Ogged you are a girl.
We went to see this movie, but it was sold out.
Ogged's not actually up at this hour; he's faking it.
Ogged you are a girl.
Maybe a date movie.
Quite a bit of daylight between "too cutesy; if I wanted to watch Joss Whedon's Days of our Lives 90210, I'd get a lobotomy" and "Best movie ever!" even for an old stick-in-the-mud like me.
Juno is too clever by half. Unlike better high school films such as Fast Times, Dazed and Confused or Election, there's never a sense that what we're watching is teenagers trying to figure out how to live and act and prepare themselves for life in the world outside their parents' houses. I'm not just talking about the credulity-straining self-awareness of the dialogue, although that is a part of it. The whole narrative is filled with examples of the characters acting as though they're involved in some RPG where they each have to act like some character on "Seinfeld" and the trick is to figure out who's who.
I finally got around to seeing I Am Legend yesterday. Just as I had suspected, that movie takes itself waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously. "Bob Marley was like a virologist." WTF? I can believe the suburban teenager who acts like a parody of a jaded roué for far longer than I can the impossibly wealthy Army colonel who is motivated by his hatred for zombie viruses and his love for Bob Marley.
At the other end of the cutesy spectrum, saw The Savages last night and it's fantastic. Rather sad, even painful, especially if you've had or anticipate soon having a grandparent or parent in a nursing home, but gorgeously written, shot, and acted. Wonderful to see two of the greatest actors of our time -- Laura Linney & Phillip Seymour Hoffman -- together.
6: I wonder, does anyone involved with the scripting of this movie actually know any virologists? I mean, I know from virologists, and if Bob Marley was much like any of them I'd be very surprised. Kind of delighted, too, but mostly surprised.
Probably the same person who scripted Good Will Hunting.
There are people out there who didn't like Juno? Did I miss this unfogged conversation?
Labs didn't like it here, and there's minne upthread and here.
And the dialogue is neither Whedonesque nor annoying.
From Labs: and I say this as a guy who liked Gilmore Girls.
Wrong article.
All is forgiven in exchange for the "drinking white tea while listening to Yaz" line. Nonetheless, I think Labs is wrong to think we are pushed too quickly change our sympathies on Garner and Bateman. Rather, you get to see the strengths of the one and weaknesses of the other that are not immediately apparent. Bateman's character isn't evil, he's just weak and miserably unhappy. We likewise aren't supposed to come around to love Garner's Vanessa, but to see that she has strengths one would miss if one focused only on her hideous yuppie-ness. One might even come to conclude that her hideous yuppiness may be a representation of some of these virtues.
Also, Cera's "who would marry you, you'd be the meanest wife ever" speech is wonderful, wonderful dialog. Surpassing anything I've ever heard from Whedon (who I like).
Caitlin Flanagan doesn't like, so I guess that settles it. Gagh!
I saw The Savages last night too. They should supply tissues. Very good acting but often sad. It felt a little too predictable, but I was OK with that.
Also when Juno says, "You're the coolest person I know, and you don't even try!" and Michael Cera says, "Actually I try really hard." Is so, so endearing.
Yeah, there were a lot of really good lines and moments like 16 and 18. The script is available here.
This weekend, people were lined up practically out to the street to see Juno. Being the cutting-edge person that I am, I was there to see No Country for Old Men.
15 gets it right. It's not like Vanessa is even particularly likeable at the end -- the film is pretty clear that Juno and Vanessa never become friends -- but Juno finally comes to see her good qualities, and sees how important those qualities are, even if Vanessa never becomes cool or interesting in her eyes.
I wonder how much the goodness of Whedonesque dialog depends on the speakers being teenagers or living in an unreal world. There are similarities between Gilmore Girls and Whedon's work, but I find the former cloying and the latter charming.
21: The ending was too derivative of The Nanny Diaries.
Maybe The Nanny Diaries were too anticipatory of Juno.
