posted January 29, 2008 09:54 PM         

it looks really cool.

posted January 31, 2008 09:38 AM         

I saw No Country For Old Men, and it was good.
Sometimes I need to see Cohen Bros. films twice,
to really appreciate them, though.
Fargo is my favorite.

Realism is just another genre to me, Libra.
This is marketed as a sassy, teen drama-comedy, right?
Unless a film is trying to be super realistic,
I dont fault it for playing with reality a little.
Thats usually what I go to the movies for.

'There Will Be Blood' looks good.

Daniel Day Lewis is one of my favorites,
along with Albert Finney and a handful of others.

LOOOOOVE P.T. Anderson

Thanks!

posted January 31, 2008 12:39 PM         

I want to see those other movies mentioned. They both look good. A 21 year old Leo co-worker was raving about There Will Be Blood yesterday.

posted January 31, 2008 06:59 PM         

This came in my email today from Jim Wallis and Friends at Sojourners.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Juno: A Truly Pro-Life Film (by Gareth Higgins)

Last night I finally saw Juno, Roger Ebert's favorite film of 2007 and recipient of four Oscar nominations, which has as its center the story of an unplanned pregnancy and the people affected by it. The protagonist, Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page in one of those so-good-she's-either-brilliant-or-really-like-that-in-real-life performances, is a misfit attracted to her male mirror image. Wiser beyond her years, slightly jaded by life and negotiating the pitfalls of the high school psychological assault course, she responds to her pregnancy by initially seeking an abortion – and the nonchalance with which she is treated is the only thing sadder than the unthinking speed with which she makes the decision. She is greeted by a lone protestor – the sole representative of institutional Christianity in the movie – as young as her, who, while a welcome change from the angry fundamentalist stereotype, may know as little about adult life as Juno does about the experience of pregnancy she's about to have. But something unsettles Juno, and she is unable to go through with the termination. Instead, she plans to have the child and help a couple seeking to adopt.

And that's it – the rest of the film is a deceptively simple story, taking Juno through the following months, her relationship with family, her best friend, and Paulie Bleeker – the dude she hung out with a little too late one night. There's not much to the tale at first glance, but I found the way in which it is told (by writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman – son of Ivan, who brought us Ghostbusters and the wonderful presidential satire Dave) – so utterly beguiling that by the time the film was over I wanted to go straight back to the start to rediscover these characters all over again.

Why? Because the characters in this film not only feel like real people, they are the kind of people you would be happy to spend time with. Because the film does as good a job as the best films of its type at reminding us of what it feels like to be young and not fit in (even the prospective adoptive father is trying to find his liberation in a stifling world). Because there are no grandstanding scenes, no emotional outbursts, no melodramatic moments of "closure." The characters behave the way many of us might hope to be able to do in similar situations - Juno's parents respond to her surprising news with grace, never for a second falling into the clichι of fearing what the neighbours might think. Juno is confident enough not to join so many others of her generation by giving into the stigma of shame, and Paulie ultimately just wants to be a good guy for her.

If this sounds sentimental, that's certainly not the tone of the film. If it sounds unrealistic, however, then perhaps that is indicative of a culture in which perfectionism or arrogance are often preferred over honestly managing the frailty of being human. Diablo Cody was once a stripper and so is likely to have experienced moralistic condemnation at the hands of others. It is a triumph that she has composed a film so full of generosity and so lacking in bitterness, so full of hope for family, for children, for people being able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Alongside the clear exploration of how to respond to unplanned pregnancy, this film has something to say to those of us seeking to explore what forgiveness and redemption means. More than that, in its embrace of the totality of our existence – from its acknowledgement that the promotion of values often has more to do with helping people move on from things that didn't work out than with dogmatic confrontation, to its critique of the fact that some religious voices seem incapable of communicating compassion, Juno is a truly pro-life film.

posted February 01, 2008 12:54 AM         

I think you misunderstood. To use the term "pro-life" means in favor of life. When speaking of the movement Pro-Life is always capitalized. Isn't that why you automatically capitalized it, librarising? Garreth Higgens didn't capitalize it. Mainly because he was not referring to the movement.

I am not trying to make any kind of point. The review came in my email box today and because HSC asked about the movie I posted it here. Why do you assume I was trying to make a point in posting it?

I did not take it that the review was speaking of Pro-Life as opposed to Pro-Choice. I think he meant pro-life in this context which is why I bolded this part:

quote:

---

If this sounds sentimental, that's certainly not the tone of the film. If it sounds unrealistic, however, then perhaps that is indicative of a culture in which perfectionism or arrogance are often preferred over honestly managing the frailty of being human. Diablo Cody was once a stripper and so is likely to have experienced moralistic condemnation at the hands of others. It is a triumph that she has composed a film so full of generosity and so lacking in bitterness, so full of hope for family, for children, for people being able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Alongside the clear exploration of how to respond to unplanned pregnancy, this film has something to say to those of us seeking to explore what forgiveness and redemption means. More than that, in its embrace of the totality of our existence – from its acknowledgement that the promotion of values often has more to do with helping people move on from things that didn't work out than with dogmatic confrontation, to its critique of the fact that some religious voices seem incapable of communicating compassion, Juno is a truly pro-life film.

---

If you read that paragraph through and don't just get hung up on a term it is clear what he is speaking of. He is not speaking of the Pro-Life movement. From what he states in his total review that is not what the movie is about either. Rather it deals with human issues. It deals with helping people move on after they have made mistakes rather than condemning them, it deals with acceptance and forgiveness. Those are the values he speaks of and to which he refers to as truly pro-life.

He gave a lot of credit to the woman who wrote the movie who was an ex-stripper who he felt must fully understand what it is like to be condemned and judged by others. He credited her with the generousity and hope and lack of bitterness in the movie and it's all out celebration of life, human life, where in our fraility we do make mistakes and deserve a chance to move on past them without being judged and condemned by others. In that respect he said it was truly a pro-life film. That was what he was speaking about in that paragraph.

I didn't gather from what he said in his review that the movie is about Pro-Life as opposed to Pro-Choice. In fact it seems to me that the young girl in the movie did exercise her right to choose.

There is no " flame on" BR because like the reviewer of the movie I see no reason to turn his review into a dogmatic confrontation either.

posted February 04, 2008 01:13 PM         

But I also can't see why society condemns teenage pregnancies. The more I think about this the more I find it unnatural, and rage against modern society.

Teenage pregnancy would not have been for me personally, but I am afraid that once a person reaches puberty...they're ready to reproduce. And I can't really see why people are shocked at teenage brides. When I was twelve, do you think I was thinking about school? No! All I wanted was to get married...though I had to wait another 12 years for that one...