Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)

[Napoleon]

"Fertile Myrtle"? "Homeskillet"?

ugh. Everyone on page 14 of the Darjeeling Limited thread needs to go watch Juno.

The folks on page 14 of the Darjeeling Limited thread need to realise that Anderson is not for them.

[Antoine Doinel]

Juno: No it's Morgan Freeman. Got any bones that need collecting?
Leah: Only the one in my pants.

C'mon.....that's pretty funny. But then again, my sense of humor can be base.

[Michael Kerpan]

Juno: No it's Morgan Freeman. Got any bones that need collecting?
Leah: Only the one in my pants.

C'mon.....that's pretty funny. But then again, my sense of humor can be base.

I don't understand. Isn't Leah a female? Offhand, this "smart dialog" doesn't even seem to make minimal sense (unless Leah was talking on the phone while a male was doing things to her nether regions).

[Antoine Doinel]

Juno: No it's Morgan Freeman. Got any bones that need collecting?
Leah: Only the one in my pants.

C'mon.....that's pretty funny. But then again, my sense of humor can be base.

I don't understand. Isn't Leah a female? Offhand, this "smart dialog" doesn't even seem to make minimal sense (unless Leah was talking on the phone while a male was doing things to her nether regions).

Seriously? Dude, it's absurd humor. It's an off the cuff dick joke, nothing more. Don't overthink it. Boner jokes aren't just for guys.

Geez, Bugs Bunny cartoons must make your head explode.

[Michael Kerpan]

It's not absurd humor. It's dimwitted humor.

I can handle Bug Bunny -- and Animaniacs -- just fine, thank you (in moderate doses, mind you).

[sidehacker]

Who cares if it makes sense or not, it just isn't funny. All the attempts at irony in the film are only ironic because they're so obviously trying to be funny...but aren't funny at all. A perfect example is yelling "THUNDERCATS are GO!" when the girl's water breaks.

[Noir of the Night]

A perfect example is yelling "THUNDERCATS are GO!" when the girl's water breaks.

That was the nadir.

[kaujot]

Juno's character (and her friend, whatever her name was) is one of the more annoying characters in recent memory.

I wish that Michael Cera had had more of a part to play. I know that was kind of the point, that he was away from it all, but his was the most honest performance in the movie. Same for Bateman's character, except when in the same room as Juno alone. In fact, most of the scenes WITHOUT Juno talking in them are the high points of the film.

[Matt]

It's an off the cuff dick joke, nothing more. Don't overthink it. Boner jokes aren't just for guys.

It's not necessarily the dick joke that I object to, it's the incredibly capital-L lame setup for it that I object to. The whole Morgan Freeman - Bone Collector reference is only there to set up a dick joke. That's pretty terrible comedy writing. The stupidest part about it is that Morgan Freeman wasn't even in The Bone Collector! Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington... those people all look alike apparently.

[Noir of the Night]

Clearly Diablo Cody thinks all black people look alike.

[Antoine Doinel]

Uh, isn't part of the joke that she confuses the two?

[Noir of the Night]

I didn't really take it that way, I thought Juno was just trying to be ironic or weirdly humorous. I mean, how could anyone honestly get Denzel and Morgan Freeman mixed up? Especially someone who's portrayed as sharp and knowledgeable about all sorts of pop culture miscellany.

[Antoine Doinel]

Lighten up.

[Noir of the Night]

I can take a joke as much as the next guy, that one just happens to be pretty lame.

[Mr Sausage]

Let's stop the "'it's a joke.' 'It wasn't funny.' 'Get a sense of humour.' 'I have a sense of humour!'" stuff and get back to Juno before I have to turn this into some limp and useless thread in the Infighting section.

[dx23]

Has anyone else seen how much publicity this film has gotten thanks to the Britney Spears' little sister getting pregnant crap? Every "reporter" has stuck Juno in the infotainment crap that the Spears trainwreck is.

On the positive side, this independent film may get a boost in the box office thanks to this.

[Cde.]

