiple personalities called "The United States of Tara," which was conceived by Steven Spielberg for Showtime; and several more features. (The Hollywood writers' strike, however, has put a temporary hold on her movie and television work.)

"I have never been an ambitious person, and my participation in this industry is a fluke, but only male writers can afford to be coy and self-deprecating," she said, her hand absently stroking a Hello Kitty necklace. ("Tarina Tarantino. I bought it for $75 at a trashy mall in the Valley. I bought $220 jeans that same day and my cheeks burned with shame.")

"I plan on hanging on to my soul, but I am not precious about writing," she added. "I am here to work and make money."

Mr. Reitman said Ms. Cody would do just fine in Hollywood.

"Just look at the name she chose for herself," he said. "Yes, this is a fairy tale, but she is going to jump on every opportunity that comes her way. Her writing is both original and real, which is very rare in Hollywood."

The blowback from such immediate success did not take long to materialize, including a suggestion by Rob Nelson, a hometown film critic who once edited her newspaper work, that she is a self-conjured confection. "It's as if the kid wrote her own Wikipedia entry before living it," he wrote in The Rake, a Minneapolis monthly.

While Ms. Cody said she was enjoying the success of "Juno," the criticism can sting. "Stripping toughened my hide," she said, "but exposing myself as a writer has been a lot more brutal."

Her hair may be a riot of colors — red is usually featured, but it can change almost depending on her mood — and she may have once made a living letting it fall in the faces of her lap-dance clients. But Ms. Cody has mastered the fan dancer's art of showing much and revealing little.

"I'm totally a person who hides in plain sight," she said. "I think there's a lot written about me being totally candid and outrageous, when I'm actually pretty cagey."

Part of the mystique came from an appearance promoting her book on "Late Show With David Letterman," during which she referred to herself as the "naked Margaret Mead." She went on to assert, "Everything is prostitution in a way."

As with her history as a do-me feminist, she makes no apologies for what she said. "I actually think everything is prostitution. We're kind of constantly bartering with our dignity in life," she wrote in an e-mail message after the lunch, adding that she always thought it was hilarious when strippers would draw the line at certain activities. "Same goes for people's ideas, talents, emotions, etc. There's a price on everything."

Michael Tortorello, who edited her when she brought her blog and writing to City Pages, an alternative paper in Minneapolis, senses a mixture of honesty and artifice in her transformation from Brook to Diablo.

"My impression is that once she started blogging and writing, it was if somebody popped a cork on a Champagne bottle and it has not stopped overflowing since," Mr. Tortorello said. "She is a sweet and honest person, but there is also a mythology, a kind of self-invention by someone who grew up in suburban Chicago."

Ms. Cody, who just moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Jonny, a graphic designer, has ambitions beyond writing. She said she would like to direct at some point, partly because she loathes the way women are portrayed in most contemporary films.

"The attitude toward women in this industry is nauseating," she said. "There are all sorts of porcine executives who are uncomfortable with a woman doing anything subversive. They want the movie about the beautiful girl who trip and falls, the adorable klutz."

Ms. Cody, who said she was less than graceful when she first went to work as a stripper, has her boots pretty firmly planted on the ineffable terrain of Hollywood.

"Obviously this is a very image-conscious industry, and I have mine to contend with," she said. "I answer a lot of questions in meetings here other people probably aren't asked.

"I show a little leg. But of course I am speaking metaphorically."

It's a little tough to justify how much I liked this movie, but all I can say is that it made me really happy, from start to finish.  Maybe that makes me a 14-year-old Julie Taymor fan, but screw it.  I liked it a lot.  Maybe I'll try justifying that a little bit later, when I've had more time to think about it.

There is nothing JulieTaymorfanish about it. It's an incredibly lovely film that left me crying and desperately wanting to see it again.

During the pre-credits sequence I was thinking, "what the fuck is this," since the dialogue was too clever by half (especially Rainn Wilson's) but I really liked the rest of the film.  The adoption story was well-done.  You think you know what its going to be about but it turns out to be something else.  Top-notch acting. 

Factoid: Ellen Page has it in her contract that she has to wear a red hoodie in all her films.

I got a "Most Fruitful Yuki" t-shirt at the preview screening I went to.

i'd probably know by seeing it a second time but somebody please refresh my memory: which song plays over the opening credits?

Quote from: Cinephile on December 18, 2007, 10:55:46 AM
i'd probably know by seeing it a second time but somebody please refresh my memory: which song plays over the opening credits?

All I Want Is You -- Barry Louis Polisar

track 1 on the Juno Sntk.

This is a really sweet movie with extremely sharp writing. It made me laugh out loud and tear up and cry.

It made you cry? I was going to take my girlfriend to see this but I don't know anymore. Is Die Hard still playing ?

Quote from: Stefen on December 19, 2007, 08:54:10 PM
It made you cry? I was going to take my girlfriend to see this but I don't know anymore. Is Die Hard still playing ?

I also cried. A lot. Maybe act like you have to go to the bathroom and watch from the stairs/near the rear of the theater for the ending. It's a great cry.

SPOILERS
yeah, anyone who doesn't cry over Juno's death has a heart of stone.

motherfucker. did you fucking bold a massive spoiler? i've whited it. what the shit! how could you think people wouldn't see that. it was like

SPOILERS
i'm writing something very spoily!!!!!


FUCK. i hope you were spoofing spoilers.

Quote from: picolas on December 20, 2007, 01:58:01 AM
FUCK. i hope you were spoofing spoilers.

i think he was.

more than that, i havn't seen the movie but i think the main joke was to completely misrepresent the reason everyone was shedding tears. it was a good gag.

i don't think it's a spoiler to say this is a FEEL GOOD movie. it's sweet, it's life affirming. man movies are so easy to review without seeing them these days. this is why i usually don't bother. and why last year almost EVERY review of mine was a fake -- apocalypto, INLAND EMPIRE (twice), babel, heaps more -- to the point where ppl were agreeing with my points. i didn't even see babel until a month ago.

it's really simple. you just have to know what the movie is supposed to be about. what are its aims? the aims are easy to gather from the premise, the ppl involved, sometimes even the title. if it's a good movie it will follow its premise/hypothesis to some kind of insightful conclusion. if not, it will fail somewhere along the way and get to a muddled ending that has little to do with its original idea. if it has one. a good movie gives you a chunk of rock and tells you there's gold inside and you're gonna get to it by the end. a good ending is shiny and pure and reveals a truth that can be traced all the way to the start.

