Juno I Spent $3.50 To See This

So this was my first trip back to the LaGrange since the ticket prices were raised a staggering seventy-five percent. Having only three single dollar bills in my wallet, I reached for quarters out of our change jar (okay, I had a twenty dollar bill too, but I didn't want to break it).

With the stakes raised so high now, what were my choices tonight?


Untraceable - Looks like another crappy torture porn movie. Plus, it wasn't playing tonight at the 9:00pm show, because Theater 2 was featuring "Live Comedy".

The Bucket List - You're not expecting me to sit through this, are you?

27 Dresses - When I was contemplating seeing a movie last week, I would have chosen this over Untraceable -- which honestly isn't saying much.

Juno - Woo, an Oscar-winning "indie" comedy!



It was nothing but the best for Juno -- Theater 1, in all its curvy splendor. Live Comedy had to suck it in Theater 2 tonight.

So, I actually sat down for this movie with some trepidation. Was there a Diablo Cody backlash still in progress? Would I be another screeching voice in the anti-Diablo chorus if I criticized the movie? Or had the backlash recoiled already, and we were in the midst of a backlash to the backlash -- a Diablo Cody resurgence, a Diablo Cody Renaissance?

I didn't know, but I felt like I should be sensitive about the crap I would be saying. Then several minutes into the movie, this line is uttered by a cashier played by Rainn Wilson:

"This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet."

Thank you for this shitty line of dialogue, which completely absolves me of any snarky thing I spew about this movie.

It's not like the script was awful or anything. It just wasn't good. The dialogue really ventured into overcutesy unrealistic pop culture nonsense from time to time. And there was a really terrible scene where Juno gets an ultrasound, where the technician makes some out-of-the-blue ridiculously offensive statements and Juno's stepmother responds in an unrealistic diatribe that would never be uttered by a person on this planet.

I'll say that Diablo Cody deserved an Oscar for the screenplay in the same way that Crash deserved its Best Picture Oscar a couple years ago. They both deserved the awards because the Oscars are in no way an indicator of excellence. I'm sorry if I'm being unfair to Crash -- I did see only a few minutes of it, a horrendously acted scene between Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock. Perhaps all the other minutes of Crash were manna from heaven.

Anyways, I'm happy to report that the screenplay, which again wasn't awful, and which again wasn't remotely good either, was not the most annoying thing about Juno.

Oh lord, the music. The music wouldn't stop. And they used so much music I liked. "I'm Sticking With You" by the Velvet Underground; The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man". They used some Belle and Sebastian songs, a Buddy Holly song, even an Antonio Carlos Jobim song. These songs were UNEARNED by the filmmakers. Because you have a boring movie where little happens does not give you the right to paste over every goddamn transition with a catchy song. You didn't earn it. You didn't EARN it.

I was actually hostile to the lesser-known songs of Juno, just for the fact that I felt the songs that I *did* know were treated so shabbily. Now see what you did, Juno? You turned me against indie rock! For shame, Juno. For shame.