We went to see "Juno" yesterday in a packed theatre, and I was fully prepared to hate it because of all the stuff I had read about it and the screenwriter Diablo Cody. As I said before, it fucking rattles my teeth that some woman would become a sex worker just so that she could gain blogging material when so many women are forced into it to feed their families or merely survive. She was just interviewed again on Letterman this week after the Oscar nominations came out and I cringed when he wanted more details about her brief stint as a stripper and phone sex worker. What a fucking perv. Cody's rise to fame sends a clear message to other women: play the cheesecake role, drop enough titillating information to attract and keep men's attention, and never call bullshit on their eagerness to objectify you.

My new blogging angle is that I'm going to write about every pole that I've ever smoked. Yep. It's going to be blowjobs 24/7 here at "Dante and the Lobster." All cock gobbling, all the time. Then the book deals will just come flooding in and I can write a screenplay about a woman who thinks she wants to have a mind and career of her own but who wisely throws that away to have 5 kids with a man who can barely stand them all, or something equally nonthreatening to conservatives.

But I digress. No spoilers.

I didn't hate "Juno" although I had plenty to gripe about over dinner. The dialogue sounded completely fabricated and if I hear one more person praise its authenticity, I will scream. No one says "home skillet" for fuck's sake. The overuse of invented slang really detracts from the story and calls too much attention to itself. Also, she says that her dad named her after Zeus' wife, which is incorrect. Zeus was paired with Hera in Greek mythology. In the Roman version the lead male god is Jupiter who was paired with his wife/sister Juno. Why is it that she gets pregnant after having sex only once? How likely is that to happen? It's as if the film is saying that she's not really a slutty teen because they only had sex once, and look, she's paying for it by bringing the baby to term. Mr. M had a hard time understanding how a man in his late 30s can have sexual designs on a 16 year-old until I told him about all the older men who tried to get me in the sack at that age. I didn't believe the scene with the ultrasound woman, either. It felt false to me. So did the scene in the abortion clinic. There's no such thing as waltzing in for an abortion on demand anywhere in the U.S.

All bitching aside, the performances in "Juno" are top notch, however, and it's worth seeing just for the cast. Ellen Page as Juno gives a commanding performance. (loved her in Hard Candy which I reviewed a while back). She has considerable talent and looks set to have a wonderful career. Page's protagonist is rarely seen onscreen; she's a teenager who's smart, outspoken, and determined. She even looks 16. The only part of her character that I didn't buy is that a smart girl would plan to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time and not think to bring a freaking condom. Michael Cera was super cute as her boyfriend Paulie Bleeker. I couldn't stop thinking of Mr. M at that age because he was also a skinny guy on the track team. J.K Simmons plays her father Mac, Alison Janney her step-mom Bren. There's a funny scene after she tells them she's pregnant and they talk about how they knew what she was going to say but they were hoping for school expulsion, drug use, or a DUI instead. They're probably right that parents would rather hear anything other than that their daughter is pregnant. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman play Vanessa and Mark Loring and the biggest plot twist comes with them as the adoptive parents, keeping the film from becoming too predictable.

I'm not sure that "Juno" deserves the "Best Picture" nomination, but maybe Mr. M's right when he says that it stands out as a bright spot among all the other gloomy bloody films out there this year. At some level I flinch at movies which try so earnestly to "pull at my heartstrings" or manipulate me emotionally, but I'll give it a pass because we see so few likeable female characters at the center of the plot. You'll enjoy it.