The Best Movie of 2007
I've waited a long time announce my favorite film from last year. The best picture of 2007 is Jason Reitman's JUNO. I am very excited about JUNO because this is the first year in I don't know how long that my own personal favorite film of the year is even up for a Best Picture Oscar. Neither my Best Picture of 2006 or 2005 received the attention that JUNO has received. It almost got me thinking that something must be wrong. Nothing is wrong though.
Let me get to the acting first. It's first rate. I cannot tell you strongly enough here just how badly I am pulling for Ellen Page to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Page nails the title role of Juno MacGuff with such honesty and truth. Everybody else is grand too. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman shine as a potential adoptive couple. Young Michael Cera is totally likable as Paulie Bleeker. The other supporting players are great too. However, for me, the absolute best are J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney. Simmons plays Juno's father, Mac MacGuff and Janney plays Juno's step-mother, Bren MacGuff. They both act so well that they just seem real to me, totally real.
With dialogue like that, this movie doesn't sidestep the magnitude of the main plot point: teen pregnancy.
Vanessa (Jennifer Garner) in awe of Juno's gift.
I've heard some people raise concern over the film's subject matter or say they don't agree with it morally, but that's like saying I don't agree with murder and drugs so I'm not on board with AMERICAN GANGSTER as a film. Most moral critics always focus on sex and then have no issue with killing and violence. The fact is, in the real world there are teen pregnancies. JUNO is an extremely funny and touching film about a girl that knows she is not ready to raise a baby, yet she values life so much that she is willing to carry to term in order to bless somebody else. It's a story of how a family deals with real life in all it's imperfections. It's a story about love in the real world.
That's the success of JUNO, it's not a cookie-cutter fantasy land where love is easy. And I'm not just talking about romantic love. I'm talking about loving well, period. It's as much about parental love as it is about romantic love. It's as much about the love and acceptance of the outcast or stranger in your life as it is about familial love. In the end, it's love for her unborn child that guides JUNO in her decision of how to deal with the pregnancy.
The heart of Juno: Do you love people with stigmas well?
posted by Doah at 7:18 AM
5 Comments:
Went and saw it on Friday night. What a great, great night at the movies. I haven't felt that good walking out of a movie in a long time. And it wasn't just about "feeling" good, but that I felt a restored hope in true, honest, entertaining and original storytelling through film.
I hope that this film encourages the production of more honest, *original* films that tell stories really, really well. Of course, there will be "Juno" ripoffs. But I hope that Juno will fuel the independent, non-institutionalized direction that film and music seem to be headed.
And, I gotta say it......it takes place in MINNESOTA!
Also, you should check out this article in the current issue of TIME. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713487,00.html
Its all about who/what the Academy has picked in the past. Here is an excerpt:
Too often, though, the Academy has rewarded films at the high end of mediocrity, operating within a narrow band of reassuring realism. They're called "movies of quality," which really means movies of piety--stories of cozy spiritual uplift (Mrs. Miniver, Going My Way) or, more recently, of superior damaged creatures (Rain Man, A Beautiful Mind). And they're often chosen over edgier fare. Thus, in 1977 the softhearted Rocky beat four superior films (All the President's Men, Bound for Glory, Network and Taxi Driver), and in 1982 another inspirational sports movie, Chariots of Fire, won out over Reds and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oscar also ignores pictures deemed too weird (i.e., modern) or infra dig (i.e., genre films). In judging movie acting, the Academy is often slow to notice the arrival of talent ready to shake up or reshape a staid industry.
I couldn't have said it better myself!
Sorry, got to say one more thing. This film touched me on a personal level. My Mom was JUNO when she was a teenager, although her experience wasn't as witty or funny. It was extremely painful. However, because of what she went through, I now have an older brother that I didn't know when I was growing up. I'm thankful for her decision. Needless to say, I was sobbing at the end of the film.
I absolutely loved this movie, especially since it gave such a human face to the dilemmas surrounding teen pregnancies. A topic that seemingly cannot be discussed without all kind of horror stories getting into the mix.
Juno is the way comedies should be done. Close to life. Our little tragedies are funny enough without turning them into slapstick monstrosities.
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