I agree with 15. Garner's character is still annoying at the end, not "angelic." with bateman's character though, how you think of him is heavily influenced by how you read the slow-dance scene. If you think it was a genuine and premeditated pass, then he definitely comes off as a dick. If it's more muddled and confused (as many basically platonic relationsips can get at points) then he's not evil, just immature and thoughtless. And he was immature and thoughtless all along.
Also, what do people think of Paus, as a new pseud. Advantage: fits on a nametag. Disadvantage, looks kind of silly.
i especially like :P part
a H-g's version is interesting, pet me, yeah, but what would stand for 'm e'?
go in to m-...., e-....... if there are suitable synonyms maybe
but of course it's up to, Paus,
then Paus, as you like :)
Heebie, you're making me blush.
John Emerson, i started to read languagehat's site
it's difficult to read for me yet, i think i do not understand half of the posts
i liked his Boris Pilnyak's post, the same thought about Pasternak has occured to me too in the past
i mean how could he allow M.T's fate etc
well, one step at a time
as the fox said, i mean closer
it's not easy to approach a total stranger and ask for help in translations or whatever
sure it would be a lot easier that you are willing to be an intermediate :)
Read, I will definitely intermediate. I got your email and will email him soon.
9: I wonder, does anyone involved with the scripting of this movie actually know any virologists?
I do know that some virologists at my institution were consulted during the production of this film; my roommate tells of Will Smith coming through the microarray scanning facility while he was at work there. I know nothing of viruses, but according to the more informed people I attended IAL with, it's not clear that much expert opinion ended up in the script, though.
The virologists I knew were all women. One was a very sharp young soccer mom type. The other two were very hot (but unhip and unglamorous) single women in their late twenties or early thirties. I think that we can safely generalize from that sample.
Bateman's character isn't evil, he's just weak and miserably unhappy.
He can be all of these things! I read the dance scene as a definite pass; when you get to your mid-30s there are certain things you ought not need to be told.
One thing I did like is the increasing charm of Juno's stepmother, whose warning on the Bateman front was well-delivered.
I read the dance scene as a definite pass
Huh. Didn't see it that way, but admittedly it's not clearly not.
Maybe this is why you never get laid, Ogged. It's at best creepy, whatever it is. It could be a pass, or it could be a guy who's totally clueless. Either way is heavy-handed.
I really want to see this. Also Atonement and Sweeney Todd and a couple of other things.
Unlike better high school films such as Fast Times, Dazed and Confused or Election, there's never a sense that what we're watching is teenagers trying to figure out how to live and act and prepare themselves for life in the world outside their parents' houses. I'm not just talking about the credulity-straining self-awareness of the dialogue, although that is a part of it. The whole narrative is filled with examples of the characters acting as though they're involved in some RPG
Right. Because Fast Times was so very, very realistic.
You people are all sexist and evil.
when you get to your mid-30s there are certain things you ought not need to be told.
I might need to borrow your class notes, Labs.
I'm tellin' you B, there's no date-rape in Fast Times!
Of the four of them, Fast Times ought to be the most realistic (for all that realism in cinema is an almost impossibly vexed concept), given that the memoir/article upon which it was based was written by someone of high school age who actually went to high school to research it. Diablo Cody didn't even go to fucking public school. Nor did she go to high school in Minnesota. Juno was like Fargo for the next generation of hipsters -- a gag about flyover-land and how quaint and provincial we all are here.
Cody and Reitman are sexist for being anti-condom, so there. (Yes, yes, I realize there is no sign that says "CONDOMS ARE BAD" in bright blue neon lights with a purple outline that's so bright and so sharp that the sign - it just blows up because the words are so powerful that it just has to explode, but that scene with the sleazy goth girl is anti-condom on the level of the signifier, not necessarily the signified. It connotes anti-condom ideas, if you see what I'm saying.)
I thought Fast Times At Ridgemont High was pretty realistic. Except for Spicoli.
Juno was like Fargo for the next generation of hipsters -- a gag about flyover-land and how quaint and provincial we all are here.
