putting the j in jjosh

Juno – C

How exactly did Juno get nominated for an Academy Award? I know everyone keeps talking about the "Little Miss Sunshine" effect, but c’mon! Was anyone else as underwhlemed by that film as Maxine and I were? Indie by the numbers. Some good stuff in there, but sort of underwhelming overall. Maxine really didn’t like the character of Juno — said her (the character’s) voice and tone seemed very unreal. 

There’s a good piece in the Voice about a new Romanian film that just came out, and the writer uses it as a jumping off point to discuss the recent spate of pregnant films (Juno, Knocked Up, Waitress) and talk about them as very basic fantasies…

I’m not doing the piece justice, you can read it here.   

Before Juno came out, when the buzz started and all that Diablo Cody stuff was floating around, I thought it was really going to be something special, but yikes. I just don’t think Jason Reitman has a good sense for comic timing, or for interesting directing. Though he’s been nominated too, hasn’t he. Don’t get me wrong, there were some funny moments, but overall the film fell flat. 

Far funnier were the Michael Cera and Jason Bateman press junkets for Juno (they get better as you move down the page). Why wasn’t the movie as funny as these small pieces of improv?

I confess I did like the Kimya music though. How come those songs weren’t nominated? Nothing for Kimya, one song for Once (which had some amazing songs) and 3 for Enchanted? Well, to be fair, I haven’t seen Enchanted. Yet. I kinda want to, not sure why, and can’t help myself. We’ll see how it goes.

Every year I like the Oscars less. At least this year there were lots of fantastic films they couldn’t ignore like No Country and TWBBlood…