Juno

We went to see Juno on Saturday, and it was without question one of those really special movies that only come out every so often.

The movie has some of the best dialog I've seen in years. It's damn funny. It's sad at times. The story behind the screenwriter is that she went the tortured artist trapped in the soul sucking corporate world, took up stripping accidentally, blogged about it, wrote a book, and then did this screenplay. Strange but very interesting career path.

The acting is total top shelf. Ellen Page, who basically came out of nowhere, is beyond good, in the way you'd think of Claire Danes in the My So-Called Life days. (Granted, Page is not actually a teenager, but you get the idea.) The dad, JK Simmons, probably best known as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman movies, was also brilliant. Jason Bateman plays a grown up who wants to not be grown up (a total role reversal for him), and Jennifer Garner plays a seemingly neurotic and desperate mom wannabe as the family who wants to adopt Juno's baby.

I think what I got most out of it is that everyone struggles to find what their place is, all the while trying to figure out how relationships are supposed to figure into the madness, if they can at all. In a sense, it's another one of those coming of age stories for several of the characters, and you know how I like coming of age stories.

Incidentally, I saw on IMDB that Page and the girl who plays her best friend, Olivia Thirlby, star together in a movie later this year apparently about having a young lesbian experience together. Can't wait to see what kind of stink that causes.