JUNO - Blu-ray review

At one point I declined an opportunity to view "Juno" in theaters. My very good friend Jeremy had asked me to go with him to see the film, but I just couldn't muster the desire to pay ten dollars to watch a movie about a pregnant teenage girl with my oversized former rugby playing friend. There just seemed to be something far less than masculine about a hockey goalie and a rugby player eschewing "Cloverfield" in favor of "Juno." The choice came down to the big and noisy monster movie with explosions and decapitated historical landmarks or a small budget film about a cute little girl that gets knocked up and then must come to terms with her becoming ‘sexually active.' The monster movie became the film of choice and after watching ‘Juno,' I believe I chose poorly.

It is true that "Juno" is a comedy about a teenage girl who becomes pregnant after her first sexual encounter. The movie makes light of pregnancy tests, vaginas and child birth. While these aren't topics that us ‘manly' men typically indulge in for humor, "Juno" is a very funny picture. I was a little concerned during the first five minutes of the film when Juno (Ellen Page) engages in conversation with clerk Rollo (Rainn Wilson) as she debates the validity of a pregnancy test and tries to deny her situation by believing the ‘plus sign' looks more like a division sign. The dialogue between Juno and Rollo included such horrific words as ‘home skillet' and pee-stick.' Rollo referred to Juno as "Fertile Myrtle" and made a bad reference to the iconic Etch-a-Sketch. Thankfully, after that initial scene, "Juno" became a witty and intelligent comedy.

Ellen Page leads a solid and recognizable cast that brings laughs and believability to the many dysfunctional characters that inhabit the frames of the film. Page is a relatively young twenty one years of age and her diminutive size and baby faced appearance allows her to easily look the part of a sixteen year old girl. Her performance as a witty, but smart-assed teenager is very reminiscent of people I remember from my high school days and Page allows the character of Juno to act juvenile, yet mature enough to not turn away older audiences looking for a good laugh. The performance is honest enough to allow the audience to understand the frustrations caused by Juno to her parents Mac (J.K. Simmons) and Bren MacGuff (Allison Janney). She brings about a young naïve outlook of the world and her situation that allows both the film and the principle character to succeed.

My favorite character in the film was that of Mac MacGuff and I can hardly imagine anybody but J.K. Simmons in the role after watching the film. Simmons has previously been incredible as J. Jonah Jameson in the "Spider-Man" films. The actor has always been an underappreciated character actor, but J.K. Simmons has found a niche in roles where he can be gruff and grizzled. The role of Mac provides Simmons to convey a lot more heart in his role than what he was able to do in the "Spider-Man" films, but there is a similarity between the two performances. In "Juno," I just loved the fatherly demeanor and confident sarcasm delivered by Simmons. Some of the films more memorable and comedic moments where delivered by Simmons. The lines "Next time I see that Bleeker kid I'm going to punch him in the wiener" and "Liberty Bell, if you put one more Baco on that potato I'm going to kick your little monkey butt" left me in stitches.

Other starring and supporting characters include Michael Cera as Juno's friend and the father of her child, Paulie Bleeker. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner portray the adoptive parents of Juno's baby, Mark and Vanessa Loring. Allison Janney is the Juno's step-mother Bren. Olivia Thirlby is the popular cheerleading best-friend, Leah. Both Thirlby and Cera performed well as characters a couple of years younger than the actors themselves. For the longest time Hollywood tried to pass actors pushing thirty (or beyond) as teenagers and those performances never approached believability. In "Juno," at least the young actors all look as if they could be high school students. Michael Cera in particularly does quite well and I have to agree with Simmons' character in that Cera doesn't look like he "has it in him" to impregnate the title character.

Bateman and Garner portray a married couple that looks to be as happy as can be on the surface, but hide deep rooted problems in their marriage beneath the surface. Bateman has not been seen in many major productions aside from "Arrested Development," but that television series seems to have given the handsome actor a much deserved boost in his career. He is very good as the unhappy husband with a love of rock music and cheesy horror films. Garner is without a doubt the biggest name attached to "Juno," but this is mostly from her marriage to actor Ben Affleck. In this film, Garner gave me an odd "Stepford Wives" vibe and although her performance ultimately works, I was least impressed with her performance in the film when compared to the lesser known actors.

"Juno" is a good time and chocked full of laughs. I wasn't sure I'd particularly enjoy a film about a pregnant sixteen year old that sets out to put her child up for adoption and make smart-aleck comments about anything that doesn't please her. I knew "Juno" wasn't just another raunchy teen comedy filled with breasts and vulgarity, but my incorrect initial impression was that the movie was something that teen girls would enjoy greatly, but grown men would have little to either relate or enjoy about "Juno." The film is funny and it is witty. It is easy to see why the film earned writer Diablo Cody the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It is far less juvenile than either "Waitress" or "Knocked Up,"

Video:

"Juno" may be delightfully entertaining and a pleasure to watch, but it is far from striking on Blu-ray. The 1.85:1 AVC transfer is mastered at 28 MBPS, but the level of detail and ample film grain keeps "Juno" from looking better than the sharpest DVDs, let alone a 1080p transfer. While there are a few very detailed moments in "Juno," the transfer couldn't compete with "Alien vs. Predator: Requiem;" the film I watched just prior to "Juno." The grain itself was troubling and while I lend its presence to the low-budget underpinnings of the film, it is a bit heavy at times. The film does pack some very bright colors and the film's familiar red and yellow running outfits showcase how nicely the film's colors are presented. Flesh tones are natural. The print is clean and there are no ugly flaws with the digital transfer. I'm sure the Blu-ray release of "Juno" is a tad cleaner than the DVD release, but its grain and less-than-average detail doesn't allow the little film to impress much.