I liked Juno, because it didn't strike me this way. The quaint and provincial characters (Juno's parents) turn out to be wise and kind, and the character Juno idolizes (Bateman) turns out to be a pathetic creep.
Juno successfully sold anti-hipster messages to hipsters; I should hope that's something we can all get behind.
Hipsters don't really hold that much power in society, destroyer. I for one would like to see them take more of a role in trying to influence policy, instead of having their opinions marginalized even within the few realms where they are still relevant.
I'm discussing this on a personal, not a political level. As someone surrounded by too many hipsters, it would please me greatly if they learned to be a bit more sentimental and amused, and to strive a bit more like the bourgeois.
I think that Fargo was a hipster trap. The quaint people have no particular problems and win in the end. The cool people are nasty, stupid losers and end up putting each another through wood chippers.
After seeing The Big Lebowski I'm still more convinced that the Coens are anti-hipsters. The anarchists are ridiculous and unpleasant. The pornographer with the artistic pretensions is ridiculous and unpleasant. The daughter with the artistic pretensions is just ridiculous.
Of course, everyone in the movie is ridiculous, but portraying stoners and Vietnam vets as losers isn't pushing the envelope much.
You know what? If you're fifty and mostly been a stay-at-home mom, you have crap for options when it comes to putting together a resume.
Actually, not a hipster trap the way "hipster" now is used. More a cultural-leftist trap.
51: The latter is much more interesting than the former. "Hipsters" have control over a lot of the media consumed by hipsters and the people who think about them; everybody else is otherwise occupied. As I've said before, Cat and Girl said it best.
Baa is dead on on Juno. The thing that made me so happy about the movie was that it wasn't about Jason Bateman's character. You've failed to be an adult; you don't get a whole movie about coming to terms with your extended youth. You're out, and we're going to spend our time with the people who are dealing with shit, who happen to be women. It was a nice corrective to the Apatow decade.
I realize that this is from FL's post, not ogged's, but anyone who sees Bateman's pass at Juno as unrealistic has never been a 16 year old girl. Possibly the worst part of being a teenage girl is the moment when you realize that the adult man who seemed nice and talked to you like you were an adult was actually making a pass at you. Because from that moment on, you can never have a conversation with a man without wondering if he's just trying to get you in bed. And when you're 16, wondering what 30 year old men's intentions are is...well...it's creepy. And it prevents forming any sort of mentoring relationship with adult men, which is a shame.
I loved the entire movie, but nothing seemed as real to me as that relationship.
50: Volunteer stuff? Organizational skills? A skills-based resume rather than a list of jobs held?
This is my mom, trying for a promotion at work. She has ten years of experience at her current part-time position now, but the experience that helps make her case for the promotion is from 1979. It's more how to include that experience while skating over the sixteen-year gap. (Though, it's not as though her current position doesn't know she was a stay-at-home mom before they hired her eleven years ago.)
She's also nervous as all getout about this, too, as it would be a promotion to full-time with benefits.
I figured it was your mom. If it's a promotion in the same company, then like you say, they already know. And she's been working there elven years! Skills-based resume, good cover letter. Maybe a little bit about how beneficial she's been in the job she currently has, it being good for both her and the company to make better use of her, etc.?
Good luck to the Cala mom!
anyone who sees Bateman's pass at Juno as unrealistic has never been a 16 year old girl
You know, this is a really good point. It was totally subconscious when I saw the movie, and I didn't think of it when I read FL's post, but you're completely right.
On another note, Cala, this may be geographically-specific or sector-specific , but in my neck of the woods people respond positively to a person who puts her unpaid work experience on her resume. It's pretty easy to put "Homemaker" or "Family-Life Coordinator" on a resume and then back it up with a half-dozen major tasks and responsibilities for those years.
As I said, very contextual. Your mom probably has a good sense of whether that would go over well in this case.
Mr. B. put "homemaker" on his resume last time, and it didn't seem to hurt him any.
