Ginger and I watched Juno a while back. As you may remember we both ended up getting a copy through Netflix since it was on both of our lists (although with the future elimination of profiles we won't have to worry about that being an issue anymore). Basic plot is teenage girl gets pregnant and decides to have the baby and give it away to a yuppie couple. As plots go it's pretty simply. Overall I liked it a lot (I think I gave it four out of five stars in my Netflix rating, but all my rating will also be eliminated once profiles are gone, not that this bothers me). I think I liked the previous stand out indie film Little Miss Sunshine a bit more that this one, but this was pretty good also. The one bad thing about the movie was by the time I got around to watching it I believe I had been exposed to all the really good lines in the commercials leading up to the movie's release and the DVD promotion. It's clearly intended to be a thinking person's movie with the quick conversation beats and you can easily miss some crucial dialogue if you aren't paying attention. In fact, the dialogue reminded me a lot of Kevin Smith's films (from me that's a compliment in case you couldn't figure that one out). In fact I only have a couple of critiques of the movie. One issue I had is even though this is a movie about kids, no kids I've met talk like the kids in this movie. Everyone's conversations are way more sophisticated than many conversations I have today (one could say this is a ding on me more than the movie itself though). The main character, who is still a teenager, clearly has a better grasp on many of life's issues than most people in their twenty's. The other issue I had, and I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the filmmakers, but I think it downplays the emotional attachment that most woman would experience in the described situation. The movie is a mixed bag of nuts from a "moral" point of view, and quite frankly given the current attitudes in the nation I'm amazed it was embraced as much as it was. On the one hand it seems to implicitly advocate a pro-life message (which is probably why a lot of people got behind it), but at the same time the decision at the end doesn't exactly jive with what is typically considered a traditional family. I won't even mention the fact that there's no real discussion about whether she herself should keep the baby, that never seems to be presented as even a remote possibility. So I guess what I'm saying is if the movie was trying to promote a specific message / value, I think it fails miserably at that. Luckily I don't think it was attempting to do that and it was a just a well written and acted film.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Juno
Ginger and I watched Juno a while back. As you may remember we both ended up getting a copy through Netflix since it was on both of our lists (although with the future elimination of profiles we won't have to worry about that being an issue anymore). Basic plot is teenage girl gets pregnant and decides to have the baby and give it away to a yuppie couple. As plots go it's pretty simply. Overall I liked it a lot (I think I gave it four out of five stars in my Netflix rating, but all my rating will also be eliminated once profiles are gone, not that this bothers me). I think I liked the previous stand out indie film Little Miss Sunshine a bit more that this one, but this was pretty good also. The one bad thing about the movie was by the time I got around to watching it I believe I had been exposed to all the really good lines in the commercials leading up to the movie's release and the DVD promotion. It's clearly intended to be a thinking person's movie with the quick conversation beats and you can easily miss some crucial dialogue if you aren't paying attention. In fact, the dialogue reminded me a lot of Kevin Smith's films (from me that's a compliment in case you couldn't figure that one out). In fact I only have a couple of critiques of the movie. One issue I had is even though this is a movie about kids, no kids I've met talk like the kids in this movie. Everyone's conversations are way more sophisticated than many conversations I have today (one could say this is a ding on me more than the movie itself though). The main character, who is still a teenager, clearly has a better grasp on many of life's issues than most people in their twenty's. The other issue I had, and I don't know if this was intentional on the part of the filmmakers, but I think it downplays the emotional attachment that most woman would experience in the described situation. The movie is a mixed bag of nuts from a "moral" point of view, and quite frankly given the current attitudes in the nation I'm amazed it was embraced as much as it was. On the one hand it seems to implicitly advocate a pro-life message (which is probably why a lot of people got behind it), but at the same time the decision at the end doesn't exactly jive with what is typically considered a traditional family. I won't even mention the fact that there's no real discussion about whether she herself should keep the baby, that never seems to be presented as even a remote possibility. So I guess what I'm saying is if the movie was trying to promote a specific message / value, I think it fails miserably at that. Luckily I don't think it was attempting to do that and it was a just a well written and acted film.
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watched this on ali's ipod a few weeks back (not advisable). really enjoyed it, but like you say they seem to have skirted over certain issues. the script was genius and ellen page was wonderful (i loved her in hard candy, if that doesn't sound too wierd!). i would have given it a 4* rating too.
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