The Juno and the Hype

By Memo Salazar

The internet, being an infinite depository of ideas, has a lot of bad ones. Dumb videos, boring music, blowhard opinions… though I support this new democratic playing field in principle, I’m not oblivious to the overload of utter intellectual dreck we have to suffer for such freedom. When it comes to “film criticism” or “movie reviews”, there are plenty of self-appointed “critics” who’s ego can’t help but masturbate endlessly on cyber-paper, even if no one is watching. The thrill of seeing your opinion “in print” is still alluring enough, apparently, to convince hundreds of geeks to take a break from their X-Box and start typing away…  a leftover idea from the days when “being in print” meant that someone important actually thought you had something worth saying.

One could argue that Cinemaspeak is just such a place- one of countless movie blogs that exist for purely self-serving reasons. Maybe it is- but the truth is I see value in this here little site, full of idiosyncratic thoughts put forth by individuals, rather than committees. I try to write about movies that receive little coverage, movies that truly inspire thought and provoke reaction. This is not a paid gig, so I am under no pressure to have something snappy and clever written every week; I speak up only when I have a reason to, and that usually happens when I see something worth talking about. For the most part, this involves writing about worthwhile films that escape the mainstream media’s myopic eye, but sometimes it means writing about the opposite- movies that bypass our eyes and get shoved right up our asses for no good reason. Which brings us to Juno.

It all started with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. This is a great film- one that lets you see the world through the eyes of a fully-paralyzed man, unable to communicate, save through his left eye. Beautifully shot, it could have come off as artsy and pretentious if it hadn’t been made with such intelligence and creative vision. On paper, it reads like a shitty Hollywood feel-good movie: arrogant rich guy awakens from a coma, paralyzed and cynical, eventually finding a newfound appreciation for life via his imagination, which culminates in a best-selling autobiography. Sounds like something stupid enough to earn the title Awakenings II. Leave it to the French, however, to take a much more interesting route, employing several cinematic techniques that come off as inspired rather than gimmicky. I’m sure a lot has been written about it already, so I’ll just say it’s definitely worth your time. What isn’t worth your time is the movie we decided to sneak into right after watching this one- Juno, which begged the question “how bad can it be if it’s free?”

Let’s see. The opening scene, in which we are introduced to our spunky, wise-cracking young protagonist as she purchases her third pregnancy test that day, has got to be one of the biggest pieces of cinematic shit I have ever witnessed: horribly-written dialogue, the kind worthy of MTV Corporate Suits hoping to sound hip and current; completely unlikable, un-redeeming, uninteresting characters, speaking to each other in pure ironic drivel. One-dimentional, cold, cruel and crass… these are just a few of the many words applicable to the unfolding mess. In a mere five minutes, this movie was already worse than three other over-hyped pieces of shit I could recall: American Beauty, Reality Bites, and Napoleon Dynamite. All of those mediocre efforts, if you recall, captured the hearts and minds of American audiences, which goes to show you how a good marketing campaign can fool everybody most of the time. But none of those corporate-minded movies could seem to compete with the utter stupidity and lack of talent found in Juno, and as the film trudged through it’s first half hour, the lack of clothes on this cute little empress was just more and more obvious. Michael Cerra did his best to add a little genuine humanity to the thing, but his humble performance did little to curb the tide of shit spraying all over the audience. For the first time this century, I was seriously considering walking out.

That is, until our heroine encountered a young couple hoping to adopt her child, played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman. Only then, finally, did something genuine finally start to seep through. Juno’s relationship with this young father-to-be, who’s really an overgrown college student incessantly reliving grunge music’s early-90’s glory days, rings true. Despite the film’s completely unsuccessful attempt at making her the sharpest, hippest 17-year-old you’ve ever known (basically an updated Punky Brewster- older and pregnant, but just as contrived) Juno’s character finally achieves a little depth vis-a-vis her pseudo-crush on this older dude. Though their conversations remain dumb and completely unrealistic [Juno is clearly every 30-year-old male hipster's wet dream: a 17 year old non-comformist who happens to be an expert on late 70's punk rock, who can recognize a Les Paul guitar from across the room, and who's ready to debate the Stooges vs Sonic Youth on demand- in other words, a nerdy, white, Brookyln-music-geek with boobs- about as realistic a portrayal of a teenage girl as Chasing Amy was of lesbians. Amazing, when you consider the screenwriter is a woman. Moviemaking tip #42: kids, once you graduate from film school, you no longer have to share the same pop-cultural tastes as your lead characters, and they certainly don't need to double as an on-screen blog entry about your all-time favorite album.] Pardon me- as I was saying, though their conversations remain unrealistic, the characters’ situation itself rings true… at least, truer than everything else we’ve seen so far. Amazingly, the second half of Juno begins to develop a little charm, despite the repeated faux hipster-speak and the completely derivative use of old 60’s tunes (clearly, the filmmaker has been jerking off to Wes Anderson films for the last several years)- a now-clichéd device which may have permanently ruined some of my favorite songs (thanks a lot, “director” Jason Reitman!) The Velvet Underground, the Kinks, and Belle & Sebastian all fall victim to a completely neanderthal use of pop music in movies. While Wes Anderson uses his songs as counterpoint to the action on screen, Jason Reitman, clueless director that he is, merely blasts them in our faces every time a scene ends and a new one begins… and then rapidly fades the song out, with no craft or thought, the same way every tv sitcom has done for the past 50 years. The “original” songs by Kimya Dawson fit perfectly into this uncreative stew, since they echo the sensibility of the movie: faux-sentimentality that thinks it can bullshit its way into being “raw and honest” simply because said artist can’t sing or play her way out of an open mic night. Dawson’s “bad” voice is so contrived and insincere it makes Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston sound like Juilliard graduates; her songs’ pretensions are even more obvious since they share soundtrack space with Moe Tucker’s beautifully untrained voice on the Velvet Underground classic I’m Sticking With You. As usual, those without a clue think that by copying the surface characteristics of something great, they too can create something great. They forget that you have to have something to say first.

By the end of the film, I will concede, Juno does have a little bit to say. Not much, but it’s something, at least, which comes as a total surprise after its painful beginning. Shallow, airheaded wifey actually ends up faring better than her cool, rock n’ roll hubby- a clever reversal from how they were first introduced to us. Even Juno’s stepmom transcends her “parent trying to stay young” schtick, providing some of the film’s more insightful lines of dialogue by the end. Were this a friend’s little indie film, shot on DV for a few hundred bucks, I’d be impressed and remark that, if they got rid of all the contrived dialogue, their script showed some promise. But, alas, this is a Hollywood film, with professional actors, a real budget, and an Oscar nomination for… Best Picture? Are you fucking kidding me? The fact that this script was able to pass through the gauntlet of readers and studio heads without having someone edit out much of its obviously-poorly-written dialogue shows you just how clueless Hollywood has become. No big revelation there, I guess, but with its critical acceptance and awards, Juno has achieved newfound heights of cultural irony; this is what we call our country’s best effort in 2008. In a couple of decades, Juno will be all but forgotten; youth culture will view this emo-induced bag of fumes with the same cynical eye that Gen-X-ers viewed hippies, a new set of sensibilities leading Hollywood into further areas of contrived exploitation. Until then, however, we’ll have to endure our retarded culture’s “It Girl” of the month a little while longer: Juno, now playing at a waste of time near you. If you’ve yet to see this little nugget, consider yourself warned.

Tags: bad movie, cinematic shit, criticism, hollywood, hype, ivan reitman, juno, marketing, michael cerra, oscars