Juno is no exception, it's an oddly precocious film that aims to put you in the shoes of someone forced to mature earlier than most ppl. is it about dumb kids? me and you and everyone we know was mature about child sexuality, because the film itself was from an innocent perspective it wasn't creepy or lecherous like it would be in the hands of larry clark. likewise this film is PROBABLY about a girl who "stays ahead of the game" despite the odds against her. the motto could be: "ain't no shame ladies do your thang." it's empowering and sweet because that's what diablo cody has always presented of herself.

i misjudge movies sometimes. but it seems nowhere near as often as everyone else. you're all wrong about speed racer right now.

after googling some terms i think there's an excellent chance that wasn't a true spoiler. i'm clearly very high-strung about spoilers right now due to twbb. sorry for not getting the gag :doh:

it wasnt a very good gag anyway... SIDs should never be joked about, cine...

Diablo Cody is still a piece of shit.

Her script delivered a masssively overpraised, if not above average, sitcom.

Jason Reitman's directing, however, has grown increasingly solid.

He pulled tender, genuine moments from silence - and delivered clever shots and set pieces without being overly quirky.

I feel like I am now very excited to see whatever Reitman does next. I also want to see Jason Bateman again, very soon.

ebert has lost his fucking mind. diablo cody should not win a single award. her script absolutely kills this movie.

nobody can deliver these lines without sounding stupid. the witty exchanges between the characters just don't make sense in the context of the story. rainn wilson's useless cameo is only the tip of the iceberg. it cripples almost every scene. this is exactly why the best parts in Juno are NOT FUNNY: the characters speak and relate to each other like actual human beings instead of quirky movie characters. there's truth in their behavior. the most affecting moments have no dialogue at all. although reitman is a competent director and the performances are excellent, it's not enough to save the movie.

Quote from: Gamblour. on October 31, 2007, 10:50:16 PM
And you provide a good example, I hated Me and You, though many seem to love it the same way I love Juno.

Juno is NOTHING like Me and You and Everyone We Know. me and you is unique. it truly exists in its own world, in miranda july's world. it's not trying to be indie-quirky. if anything, its "quirky" qualities complement its meaning rather than suffocate the shit out of it.

there's good stuff in this movie. there's potential. too bad.

I think everything that is wrong with this film can be distilled from that one line of dialogue. The quiet moments in this film do play really well and Jennifer Garner blew me away but it wasn't enough to make up for lines such as the above.

Quote from: Hedwig on December 22, 2007, 07:28:46 PM
ebert has lost his fucking mind. diablo cody should not win a single award. her script absolutely kills this movie.

nobody can deliver these lines without sounding stupid. the witty exchanges between the characters just don't make sense in the context of the story. rainn wilson's useless cameo is only the tip of the iceberg. it cripples almost every scene. this is exactly why the best parts in Juno are NOT FUNNY: the characters speak and relate to each other like actual human beings instead of quirky movie characters. there's truth in their behavior. the most affecting moments have no dialogue at all. although reitman is a competent director and the performances are excellent, it's not enough to save the movie.

The dialogue worked for me on a similar level as Brick's did, where it is not actual speech, it bears no resemblance to actual speech, but it creates a stylized story world in which it becomes actual speech.  A lot of people talk about the first scene, with Rainn Wilson, and how the dialogue was so stylized at that point, but they liked it after that.  I think that was intentional to a large degree, where Cody and Reitman knew that they would be throwing people into this world of unrealistically clever characters, so they hit you with it full force at the beginning, like teaching you to swim by throwing you in the lake.  And, of course, much like Brick, there are going to be a fair number of people who just can't stay afloat with it, and the movie loses them.  It's a shame, only because when you love a movie you want everyone else to love it the same way, but I know that's an unreasonable thing to expect.

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 08:05:59 PM
The dialogue worked for me on a similar level as Brick's did,

HOLY SHIT. i take back my faux positive review. that right there is the worst thing anyone has said about this movie and what's worse is you think it's a compliment! i still hope it's more Me and You and less Brick but i've been ignoring all the signs. 1. ebert liked it. 2. cinephile liked it. and now 3. the dialouge is as ridiculous and laughable as BRICK. jesus christ.

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 08:05:59 PM
And, of course, much like Brick, there are going to be a fair number of people who just can't stay afloat with it

haha., ohhhhh yeah, poor little old me drowning cos i couldn't "stay afloat" in the great depth of Brick's dialogue. if anything i couldn't stand the LACK of depth and shitty spectacle of the whole thing. it was less than a kiddy pool. it was a baby flailing about in a puddle pretending it was a kiddy pool. the FILM was out of its depth and tried to make up for it by relying on a gimmick, because a useless convoluted plot that meant nothing wasn't enuff. and everyone is SOoooo clever for being "in" on it. what? are hedwig, alexandro, and i the only ppl who survived the invasion of the Brainspawn? Brick was like a radioactive mutation of a kevin smith movie.

we talk about "us" and "them".. ppl who hate Boondock Saints and those who love it. the assholes and those who like asshole movies but for different reasons. well this year we establish the NEW kind of asshole. the indie asshole who falls for these movies against their better judgment, because it's easier to pretend something that uses big words is smart than to try to see beyond it. just like some ppl here with otherwise good taste fell for Crash. still, i hope there is something beyond the dialogue in Juno.

oh, i havn't seen the movie, so if this bothers you on principle pretend it was either another (more accurate) faux review or that it was about Brick. god, i hate brick.

Wow.  Did I just run over your cat or something?

no, i ran over his cat. which is why i'm listed as #2 before you.

also, here's the footage:

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CueBrick haterz.

uh.. i don't get that last one.

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 10:02:14 PM
Wow.  Did I just run over your cat or something?

my cat disappeared three years ago without a trace, so if you did run her over i would be happy as i would finally know what happened. i would only be pissed off if you were watching Brick on your iPhone and that's why you ran over my cat.

I haven't seen Juno, but it doesn't look like it will be Brick. The characters in Brick were 40s noir monotone. They had no existence outside of the cliches they were mimicking. Juno looks like it has the typical indie irreverence to it, but nothing more. The previews made me think of Garden State a lot more.

I didn't like Garden State or Brick, but I rather this movie be like Garden State.

I wasn't going to post a serious response to this, but at the very least I want to state that I wasn't trying to imply that people who don't like Brick or Juno are stupid or "didn't get it" or anything condescending like that.  I was actually trying to make the point that it's perfectly valid for people not to buy into the central gimmick of the dialogue, and that whether one does so or not is primarily a matter of personal taste.  That didn't come across because of sloppy writing on my part.

And Pubrick, are you comparing people who liked Brick with people who like Boondock Saints or Crash?  Do you honestly believe it's on a par with those movies?

jesus christ. guys.. juno is neither brick or garden state. it's fucking juno.

goodnight.

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 10:24:02 PM
And Pubrick, are you comparing people who liked Brick with people who like Boondock Saints or Crash?  Do you honestly believe it's on a par with those movies?