On the positive side, this independent film may get a boost in the box office thanks to this.

Is this a joke?

[Matt]

Apparently having your "racy" blog found during a search for online porn is the new being discovered at the soda counter at Schwab's.

[Adam]

I have to admit that with movie prices being what they are, I'm in no rush to see this in theaters, but I'm intrigued enough that I'll definitely catch it on dvd. Perhaps Juno is an elaborate bait-and-switch designed to trick self-conscious hipsters into the theater long enough to watch an actual movie.

That's an interesting thought. And yeah, this is essentially a DVD movie, nothing about it calls out for the theater experience. I'm not sure I would have even seen it in theaters had it not been one of the free screening. Do check it out though, it's good enough for me to willingly eat crow about the shit I talked on page two. I was wrong.

I would definitely see it in a theatre with a large crowd of people, so you can laugh with a crowd. I don't think it will play as well at home alone on DVD.

[Noir of the Night]

I don't know, since I didn't think it was particularly funny the crowd of people laughing at everything actually kind of annoyed me.

[justeleblanc]

I don't know, since I didn't think it was particularly funny the crowd of people laughing at everything actually kind of annoyed me.

I had more "Aww"s when I saw it. Just as annoying I bet.

[Noir of the Night]

"Aww"s would be worse.

[hot_locket]

All the lines of dialogue mentioned in the thread are definitely the worst, with only one or two unmentioned I would also deem awful. That still leaves about 70-80% or so that were still decent-to-pretty good, though. I know everything on the internet has to be a hate it or love it kind of thing, but in this case I'd have to pick "a few cringeworthy moments, but altogether a pleasurable experience".

A few other qualms I had were A)the rather awkward final scene, B)the references and discussions about real bands and movies/directors (this will never ever work in any film, unless you're Woody Allen) and C)the distracting soundtrack-- isn't there some very basic rule being violated in using such lyrically-busy tracks? (not to mention that few of the lyrics were actually relevant to their respective scenes at all)

I did really enjoy Michael Cera, though, and his relationship with Juno. Same with Jason Bateman (those darn AD alums), though I didn't know what to make of his

Spoiler

hinting that he was dumping his wife FOR Juno

Everything was rather touching until the line that basically says just that.

[domino harvey]

I stopped reading this thread around the second page until I got a chance to see the movie, so now that I have, I'm surprised that so many people had the same reaction I did: the first fifteen minutes or so (The entire Rainn Wilson segment might be the worst three minutes of any recent film I can remember) are so bad that I couldn't even believe that by the end I was genuinely invested in the movie. I think it's mainly because of the strength of the actors, who rise above their material at every junction. Cera is great even though he and every other character are underwritten. And I have a soft spot for singers who can't sing so the ending was adorable. It's basically harmless, B-Minus indietainment. Still, with all the fantastic actors and the premise, this movie deserved to be so much better than it was.

And for those who think there aren't girls that talk like Juno, let me be the first to say that there certainly are and I've dated two girls who could basically have been Ellen Page in this movie-- however, that doesn't mean I necessarily need to hear that particular brand of vernacular in a movie. By far the weakest element of the film was the script, and it's funny that the screenplay is the one Oscar this film has in the bag. --Tho I did love the Sonic Youth line, almost as much as the Goldfrapp line in Hard Candy.

[BrianInAtlanta]

I'm starting to dread any American movie that features pregnancy as a main point. Check out this line from the Slant review of Juno [linked several times above]

Like Knocked Up, Juno tiptoes cautiously around the unwanted pregnancy at its center

Two choices here: either tiptoe around the issue of abortion while, of course, choosing not to have one or build the whole movie around the decision. I'm not arguing either for or against abortion here, it's just that you know going in that punches are going to be pulled and unreal forced decisions will be made by characters for political safety.

Even Waitress, which I finally caught up with this weekend, came close to falling into pat fantasy, particularly during the final hospital scenes.

Plus, if I want "teenage girl spouts snarky, middle-aged screenwriter dialogue in all situations," I'll go watch The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and hear it done right.