Juno

January 21, 2008 @ 08:01

I’m not much of a movie watcher or reviewer so excuse me for being shallow when it comes to my impression of Juno, the fine little film that’s taking North America by storm.

I heard my kids talk about Juno over the past few weeks because it stars Brampton’s Michael Cera who went to the same high school as they did. In fact Michael, despite great success with Arrested Development and Superbad still spends a lot of time in his home town.

But it wasn’t until I sat and watched another Oprah Show with my wife that I made an effort to see this film. Oprah loved it. She loved everything about it, although during the entire one hour show which she devoted to Juno, she didn’t mention Cera once and she didn’t mention how Canadian the movie is.

Filmed in Vancouver, besides Cera it features a Canadian director, Jason Reitman of Montreal and a fantastic performance by a young Canadian actress from Halifax named Ellen Page.

Page is excellent in the lead role of Juno and she works very well with Cera within a screenplay that was written by first timer Diablo Cody of Chicago.

A couple of years ago Cody was a stripper in Minnesota with a passion for writing and a good friend within the movie industry recommended she write rather than strip, and she came up with Juno. It was her first attempt at a screenplay and it’s only the second feature film that Reitman as directed.

Juno was shutout at the Golden Globe Awards this past week, but it’s expected to get multiple Academy Award nominations but I can't really say whether its deserved because I haven't seen anything to compare it to.

What’s Juno about? A 16 year old girl who gets pregnant but it’s considered a comedy.

I’ll call it a very good film. Not great, but certainly not a disappointment following Oprah’s extreme praise. I enjoyed it very much.

Check it out ya buggers.

* I watch Oprah with my wife as a bonding thing, so spare me the wise cracks, ya bastards.