Audio:

The film comes packed with an English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio mix. This high bandwidth soundtrack does allow "Juno" to sound quite clean, but the film is heavily dialogue based and the nearly all acoustic song selections do not provide too much more excitement than dialogue. Don't get me wrong. I love the soundtrack and purchased the CD, but "Juno" is a minimalistic exercise in sound. The DTS HD soundtrack is quite clean and you won't hear any flaws. Every spoken word comes through crisp and perfectly intelligible. The rear surrounds and center channel are used to some effect with a few scattered environmental effects populating the rears and vocals nicely anchored front and center. The .1 LFE channel is used very sparsely, with only a few sound selections providing source material for a proper thump. The disc is clean, but the sound design hardly pushes the technology provided.

Extras:

"Juno" arrives on Blu-ray as a feature-packed "Digital Copy Special Edition." The Digital Copy of Juno for Portable Media Players is packaged on a DVD disc contained within the 2-disc packaging. This can be transported to a laptop, Zune, iPod, Playstation Portable or other device capable of holding a digital movie. The disc has installers and formats for various platforms and requires around 600MB of storage to hold the entire film. This is an interesting marketing approach that a couple studios have been taking to combat the threat of digital distribution. Although I love my Zune, I am a physical media advocate and will support any endeavor thought up by the studios to keep producing physical media.

The film itself is contained on a dual layer Blu-ray disc and features a number of nice supplements. The Commentary by Director Jason Reitman and Screenwriter Diablo Cody is a solid listen. Cody has based much of her life into this film and she goes into details about the biographical elements of the story and her and the director share information that fleshes out the story and details the making of "Juno." This is an entertaining chat and well worth watching the film again to enjoy this commentary track. I found myself very quickly watching the film a complete second time to fully digest everything said by Reitman and Cody and was never bored.

Nearly two hours of additional features are packed on the disc. The eleven Deleted Scenes (20:24) may be played individually or collectively and features an optional commentary track with Reitman and Cody. Some of these excised bits would fit very nicely into the edited film. Some were removed to help achieve a PG-13 rating, while others were simply cut for pacing or time reasons. This was a very nice collection of supplements. The Gag Reel (5:11) and Gag Take (1:57) showcase some of the tomfoolery that went on in the making of the film. They are both short, but fun. A Crew Music Video (3:12) continues the fun with the crew as a bogus music video showcases yellow running shorts and those that starred in the film.

Things get a little more serious after the collection of bonus footage. A very long collection of Screen Tests (22:35) is included and shows the stars and co-stars of the film acting out scenes from the film in hopes of getting hired. Way Beyond "Our" Maturity Level: Juno-Leah-Bleeker (8:59) finds writer Diablo Cody discussing her film, the three young characters and the story Cast and crew lend their thoughts to this series of interviews and footage and this isn't a bad little featurette. Diablo Cody is Totally Boss (8:35) is a continuation of the first featurette and finds the director and writer talking about how her writing was based upon her blog about strippers. Jason Reitman for Shizz (8:08) is a featurette that has the producers talking about hiring Jason for the film and his efforts in bringing "Juno" to life. Honest to Blog! Creating Juno (13:01) is a promotional featurette that covers much of the same ground of the previous three featurettes, but is a little more polished and glossier.

The Fox Movie Channel supplies two supplements to wrap up the bonus offerings for "Juno." Fox Movie Channel Presents: World Premiere… Juno (5:26) is a promotional reel from the television channel that shows clips from the film, discusses the story and promotes the film for Fox from a red carpet premiere. J.K. Simmons and others are interviewed on the red carpet by a lovely woman in a purple dress. Finally, Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session: Juno (7:51) is a second short from the Fox Movie Channel and finds the director and others providing talking heads interviews and promoting the film. This is a prototypical EPK supplement and is about as interesting as any of the umpteen EPK shorts you may have seen. Surprisingly, there was no theatrical trailer.

Closing Comments:

Twice I refused to go to a theater and watch "Juno." There were other films I wanted to see and I viewed the picture as either a ‘date film' or a ‘chick flick.' I had seen very little of its promotion and only knew the film was about a pregnant teenage girl. Although I'm not sure I would have paid full price for popcorn and soda to sit down and enjoy "Juno" in a cinema, it is a far more entertaining film than "Cloverfield;" one of the movies I had chosen in lieu of "Juno." The truth of the matter is that "Juno" is a very funny and highly entertaining film with solid acting, great jokes and a wonderful performance by J.K. Simmons. The rest of the gang is solid as well, but I really enjoyed Simmons' performance as Juno's father. The Blu-ray release is hindered because of the Indie low-budget nature of the film, but the supplements are very nice. While the film will never be used as reference material, it is entertaining enough to more than make up for its technological shortcomings. This is one title worth adding to your high definition library.