comment #1

George Prager says ...

Strip before you write.

comment #2

siowafc says ...

Perhaps the theme is that everyone has their one person to be with forever and ever? Juno and the litle track boy. Juno's dad (who made a mistake the first time he got married) and the stepmom. Jennifer Garner and the baby. Somewhere out there, there is that one person you're just meant to be with. Seems pretty universial, but, yeah, Little Miss Sunshine was better.

comment #3

jesse says ...

LMS is a perfectly nice little movie but a lot of its scenes, especially early going, are straight out of sitcom-land. I think Juno says more complex (and therefore more difficult to articulate) things about growing up at every age than the LMS "you'll always have family" thing. The archness at the beginning of Juno is an organic part of the film's progression in a way that the screenwriting-101 setup of LMS is not.

comment #4

siowafc says ...

And why does it seem like everytime you try and put a still from a movie on your blog, it's always Nicole Kidman in 'Fur'? That movie was bad enough without having to be reminded of it existance every other day?

comment #5

tpk123 says ...

Comparisons between the two are not merited, for me. Juno is ten times better than LMS (which for the record, I loved). They are different movies with different goals.

comment #6

Scott Feinberg says ...

Hey Jeff, Morris mentioned Reitman at 2:06 into the clip. Also, Juno, in my opinion, is 10x better than LSM--which I also loved. But I can name half a dozen scenes that exceed the Dano/Breslin scene... and, honestly, Dano's mute, Arkin's grumpy gramp, and the others are no more 'real' characters than those in Juno... JK Simmons and Allison Janney struck me as way more believable parents than Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette did.

comment #7

MadCrazyMovieHouse says ...

I agree with the above poster who said LMS is more like a sitcom than a movie. That's the only problem I had with it. Juno has this feeling from time to time as well, but it's biggest problem is its near-ridiculous amount of overly clever/witty characters. It's fine to have such characters, but does EVERY character need to talk that way? But to each his own. In the end, I found Juno to be a much more enjoyable film than LMS.

comment #8

K. Bowen says ...

You're forgetting one big thing. LIttle Miss Sunshine is a whole lot funnier, end to end. It's true they might go to the VW running start a time too many, but the first time you see it, it's incredible. I mean, Juno has some OK laughs scattered here and there, but LMS had the entire audience laughing uncontrollably in a lot of scenes. Think about how hard the audience laughed when Olive comes out doing the Superfreak routine, and then slowly the entire family joins her. There's not a single scene in Juno that even approaches that type of sustained laughter.

comment #9

erniesouchak says ...

Nobody disagrees Diablo Cody will get an Oscar nomination? Too bad, because she hardly deserves it. Try writing a 16-year-old who actually SOUNDS like a 16-year-old, as opposed to a way-clever 20- or 30-something (whatever Cody is). "Juno" is intermittently amusing, but at no point did anyone in it sound like anyone I know or have ever known. Let's keep it where it belongs, at the Spirit Awards.

comment #10

Luke Y. Thompson says ...

Did it bother anyone else that the kids in Juno never use cell phones -- just burger shaped phones with cords? I know Cody said she had a phone like that, but that's precisely why a younger kid wouldn't have one.

comment #11

swordandpen says ...

Surprised that more people are calling LMS a sitcom than Juno, which has way too many wisecracks and, outside of Jennifer Garner's character, doesn't have anyone who talks like a believable person.

Juno reminded me of James L. Brooks' worst movies where the snark never ends and the "heartfelt" moments feel pat and unearned. LMS was not perfect, but much better than Juno.

comment #12

jesse says ...

LYT, I don't think it's unusual that *families* in the midwest would still have and use landlines. I mean, you don't see the kids *not* having cell phones so much as not using them at home. The character of Juno totally would use that silly hamburger phone even if it *wasn't* as convenient as a cell phone.

Bowen, LMS is in no way funnier than Juno. I mean, humor is subjective and blah blah blah, but ... it's just not. LMS has some very funny moments based on people acting goofy (running after the bus, dancing together at the end) but I respond more to funny dialogue and delivery and Juno has that in spades.

