“While you won’t yet find a clear front-runner among Best Picture nominees, it’s never too early for Oscar observers to pile on the movie they don’t want to win,” writes Vanity Fair Daily‘s Stu Van Airsdale. “Crash and Little Miss Sunshine kept the bile churning in 2005 and 2006, respectively, and it appears now that Juno is bracing itself for this year’s hater backlash.

“My colleague Tim Long alluded to this phenomenon here the other day, confessing, ‘I guess I sort of — gulp — liked the movie,’ and invoking something called the Collective Anger Quota to excuse his fondness. I, too, found Juno funny, well-acted, and entertaining enough to recommend. That was before Oscar season, however, when hyperbole stakes could be quantified by box-office gross and pop-culture saturation.
“Post January 22, Juno is no longer the quirky, low-budget sensation teeming with hamburger phones and the mile-a-minute bons mots of stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo ‘Not Her Real Name’ Cody. Or rather, it is all that, now vigorously challenging milestones like There Will Be Blood (my favorite) and No Country for Old Men for Oscar supremacy.
“We’re cool, Juno, but this cannot be.”