Crash has decent direction and a few good moments.

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on December 22, 2007, 10:25:13 PM

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 10:24:02 PM
And Pubrick, are you comparing people who liked Brick with people who like Boondock Saints or Crash?  Do you honestly believe it's on a par with those movies?

Crash has decent direction and a few good moments.

No question.  But the problem with Crash is a problem of intent versus execution.  It's a movie that tries to make profound points about important issues, yet consistently demonstrates an utter lack of either insight or understanding of those issues.

Brick, on the other hand, is a movie that tries to be a modern twist on a Chandler-esque film noir, and it does that.

And cine's right, Juno is none of these movies.  It is itself.  Whatever anyone thinks of Brick should have no bearings on their opinion of Juno, so I apologize for bringing it up.

many scenes reminded me of garden state. the rainn wilson cameo and the fucking horrible truly dreadful actor who was doing a straight imitation of napoleon dynamite were like those characters in garden state who popped up just to be quirky and funny and then VANISHED. they add nothing to the movie. there's even a scene where jason bateman urges juno to listen to sonic youth's superstar the same way natalie potman makes zach braff listen to the shins.

juno had moments of tenderness, and ellen paige, whereas garden state had trite speeches about LIFE, and zach braff. so i'd rather be watching juno.

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 10:30:22 PM

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on December 22, 2007, 10:25:13 PM

Quote from: polkablues on December 22, 2007, 10:24:02 PM
And Pubrick, are you comparing people who liked Brick with people who like Boondock Saints or Crash?  Do you honestly believe it's on a par with those movies?

Crash has decent direction and a few good moments.

No question.  But the problem with Crash is a problem of intent versus execution.  It's a movie that tries to make profound points about important issues, yet consistently demonstrates an utter lack of either insight or understanding of those issues.

Brick, on the other hand, is a movie that tries to be a modern twist on a Chandler-esque film noir, and it does that.

But I gotta think what Brick does is even noteworthy. I think if the film took itself less seriously and had more fun with the references it would have been something. It's almost sinful to start shooting shots that are Antonioni-esque for a high school noir film.

whats up with folks shitting on juno lovers without even seeing it?  it's okay for a post or two, but whats up with these juno shitters keep on turning the conversation into the shitty movies they've seen in the past?  if you wanna shit on brick, go to the brick thread.  this a=b=c shitting is baffling.
I guess I'm shitting on the shitting.  meta it up, I don't care.

I don't even wanna see this anymore.

Sounds like The Boondock Saints.

its napoleon dynamite meets garden state meets junior.

Yeah, fuck, I didn't realize so many members of the Catholic League post here. See Juno first, then make apples to oranges comparisons.

(although Hedwig's comparisons to Garden State were pretty insightful, but some stuff is more a matter of being done well or not. like the shins/sonic youth thing. In Juno it's done well and reasonably, not arrogantly)

yeah but don't listen to hedwig though.. cause like ebert, he's LOST IT.

Quote from: Cinephile on December 22, 2007, 11:08:52 PM
yeah but don't listen to hedwig though.. cause like ebert, he's LOST IT.

what, my mouth?

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Poor Ebert... the jaw was the source of all his powers.

Quote from: pete on December 22, 2007, 10:40:16 PM
it's okay for a post or two, but whats up with these juno shitters keep on turning the conversation into the shitty movies they've seen in the past?  if you wanna shit on brick, go to the brick thread. 

Let me guess, you oppose the brick bashing just because you like it? I've never seen you so concerned about thread logistics before.

i propose renaming this thread to jawno. (as in "jaw? no.")

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's not start throwing around ugly stereotypes!

i know, someone's gonna lose their jaw.

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on December 22, 2007, 11:41:04 PM

Quote from: pete on December 22, 2007, 10:40:16 PM
it's okay for a post or two, but whats up with these juno shitters keep on turning the conversation into the shitty movies they've seen in the past?  if you wanna shit on brick, go to the brick thread.

Let me guess, you oppose the brick bashing just because you like it? I've never seen you so concerned about thread logistics before.

haha, actually I'm opposing it just to piss you off.
(and what do you mean never concerned?  you oughta check out that stupid thing about the movie thread.)

Quote from: Cinephile on December 22, 2007, 11:42:33 PM
i propose renaming this thread to jawno. (as in "jaw? no.")

if the catholic league kids keep on going, then we can rename it "jewno".

uh.. i don't get that last one.

You Juno what he means?

juno you fucked that up?

Not if you're Cuban and Al Pacino.

what the fuck

my jaw just dropped.

ok as not funny as this page is, let's see if we can get back on track before we run yet another thread into the ground.

i just saw this last night, and like polka i walked out genuinely happy. to me this is the little miss sunshine of the year in that it's a flawed movie almost too sweet to pick on, of course until you see ppl lobbying it as the best movie of the year, which it's not. then you're almost forced to pick on it.

Quote from: elpablo on November 09, 2007, 12:20:49 PMThe dialogue works best in the scenes where Juno talks to them because it serves to show how contained and naive she is and how she's definitely not ready to have a kid. The language also speaks to the way that a lot of people today seem apprehensive towards honesty, masking everything they with a thick layer of apathy and sarcasm.

yeah i would agree with this. granted there are definitely some cringe-inducing lines ("honest to blog" being the most cringey), and the cynic in me could probably tear apart the undeniably overwritten, self-indulgent script that screams "LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM" as it shoves its hipster doctrine down your throat, but i really don't want to do that, because there are some brilliant moments and some brilliant lines of dialogue, particularly towards the end, and maybe i'm just a sucker for honest, earned sentimentality, or maybe it's just the time of year, but at the end of the day it got me smiling and, as i already mentioned, i did walk out happy.   

all language bitching aside, i think the bigger issue is with length. like sunshine, i felt this was at least 3 scenes too short, and many scenes themselves felt truncated.

haha power was out here so i didn't get to follow the progression of this thread, but i too saw this last night and i'm with hedwig. 

i liked most of bateman's stuff. that was the most effective because it was, as hedwig pointed out, the most human.  if you guys want to make comparisons to little miss sunshine, then fine.. i had the same experience with this as i did that.  everybody was laughing, and i was not.  seriously, the one thing i really laughed at (something bateman said) NO ONE else seemed to find humorous.  during the movie, the girl i was with whispered into my hear "i think the writer is confused."  she was, and i was.

its a shame cos towards the end there are few endearing moments, but i knew i could never appreciate them.  they are weighed down so much by amateur writing. the story is a good one, and i don't think that any scene is unnecessary, its just most things within the scene. 

oh, i liked the mustache joke. 

