I took advantage of my MLK Day off from classes by going to see Juno. Coupled with my first ever trip to Doc Films yesterday to see Once, this firmly establishes my indie street-cred for the next month or so. My thoughts:
Juno was pretty good, although I don’t think it lives up to all the hype (although what would?). It kind of reminds me of Little Miss Sunshine, which everyone seemed to love and I felt was just a decent little flick. Maybe it’s because of the general movie-going publics lack of exposure to indie comedy, therefore, when a decent indie comedy gets some good publicity everyone falls in love with it (I mean this in a non-snooty way). Your mileage may vary, whatever. The movie definitely took the whole concept in a direction that I didn’t expect, in many ways it’s a very small movie (I believe that’s the correct word) focused primarily on the relationship between Juno and the Adoptive parents, rather than on Juno dealing with her pregnancy. Anyway, it’s well done, the performances are excellent, and yeah go watch it.
Oftentimes, I don’t like what I call “extremely indie” movies, films with meandering semi-nonexistent plots, digital film and all that. The Puffy Chair comes to mind. Despite this, I really profoundly enjoyed Once. It’s basically a musically driven love story, with typical indie ambiguity and unhappiness. The best word to describe it? Cute, very cute. I’d imagine it would be a pretty solid date movie, although my ability to gauge these things may be horrifically flawed given the recent course of my life. Go see it, indie directors need to eat.
Final note: Flawless, a movie which I had heard nothing about, is solid. It’s a Michael Caine/Demi Moore heist movie. Well worth a shot.
