Juno

Watched Juno. While it is funny, her dialogue is not the dialogue of a 16 year-old, but rather the dialogue that a 30 year-old screenwriter wishes she spoke when she was 16.

It is also the dialogue of a 30 year-old who wishes she was that witty when she was 16. In other words, other than the references to Ipods and blogs, the musical references and tastes of Juno are possibly (and even this is a stretch) those of a 16 year-old in 1994 (when screenwriter Diablo Cody was born) longing to be in a different era, not a 16 year-old in 2007. This also explains why 40 year-old movie critics are raving. It's like a young girl into the same music they're into and on top of it, she puts out. How else to explain the NY Times saying "at last a movie about a real down-to-earth teenager." Puhleeze. The boyfriend is a real down-to-earth teenager and her father and step-mother are believable, as are Bateman and Garner. In fact, everyone is believable except Juno.

I know, Rambler you're nitpicking. Am I? Much of the "charm" of Juno's character is her retro tastes and her wit and neither ring true in my book. She has a copy of Patti Smith's "Horses" in her bedroom. Now I grew up in the 70s and 80s and listened to cool music. But that was because I had older brothers who listened to cool music. If not for my brothers, I would not have been listening to Lou Reed, The Dictators, New York Dolls, etc. I'd been listening to Kansas, Boston, and all the other late 70s mainstream crap that was coming on then...and I didn't mind Boston, btw. Point being, most of us pick up our musical tastes from someone else, at least initially. Juno certainly didn't get her tastes from her parents or her friends. She'd more likely be listening to Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins, thinking they were original. Unless, it was 1990, then maybe one would regress to 1980.

A friend recently asked, when I was picking apart another movie, what was the last movie I liked. Besides the Nicky Barnes documentary, that would have been "Super Bad." One reason I steer clear of a lot of movies is because I do have a tendency to never be able to shut off my inner critic. Also, if I don't see it right away, literally the day a movie comes out, the backlash in my mind begins. That said, so much of this movie is about the quirks and wit of Juno and if I don't buy it, how am I supposed to buy the rest of the movie. I guess I waited too long on this one. But hey, I didn't pay for it so who cares?

JK Simmons is great.