I have never seen her this giddy. She's alternately nervous, excited, convincing herself that they won't hire her, convincing herself that the other internal candidate is more qualified, convincing herself that she deserves the position more, convincing herself that it's all just for show because they want the external candidate.
I hope they give it to her, darn it.
She meets a lot of the specific criteria mentioned in the job description, so we're focusing on that. (My mother, in addition to being giddy, has figured that sending her daughters to college means that they're the ones who know about this resume stuff (we don't ask why she doesn't ask my dad), and any chain of reasoning like that means she calls me and my sisters and they pass the buck to me.)
From Mr. B. I've learned to talk about how you meet the criteria, *and* the "extra" stuff you can/will bring to the job. Enthusiasm, ten years' experience with the company, blah blah. Extrapolate a little bit, based on what she knows about the goals of the position.
God, I really hope she gets this. Or at least gets enough of a positive vibe from the interview that she feels confident enough to go for other full-time positions. My mom wasn't brought up to think of herself as doing anything but being a mom and a wife, and watching her discover this little ambitious part of herself is absolutely delightful.
Heck, it's endearing even way over here.
Surely that goes some way towards explaining why she doesn't ask your dad, though I'm not sure that "we don't ask" meant that you didn't already know.
I'm honestly not sure. He is supportive, and he was helping her with her resume, so it's not one class of worries.
Juno was like Fargo for the next generation of hipsters -- a gag about flyover-land and how quaint and provincial we all are here.
This is crazy. None of the humor comes from the setting, the only reasons I knew the movie took place in Minnesota were the license plates on the cars and they mention St. Cloud once.
Exactly right, with the subtle transformation of the Garner/Bateman relationship being particularly outstanding.
Lemieux, are you high? That's subtle transformation? Oh look, she's being humanized. Oh look, he's a pederast. Dear viewer plz adjust ur evaluations k thx.
Bateman making a pass is subtle compared to him doing something more than just making a pass, which most popular entertainments would probably have gone with. Juno realizing that while Garner has terrible aesthetic taste that's not a good way to decide who should raise her baby is a lot more subtle than Garner suddenly becoming cool and letting out her inner hipster.
I think the strange thing is that Bateman's pass is not dramatically required, since Juno immediately (and plausibly) ceases to sympathize him when he says he's moving to the city, there's no need for more to motivate her decision.
I agree it could have been worse, w/d. but I think Bateman's "oh I'm not ready" schtick is the flaw that's most relevant and it would have been nice to get a better treatment of the lameness of that rather than tack on something unnecessarily tacky just to make sure everyone gets the lesson.
I swear to god, I'm going to go see this movie now solely for the pleasure of explaining to Labs why he is wrong on every count.
Then see Atonement and we can have hot hot hot cinema-fights.
I'm still not convinced it was a pass. You think he wanted to bone the pregnant teen?
He can want to fan the flames of her attraction in a sort of gray-way without explicitly wanting to bone the pregnant pre-teen.
I haven't seen the movie, but pre-teen? From the pictures she's got to be a teenager.
76: "I...How do you think of me, Juno?
Why are you here?"
Interpret this line so that he's not asking Juno if she's into him. It's page 82 at your link above.
You think he wanted to bone the pregnant teen?
Pregnant teens are totally likable boneable.
I haven't seen the movie, but pre-teen?
Whoops, no, she's a teenager.
Interpret this line so that he's not asking Juno if she's into him.
Yeah, that's not how I took it. She says "you're old" and I took him to be saying something like "That's how you see me? As a geezer sell-out?" More about his own life worries than about whether she's into him.
"I...How do you think of me, Juno?
Why are you here?"
Interpret this line so that he's not asking Juno if she's into him.
I read that as Mark wanting Juno to have a crush of him, thereby establishing that he really was the cool hip young guy he still wanted to be, but not necessarily as him wanting to have sex with her.
82, 83: I think the distinction between "what do you think of me? You don't think I'm *old*, do you?"/"Be crushed out on me so I can still be cool"/"I'd like to fuck you" is really not as clear cut as you might think.