Quote from: JG on December 23, 2007, 10:36:01 AM
seriously, the one thing i really laughed at (something bateman said) NO ONE else seemed to find humorous. 

Was this the "actually, that would be kicking it old-testament style" line, because I let out an embarrassingly lonesome, guffaw upon hearing this. 

funny, cause even in toronto with a packed house, 'honest to blog' received good laughs.

god, canadians, eh. fucking morons.

i saw this a 2nd time yesterday and took my sister and brother.  i still like it.   :yabbse-undecided:

Quote from: Redlum on November 01, 2007, 09:52:19 AM
I only really started to settle into Juno about halfway-in when the 'cleverness' of the dialogue subsided enough for me to properly appreciate the interaction of the characters. Perhaps this was just me becoming accustomed to Ellen Page's (and the script's) styling because by the end I had genuinely warmed to her character. It's hard to relate her to an everyday reality because she is supposed to be a unique teenager but certainly her dramatic scenes strip away the unnaturally cooler-than-thou vernacular and make Juno a much more interesting character than you'd expect.

This is exactly how I felt about the movie. 

That first half was a killer.  I kept thinking, "The script must look great on paper but in execution, it's just too overbearing."  Everyone keeps bringing up the "honest to blog" line, which must have been cute as hell when reading it but when delivered (and in particular when delivered in unison by the girl sitting in the row behind me - who must either own a screener, have full memory recall, or have seen the movie at least 10 times by now - proceeded to recite lines here and there throughout the entire movie... oh, yes, folks, there is a Juno cult out there), it's eye-rolling.  It's trapped somewhere between Clueless and the first day of a freshman film class where everyone is trying to think of the most obscure film they can tell everyone is their favorite.

But the second half is about as good as Ebert and company think it is, though the movie could have done with more Garner, and especially more JK Simmons and Alison Janney.  Each of them had one spectacular scene and that was it.  I know the movie is called Juno but I wanted more. SPOILERSFor example, we're never given much of a reason to side with Garner except that we discover, with Juno, that Bateman is a douchebag.END SPOILERS

I remember describing Little Miss Sunshine as "indie casserole" when defending my disappointment that it won Best Original Screenplay.  Juno sits better with me that LMS did and I don't begrudge anyone who really likes it but it's just too indie-cutesy (much like its soundtrack) for my tastes.

so yeah, I stand by my indie knock-up statement.  which I dunno, wasn't a bad thing.
thanks to all the kids that warned me about the movie's indie-ness on this board.  I went into it fairly indie-proof, and all the smart-mouthing just whizzed by without pain or itch.  the story was really sweet and I liked the turn the story took towards the end.  there were a few really good moments too, but I dunno, in the end it was just a nice way to spend two hours with your friends and I didn't walk away with much else.  I'll recommend it to my mom though.  I didn't love it like I loved little miss sunshine or me you and everyone we know.  but don't we usually have like a ton of these cute movies a year?  what happened this year?
I think my mom will like it.

i had the fortunate experience of spending the entire movie listening to a baby cry in the row behind me.

yes, people now think they should bring their infants to this film

that's funny, there was an infant in the theatre when i saw Knocked Up.

i guess it's a thing now to bring your baby along to any baby-related movies.

"oh honey, let's take little jimmy to the movies... how about LAKE OF FIRE?"

Quote from: JG on December 23, 2007, 10:36:01 AM
everybody was laughing, and i was not.

the girl who wrote this... now that's a Pathetic Stripper™

Why is everyone so focused on the fact that she was a stripper? Is anyone saying, "DDL's performance in TWBB is pretty good for a former cobbler's apprentice."?

Naah no worries it's just an inside joke tween me and the P

Quote from: Pas Rap on January 01, 2008, 10:51:21 AM
Naah no worries it's just an inside joke tween me and the P

Understood, but my point remains. I've heard legit (I guess, two dufuses recording a podcast) interviews where they preface Juno as their favorite script written by a former stripper this year. The interviewer sucked, by the way. "Ellen Page, what attracted you to this character?" UGH.

I absolutely adored this film.

The first half hour scared me into thinking all these characters would be extreme stereotypes with dialogue so cute it wouldn't sound realistic. But as the film progresses, everything settled down and the film turns really beautiful. The characters began to develop into people not far from the ones I've known in my own life. The screenwriter started going for geniune moments instead of dialogue that sounded like a handbook of phrases for indie hipsters.

But the most striking aspect are the performances which balance cynicism, warmth and humor. Ellen Page's lead performance makes the film in my opinion. After this and "Superbad", Michae Cera is developing into my favorite movie nerd. The relationship the two actors display on screen is the heart of this movie.

Until "There Will Be Blood" comes here, I'll end up seeing this several times.

Quote from: meatwad on December 30, 2007, 10:23:36 PM
i had the fortunate experience of spending the entire movie listening to a baby cry in the row behind me.

yes, people now think they should bring their infants to this film

I can beat that.  When I went to see I Am Legend in IMAX and some wastes of fucking human life brought their newborn to see it.  Like this kid was 3 weeks old at the oldest.  This little bastard couldn't even hold up his own head, not that if it could, it would justify his parents bringing him.  And with the seats being about 50-60 across, these assholes and us being in the middle, it was not particularly easy for any of us to get up and out to bitch, nor would it be easy for security to get in and escort these retards out with their crying child.  I'm starting a letter-writing campaign.

they could've been kicked out though... people are too nice to these babies.  :yabbse-undecided:

it seems like it all came from these very new parents who are still having illusions of maintaining some kind of fun and meaningful social life in spite of their deed.  they're probably desperate and helpless and they're going to the theaters to prove to themselves that they can still have fun.  then their babies start crying.  they pick movies like Knock Up and Juno because they want the movie to tell them that they did the right thing by keeping the kicking fetuses.  nah uh, you should tell them, once that thing comes out, you stay in.

Ugh. I HATE when people insist on bringing their kids to the movies. And they're always wearing those shirts that say "every child deserves a chance at life!" and the kids are just so fucking white you wanna shoot them in the face, and they're sitting in front of you just bobbing and weaving and sucking on a straw even though the only thing left is ice and it makes that loud *schlurrpprprprpp* sound.

Fuck going to the movies. That's why I download everything and watch it on my own tv.

Furthermore, the best audiences are white adults with negro babies and the worst audiences are negro adults with white babies.

Sheesh... late again, of course.

The bad outweighs the good on this one.  Good attempt at executing a really terrible screenplay.
The indie-quirk was obnoxious, but not as much as the Kevin Smith-like "every character speaks in the same voice" dialog.

