So I got around to seeing Juno. A wonderfully cute, quirky, comedy about an unplanned pregnancy. The writing is rather witty and reminds me of Kevin Smith actually, if he was younger and well…a girl. Diablo Cody, former stripper turned writer, penned the screenplay after publishing a book, Candy Girl, about her life in the sex industry. She actually got her start in writing as a blogger, but when you start blogging about being a stripper someone is bound to take notice. Some interviews make it seem like she was pole dancing and grinding away on some knuckle dragging mouth breather who had the gall to wear sweatpants when some Hollywood hotshot magically saved her by noticing her blog. Not entirely true, she did get the book published and did some work for City Pages, Jane Magazine and Entertainment Weekly prior to Juno. So there was a trail leading up to the film, granted she was still stripping at the time I believe.

I had heard the film was unconventional but honestly in this day and age it’s really not. To say it’s unconventional denotes that the situation is rare, I’ve yet to meet anyone who didn’t know someone in their graduating class who got pregnant. As far as movies to tackle the subject, it’s not the first. Saved!, The Opposite of Sex, Blue Denim and the truly unconventional Palindromes. Even Molly Ringwald had a crack at it in For Keeps. The unconventionality of the movie actually lies in its intelligence. Since that seems to fly out the window in most mainstream movies. There are no cliff hanger endings or plot twists and turns you don’t see from miles away but none of that really matters because it’s about the dialog. How the characters speak with their quips and relentless nostalgic one liners that makes a late 20 something like myself have little chance at not laughing. The irony though is that its greatest feature is also its biggest flaw. The words often don’t feel believable coming out of Juno’s mouth. I just couldn’t buy Juno quoting a line from Thundercats, she’s just too young.

There are a couple of interesting tidbits that I need to point out.

1. Juno has an Aaron Kraten print on her wall, I have to give it up to the set designer on that one.

2. The Soundtrack is brilliant! The one thing that bugs me is that now I hear that Moldy Peaches song on my cousin’s Myspace page. I’m waiting for her to ask me if I’ve heard of them to arrogantly reply YES, I saw them 6 years ago in a shitty Detroit bar, costumes and all.

3. The hamburger phone is fucking priceless!

The casting is at the perfect level, no one is particularly out of place in the film. Even Jennifer Garner works her role really well. I had seen Ellen Page in Hard Candy and was a little hesitant about her in this movie but she quickly squashed those reservations. Michael Cera’s performance is flawless, he has that shy, awkward, high school kid down. Jason Bateman seems very comfortable in his character as well.

I laughed a lot but I must say the movie was a little over hyped. Which is not the movie’s fault by any means but from what I heard of the movie I was expecting to see the next Clerks. However leaving the theater I thought, more like Clerks 2. Nevertheless it’s a great movie go see it, if you haven’t already. It will definitely end up in my collection of flicks when it hits DVD. Moreover I’d like to see what Diablo Cody comes up with next.

p.s. Mad props for the Kerplunk t-shirt Diablo wears in one of her Myspace pics.

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