Trust me.
Thank you, but shouldn't you be hanging out with people your own age, dear?
For people (like me) who forgot exactly what's said in this scene, it's on pages 80-83 here.
84, I don't know if you're the best authority on what men tend to be implying when they say things. You probably know more than we do about how women interpret things, though.
Yes, because all men think alike, and all women think alike, and men and women think completely differently. Thank you, Ned.
88, I don't think it's correct to extrapolate from how Bitch reads blog comments to her ability to interpret other forms of social interaction, and I think that's what you're doing.
90: Hm, on second thought, you do seem an intelligent and likeable young man. Coffee?
I second 84.
Also, fwiw, it's not only hard in the moment for a teenager to suss out the difference, but IME it has often taken another person (male or female), hearing about the incident in retrospect, to verify the less-innocent interpretation.
92: so true-- I think that's why the stepmother's heads-up warning about Juno's earlier solo visit was a nice touch without being too obvious.
Coffee?
I don't know how to interpret that.
As in would you like some? I just made a fresh pot.
Can I watch you guys make out? That's totally hot.
Haven't seen the scene acted, but from the script it looks like it's a bit of both: his fantasy of being the cool, hip guy evaporates because the teen he thought he was impressing sees him as old as soon as he hints at anything.
And yeah, it looks creepier the more you think about it. It always is.
Back to the film-- I think this is related to an insightful point B made about students (particularly female students) who flirt with faculty: they don't actually mean it, they're just sort of exploring new terrain, and it's terrifying if someone takes them up on it.
If you do, you're gonna spook *me*.
100: I believe that this is 100% true of male students as well.
Probably more so, actually, since they're possibly less aware that what they're doing is actually flirting.
and it's terrifying if someone takes them up on it.
That's why you should do it, Labs. Skeezing on students is a pedagogical choice.
Yeah, I believe that. Whether I'm responding to 102 or 101 I leave ambiguous.
I'd suggest that the movie is teasing paralellism between Juno's friend Leah flirting with her (Leah's) teacher and Juno flirting with Mark, but I think the friend-teacher pairing is just there for a couple of throwaway jokes.
I do enjoy coffee, come to think of it.
I wouldn't say they "don't mean it", as they are actually flirting (not faking it), but it's within a safe space where the understanding is that you're not to reciprocate.
106: Excellent! Why don't you come into my parlor?
And Cala with a pedantic point for the win!
I don't think the slow dance quasi-pass reveals that all along Mark was using his hipster-sensei schtick as a cover for seducing a 16 year old pregnant girl. I don't think it is totally clear to Mark what he's doing or planning. I don't think he's attracted to her so much as he's narcissistically pleased by her being attracted to him. His line of thinking seems to be:
"If you liked me as the coolest indie guy living in a development (like you're the coolest girl in high school) with a baby on lay-away, wait till you hear that I've decided to leave my yuppie wife and move back to the city to follow my dreams. Won't it be cool when we can hang out in my loft?"
I don't think that makes a lot of sense--as becomes obvious when he starts to express it to her.
I think the mark of douchbaggery doesn't really appear on his brow until he ascribes Juno's crying to "hormones." Before that, it's not clear that 1) he hasn't told his wife he's considering pulling out and moving to the city 2) that he will say and do anything so long as he remains on the path of least resistance to being a hip guy.
The way Juno wants to melt into the wall in that scene even though she can't is great because the fight is weirdly completely about her and not at all involving her.
44
It's a tough spot their in, though. Given the subject of the film they could leave the impression that a) cool hipster girls don't use condoms or b) condoms don't work. It seems that they went with a) + Michael Cera is so sexually non-threatening that his seed will just rub its' eyebrows adorably instead of fertilizing.
Michael Cera is so sexually non-threatening that his seed will just rub its' eyebrows adorably instead of fertilizing.
This is hilarious.
Juno was a hoot. Those of us reared on Heathers treasured the stylized, impossibly cool dialogue.
