someone smarter than me on juno
i have such a curiously mad hard on for this guy rob and his blog that no one is going to believe me, but i really did not like juno. i saw it with my friend nelson, and despite feeling like this was a movie i should really like, i thought it was awful. i absolutely could not stand the character of juno. every time she opened her mouth, this torrent of overly hip dialouge would come rushing out that made my skin crawl. i tried rather unsuccessfully to explain this several times after viewing the film, but everyone just assumed i was being bitchy and was sore over the use of that awesome sonic youth b-side as a plot device (which, granted, i was). also, i fucking hate the moldy peaches.
the point is, i was just reading rob’s year end awards on his very funny blog, and he wrote the EXACT same thing i have been saying, only much better and funnier. so, without further adieu, here is a better written version of why i hate juno by someone much cooler than me who also happened to hate juno….
“I know Juno is 2007’s token indie darling, and despite genuinely wanting to like it, I thought it was staggeringly mediocre. Ellen Paige is a fantastic and adorable actress, and the movie has a sweet story and some nice moments, but its much-talked-about script - written by an ex-stripper/current blogger - is so retardedly over-written that it ruins the film. Juno’s character speaks in an awkward combination of grammar too complex and witty for even the smartest sixteen year old, and invented slang words too idiotic for any sixteen year old. I was watching the movie thinking how it sounded like someone in their late ‘20’s trying to write witty dialogue for teenagers, before I knew that it was in fact someone in their late ‘20’s trying to write witty dialogue for teenagers. Juno’s script, which is for some reason available online, is so nauseatingly hip that it even specifies which posters from the “Big Book Of Hipster Credibility” should be on Juno’s bedroom wall: specifically The Damned, The Germs, The Stooges, Television, and Richard Hell. There is, however, nothing hip about the phrase “honest-to-blog,” which is one of many verbal offenses that drag the movie down.
As a side note, I should probably have a separate award for the terrible fucking sing-song folk music that beleaguers the entire film and adds to its exhausting “look how indie we are” clamor for credibility. God damn I hate the Moldy fucking Peaches.”
There you have it. Juno sucked and anyone who liked it is no longer my friend.
8 months ago