Actually, A Slight Rebuttal on Myself...

After writing my rant on how the hate storm has ruined Juno for me last night (which you should read before reading this), I managed to get a copy of the movie and re-watch it for the first time since I first saw it in theaters back in December.

I have to say- the hate storm did not ruin the movie for me. In fact, I liked it even more the second time around. That's right- Juno is in fact a great movie.

I basically stand by everything I said in my defense of the film last night and then some. The fact that so much hate is directed towards the film on the basis of the language of the screenplay is borderline ridiculous- most of the hip slang used is fairly rare and, honestly, doesn't really leave the first act much. And, unlike what many say, it is not even that hard to understand. 

But for me, the main appeal of this film is the fact that it is so effective on a story stand point and on an emotional stand point. As I stated last night, Juno manages to be a truly touching film without being overwhelming in its heart string tugging methods. All of the touching moments feel very genuine, real and never forced (my favorite of which is probably the moment that Jennifer Garner tries to get the baby to kick for her in the mall). The movie works in so many different ways (great acting, music, direction, story) and it's impossible not to like it or at least feel something in some way or another.

Another thing that I was surprised to find on my second viewing of the film was that Jason Reitman and I actually have some similarities in the ways that we shoot a film and have it cut together. Since it has been so long since I last saw the thing, I could not really remember how the film followed together and it was kind of cool to see that someone else thinks the similar to me in the sense of filming and cutting. I thought that was cool.

So, basically I'm just saying that I was right in my defense of the film. However, I was not right in thinking that all the hate that has been spread over the film in the past few months would straight out ruin it for me. That was not true. As I stated above, I actually enjoyed the movie much more the second time around last night. So I'm really happy to say that all the ignorant people that like to rain down on this film have not completely taken it away from me.

However, the fact that all that negativity towards the film has keep me from seeing again for so long (from December until August) still kind of pisses me off. I cannot believe that so many people cannot see what makes this movie a great film. Actually, I think that they do see what makes it great but they just want to follow the trend of hating on it just to feel better about themselves. It's ridiculous but it really is a great movie. In fact, after re-watching it, I think I would actually move it down my Top Ten List of 2007 from #10 to maybe #8 or #7. Yeah, that's right- I said it.

The bottom line is that no one has taken my love for this movie away... but I still want to punch in some faces.