It reminds me of when I first started writing jokes, I would try to cram as many "laughs" into each line as possible and it would end up over-crowding the rest of the joke and in the process, kill it.  It wasn't until I went back and erased the parts that were forced that the joke would regain focus and actually make people laugh.  The Juno dialog is crowded with shit that's just not necessary.  The problem is that if you went back into the screenplay and erased all the extraneous, tired, unfunny lines, you'd have a good twenty minute short film.

and there's no way it "looked good on paper".  I can't imagine getting more than ten pages into the screenplay without writing it off as a pathetic Kevin Smith wannabe piece of junk.  Luckily, with the movie, the actors add some warmth to the crap and make it tolerable to watch.

Quote from: Stefen on January 02, 2008, 01:26:14 PM
Furthermore, the best audiences are white adults with negro babies and the worst audiences are negro adults with white babies.

Are you talking about interracial adoption?

interracial sex, BC Long. white people and black people fornicating. i know that idea sounds crazy, but.. that's what he's talking about.

Xixax condones miscegenation!

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanrhetoric.com%2Fimages%2Fobrother4.JPG&hash=f14b50463c71673f6892e9a82c3f6f5ccac64eb7)

That'd be cool if Juno had her baby and it comes out black and in the back of the theater you hear a loud "Oh, hell no!"

spoilers......

I was very tunnel vision about this film. I didn't give much thought to the composition of the film. It became apparent early on that I fucking hated the character Juno and that's all that was going to inspire me.

I also don't feel I am very far off for taking that objective. The main thing the film wants you to do is believe in the legitimacy of this character. The film is no different than a soap opera in that the desired reaction is you cry with the character when she does. The film just takes offbeat ways to do it. To begin my Juno rant, most people criticized the dialogue because it was too cute and stylistic. I didn't mind most of the dialogue because the mini Juno's I know all try to be just as clever and irreverant as she is. These girls even fucking dress and look like her so I thought it was a good portrayal. I already know a lot of guys who think her character is something to idolize as the perfect girl, but it's just all bullshit because Juno is not an intelligent person. She is an arrogant, snot nosed fucking kid who likely has a history of mental illness to be as fucked up as she is. 

Juno is fucking crazy. She has a sketchy idea of art based on coolness. There is nothing wrong with that, but she is a little fucking militant about giving everyone else shit for their taste. The initial scenes with Jason Bateman where they both criticize each other's taste of music wasn't just them getting to know each other. For all the little Juno's it's a way of life. They just like that you call them indie kids. Indie kids continually hammer anyone else who likes something different. If the idea that the combativeness is cute because it shows the girl is spirited it ends up getting old really fucking quick because it never fucking ends.

Juno didn't discover herself either. She didn't realize at the end she was a fucking retard. She just realized you have to be with the person you are most compatible to be with. A quiet scene ends with her and Cerna playing music, but he's a fucking tool to think she will just all of a sudden become worry free. He only shows her that he can be walked on and still be OK to take her back. She was giving him shit for stupid stuff earlier and she'll do it again when it's conveniant. Personal arrogance doesn't just go away for these morons.

The film definitely hit a personal nerve and I allowed it to take over my experience of the film, but I believe I had the right. Your experience has to guide you through movies and this film is make believe for the bullshit it assumes about Juno. I've distrusted some artsy circles because of both men and women that are like Juno. I know gay people who cannot enjoy a moment of Altman's MASH because of its insane ideas. The film tries to appease with jokes and cute characterizations but the main thing it asks is that you believe in the character as a redeeming character. I think a film could be made about a girl similar to her, but it has to be done in a totally different context.

a character like Juno raped GT's mother.

Quote from: modage on January 03, 2008, 02:20:04 PM
a character like Juno raped GT's mother.

not a good subject for jokes.

modage ran over GT's cat.

Quote from: polkablues on January 03, 2008, 10:25:33 PM
modage ran over GT's cat.

Jesus, first the rape comment hit a sore spot and now you give me a cat comment when both of my cats were killed a few months ago.

Haha, man I hope you're joking, because that is really funny.

No! They were killed by two large dogs. One was mangled on my porch and my brother was able to scare the dogs away and drag the body into the house where it died. The other cat immediately ran to a neighor's house where he thought they would let him in. Because it was late at night they didn't hear him crying and the dogs found him and killed him too. The girl of that house found the body the next morning and she had to be restrained from hysterics by the police because the body was so mangled. We wrapped both bodies in carpets and bags to adaquately bury them.

It's still a bad subject for all of us.

ok try this one.

modage took a dump in a paper bag, polky lit it, and gamblour put it on GT's doorstep.

oh, and i knocked on his door.

Quote from: Pubrick on January 03, 2008, 10:52:23 PM
ok try this one.

modage took a dump in a paper bag, polky lit it, and gamblour put it on GT's doorstep.

beautiful. the best memory of billy madison served right there.

my mother was raped by a dump in a paper bag.  :yabbse-angry:

Quote from: modage on January 03, 2008, 11:00:36 PM
my mother was raped by a dump in a paper bag.  :yabbse-angry:

It was my dump.  :doh:

This thread will be better than the actual movie if I ever see it.

It already is.  But to digress for a moment...

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on January 03, 2008, 02:08:35 PM
spoilers......

Juno didn't discover herself either. She didn't realize at the end she was a fucking retard. She just realized you have to be with the person you are most compatible to be with. A quiet scene ends with her and Cerna playing music, but he's a fucking tool to think she will just all of a sudden become worry free.

MORE SPOILERS

Yeah, I'm actually going to have to retract my statement that this sat better with me than Little Miss Sunshine.  The more I've thought about it, the less slack I'm willing to give it.  I wanted to like this movie so much that I glossed over the very end because it picked up after the halfway point.  But it's been bugging me that she gives the baby to Jennifer Garner, she and Michael Cera have a little cry and then they're back to their old dynamic again in the next scene.  I have a friend who gave up her baby for adoption and it really devastated her; it still affects her now, several years after the fact.  I'm not saying that everyone will react that exact way or that Juno should have ended on a down note but GT is 100% right, there's no growth.  You're never the same person after going through something like that but Juno seems to be back to business as usual afterwards, or at least we never see that she has changed.  Playing a song with her boyfriend just isn't enough for me.  I'm all for an upbeat ending but don't be disingenuous about it.

way to take a dump in the thread sparrow.

I only did it so I could rape a paper bag with it later.

man, this really pissed me off. from the zach braff-style hipster name dropping bullshit to the constant attempt to cram in as many zingers as possible in every single scene, i just kept getting more and more annoyed. i mean, shit, a 16 year old announces her pregnancy, and every character in the scene takes turns dropping zany one-liners like it's a fucking abbott and costello routine. and every damn character told exactly the same joke in the same style with the same voice. what completely amateurish screenwriting.

it's too bad too, because if 75% of the yuks would have been taken out, i think it may have worked.

also, i really hate girls that act like juno.

