RTFT. It either works or it doesn’t.
Couldn’t stand it. The dialogue and the shit music in the soundtrack had me squirming.
Fair enough, that’s what I get to skipping to the end after page 1. 
I still stand behind it though.
RTFT?
It isn’t that nobody talks like that; it’s that anyone who does needs to be punched in the face.
Read the, um, thread.
I would like to punch Diablo Cody.
I don’t think, given Bren’s reaction “we need to schedule a doctor’s appointment”, that the ultrasound scene was in the Women Now clinic. It’s never made clear in the movie, but looking at a couple of on-line scripts they say INT. DOCTOR’S OFFICE not INT. WOMEN’S CHOICE CLINIC (they changed the name of the clinic in the final script but there’s no reason to think they changed the location of the ultrasound scene). BTW it’s Women Now 'cause, ya know, they help women now. 
First remember it was her idea that Bleeker go out with Katrina “soup girl” De Voort. His absence could have been explained better but it was clear that nobody wanted his Mother finding out and spending lots of time together would have raised a red flag for Bleek’s Mom.
I really thought it was a decent portrayal of a real 16 year old boy. He’s completely gobsmacked when Juno tells him she’s pregnant and her demeanor during the whole scene gives him nothing to figure out how he should be reacting to her and the situation. It’s also real clear that he’s clueless about the exact nature of their relationship,
She tells him to go out with “soup girl” and then get pissed off when she finds out he’s going to prom with her. She goes from declaring to Leah that there’s no way Bleek has any interest in Katrina and that prom is for “wenises”, to calling Katrina Bleek’s girlfriend and pretty clearly being pissed about not going to prom,
It’s the first time in the film that she shows any strong emotion towards him and it’s completely confusing,
And instead of just throwing up his hands and walking away from the crazy pregnant girl, he does the only thing he can think to do, he offers to carry her bag. No well thought out, soul baring speech, ending with a declaration of true love. Just that little gesture to show that he still cared for her. Yes, incredibly clichéd but exactly what a 16 year old boy would do.
There’s an interesting line in the script,
I think though that there’s a real difference between Paulie and Mark, as Gadarene noted,
I just don’t think that Mark ever had to try really hard to be cool. Yeah, Paulie’s a “jock” but he’s on the track team (and my, perhaps wrong, impression is the track team is a couple of steps above marching band in the jock pecking order). Mark, if he even was a jock, was on the football team, not quarterback, but not warming the bench either. I can’t imagine Mark not being popular with the ladies, but Paulie?
(I’d bet that Katrina De Voort was the first girl Bleek ever asked out.)
Mark’s band opened for the Melvins and went on some kind of world tour, if Paulie and Juno ever get the band together I doubt they’ll ever be in a club that seats more than 100.
I don’t think the scene is a betrayal, as much as it is Juno realizing that Mark’s not just a sellout, (and given her love for Iggy & The Stooges despite Lust for Life I don’t think she’d see that as a real character flaw) she suddenly discovers he’s a fucking poseur! He’s not the cool guy, with the fun job, and the great house, with the perfect wife, wanting to be the wonderful Dad to Juno’s baby. He’s doing it 'cause it’s expected of him, it’s all an act for Vanessa. He tries real hard to sabotage the whole thing from the beginning, an ad in the Penny Saver? His doubts about being “Mr. Mark Loring” are there long before Juno shows up on their doorstep and there’s nothing to suggest that he’s doing anything to be both “Mr. Mark Loring” and “Mark Loring, rock star”. Juno’s just the last straw. His instantly created new life isn’t about getting the band back together, it’s about getting all the trappings that come with being “Mark Loring, rock star”. Pure poseur.
I doubt that if we went and visited Juno five years later that she’d still be with Bleeker. But from the start she sees that the perfect couple that the Lorings were supposed to be was a sham.
What her Dad tells her suddenly makes it clear what really defines “the perfect couple”,
Vanessa Loring clearly does not think the sun shines out of Mark’s ass. She doesn’t love him, she loves the guy he’s become solely for her benefit. They clearly don’t “get” each other.
Juno and Paulie “get” each other. If they did end up getting married neither of them would have had a room in a house, they would have shared a home. Neither of them would have thought that the others shirt was stupid. Neither of them would have wanted the other to grow up.
CMC fnord!
Their is an inverse relationship between the time it takes to construct a post and the degree to which it contributes to a discussion. ~ Hentor the Barbarian’sRule of Posting Composition
'Specially since this is " The “I Hated Juno” thread" not the “Why I really liked Juno thread”. My apologies to Cagey Drifter and my thanks. After I finally got to see Juno the first thing I did was to read the long dead threads about it and as much as I wanted to post in them I ain’t no necromancer.
I didn’t hate it, but taken as a genre, I’m kind of sick of the whole Juno / Garden State / Sideways / Napolean Dynamite / Little Miss Sunshine quirky little Sundance Film Festival indie comedies. With their likable misfits who we can all identify with with their oh so clever glib remarks and the oh so cool soundtrack of indie songs no one has ever heard of.
I don’t have any specific preference for indie. But I recall I recognized a lot of songs from these movies. Are they really using less well known songs than the average movie?
Garden State was known for it’s particularly eclectic soundtrack, selected by Zack Braff himself. Juno appears to have a similar style of “adult alternative singer/songwriter” tunes.
I might have actually called this Garden State: The Chick Flick, since Juno isn’t a functioning full-retard like Napolean Dynamite.
I have to agree with what crowmanyclouds said. Juno and Bleeker are these two quirky typical high school kids. They aren’t particularly popular or particularly socially inept. IOW they don’t fall into the typical media fabricated dichotomy where teenagers are either gorgeous Machiavellian sociopaths who act like 30 year olds like Gossip Girl nor are they social pariahs like Napolean Dynamite. They experience the normal teenager experiences of going to school, trying to fit in while maintaining their own identity and whatnot.
