Officially Cool
Officially Cool: An Honest Look At Juno
Posted by Brian C. Gibson (brian@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 22, 2008
If there is anything to learn from last year’s little film that could, not everyone loves the underdog and maybe that is why it is the underdog. Rod Hilton, creator of TheEditingRoom.com, wrote his own version of a Juno screenplay that advertises to be “10 times shorter, and 100 times more honest.”
Personally, my favorite “scenes from this screenplay would be these two:
ELLEN PAGE
That’s right! I found it in the fridge, behind the purple stuff! Now relinquish the bathroom key geeves, I for shizz need to spout.
RAINN WILSON
I can barely understand you. Is there a reason you’re talking like what seems like a teenager designed by a committee of adults that have researched youth by watching MTV around the clock?
ELLEN PAGE
Yes, and you better start talking like that too or you’ll have no place in the movie, Dwight.
RAINN WILSON
Oh, er, uh, I mean that’s one doodle that can’t be undid homeskillet oh my god I need a new agent.
ELLEN PAGE
You’re so quirky! And so am I!
ELLEN sits down to talk to her father and stepmother.
ELLEN PAGE
So, I’m pregnant.
J.K. SIMMONS
WHAT YOU’RE FUCKING 16 WHAT THE FU-
ELLEN PAGE
Dad, you’re in an indie flick, remember?
J.K. SIMMONS
Oh right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to blow up, I meant to make a dry, sarcastic remark.
ALLISON JANNEY
And I’d like to follow that up with a second barb.
ELLEN PAGE
It’s Michael Cera’s. The kid from Arrested Development.
J.K. SIMMONS
Huh. I didn’t think he had it in him.
ELLEN PAGE
What, sperm?
If you would like to read the rest, just follow the link at the bottom. Let me know what you think of this, because I loved to see someone poking hard at m.
Source: Cracked.com
Read more articles by Brian C. Gibson
13 Comments
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 am
Sometimes I think people who focus on trivial points about Juno hate teenagers or have lingering High School traumas that make them want to vent on the internet. Not all 16 year olds speak in sentences made of obscenities. Teens always idolize college students and older people. Is it so strange that an artsy girl would speak and dress like a college creative writing major? High Schools a joke and she wants to grow up fast.
Oh and what’s with the italic font on this page?
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I haven’t seen the movie (so therefore, my opinion is null and void right there I admit), and truthfully? I doubt I ever will due to the commercials showcasing this type of “hipper than thou” speech.
It’s just a pet peeve of mine.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Oh, how original - another post about Diablo Cody’s writing style.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Juno’s a humorous movie but the commercials were horrible. Might you be talking about the commercial before the DVD came out where they strung together a million Juno lines together. It’s not like that at all. Director Jason Reitman was trying to avoid gimmickiness like that. My pet peeve are “it’s the most catchphrased filled story of the year” ads. Honestly, I don’t see movies because of that.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Everyone tells you to love this movie. It is crammed down everyones throat. The people that love this movie need to realize why there aren’t a lot like it - not everyone likes this.
It deserves to be assaulted just as hard as any film, if not more so, because the reviewing press went entirely hands-off on it and just let it be everyone favorite movie.
Girls like Juno need a man with a strong pimp hand. ZING.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
UPDATE!
I just read the editing room script. I thought it was utterly hilarious!
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Agreed. Negative reviews need to be seen as well as positive ones. The balance between Siskel and Ebert must be maintained.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Aziz! Light! Much better. Comments still look funny.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Kevin, the problem is not just with the awful, wordy script. The problem is Juno’s character. Yes, she talks like a creative writing major, but that is why she is such a sniveling little shit. Nobody likes those self-absorbed morons in college, so why would I like them in high school?
Juno, as a character, was just plain annoying and overly-sarcastic.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
True, whether you like Juno boils down to liking the characters. If its not your cup o’ tea, I could recommend other movies. The movie doesn’t set out to appeal to everyone regardless of how much money it made. I just relate to Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, and Ellen Page’s characters because I know people like that. Juno is someone I could’ve hung out with.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Right, I know people like Juno as well. They’re annoying, self-righteous fuckwits. There’s boatloads of em at Emerson College. If you like Juno then you will love my school.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
“They’re annoying, self-righteous fuckwits.”
I am sure the sequel will have Juno posting comments on the Internet
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Great post, Brian. You should write for FSR more often.
Re: Juno - I finally got to see it the other night, and as a self-righteous fuckwit and sniveling little shit myself, I liked it. Although…Best Picture nominee? Really? It was a good movie, but it just wasn’t in the league with any other nominee or Little Miss Sunshine.
Re: The Editing Room - Isn’t it nice when a gimmick like sarcasm never, ever gets old? Ever? And you can use it over and over again for different movies? Thought so. Besides, if it gets stale, you always just point out what’s happening on screen in a condescending tone. Mockery is almost always fresh.