After reading this thread I expected to hate this film. But dammit it was fantastic. What a nice surprise. Yes the last act is the best - but the rest of the film is damn good too. And there is nothing at all wrong with Jen Garners performance.

Doesnt deserve the best picture oscar - but does receive an "A" from me

Saw this today as part of my first double header in theaters with Cloverfield.

JUNO is a sweet, romantic dramedy with a good heart but it has to work through some script issues to get there.

Certainly JUNO is cleverly written with characters to be cared about, but Diablo Codys much acclaimed script makes the first 15 minutes of Juno pretty ridiculous. Yes the characters are sweet, but "oh my blog" and "homeskillet" made me and my friends roll my eyes in collective disbelief.

Once it passes the need to seem quirky, Juno gets into the plot. Infact, the Vanessa and Mark storyline is what transforms this film. Without it Juno would be too much. Vanessa is the catalyst for much of the emotion of the film. By the last 20 minutes Juno has become what it had the potential to be, a really touching, emotional drama with a comedic undertone to keep things from becoming too pretentious or difficult.

Ellen Page is solid but not as spectacular as I'd expected until the final act where she came into her own. When she was lying in bed with Michael Cera i was moved to tears actually.

Cera himself is one of the strongest players in the film, I really thought he was. I wished he had more screentime.

Allison Janney, also excellent, really shines in the ultrasound sequence and the sequence where she tells Juno about the sacrifices she made. Its unfortunate the Cody didn't go an extra mile in that scene, she could have had a really gripping piece of cinema on her hands there.

Jason Bateman was okay at best. He didn't seem like he was invested. I know we found the realtionship between Juno and Marc totally inappropriate and fucking creepy. But i guess that was the point. He saw Juno as a kindred spirit wheras she saw him as a rock in a crazy time of her life.

Jennifer Garner, heh, we had to get here some time, Jennifer Garner was my favourite part of the movie. The little look of vast heartache when Juno said shes lucky not to be in her position was fantastic. The mall scene really pulled at my hearstrings too and when she finally held the baby you couldn't help but feel for her. Garner is given a cold character here and manages to make her likable and vulnerable.

JK Simmons was also good, but seemed to click into the background with all of these stronger characters.

All in all, Juno is a performance piece. Not a masterpiece in my eyes, but a great, exciting example of indie cinema truly exceeding its constraints. Very good.

B+

Can i just add a post note onto my review and say that Juno had the most annoying audience ever?
All 12-16 year olds who lost interest very quickly and started TEXTING and DISCUSSING THEIR MESSAGES throughout the movie, i swear like 12 kids had their phones out.

We eventually started shouting, and my friends flipped out when some kids left before the film had fully finished , the final scene. Clearly the kids werent as into it as us, this movie reeks of mis-marketing. It's attracted young teens and kids rather than the 17-26 group id see actually enjoying it.

Well of course i loved it. Performances all around were great especially from Ellen Page and Jennifer Garner.

A

Nowhere near as LMS as far as recent indie dramedies are concerned. ELLen Page was adorabLe though, fuck the rest.

B+

Honest to blog, homeskillet. Let me shake my hamburger phone.

la loser

The acting is very good, as is the story. It took about twenty minutes to get into the flow of the dialogue, but once I did it was fine. I actually didn't laugh that much -- I liked it a whole lot more when it was being semi-serious than when it was trying to be cute. B+

so that's how you spell Best Picture Nominee...

Eh.

If it wins next Sunday, it'll be the worst BP winner I've seen in a long time.

Not to say it was bad. It was very fine, with a lot of really genuine moments. It was just...above average. Nothing great or remarkable. Some of the humor worked pretty well, some of it didn't. In retrospect, I don't think the dialogue worked the way it was intended, but for the msot aprt it was fine. The performances were all good. Garner was even pretty good. Sometimes I didn't really connect with her character at all, but other times it was quite good and really subtle. Simmons was amazing, as usual. The lead did good too, given her sometimes awkward material she had to deal with.

The subplot with the married couple worked well, although the dynamic between Juno and the husband did not. At all! It was really weird and underdeveloped and left me wondering wtf was going on.

B/B+

I haven't the slightest idea why this movie is up for Best Picture. It's good, but not as good as a lot of other movies that got nothing. It's not even the best pregnancy comedy of 2007.

Seriously, if Fox Searchlight has a quirky indie on the 2008 slate, I guess we should consider it a lock for a Best Picture nomination.

Personally I thought Juno was better than Knocked Up. But apart from the fact both have a pregnancy in them - they are like chalk and cheese.

Juno is also alot better than the overrated Little Miss Sunshine too.

I don't understand how in a year full of such outstanding comedies as Ratatouille, Knocked Up, Superbad, and The Savages, this okay comedy stuck out in everyone's mind.

Yeah, guys? No offense...

But this "I don't understand why everyone likes Juno! It's so confusing to me? What is going on? Please tell meeeeeee" thing is starting to get on my nerves and probably other people's, too.

Yes, you didn't like it as much as some people. A lot of people did love it.

I thought There Will Be Blood was very good, but I don't think it's a masterpiece and I probably wouldn't have nominated it for Best Picture. You don't see me barging into every thread expressing my immense confusion over why everyone else seems to love it so much.

It's counterproductive and irritating simultaneously. Suck it up and move on already, we don't need to read the same thing a million times.

I agree 100% with Libs (also about the opinion on TWBB).

It was the best of em all, THE BEST!!!

Agreed with Libs. Also on TWBB.

Juno is a good film and just because a film is light hearted and/or a BO success or because you didnt like it - doesnt mean its less deserving of our acclaim.

Juno is a better bet for my top 10 than TWBB even though DDL's performance is the best of the decade for me. And having said that - Ratatouille is my number one.

Eh. Some people genuinely don't understand the hype around it. I was in a similar boat with Children of Men and The New World. I really didn't like either of them at all. I think if people are going into threads and then derailing them specifically to question the general acclaim of Juno, then that is wrong. If they can't discuss it in the only thread on the whole website specifically catered and designed to house that question, that is also wrong.

And just remember, two sides to every story. They might be just as tired of all of the Juno love being thrown around on the site, just like you are tired of the "anti"-love. I'm sure there's been a thread derailed because of Juno acclaim somewhere on the forum.

Best comedy of 2007 and #3 for 2007

A+

I found this funny

The article is funny, but the bloggers are making some gut busting posts.

4/10 -> D

I'm not getting paid so I don't like wasting too much time on explaining what was so bad in bad movies like this one. So I'll just c/p my brief one-sentence-review from Ultimate Mayhem list:

Besides good acting from Ellen Page there is nothing funny, nothing charming, nothing sweet and nothing remotely interesting in this almost pathetic movie.

EDIT: Ah, but there is one more thing I need to note. Jennifer Garner was awful in this movie. It seemed to me like she's gonna turn every minute into some crazy terrorist mom. Even after her final scene I still don't believe she only wants to be a mother. She has some hidden agendas.

That reminds me - - Eagle, I haven't gotten my paycheck for my Juno review yet - - can you check with the KJ accounting department, and have them deposit it in my paypal account as usual...

Thanx in advance!