Ray Pride

"Juno," the first produced script by Chicago-born 29-year-old screenwriter Diablo Cody (nee Brooke Busey) is hell-bent for "Heathers," and it attains the same sort of baroque, inflated comic patois with memorable comic eloquence that seems to hang on by only a closing quotation mark. (That is so not a bad thing.) Sixteen-year-old Juno McDuff (Ellen Page) gets pregnant the first time she has sex, by her best friend and super-crush Bleeker (Michael Cera), and decides to advertise in the Penny Saver for the ideal adoptive couple (who Juno envisions: "I was thinking a graphic designer, mid-thirties, and his cool Asian wife who dresses awesome and plays bass. But I’m trying not to be too particular." (Dr. Johnson, the dog speaks!) Page, five-one and all of 20, is one of the marvels of movies today. On the basis of "Mouth to Mouth," "Tracey in Fragments," "An American Crime," "Hard Candy" and especially the sweet-sour brackish girl intelligence Page breathes into Cody's woozy words, Page can and should do anything—anyone this preternaturally assured, forceful, funny and just breathtakingly alive ought to be endlessly enabled by the film industry. (I hope she has a directorial career, not stymied like Jodie Foster's, and as promising as her fellow Canadian Sarah Polley's after "Away From Her.") "Juno" looks as crummy as Jason Reitman's debut, "Thank You For Smoking," but he does nothing to get in the way of this script: "Jocks like him always want freaky girls. Girls with horn-rimmed glasses and vegan footwear and Goth makeup. Girls who play the cello and wear Converse All-Stars and want to be children's librarians when they grow up. Oh yeah, jocks eat that shit up. They just won't admit it, because they're supposed to be into perfect cheerleaders like Leah. Who, incidentally, is into teachers." The cast is sterling, including Alison Janney as Juno's step-mom, the ever-brilliant J. K. Simmons as Mr. McDuff, an earnest Jennifer Garner as the wanna-mom and a silkily subdued Jason Bateman as the not-quite-mature dad-in-waiting.

"Juno" opens Friday.

(2007-12-11)

Also by Ray Pride

Stiff Upper Brit
There's much to admire in the glassy expanses of "Atonement," yet much that's puzzling as well
(2007-12-04)

Tip of the Week
Probably the most stirring and unlikely of emerging national cinemas today is from Romania, with the Cannes-prized "Death of Mr. Lazarescu" and "12:08 East of Bucharest" both drawing U.S. release
(2007-12-04)

Everything is Wide-Eyed
There is only one way to see Crispin Glover's "It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE."—with the filmmaker present. Two reasons: the film, the second in a trilogy that began with the hermetic "What Is It?" (2005), is a strange and troubling immersion into the mind of an extremely twisted character, and does not fully make sense on its own: Glover's amiable conversation afterwards is necessary for fullest comprehension of the perverse panoply on display. (While Glover says it's years away, the final installment has a lovely title: "It Is MINE.") And, Glover won't let you pry the print from his hands
(2007-11-27)

Tip of the Week
Before having the chance to see all of the films from Portugal's little known (until this year) Pedro Costa, the articles written from various stretches of the critical globe suggested an arid, almost unapproachable, punishing kind of storytelling, but it's hardly the case
(2007-11-27)

Blurred
(2007-11-19)

Tip of the Week
(2007-11-19)

All Yesterday's Costume Parties
(2007-11-13)

Tip of the Week
(2007-11-13)

Damn Fine Pie
(2007-11-06)

Atomix Energy
(2007-11-06)

Coen Road
(2007-11-06)

Tip of the Week
(2007-11-06)

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