I finally broke down and saw
Juno. I was prepared to totally hate it and frankly after about the first twenty minutes I had no reason to believe I would have to change my mind. I'm sorry but the kind of quirky this movie peddles is just not my cup of tea. I get irritated by this stuff. "It all started with a chair," the heroine
Ellen Page tells us at the beginning. And lo and behold there's a chair setting there on someone's lawn. And pretty soon Ellen's taken the chair along with a whole living room set someone's thrown out and deposited it all on her would-be boyfriend
Michael Cera's front lawn and she's sitting there chewing on a pipe. Why is she chewing on a pipe? Because someone thought it would be a cute and quirky thing for her to do.
Kill me now.
Okay, okay...I ended up not hating it. Here are the reasons I think
Juno rises above its own preciousness to become a passable bit of low-key comedy: 1) Ellen Page is an engaging actress with a witty-but-self-effacing way of delivering her me-so-talented
Diablo Cody dialogue; 2) Michael Cera is hot in a gangly, tousle-haired way; 3) the guy who plays the editor in
Spider Man is Juno's dad and he is one hysterical fucker; 4)
Jennifer Garner isn't in it much (damn is her face crooked); 5) it stays away from most of that
Mean Girls high-school-as-microcosm-of-society bullshit and focuses on Juno's family and her inappropriate relationship with the husband (
Jason Bateman, adorably crinkly in his middle-aged arrested adolescent garb) of the chick who wants to adopt her unborn child.
That being said...this movie is going to get nominated for Best Picture and that is a total load of bullshit. It is not Best Picture material. It's an enjoyable, scruffy little movie with performances sincere enough to rescue it from Diablo's clever-girl calculations (and it is calculating; don't let anyone tell you different - that scene where Juno gets dissed by the sonogram chick and Juno's stepmom gets after her is such a phony "you go girl" moment; and don't even get me started on the way Juno is always so self-aware, admitting to her own immaturity and shit...she's 16 and all 16-year-olds think they know everything and any movie that portrays a 16-year-old as possessing this incredible insight and wisdom is jerking all kinds of different chains). This movie is nothing to get jazzed about - it's our yearly helping of low-budget feel-good fluff disguised as a knowing portrayal of "regular people." Oh, and the music that's supposed to be so darling...a bunch of
Mo Tucker impersonators mixed with one actual
Velvet Underground tune with Mo Tucker singing is not my idea of a smashing soundtrack. How did they not remember to put a
Feist song in there? Slackers.
Blake Lively and Ben Affleck on the set of their new movie The Town. This was between takes. Looks like there could be some chemistry there, no?
Jennifer Garner with her new baby (I must've missed the birth announcement). Kid looks a little fat if you ask me, and the color...that can't be normal (unless the father is an Oompa Loompa). And I'm pretty sure that's not how you're supposed to hold a kid unless your name is Britney Spears. Gosh, it's so adorable though. Congratulations Jen!
Nicole Kidman has been named the most overpaid Hollywood star by Forbes magazine. The rag says Kidman's films made only $1 for every dollar the actress was paid, with her disastrous horror movie The Invasion actually losing $2.68 for every dollar of the $17 million she was given to appear. The eternally pregnant Jennifer Garner finished second on the list, with an average of $3.60 made for every dollar she was compensated. Tom Cruise finished 3rd, largely thanks to the bomb Lions for Lambs. The remainder of the top 10:
I finally broke down and saw Juno. I was prepared to totally hate it and frankly after about the first twenty minutes I had no reason to believe I would have to change my mind. I'm sorry but the kind of quirky this movie peddles is just not my cup of tea. I get irritated by this stuff. "It all started with a chair," the heroine Ellen Page tells us at the beginning. And lo and behold there's a chair setting there on someone's lawn. And pretty soon Ellen's taken the chair along with a whole living room set someone's thrown out and deposited it all on her would-be boyfriend Michael Cera's front lawn and she's sitting there chewing on a pipe. Why is she chewing on a pipe? Because someone thought it would be a cute and quirky thing for her to do.
Jennifer Garner attends the premiere of her new film Catch and Release. Jennifer is actually trying to smile here, which is a switch. Normally she's got that look on her face like she's straining to keep a cantaloupe from falling out of her ass. 
Oh look, it's Ben Affleck. Does Ben ever not look like he's chewing on a big hunk of shit? And seriously, what's with the hair Ben? It looks like a fan is gently blowing in your face. Affleck is so gay, but won't admit it. Unless you consider being married to a she-male a de facto admission.
The Critics' Choice Awards happened last night. A bunch of boring shit like Little Miss Sunshine and Dreamgirls won some statues. But that's not what we care about, is it? No. We want to see what people were wearing and what their hair looked like. Miss Penelope Cruz, for example. Now there's a beauty. And she didn't even go too heavy on the raccoon-look last night. She was more of a ferret or perhaps a prairie dog. 
It's Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. Are they married yet or still engaged or thinking about getting engaged or just living in sin? I don't know. And I don't really care. I find both of them tedious. Rachel with her stupid pink hair, trying desperately to not seem like the most boring chick on the face of the earth. And Gosling with his serious-actor affectations and his Gordon Gekko slick-back. To borrow a phrase befitting Rachel's hair: Gag me with a spoon (like fersure).
Okay, Jennifer - we all know you're a goofball. We've seen it, and we sort of like it. So why, whenever you appear at these awards shows and things, do you feel it necessary to adopt that dopey, hard-core Alias thing? I mean honestly. Look at your face Jennifer. You don't seem bad-ass. You look like you tasted something funny and now you're trying to hold down your puke until you can run to the bathroom. Stop it. I'm serious.
I don't know what to make of Jessica Biel. Certain parts of her body appear quite feminine, while others would seem more at-home on someone who played defensive end for some hideous NFL team. It's strange to me that a girl as pretty as Jessica would aspire to have the upper-arms of Lou Ferrigno. And as for that ass. I'm sorry, but that ass is fake. That is an implant situation. This bitch has more space-age polymers in her body than a whole roomful of strippers.