Oh, and Ernie, yes, of course, no good movie has ever traded in anything but absolutely realistic dialogue that sounds just like people you know. That's actually the mark of a great movie: the unmistakable sound of people who Ernie knows.

I don't mean to spend so much time defending Juno; it's not even my favorite movie of the year. But some of the criticisms it's received are borderline ridiculous.

comment #13

TheJeff says ...

"Think about how hard the audience laughed when Olive comes out doing the Superfreak routine, and then slowly the entire family joins her. There's not a single scene in Juno that even approaches that type of sustained laughter."

Of course, some of us were groaning and rolling our eyes when that happened.

comment #14

p.Vice says ...

The reason for the comparison is simple. Juno is A) a quasi-indie; B) a comedy; and C) more or less liked/loved/admired by a majority of critics and moviegoers thus far. It is a prime example of the tendency to pigeonhole something so people will understand what you're talking about instead of attempting to offer a more original description.

comment #15

Aguirre says ...

juno may not be as "funny" as LMS, but it's a MUCH better film - less pandering and obvious at every junction than LMS' fundamentally tired moral structure every dared to be. but as far as what the film is about... well, I guess LMS is the quirky indie comedy for people that need to have a concise and gift-wrapped message behind the proceedings, and Juno is the one for people who might enjoy an interesting depiction of contemporary adolescence... the faux-clarity and false sense of invincibility that it brings (juno's nauseating vernacular / how lightly she addresses the notion of not bringing the fetus to term), its boundaries (where adolescence ends and what that entails... and, in jason bateman's character, proof that the transition from youth to adulthood might be uncomfortably fluid), and its allowances (at the end of the day juno is still living in the rather blissfully weightless world of american teenage-dom. i can't really believe that people see paul's character as juno's potential life-mate. they're kids and you can see their innocence writ large in their dynamic, but it's a precociousness that's possible only in adolescence - a sweetness that would never survive a more complicated world - and that - SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER - is why the film has a happy ending, because juno finally understands that while a part of her lusts for an adult relationship, what she has with paul is only possible at that age, and that she's so hyper-aware but still able to genuinely enjoy paul is a testament to a youth that refused to be wasted.

what was LMS about? that different is... okay? and that quirky family members can hug your pain away? yawn.

comment #16

George Prager says ...

LMS is a very funny movie. It doesn't get respect from movie geeks because it doesn't flatter them. (See above post).

comment #17

rocco says ...

Jennifer Garner...a face only Eddie Murphy could love...

ah, that was a wee bit offsides...Ben Affleck loves it too.

comment #18

AJW says ...

If Wells had swapped apartments with Cody, then maybe he'd feel differently.

comment #19

jeffmcm says ...

Little Miss Sunshine is _not_ better-written. On the page, it's cloying and obvious and the movie only worked because it was rescued by the actors and directors.

comment #20

LuckyWilbury says ...

Anyone who thinks Ellen Page's dialogue in
Juno is unrealistic has either:

(a) Never been a 16-year-old girl, or,

(b) Never been the parent of a 16-year-old
girl.

It's totally realistic.

comment #21

Adonis says ...

You know I wanted to watch the video review and then comment on these two guys' opinions... but man, they are soooo gay.

I mean, sometimes you have to think about it, but they're combined level of homosexuality is so intense that it is honestly distracting. It's like when you walk into a bar and some girl is wearing so much makeup and perfume that you can't actually understand what she says because your senses are being bombarded.

I keep trying to watch this clip, and I still have no freaking idea what their opinion on Juno is.

"Her pants didn't travel... they came off."
"Don't go there (giggle), don't go there."

comment #22

MiraJeffAICN says ...

