Having not seen a new movie in two months, I downloaded Juno and we watched it last night. As anybody who’s seen it knows, it’s terrific–charming, witty and moving.
It actually has a really ordinary story (see also “Degrassi Junior High” and Saved, for starters), but it’s elevated to greatness by a superb ensemble, witty writing and great direction. I’m a big Ellen Page booster, but director Jason Reitman has made his job much easier by gathering a really terrific, empathetic cast. Everybody else has earned deserved acclaim, but I often think that Jennifer Garner is a better actor than she’s given credit for. Her looks and her history on Alias kind of gets in the way, I think. There’s a scene in which she and her husband discuss preparing the baby’s room which is beautifully acted with a lovely subtlety.
Combine the cast with great dialogue like this:
Leah: Yo Yo Yiggady Yo.
Juno MacGuff: I’m pregnant.
Leah: What? Honest to blog? Are you sure it’s not a food baby? Did you eat a big lunch?
Juno MacGuff: This is not a food baby all right? I’ve taken like three pregnancy tests, and I’m forshizz up the spout.
Leah: How did you even generate enough pee for three pregnancy tests?
Juno MacGuff: T don’t know, I drank like, ten gallons of Sunny D… I’m telling you I’m pregnant and you’re acting shockingly caviler.
Leah: Is this for real?
Juno MacGuff: Unfortunately, yes.
Leah: Oh my GOD. Shit! Phuket, Thailand!
I really enjoyed Reitman’s previous effort, Thank You for Smoking, and this was a very worthwhile follow-up. My only complaints: Jason Bateman’s character was kind of a modern cinematic cliche, Kinya Dawson’s music was too present and I didn’t think the finally scene struck the right note. These are minor quibbles, though. I’d recommend this movie to anybody with a pulse and a command of English.
I vaguely know the spouse of somebody involved in this film, so I feel a little guilty about downloading it. I’m going to make a donation to the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health to assuage my guilt.
Last week I watched The Brave One, an unremarkable but enjoyable revenge thriller starring Jodie Foster (and her awful hair) and directed by Neil Jordan.
CAUTION: What follows probably constitute minor spoilers. If you know the film’s premise, then they’re not going to harm your viewing pleasure, but I feel obligated to warn you just the same.
As is my habit, I went home and read a few reviews of the movie. Roger Ebert’s review features this line:
One day she buys a gun and practices on a shooting range where you can see fear turning into anger in her eyes.
In the version of the film I saw, there was definitely no shooting range.
Later, there’s a scene where Foster’s character goes after a guy on the roof of a parking garage. He ends up on pavement six floors below. In the film I saw, they exchange a couple of blows, Foster goes at the other guy with a tire iron and the film immediately cuts away. I was surprised by the cut–it seemed out of sync with the scene’s pacing. Plus, I was left puzzling over how she hauled him over the railing–she’s not a big woman.
If you saw the movie (somewhere other than Gozo, obviously), did this scene conclude differently?
I’m aware that films get edited differently for different countries, but it’s a little frustrating to not know what I else missed. I’m not sure if this qualifies as censorship–I think it probably does if the film is edited to suit a particular nation’s (apparent) morality.
There are so many things to like about this film. Hansard is charismatic and disarming. It takes a genuine, contemporary look at the city and its people. It doesn’t make any easy plot choices.
If you haven’t, go see it. I know that it’s been out for a while, but I’m not sure how wide its distribution is in Canada–I just saw it in Toronto. But don’t take my word for it–the professional critics really, really liked it.
I’m judging a book by its cover, but this version (there’s also a documentary of the same name) seems more hopeful and redemptive than the book, which felt pretty bleak to me.
On a barely related note, Marina also links tothe trailer for The Mist, a new horror film based on one of my favourite Stephen King short stories. If you ask me, they show way too much of the baddies.
Geeks in their late twenties and early thirties had been very, very excited for the recent release of the Transformers movie, roughly twenty years after the original animated TV series. John from the Movie Blog, for example, apepars to have written several hundred posts about the movie.
I’m of the right age, gender and a movie geek. Why wasn’t I excited, too? In fact, I was so unexcited, I listened to the two hosts of Slate’s Spoiler podcast disclose and soundly mock the movie’s apparently obscure plot.
My initial theory was that I was just the little bit too old to really have fallen in love with The Transformers. But then I thought of something else, possibly to deflect my attention from that age theory.
Around the same time, I discovered and fell in love with the Japanese animated series, Robotech. I liked it so much that I got up at 8:30am on Saturday mornings to watch and record (on Beta) every episode in my parents’ bedroom. Patient people, my parents.
Robotech featured cheesy plot lines and transforming machine, too. Maybe there was only room for one such show in my childhood? Maybe I was just drawn to those enormous anime eyes? Plus, Robotech seems a lot darker. For probably the first time in fifteen years, I watched a clip from my favourite episode. Earlier in that episode (if I recall correctly), 75% of the Earth’s population is vapourized from space. You won’t see the Decepticons getting up to that on American television.
Otherwise, feel free to look around. You may want to browse the categories in the left sidebar below my little link blog. If you like what you see (and you know what I’m talking about), consider subscribing to my RSS feed.
With Michael Moore’s permission, I downloaded and watched a leaked copy of Sicko, his documentary about the tragically compromised American health care system. You can do the same, if you’re thus inclined.
Moore is a master polemicist, and Sicko seems to be a distillation of techniques he toyed with in his earlier work. The film is essentially a series of anecdotes, and Moore spends the bulk of his time telling stories about the superiority of health care systems in Canada, UK, France and Cuba.
One thing I remember from theatre school is that 70% of directing is casting. Moore is exceptional at this, populating his film with the accessible, friendly, articulate people who can best support his thesis. Whether it’s a Ground Zero volunteer with untreated respiratory problems or a charming, wealthy English doctor, they play their supporting roles perfectly.
Combine his casting with a natural gift for cinematic storytelling, and you’ve got the makings of a great movie.
I was frustrated by the dearth of supporting facts and evidence, a departure from earlier films. Despite there being plenty of statistics to support his case, Moore rarely cited them. He relied more exclusively on his case studies. For example, the best he offered on Canada was that we have cheap drugs and a longer life expectancy (which may or may not be the result of better health care).
That makes for a more emotionally compelling film, but not necessarily an intellectually gratifying one.
There were also egregious sins of omission. For example, Cuba may have exceptionally-trained medical professionals, but they regularly struggle to obtain the equipment and medicine they need to care for their patients. That sort of thing is to be expected, though, in rhetorical work like this.
Maybe the facts were less necessary because his thesis–that the US health care system is deeply broken, and pales in comparison to other Western nations–was much less assailable. Of course, having enjoyed 30-odd years of Canadian medicine, I may just be biased.
In any case, every American ought to take a look at this film. Every Canadian too, so that we don’t take what we’ve got for granted.
UPDATE: I just browsed around and looked at some criticism of the film. Critics seem to be working way too hard to debunk Moore’s claims about Cuba. That’s an unfortunate red herring, and distracts from the core debate about American health care. Even if Moore’s critics are 100% correct and can emphatically prove that America’s system is superior to Cuba’s, isn’t that a dreadfully hollow victory?
Having not seen a new movie in two months, I downloaded Juno and we watched it last night. As anybody who’s seen it knows, it’s terrific–charming, witty and moving.