Sexism continues...

Variety's Peter Bart Asks Diablo Cody When She'll "Be A Normal Woman and Have Children"

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/01/06/varietys-peter-bart-asks-diablo-cody-when-shell-be-a-normal-w/

Diablo Cody: Still a piece of shit.

I was seeing that woman everywhere and it wasn't until just NOW I realized she's famous for writing this movie.

I keep hearing the screenplay is terrible so maybe she should just have kids and become a housewife. Once she's out of her 20's no man will want her.

SPOILERS

did garner's placement of the note (with juno's name on it and her family's payment info on the back) over the baby's bed hint at the possibility of an open adoption after all? that has a little to do with me liking the end.

Quote from: reinhold on January 11, 2008, 11:39:58 AM
SPOILERS

did garner's placement of the note (with juno's name on it and her family's payment info on the back) over the baby's bed hint at the possibility of an open adoption after all? that has a little to do with me liking the end.

Doubtful. It would go against the fact that Juno says the baby wasn't hers and that she and her bf had no interest to see it afterwards. I think the placement of the note was a small error by the writer.

I re-watched some of Ghost World yesterday and it put Juno into some kind of perspective for me. Give me Enid over Juno, any day.

Then I just read that Brad Renfro (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7191145.stm) has been found dead and now I'm really sad and disturbed.

Quote from: Redlum on January 16, 2008, 04:52:53 AM
I re-watched some of Ghost World yesterday and it put Juno into some kind of perspective for me. Give me Enid over Juno, any day.

Interesting you bring up Ghost World, because I brought it up to a friend regarding problems I had with the style of Juno.  Ghost World and Juno both have protagonists who are teenage girls with obscure tastes and a dislike of their suburban surroundings.  But the dialogue of GW was not constantly referencing music and movies and Terry Zwigoff didn't stuff the soundtrack with a bunch of hipstery songs.

I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that GW is the superior flick. While Juno may get the coin, GW get's the respect.

Juno to me reminds me of movies like Napoleon Dynamite. The type of movies where your average jerkoff can watch it and feel intelligent and indie. Like they're part of the cool club who "gets" weird and quirky movies. Movies like Juno are made for people like Juno.

Quote from: Stefen on January 16, 2008, 03:41:27 PM
Juno to me reminds me of movies like Napoleon Dynamite. The type of movies where your average jerkoff can watch it and feel intelligent and indie. Like they're part of the cool club who "gets" weird and quirky movies. Movies like Juno are made for people like Juno.

As opposed to all the people who feel like they're part of the cool club by taking part in the backlash against movies like Juno.  People can enjoy this movie and be invested in the characters without it being some sort of statement on their hipsterism.  Sometimes it's okay to just like something.

I actually didn't care for Ghost World at all.  It was easy for me to overlook something like Juno's coolness, 'cause it was a good story with a good point of view and even a good twist.  Ghost World though, rested on the heroine's coolness.  It was all about how no one understood her - her deeper fears for sure, but they also gave her superficial differences against the rest of the World a lot of play.  And I just didn't give a shit.

Quote from: pete on January 17, 2008, 01:00:07 AM
I actually didn't care for Ghost World at all.  It was easy for me to overlook something like Juno's coolness, 'cause it was a good story with a good point of view and even a good twist.  Ghost World though, rested on the heroine's coolness.  It was all about how no one understood her - her deeper fears for sure, but they also gave her superficial differences against the rest of the World a lot of play.  And I just didn't give a shit.

I imagine you just didn't give a shit. What Ghost World did with Enid was set up her personality at the beginning and then juxtapose her character against Steve Buscemi's. She understood herself to be the nihilist and depressive, but Buscemi's deeper antagonisms challenged her to find some hope in life. Her developed positivism rubbed off on him and both characters developed through out the story. The characters meant to do that for Juno is in Garner and Batemen, but I'm not sure what they change in her. The only thing they seem to do for her is challenge her resolve in giving up the child, but there is little character development for Juno. A few scenes show her newfound happiness with Cera's character, but it's a complete turn around and not a progression. A light switch was turned on for her to all of a sudden become nice and if the movie is truly realistic, I'd imagine Juno's character was bi-polar. Of course the film doesn't imply that but the turn around can't be taken serious.

I saw that so differently.  Juno was afraid of being alone and pregnant but sometimes when people opened themselves to her, she'd consider them not genuine, or somehow signs of her own weakness.  I didn't think the couple was supposed to transform her, they were just part of her tiny circle.  It just seemed like, whatever justification people use in this arbitrary ghost world vs. juno argument, in the end it really rested on which character was cooler.  and again, as someone with only passing knowledge of the names dropped in these movies, I found Juno to be a bit more enjoyable because her coolness was a totally superficial branding, whereas Ghost World was happily drenching itself in its coolness.  So while I saw that turn between Enid and the old dude too, I couldn't root for it or identify with it much, because so much of that relationship was imbued and developed through the characters' tastes in things.

Most of Enid's quirkiness/coolness/what-have-you-ness, stemmed from a disenchantment with everything around her. Her character had a reason for the sassy dialogue and outlook whereas Juno's character traits seemed more self-serving to the film. I'm not saying that a characters identity can't come soley from within but I found seeing Enid struggle with her identity more interesting than a character who seemed unnaturally sure of herself for someone so young. Juno is presented with circumstances and people that make her question herself and the world around her but eventually only come to reinforce her sense of self. Enid is eventually overpowered by the banality of everything around her. They are both only young but Enid's struggle seemed truer to me.

In both instances the characters are somewhat overpowered; by directorial style in Ghost World and dialogue in Juno. Having said that, I think the films identity is more important to me than the characters. With that in mind, Ghost World ultimately succeeds in providing an ending which is both more pertinent and poignant compared to Juno's; which never quite solves the construction of its central character enough for me to understand her in a meaningful way. In some ways the ending are different sides of the same coin but Ghost World feels like it earned its more.

I think after all the hype and amazing trailer my expectations for this were too high. Or maybe the film is not thaaaat great.

