Juno

Quirky. That's the cool hip buzzword in Hollywood. Little Miss Sunshine, Lars and the Real Girl, blah blah blah. Dress up people in retro 80's clothes, have them babble endlessly about geek chic topics, throw in overcooked opinions on retro music and or societal matters and throw them in a situation when their unique individuality tries to exist in a banal environment and you get critical and oscar praise. Don't forget the quirky and yet heart warming older figure (JK Simmons, Alan Arkin). I have nothing against these movies, I really don't. Juno was a bit overcooked for my taste. I don't need my meals cooked way past their time and then salted within an inch of its life with righteous indignation. For all the cool little pats on the back these films have gotten, the critics seem to convienatly overlook the fact that the same shit has been done before and much sharper by Kevin Smith. Only when he did it it was written off as one long dick and fart joke. Now it's all the rage. I read one review that said Diablo Cody has a wonderful ear for dialogue. My ear seems to have heard this type of dialogue done so much better in the likes of Clerks, Chasing Amy and Mallrats. Oh, but the critics will say, Juno has a heart warming element that the low brow comedy of Kevin Smith doesn't posess. I submit to you, Jersey Girl and Chasing Amy again. If diablo Cody wins for original screenplay the first words out of her mouth should be "I'd like to thank Kevin Smith for allowing me to rip off his wonderfully developed sense of dialogue and give the critics an overstuffed rant of how absolutly cool and neat I really think I am!" These fake independent films get way too much recognition. Nothing changes in any of the characters, no one grows, no redemption happens, no lesson learned. She has a baby that's it. No long indecision or choices abou the baby. Hardly any conflict. It's all "I'm gonna have a baby, no biggie, I'm way too advanced of a person to really care either way about anything blah blah". All this could have been accomplished in a film short. Oh but we'd be robbed of all the meaninless verbal masturbation I almost forgot!

Not impressed. Not in the least bit. Ellen did a wonderful job with her timing on the dialogue but it's one note over and over again. The plot arch had about as much curve as a pancake. But hey who's noticing right?