Aguirre, when are you going to wake up and realize how wrong you are. Juno is anything but heartfelt. If it wasn't written by a former stripper with a heart of gold, everypne on this board would think it was studio-approved cookie-cutter crap. It's really unbelievable how everyone has bought into the hype around this movie. I'm with Wells. It's good. I liked it just fine. I did coverage on the script two years ago and passed and I don't regret it one bit, although I'll admit, the movie won me over, but that's more due to the performances than the script, which is laced with witty one-liners that don't sound the least bit realistic. Juno can't hold a fucking candle to LMS, especially in terms of dramatic weight. It's not nearly as good as Knocked Up either. Frankly, I'm sick of injecting myself into arguements like these, but Wells keeps posting about this movie and guys like you keep defending it like it was written by your mother. Get over it! Diablo is a smart, funny, female writer. Big deal! Someone like her should've come a long a long time ago. She's not the savior of cinema. She's not the new Tarantino. She's a chick who wrong a guy movie from a female point of view who is great at self-promotion. Can you believe EW hopped on the Cody express and gave her a fucking column. Unbelievable! Why not give Wes Anderson a column, or Ronald Harwood? Honestly, it's embarassing watching older folks trip over themselves to pimp this movie, to prove that they're still cool and with it. I suppose Page deserves a nomination but there's no way Juno is a better script than Knocked Up or The Darjeeling Limited or The Savages or Grace Is Gone. It's not nearly as honest. It's a load of shite and probably the most overhyped film possibly ever, in this history of the world. It's getting out of hand and someone needs to step up and put it in its good-but-not-great place. And what is that shit with prognosticators awarding it a slot because it's this year's LMS. What a load of garbage. Why does there NEED to be a smart-mouthed indie comedy as a BP nominee? I can name 10 better 2007 films than Juno in my sleep, but then again, I dream of Haggis... now there's an idea for a TV show.

comment #23

George Prager says ...

"On the page, it's cloying and obvious..."

"On the page" is meaningless.

"and the movie only worked because it was rescued by the actors and directors."

Like every good movie ever made.

comment #24

George Prager says ...

Juno is a better script than The Darjeeling Limited. Then again, Nikki Dial movies have better scripts than The Darjeeling Limited.

comment #25

K. Bowen says ...

So, boiling it down,

Teenagers live in their own little naive world free of real consequence,and some grownups never quite leave it.

It's fortunate that I have a movie to tell me that. Now I feel enlightened. :)

As far as humor and LMS, I agree it's subjective. And you're free to think that one is funnier than the other. But there's no doubt in my mind which received the greater laughter in the theater, both in and out of press row. You might have been rolling your eyes, and that's fine, but I doubt it holds true for the people around you.

But the final scene of LMS is not funny because it's a bunch of people acting goofy. It's funny because it's the average, proletarian family mocking the institutions of the bluebloods and the wealthy. A great deal of the comedy of Little Miss Sunshine revolves around class. Which is to say that it has similar currents to the screwball comedies of the 1930s. And those have held up pretty well through time.

comment #26

Craig Kennedy says ...

I think I'm almost as tired of Juno backlash as I am of Juno itself, but all the cool kids are doing it so here are my two cents:

LMS made me laugh a lot in the process of delivering a cheap and easy message of uplift. Juno did not.

comment #27

George Prager says ...

I thought the last scene of LMS was funny because we see that the routine that Alan Arkin taught his granddaughter was a stripper's routine. I guess I'm a rube.

I thought this scene from STONE COLD was pretty funny:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qlJxurGCiM8

comment #28

christian says ...

No shit people don't talk this way. But I bet Diablo Cody might have. And I don't think hitmen dress in black suits and reference French Big Macs either. Nor do all prep school students put on theatrical productions of SERPICO...You get what I'm getting at?

comment #29

Adonis says ...

Oh, good call on the Stone Colde, George.

Maybe we can get Brian Bosworth to endorse Ron Paul?

comment #30

Josh Massey says ...

I haven't even seen Juno but I already wish Diablo Cody would go away. Her EW column read like an 11th grader's diary entry.

comment #31

tjfar67 says ...

Even though I liked Little Miss Sunshine, I never understood why the parents never reviewed or helped Olive rehearse her talent portion for the competition. Instead, they left it to the heroin-snorting-porn-loving grandfather. Maybe I missed the scene where it was explained, but it did seem awfully sitcom-ish.

comment #32

Feathers McGraw says ...

Didn't mention Reitman? Good. Fuck that little nepotistic hack and his "film by" credit, and fuck auteur theory and all the critics who keep it alive. For better or for worse, that film belongs to Diablo Cody.