I liked it, and Ellen Page was amazing. Michael Cera was brilliant too, but he doesnt get much to do. It was good, but I guess I was expecting too much.

so, my mom was watching oprah and apparently diablo cody was on promoting this movie and for some reason she had her parents in tow. diablo's parents kept calling her "brooke... oh, sorry, diaaaablo."

despite my annoyances with the over-written and over-directed bits (i HATE all of her little observances accompanied by quirky shots of what she's thinking, bleh) i liked this movie. how i feel about the movie is how i might theoretically think about diablo cody if i knew anything about her. it's like, brooke might be an alright person, but the fact that she feels like she needs the flash out of a name like diablo is annoying. that extra bit of "glitz" kills you, b/c it doesn't feel genuine, it feels like you're trying SO hard to be brilliantly unique (i'm reading her wikipedia page. she was quoted as saying she calls herself diablo b/c brooke is "just so tedious." ugh, what a cunt.) (back to ghost world for a second. that movie is better b/c it addresses this flaw in its main character. you're never supposed to think enid is SO COOL. she's a little bit of a loser who cares a lot what people are thinking of her coolness, whereas in juno, you're just supposed to accept that she's cool and different). i've known girls that did sex shit like diaaaablo did. i don't think they really needed the money that bad, i think they did it b/c they wanted attention. diaaablo did it so she could write a fucking blog and get published. yeah, real fucking noble... whatever, at least half of this movie is pretty deece. it's like that iggy pop album, lust for life, where half of it is really awesome but the other half just kind of feels like it was made for the masses, you know? and it's not awful, but it's not a masterpiece like david bowie's station to station. man, iggy's great. sometimes i like to put his music on and put the tv on mute when i'm watching herschell gordon lewis's blood feast. then i like to jerk off using my shit as lube, b/c no part of me should be considered "waste." i mean, god, how presumptuous. look at me look at me i'm the little engine that could!

thread won.

Diablow was only a stripper for a week. And three of her five shifts she served drinks.

The Moldy Peaches are reuniting to play "The View" this week (Monday, I think.) This film just keeps sucking mildly talented people further and further down the shitter of self-respect.

Diablo/Brooke was on Letterman last night and proceeded to ruin the ending of TWBB!! I am not going to go into spoiler territory here but she was talking about how much she had changed since she moved to Hollywood (oh my how I lover her self-deprecation) and she likened herself to Daniel Plainview and said she now...well basically the end of TWBB is what she now does for fun. When she said this my eyes grew wide and my pure hatred of her grew ten fold. Why must everything about her be terrible?

So I watched that interview along with one of Ellen Page, and it's really striking how much more charm and class Page exudes (all while talking about a whorehouse!), while Cody just kinda bores me. The shock value she goes for is boring.

I probably sound like a flip-flopper compared to early posts about the film and Cody, but what can I say? The second viewing wasn't as good, and I've actually paid attention to Cody and her blog (equally boring).

It's definitely the new Little Miss. Some good performances (I have to admit, Ellen Page is quite likable) in an overly hipster/pretentious movie. I enjoy these movies enough when I'm actually sitting there watching it, but upon second viewings or any sort of scrutinization afterwards the seams unfold.

As some have said, the character shows little development or humanity. We're just supposed to assume she's too cool for everyone else. Meanwhile Zwigoff's Enid isn't someone we can completely identify with, as she's just too aloof, which becomes her flaw in the "real" world; Coppola made some real characters that are likable but out of their element in LIT; and Gondry/Kauffman created deeply flawed but still identifiable characters in Eternal sunshine (I cite these as "early indie favorites"). I would think that situation would change everything for her, but at the end everything is hunky-dory, like it never happened. And everyone is wacky just for the hell of it.

Being in college, basically all of my friends are in love with the movie. I've been having to bite my lip every time it comes up, as I don't want to be that guy that's ALWAYS pissing on everyone else's taste. It's an enjoyable viewing and not much else. Definitely not top 5 or Best Picture nominee material.

Quote from: Chest Rockwell on January 24, 2008, 10:19:18 AM
Being in college, basically all of my friends are in love with the movie. I've been having to bite my lip every time it comes up, as I don't want to be that guy that's ALWAYS pissing on everyone else's taste.

Yeah, once a teacher asked me if I hated everything because I didn't like a couple of movies he talked about. I hate that people ask me about my opinion, but then scream if I didn't like something they liked.

the new EW interviews Oscar nominee's for their reactions, and Diablo Cody says...

"I screamed myself hoarse.  I've grown up watching the Coen brothers' films.  They're heroes to me.  There Will Be Blood was my favorite film of the year.  It's cool to be the Academy's comic relief."

Justin Timberlake did that already.  Hack.

Quote from: Gamblour. on January 25, 2008, 01:10:47 PM

Quote from: Chest Rockwell on January 24, 2008, 10:19:18 AM
I hate that people ask me about my opinion, but then scream if I didn't like something they liked.

sounds oddly familiar...

I actually liked this movie a lot, but I'm sure it will just like rockwell said. hopefully not though...I feel like this film is very honest and genuine, and where it doesn't deeply cover some of the questions you've all asked. I think it does throw in unexpected situations.  Kids and adults, "the dynamic of marriage" the true shitty quality that we all possess. SPOILER Plus like the little subtle look garner gives when Juno expresses how she wishes she didn't even have to do it is awesome. 

http://www.oldeenglish.org/podcast/diablo-cody

funny,

holy shit, listening to 30 seconds of her makes the juno character seem barely obnoxious.

Quote from: shnorff on February 20, 2008, 03:18:01 PM
http://www.oldeenglish.org/podcast/diablo-cody

funny,

oh my god, i was actually starting to like her before i realized it was a joke and that's not really her. whew.

when this started i felt pain in my fucking stomach. animated credits emulating high school kids notebook's drawings, soft tender indie sounding music, every character speaking in sitcom I'm so clever dialogue...everytime juno started talking about music it seemed as if you could hear diablo cody's perception pf who likes what instead of real people discussing shit (big difference with Tarantino, who's been compared to this woman solely on the pop cultures references subject). everyone seemed to be acting funny and believing this was very funny. the problem with that is that it just wasn't funny. me and my girlfriend received pretty much every joke with dead silence. it was embarrassing. the feeling was of people cramming "cool" music and "coolness" in general, taken directly from the wes anderson (i know I'm being unfair with the guy but he's surely imitated here) and napoleon dynamite, me and you and little miss sunshine notebook. the difference with those films is huge. for starters, they are funny, but they're also more sincere. with juno i was feeling that, finally, the "quirky" subgenre had become a studio reality. i think is now officially a genre from which studios can make money. we will see more
of these "clever" comedies in the future, as old as they are for people who've been watching indie films since the early 90's...

after the first half hour, which is unbelievably dreadful, things get better. however, the ending is so easy on juno and everyone else it just doesn't feel right. i would have prefered her to stay an idiot instead of "discovering" that true love means blablabla...

things improved also, because juno stopped being portrayed as super cool and started getting shit for being the stupid asshole that she was sometimes. i dont know if they were trying to make her a not so easy to like character like bad santa or something but it just wasn't funny. thank god jennifer garner was there to give us a glimpse of a recognizable human being instead of a list of musical tastes. she's the soul of this film and more recognition should be given to her.

the comparisons i read here to ghost world are unfair. that film is about american decadence at heart, it lamented the disappearance of individuality in modern way of life. juno doesn't even hint at these things. the character's quirkiness is a device to create sympathy between her, the audience and the other characters. and she never feels alone because of her supposed intelligence. enid in ghost world slowly realizes she is a freak and what that means in terms of being alone in the world.

