Juno
Just watched it yesterday. Loved it. I thought it was going to be too intentionally, self-consciously quirky for me to love, but I did. I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say, as I’m catching up on work, but I just wanted to leave a note. It’s probably my favorite movie I’ve seen in the last year.
My sis was just telling me how good this movie was and that I should see it. Hmm, guess I’ll have to find it somehow, somewhere.
I couldn’t stand this movie. I made it through about 40 minutes and sent it back to Netflix.
In the 4 or so years (3?) I’ve had Netflix, and of the hundreds of movies I’ve seen, this is the first I chose not to finish. And I’ve rented a lot of crap.
I couldn’t find anything compelling or interesting to keep me watching. I found the Juno character to be wholly unlikeable and the writing to be entirely too strained and predictable.
The fact that Diablo Cody won an Oscar for it is just evidence of the terrible state of the industry. I mean, Crash won too, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that predictable stuff wins.
And nothing bores me faster than a movie where I feel like I could write the film as it goes along. And I’m a shitty writer.
I thought, “I have to sit through another hour of listening to her say predictably wise-ass comments? I couldn’t care less.” Despite the fact I’m a big fan of Cera and Bateman (not in that order), I didn’t keep watching.
I’ve read a lot of reviews about how it avoided X, Y and Z, but for me, it was exactly what everybody hoped it wouldn’t be.
“I thought it was [] too intentionally, self-consciously quirky” … “there were [] moments where there was quirkiness for quirkiness’ sake …” Etc.
I’m not totally against quirky movies. For example, I thought The Darjeeling Limited, which was released about the same time, was pretty good, and that is 100x more intentionally quirky and self-conscious.
However Juno felt like Reitman took the book of “independent film ticks” and applied it to this one. See also, “Little Miss Sunshine.” Stripped of these ticks, it didn’t feel like Reitman knew what he was doing. It felt aimless and meandering. “Thank You for Smoking”, his last film, while problematic, I thought was better than Juno.
Despite the positive reviews, I feel somewhat vindicated by the fact that Diablo Cody’s writing in EW has been absolutely atrocious.
A_B
I am getting deja vu from when we talked about Little Miss Sunshine, which I note you mentioned here.
It is entirely possible we are polar opposites when it comes to movies. Quick, name your favorite movie! Did you say, “Event Horizon”? I will have to kill you.
I’m going to have to go ahead and assume that your heart is in fact made of ice. And coal. Because we all know my heart is made of mushy sweet gooey cotton candy, so if I love a movie, it must be full of hugs and kisses and stuff that make people with ice in their veins puke. 😀 *tackles A_B in a hug* Take that!
Also, Cera & Bateman brought their A-game to the movie, so you missed out there, even if you hated the main character.
A_B: You know, I listened to the movie one day, just the audio, as I was working.
And just the audio meant that I heard all the lines without the visual acting support, which really highlighted to me that the beauty of this movie was in the subtle, unspoken moments, in the way the characters looked at each other, in the pauses, in the close ups, in how they moved with/toward each other.
Without the visuals, I heard every painful, overly-crafted phrase, and I did feel like it was in fact, too much.
Given how overworked the dialogue sounded, I find the acting to have been superb to have overcome this issue, because I absolutely loved watching the movie.
As I mentioned before, I loved the movie, too (even watched it twice :P). I did feel that there were a few moments where there was quirkiness for quirkiness’ sake (the sitting on the furniture in his front lawn for no reason, her blasé attitude was a little unbelievable at times, even though I know it was just a cover for her “true” feelings). But overall, I think it presented compelling characters and a few very interesting moral choices that were handled very well.