Enter Vanessa and Mark as the perfect 30-something couple. At first they are just this sort of Yuppie upper middle class couple disconnected from anything Juno knows. So she pretty much assumes they are in love and everything is perfect. As she develops a friendship with Mark, we slowly learn how much mark has changed his life to fit into Vanessa’s mold and ultimately how unhappy he is. Or more likely Vanessa has changed over time but Mark never really embraced those changes. Or maybe Vanessa was the one putting on the false front when they met because he was the cool “rocker” guy. You can’t really fault either one of them. Growing up does not mean taking a job you hate so you can make another person happy who doesn’t even want the same things as you.
Anyhow, the lesson learned is to appreciate someone who loves you for who you are, little quirks and all.
How many songs do you normally know from a movie soundtrack? I know 4 from the garden state, and 5 from Juno.
That’s probably about right. I actually got into a lot of the music on the soundtrack after I had listened to it. I like it because it isn’t the standard top 40 Rihanna and Kanye West crap I hear everywhere I go.
To be fair, growing up often does mean taking a job you hate for other reasons, ie: supporting those you love or just being around for something better later on.
Ya know, a tangent in this thread has been that Quentin Tarantino can’t write realistic dialogue. which is just wrong. Sure, he has stylized characters emit stylized dialogue, and these appear mostly in the films in which he’s paying tribute to stylized film genres (i.e., every single scene in Kill Bill).
But c’mon, this shit is realistic, and real genius:
Now, I don’t hang out with two-bit hitmen, but this is exactly the stuff I’d expect them to chat about when they’re not in “hitman” character.
Yeah, or Reservoir Dogs, where they’re rambling about the superglue urban legend and somehow segue to ‘70s cop shows, and then it cuts to Joe warning them that if that’s all they do, when they’re supposed to be planning a heist, they’ll just end up in prison saying "When we were planning this, all we did was sit around and tell fuckin’ jokes." I’d call that very realistic.
I tried to watch Juno a bunch of times, I’d heard how good it was. I fell asleep every time - at least 4 attempts. Now I don’t feel so bad for missing it or not being able to stay awake past the first half hour.
crowmanyclouds: Really well-said; thanks for that.
msmith537:
See, I don’t really know why the above movies are grouped together. I think it’s perfectly possible to enjoy some of the films you listed and be indifferent about (or even annoyed by) the others; it’s not like we’re talking about the discernible aesthetic that runs through Judd Apatow comedies, or anything.
For example:
Juno: Loved the movie; really enjoyed the characterizations; thought the dialogue was generally great (mostly aside from that convenience store scene, as people have pointed out); thought the soundtrack was obtrusive at times, enjoyable at other times, but overall in keeping with the style of the film in a way that added to the mood. I’ve watched Juno probably half a dozen times, and will be watching it again in the future.
Garden State: Zach Braff and his brand of smarmy earnestness irritate the hell out of me. Watched half an hour of this movie, couldn’t stand it, turned it off.
Sideways: Loved Sideways, but for completely different reasons than I loved Juno. Going by your descriptions above:
[ul][li]Sideways is not a comedy, fundamentally [/li][li]I don’t think it’s particularly quirky, except to the extent that it’s exploring the human relationships between people who could be considered fucked-up in certain ways [/li][li]while most of the characters are “misfits,” I certainly don’t think they’d be accurately characterized as being “likeable,” I’m not sure how many people would admit to identifying with them (although I did identify with Miles’s many, many weaknesses and flaws, I wasn’t particularly thrilled about being able to do so) [/li][li]I don’t remember that many “oh so clever glib remarks” – and indeed, part of what makes Miles an interesting character is his complete inability to connect articulately with anyone else on a human, personal level[/li][li]I don’t remember a single indie song, “oh so cool” or otherwise[/li][/ul]
Napoleon Dynamite: I’m pretty indifferent towards this movie. For my money, though, it’s not nearly as intelligent as Juno, nor as funny, and it doesn’t care about its characters even an eighth as much. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, in part because I used to live in small-town Idaho myself, but I have no desire to see it again. Don’t remember much of an indie soundtrack, either.
Little Miss Sunshine: I liked this movie the first time I saw it. I hated this movie the second time I saw it. Quirky, affected, ultimately grating. I think there were a lot of good performances – Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette particularly – but it was slight and frothy and yet, paradoxically, managed to collapse under the weight of its own cuteness.
…So I think Juno is a far better movie than any of the others you’ve listed there except Sideways, and I think Sideways is a different brand of film entirely.
Gadarene - You don’t have to like or dislike all of them, I am just lumping them together because to me they do have a discernible aesthetic, much in the same way all Wes Anderson films have a similar aesthetic.
They are understated in the same way that Michael Bay films aren’t.
The comedy is subtle in a way that Judd Apatow films aren’t
The romance is sweet and awkward in a way that romantic comedies staring Jennifer Aniston or Cameron Diaz aren’t.
The characters are usually flawed and not traditionally attractive in a Hollywood Brad Pitt / Angelina Jolie sense
They usually take place in Middle America
Maybe I’m just painting with an overly large brush and need to watch more critically aclaimed indie films released by Fox Searchlight Pictures that premiered at major film festival.
Er…what? Little Miss Sunshine takes place in NM, AZ and CA.
Sideways takes place in California.
Garden State…er…guess.
Napoleon Dynamite rather proudly takes place in a state that borders Oregon and freakin’ Nevada.
So, out of five films which “usually take place in Middle America”, only one actually takes place in the Midwest. How does that work?
Hostile Dialect,
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