This film has an issue with being honest and disingenuous. I will not completely cut Diablo Cody -- she has written some funny moments and characters, almost entirely embodied in the parents and Paulie. There is a lot of honesty in how they deal with the situation. Juno's friend is almost in this group, but she definitely still the author of honest to blog. Ellen Page, being the phoniest character on show here, earns the fewest moments of honesty and insight, which I think is the ultimate flaw with the film. As much as you're supposed to love and relate to her, she distances herself from everyone with her 7-layer sarcasm and propensity for having too many fucking opinions. If she didn't bore the audience with her goddamn opinions on everything or insistence on being jaded and relating EVERYTHING in metaphors and vocabulary, we might have had a full fledged good film.

Leaked Diablo Cody Screenplay (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/diablo-cody-screenplay.php)

I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS!

HAHAHAHA. Fuck outta here somethingawful.com. Too funny.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16161_if-juno-was-10-times-shorter-100-times-more-honest.html

diablo cody's myspace response to all you diablo cody haters. save a couple bragging moments, this rant is pretty awesome, if not several months too late (i mean really who is bitching about juno anymore?). oh and she mentions our lord savior pta. 

enjoy!

"A while back, there was a thoughtful article in the above-mentioned publication about Ellen Page and myself. The article was mostly about how passionately some people hate me. As I explained to my therapist the following day (ha) it's kind of weird to read something like that about yourself. On one hand, you feel defensive. On the other hand, you feel puzzled. You feel compelled to identify what it is about you that might inspire such vitriol. (I personally suspect the hate isn't that widespread; it's just loud.)

I thought about it. For months. I even wrote a screenplay on the theme. And then, finally, I figured it out.

I have a response to those who are still boring enough to lob insults in my direction. (Those of you who are friends, fans, enablers, or dislike my writing for legitimate, rational, nonpersonal reasons can tune out now if you like. This isn't for you.)

Anyone else? Bend thine ear:

I am not Charlie Kaufman or Sofia Coppola (much as I supplicate at their Cannes-weary feet.) I'm not Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm not even Paul W.S. Anderson. I am middle-class trash from the Midwest. I'm a competent nonfiction writer, an admittedly green screenwriter, and a product of Hollywood, USA. I am "Diablo Cody" and if you're not a fan, go rent Prospero's Books again and leave me the fuck alone.

I may have won 19 awards that you don't feel I earned, but it's neither original nor relevant to slag on Juno. Really. And you're not some bold, singular voice of dissent, You are exactly like everyone else in your zeitgeisty-demo-lifestyle pod. You are even like me. (I, too, loved Arrested Development! Aren't we a pretty pair of cultural mavericks? Hey, let's go bitch about how Black Kids are overrated!)

I'm sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money. I get why you're bitter. I took exactly one film class in college and— with the curious exception of the Douglas Sirk unit—it bored the shit out of me. I also once got busted for loudly crinkling a bag of Jujubes during a classroom screening of Vivre Sa Vie. I don't deserve to be here. We've established that. But I'm here. Five million 12-year-olds think I'm Buck Henry. Accept it.

(Incidentally, if you were me for one day you'd crumble like fucking Stilton. I am better at this than you. You're not strong enough, Film_Fan78. Trust me.)

I'm sorry to all those violent, semi-literate fanboys who hate me for befriending their heroes. I can't help it if your favorite writer, actor, director, or talk show host likes me. Maybe you would too, if we actually met.

I know my name is fake and that it annoys you. What, do you hate Queen Latifah and Rip Torn, too? Writers and entertainers have been using pseudonyms for years. Chances are, you're spewing bile under an assumed screen name yourself. I'm sorry if you think I'm like some inked-up quasi-Suicide Girl derby cunt from 2002, but I like my fake name. It's engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn't.

Listen: I've been telling stories my whole life. Even when I was a phone sex operator, I was the Mark Twain of extemporaneous jerk-off fiction. I took every perspiring creep on a fucking journey. I don't know how to do anything else.

I'm going to make more movies and shows. I doubt they'll all be good, but that's the nature of this life. Even though the public only knows me from one book, one movie, and several aborted blogs, I've spent the last few years hustling like Iceberg Slim out here to prove myself professionally. The people I currently work for, and with, are more than pleased with my post-Juno output. My pilot was so good (thanks, Toni Colette!) that it got picked up for series. That is rare, children. That is blue-rare.

In summation: you try it.

This is the last I have to say on the subject, unless I'm provoked by a journalist in which case I'll gladly reload. With relish, as Betty Rizzo might say. That said, I'm a 30-year-old woman with a dwindling interest in blog culture, and I don't have time to address this bullshit every time one of my projects comes out. I'm in love, I just bought a house, and my boss made E.T. I kind of have to focus on reality."

i like her.

 :bravo:

however, juno still sucks.

Gallo does it with more charm and vitriol.

Diablo Cody: Cinema's Sarah Palin.

Diablo whody?

Quote from: modage on September 18, 2008, 02:08:37 PM
i like her.

I love her. I'm in love with her. I wanna be her next tatoo mistake.  :yabbse-lipsrsealed:

Fuck her. So she basically wants us to forgive her for being a hack? What a dumb hoe. That's like Brett Ratner writing a letter asking everyone to stop being mean to him. Fuck him, too.

Quote from: Stefen on September 22, 2008, 11:24:02 AM
Fuck her. So she basically wants us to forgive her for being a hack? What a dumb hoe. That's like Brett Ratner writing a letter asking everyone to stop being mean to him. Fuck him, too.

i think she just wants to be left the fuck alone by people who are (still) giving her shit.  that seems fair to me. i don't know anything about her other than what i can gather from this post and her oscar speech, but she seems to recognize her life as a mix of both luck and really awful work. she approaches her success much more like it's an awesome reward that she is earning rather than something she is owed.

i think it's fair what she's asking, and also naive.

i do think she is talented, though...she will get better at this with time...i find the personal attacks against her and kevin smith weird. i don't understand why peoplefind them personally so unlikeable. it's not like they're assholes in the michael bay vein...

Quote from: Alexandro on September 25, 2008, 11:22:04 AM
it's not like they're assholes

Kevin Smith is an asshole.


I get her point... it comes off as whiny and defensive, but I can seperate the art from the artist... I hate her screenplay, not her.