Juno

[Lord of Oats]

This film provides almost everything good one can reasonably expect from a movie. Well, that is, excepting action/violence/horror/suspense. Which for me is something like the perfect formula. Well, now that I think about it, I didn't find the soundtrack terribly engaging. But it was basically appropriate, and sounded a certain way for a reason. Overall, it's almost exactly what I expected, (not to say that the plot or anything was too predictable), and I highly recommend it.

In any case, drop what you're doing (or not) and get to the cinema (at your earliest convenience). Great film to take your best friend's girlfriend to while he's out of the country. (What?!)

Anyone else here seen it yet?

[obscurity]

Well, now that I think about it, I didn't find the soundtrack terribly engaging. But it was basically appropriate, and sounded a certain way for a reason.

Let me guess: it was full of Roland synths?

In any case, drop what you're doing (or not) and get to the cinema (at your earliest convenience).

I do wish, when people make a recommendation, that they'd actually give some basis for it. Instead of 'read this', 'watch that', 'listen to the other', how about 'read this, it's very thought provoking', 'watch that, it's funny as hell' or 'listen to the other, it'll have you dancing like an epileptic in a strobe factory'? Otherwise, all I have to go on is the fact that you liked it, and as I know nothing about your personal taste, that doesn't exactly inspire me.

[roymond]

Very cute, very funny, VERY well acted. Somewhat believable. Very good soundtrack (appropriate, as Oats said).

[erik]

I do wish, when people make a recommendation, that they'd actually give some basis for it. Instead of 'read this', 'watch that', 'listen to the other', how about 'read this, it's very thought provoking', 'watch that, it's funny as hell' or 'listen to the other, it'll have you dancing like an epileptic in a strobe factory'? Otherwise, all I have to go on is the fact that you liked it, and as I know nothing about your personal taste, that doesn't exactly inspire me.

The most enjoyable thing about this movie, for me, was the titular character, played by Ellen Page (who you may or may not know from the movie Hard Candy). In this role, she brings to mind a young Christina Ricci imitating Christian Slater in Heathers. The writing style has certain shades of Buffyishness to it, in that the young characters are smart and learned beyond their years (and beyond the level of real teenagers) and they are always saying perfectly thought out clever, sarcastic one-liners like if their parents were Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker (with Bill Hicks for a godfather). At times, it's a bit much, but the characters are all endearing so it's fine overall.

The second-most enjoyable thing about the movie is the plot. At about 3 times in the movie, I thought I knew what was going to happen (because it would have been easy and obvious to make that happen) but the writers avoided taking the plot in easy directions, and instead let the characters do things that seemed natural and believable, once you get past the central conceit of the movie.

The movie is overall very funny, but there's touching shit in there as well. There's some crap designed to make you cry, and it does so effectively, being only about 15% cheezy on the "You Had Me at Hello" Scale of Cheeziness. The movie ultimately is about relationships (romantic and otherwise) that exist between people and trying to understand why we start them, why we continue them, and how we know when we should end them. There's lots of close connections between characters in this film, and it examines these relationships nicely without being too corny or emo.

I found the music to be distracting. I normally hate music in independent movies, and I really hated the music in this. It's all twee-ass doubled-acoustic guitar two-chord strummathons with singers who really can't sing. One song like that can be charming, but like 15 like that and I start leaning over to the people that I'm with and singing fake made up songs to mock the music in the film.

[Lord of Oats]

Yes, exactly what I meant to say!

Thinking more about it, I might actually buy this when it's on DVD.

It's really in the upper echelon of comedy films for laugh factor, and the first one I've seen in a while that didn't delve too far into surrealism and absolutely ridiculous situations. The writing was very clever and witty, an excellent device for achieving comedy within the bounds of reality, but it wasn't too overdone. (Gilmore Girls, anyone? There's a limit to how much wit and wordplay and pop culture reference you can cram into a script.) The main distinction here is that the characters' lines in this film were appropriate to their personalities, not running wild like the conversational equivalent of an Yngwie solo . Juno is quick-witted and wonderfully sarcastic, and Bleeker, with his charmingly awkward way of searching for the right words, makes a perfect foil. There's a lot of great banter throughout the film, but it's not relentless. None of the other characters can match her, really. But they're all quite likable by the end of it, except for that one fellow.

I'll have to review my cinematic inventory, as this may have an unfair advantage, just being fresh in my mind, but I'm very close to awarding this my best film of 2007 prize. Then again, I mostly watch garbage, and not a whole lot of it, so how much could it take to achieve that?

[Lord of Oats]

Well, I wrote that in response to the Roymond thing, but props to your comments as well. You conveyed most of the important things much better than I could have.

I didn't like the music either. But I thought it worked alright with the film, though it may have been overdone a bit. I think they could afford to swap out three to five of them with something with a little more production and/or balls, because, as it was, it seemed too static. As the emotions evoked by the movie evolved, the music kind of sat wherever it was, I think. Not that I know anything about matching music to movies. really.

But as I said to my friend, it's not as if it costs any more to license a song with some fucking drums. Of course, the indie music they used is cheap, but so is stuff by artists of relatively the same renown who have more than acoustic guitars going on, or something different entirely. The punk-ass stuff she liked so much seemed a bit under-represented, didn't it? I think the stuff they chose worked for a while (despite the song during the opening sequence that was so terrible, that we specifically made fun of it while it was playing, and immediately after the film concluded), but it just got old after a while. The whole thing wasn't so sentimental all the way through. It just seemed like overkill.

[obscurity]

The most enjoyable thing about this movie, for me, was the titular character, played by Ellen Page (who you may or may not know from the movie Hard Candy). In this role, she brings to mind a young Christina Ricci imitating Christian Slater in Heathers. The writing style has certain shades of Buffyishness to it, in that the young characters are smart and learned beyond their years (and beyond the level of real teenagers) and they are always saying perfectly thought out clever, sarcastic one-liners like if their parents were Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker (with Bill Hicks for a godfather). At times, it's a bit much, but the characters are all endearing so it's fine overall.

That's quite a review there erik, thanks for taking the time to write it. Sounds like just the kind of film I'd enjoy, I'll have to keep a look out for it hitting these shores.

[Adam!]

Loved it, but my viewing was marred by an incredibly incompetent projectionist. The first ~10 minutes the movie was completely out of frame (visibly wrapping from the bottom up to the top of the screen), and once they "fixed" that the movie was still very out of frame, with everyone's heads floating along the bottom of the screen and boom mics hovering at the top in most scenes. I'll probably see it again in a better theater.

[Lord of Oats]

There's some kind of South Park re-run event or something going on at 9:30 on Comedy Central. Almost a who cares type thing, but it's hosted by Ellen Page and Michael Cera.

[Æpplês&vØdkã]

I absolutely love this movie. I can't really say much here that hasn't been said, other than that I personally really like Kimya Dawson a whole lot, despite the relatively shoddy production values. Even though really, the only percussion in any of her songs that I think I've ever heard is a few finger cymbals. She really just liked the movie, so she decided to contribute heavily to it. Either way, she's kind of one of those love-it or hate-it artists that I usually end up really liking.

However, ever since it came out, both my girlfriend and I have been told numerous times by a large number of people that she looks just like Juno . It's a pretty bizarre resemblance. Except I don't have a kid on the way, nor do I look anything like Michael Cera.