I don't quite understand all the hype ...

Rating: 3/10 (24 January 2008)

At the screening of Juno I went to at the Uptown theater in Minneapolis, it was a packed house and an usher introduced the movie at the front of the theater, saying 'everybody, you're in for an awesome movie; it's so good. When you leave the theater, please exit at the front due to the large crowd.'
Throughout the movie, the theater was laughing pretty hard and was moved throughout. Now, I don't want to come down too hard on this movie and make such a fuss that I come off as a negative, hateful person. Anyone who spends all the hard work making a movie is then up for criticism by those who see it and you hope that everyone involved is aware of sensibility issues and that it's okay for some people not to like their movie if they're being honest.
And that's just it, if I'm being honest, the fact that Juno is garnering this much praise seems silly. But I have vast concerns that my tastes are not well suited for what the culture dictates as good.
The best part of this movie, by far, is the character played by Jennifer Gardner. I think it's well written, believable and emotional. I liked Jason Bateman's character until he said rock n' roll music was at its best in 1993. Though Juno disagrees with him, it seems reasonable to conclude that the writer of this movie thinks the rock scene of 1993 is pretty good, but just not the best. Right there, this represents a lot of trouble. Rock n' roll in 1993 was disastrous compared to the times when it was good. And it only gets much worse when you hear a 16 year old girl saying things like, 'After hearing Iggy and the Stooges do Raw Power, everything else sounds precious in comparison.' This 16 year old girl sounds like a 28 year old man throughout the movie. And why do kids or high schoolers have to be such smart asses in the movies these days. I think it translates annoyingly to the screen.
What happens in Juno has been happening too much in the cinema of the past couple decades - there are too many dialogue scenes about what people's tastes are like - Tarantino may get the award for this. And where does all this come from? Maybe Woody Allen? I don't know for sure, but I like it a lot better when I go to a movie and visit a place that's engaging and emotional. I think the dialogue-driven, here's what I like, hipster speech types of approaches make for movies that real movie-lovers are not going to like.
I don't think a movie like Juno is really a movie. It's a TV show. It's meant to be watched on that smaller screen in your house. Obviously, I'm in the minority opinion because everyone seems to like this movie, and this adds one more reason as to why I do feel pretty alone a lot of the time on this planet.