Don't get caught up in the hype and you may be able to enjoy it.

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2008)

I'm not one of those high-and-mighty indie kids who scoffs at any film or artist as soon as they reach mainstream success (see: Andrew Bird, Animal Collective, Feist, Cat Power, The Strokes for recent examples). I *do* get annoyed, however, when people follow trends they aren't really a part of. You know, like the teenagers who walk around wearing Che Guevara t-shirts talking about how great Bob Marley is? It's all social pop culture rubbish that irritates me on many levels.
So I flinched when Juno (Ellen Page) says her heroes are Patti Smith and Iggy Pop and the Stooges in this film. Is Iggy Pop awesome? Of course. Is "Raw Power" a great album? Yes. Do fans of The Stooges refer to the band as "Iggy and the Stooges" and leave out "Fun House" when praising them? No. "Raw Power" is the album people often associate with Iggy and the Stooges because it had the most success out of their three albums (I'm not counting "The Weirdness") and is often considered the best, so it's the obvious empty choice someone who is unfamiliar with their actual work would choose to define them; but a *real* self-respecting Stooges fan would know better, and they wouldn't refer to that band as Iggy Pop. And don't get me started on the Patti Smith reference.
Or the Sonic Youth stuff.
"Juno" plays like a film made by people who are jumping on a trend and attempting to popularize it. Wes Anderson already did this but he knew what he was doing and didn't market his films that way, and they've been thriving as far back as a decade now in indie cult status without 45-year-old soccer moms rushing out to stores to buy the "Rushmore" soundtracks. I can still listen to the Kinks without feeling like I've bought into some kind of marketing fad. But "Juno" has done a lot to make me feel guilty about driving around blaring "Raw Power" these days.
Is that my own problem? Certainly. But that smug, cutesy "fakeness" that permeates this entire film is the reason I don't think it's worthy of half the acclaim it's garnered.
Maybe I'm too cynical. But what I see happening here is the following: the film is popularizing a social trend that, by its very definition, is anti-mainstream. Sonic Youth and other indie music began two decades ago and "Juno" is giving a thrill to Wal-Mart shoppers who are suddenly hearing all this "different" music (like the Moldy Peaches) that they never knew existed before. And they're fascinated by it. Moldy Peaches shot to the top of the digital charts after "Juno" came out (Kimya Dawson's MySpace has taken a sudden revamp) and my local record store sold "Raw Power" and "Horses" both for the first time in two years.
I have nothing with turning people on to good music. I have a problem with programming people to follow social trends (e.g. the aforementioned Che Guevara issue) almost entirely unaware of what they're really doing. If people knew half the stuff Guevara had actually done they probably wouldn't feel comfortable wearing those shirts. Likewise, I have to question whether the sixty-something-year-old man I saw buying a soundtrack for "Juno" a couple weeks ago is really going to appreciate Sonic Youth.
Maybe I sound like an elitist? I'm really not. I think Sonic Youth are fairly overrated, for example (although they're still very good) mainly for the same reason I think "Juno" is overrated: people jump on certain trends and follow them.
"Juno's" dialogue, as such, is derived from this self-conscious hipster crap that grates on my nerves so much these days. (God help us if Diablo Cody continues this massacre.) It starts from the very first scene (using spins on pop culture phrases or items such as "Eggos" - har-har) and doesn't let up.
Ellen Page is a convincing actress but then you realize she isn't acting and she becomes less convincing. She's playing herself. Watch ANY interview with her from before or after "Juno" - she is this character. Is that a problem? No, because to the extent of playing herself - a smug, condescending indie kid who doesn't know half as much as she thinks she does - it works for the film. But she's going to quickly reveal herself to be a one-trick pony as more people catch on to the fact that this character is actually her. Jay Leno didn't look too happy when he found out last week on his talk show.
I suppose my rant took up most of my review but I think it explains in many ways my feelings towards this film's content. I found it somewhat amusing/entertaining and it had a few genuinely nice moments, but it's far from the masterpiece some like Roger Ebert would have you believe. It's popularizing this new-age indie hipster sarcasm and the film's going to influence a LOT of films on down the line over the next few years. NONE of them will have as much impact or success as "Juno" and then trends will change and it'll stop. But first we'll have to put up with a million clones of the same formula and more "witty" pop culture puns and dry sarcasm. Spielberg did this with the kids in his movies back in the '80s and the dire response of "Hook" finally caused him to cease and desist. Hopefully the transition for filmmakers right now won't take as long.