Avoid women and children at all costs.
For a variety of reasons, I was pretty disappointed by this movie. But the first thing I want to do is talk about its soundtrack, which was seriously bad enough for me to lower my personal rating by at least half a grade.
It is absolutely baffling to me that Kimya Dawson is still polluting the musical landscape. She sucks, and the Moldy Peaches sucked, and hell, Adam Green sucks too. They personify the kind of hipster anti-music that occasionally seeps forth from the bowels of New York. Thankfully, the soundtrack is broken up by a few other bands, including the notoriously soporific Belle & Sebastian, who sound like Pantera in comparison. The suffocatingly cutesy music in this movie combined with the suffocatingly cutesy dialogue was just too much to take. Please, for the love of God, do not take this as emblematic of what “twee” music is. Twee does not mean utterly devoid of any life or soul and, while I’m no expert, I don’t think the point of twee is to try to be as cutesy and amusical as possible. That is what the Shaggs were for. The music, like the movie, tries way too hard to be hip – at least Wes Anderson, an obvious influence on Juno, mixes things up a little. It may have been hip (and still shitty) in 1997, but it sure as hell isn’t hip today. Whatever that means.
Some other music-related things from the movie – I don’t think anyone in the history of western civilization would ever introduce someone to Sonic Youth with “Superstar,” unless that person was already some sort of die-hard Carpenters fan. No, it seems like this was only used so the White Stripes could be referenced.
Speaking of that, does Ms. Cody know of any other bands from that era besides the Melvins and Sonic Youth? Because they are the only ones Bateman specifically mentions, over, and over, and over again. And I think those were the only visible posters in his room, though I may be mistaken.
By the way, Juno is 16 years old and yet is intimately familiar with bands such as the Stooges and Patti Smith. Fair enough, I was a similar situation. But…how is it that she seems to have never even heard of Sonic Youth? Maybe I’m not being fair – I was old enough to at least have heard of them somewhere when they signed with Geffen.
The Stooges, and Patti Smith, and Mott the Hoople…so let’s form a band that sounds like the Moldy fucking Peaches? Jesus Christ, I hate them.
Maybe I’ll say more on why I thought the movie was no better than a C+ or 3 stars or whatever scale you want to use later.
