My review of "Juno" (2007)

Well...it's official. Juno is the weirdest movie I've ever seen.
That's honestly all I need to write here. This movie is weird. But in a way, the weirdness makes the actual real issues stand out even more. This movie stars a hilariously named teenager named Juno MacGuff (played by Ellen Page) who is impregnated by her friend Paulie Bleeker (played by Michael Cera). Juno doesn't want to get an abortion, but she doesn't want to keep the baby either, so she finds a couple in the newspaper that are looking to adopt a child. Throughout her journey of being pregnant she learns a lot about love and how it sometimes doesn't always workout and that there are hardships. However, this movie wasn't as moving to me as it might be to others.
- I am going to do all my future movie reviews with liked and didn't like structure I used in my "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" review. -

Liked: I liked the humor when it showed up. Some of the jokes were really funny and fit the character very well. I liked Jennifer Garner for being in the movie...not really for her performance just for being there. Jason Bateman's character was pretty likable until he went pedophile towards the end...and um...yea. I appreciated the attempt at conveying a heartfelt story about how love is hard...but it didn't really leave that impression on me.

Didn't Like: Oh boy, here we go. Firstly, I never felt like the acting stood out at all. Ellen Page's voice is annoying and her character's attempts to be funny just came off as plain weird or quirky for the sake of being quirky. The only thing I thought was well executed was the crying scene in the car. Michael Cera is essentially the same character in every movie he's in so that performance just become duller than the last. The best friend character was boring. The dad and step-mom were pretty boring. And that's all on the acting. It was mediocre at best. Some of the scenes were a little too weird to watch. Some examples being Jennifer Garner "talking to her baby" in a public mall, or the fingernails scene, or that scene when Jason Bateman's character started slow-dancing with Juno, and many more. The dialogue annoyed me. It was super campy and felt extremely forced. The line that sticks out like a soar thumb to me is when Juno at one point says "That's totally legit." I cringed upon hearing that line, whether it was the delivery or just the completely forced inclusion of it in the first place. The soundtrack was extremely dull and weird in general. Nonsensical lyrics over somber and somewhat unsettling acoustic plucks played throughout the whole film. The part of the movie where Juno tells Paulie she's in love with him is so out of nowhere. Like, I know she has seen the hardships of the adopting parents and she has interacted with Paulie before but there never really seemed like there was a strong connection present. I know they had sex and everything but this spontaneous affection just felt too out of place.

Juno is a jumbled mess that doesn't really know what it wants to be. The character's and dialogue are so cliched and feel like the writing was a little too forced. This film gets unreal amounts of praise from critics when I only think it's okay. Perks of Being a Wallflower was consistent and the theme was always looming in the back of your mind. Juno just drops the theme for "trying too hard" comedy and boring characters. Granted, some of the scenes were very emotional, but usually were ruined later. The only impression this movie made on me was, "Damn that was a weird movie."

- Eamon

My review of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012)

So this movie is great. It's a story about a shy freshman named Charlie (played by Logan Lerman) who doesn't have any friends. The reason why he's so shy is that he's had a lifetime supply of traumatizing events including the death of his aunt whom he loved very dearly, and the unfortunate suicide of his best friend in 8th grade. He befriends an outgoing senior in his shop class named Patrick (played by Erza Miller) who introduces him to a group of colorful seniors such as Sam (played by Emma Watson) Mary Elizabeth (played by Mae Whitman) and more. Even though all seems well during his freshman year, a massive amount of typical high school drama ensues and things get pretty complicated. This movie has a cult-following of typical tumblr girls and such, but I feel like it shouldn't really be judged in that light. It's not just some chick flick, it's an extremely heartfelt tale about high school and love. There's a lot of things I liked, so I'm going to split the likes and dislikes into two paragraphs...so yea here goes!

Liked: I really liked all of the acting! Logan Lerman did an excellent job of portraying this traumatized boy. Emma Watson was awesome too! It's good to finally see her in a movie where she isn't wielding a wand. But Erza Miller did a fantastic job. I found that I liked his super flamboyant and charming character the most out of any of them. Cinematography was great, nothing to complain about there. What I found to be one of the best features was the humor! Since a good chunk of the film is intense and emotional, it's really funny when a good joke shows up. The movie is insanely quotable, sometimes for the wrong reason. It's kinda annoying seeing "In that moment, I swear we were infinite." quotes just slapped on every teenage girls photos and statuses, but that's not the movie's fault.

Didn't like (SPOILERS) : They made out high school to be this terrible hellhole of a place when it really isn't. That girl who made fun of Charlie every day in his English class seemed very unrealistic and put in just to try and convey a "high school is hell" vibe. Speaking of the English class, there was a sub-plot revolving around Charlie's relationship with his English teacher (played by Paul Rudd) which didn't really go anywhere and ended very awkwardly. I didn't think the back-story with the aunt was very well executed. It was poorly conveyed that she molested him as a kid and they could've made that a little clearer. I also didn't like all the corny lines. Again, it's a great film, but just some of the lines were so cliched and obviously written in just to sound sappy. The line that really exemplifies this is "Let's be psychos together." That line is a little too cheesy for me. One last thing is that it seemed very random and out of character that Charlie would beat up those football players to save Patrick. He's a freshman boy and these football players are seniors. It was weird to see this quiet kid all of the sudden gain Superman strength and take on a gang of football players.

All in all this movie is fantastic. All teens should see this movie because it does a good job of portraying that it's okay to be different and that there are always people out there who appreciate you. It also answers a lot of questions teens typically have about love, by showing that there is ups and downs. They perfectly exploit the "nice guys finish last" saying by how most of the girls in the movie have really douche-y boyfriends. The moral of this movie is that high school does have it's ups and downs, but in the end, everything will be fine.

- Eamon

My review of "The Social Network" (2010)

Being a frequent and admittedly addicted Facebook user, The Social Network was on my "need to watch" list for a while, and I finally got around to watching it. The movie is a dramatized documentary on Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and his struggle to create and maintain Facebook, a social network that is massively popular worldwide and has grossed over 25 billion dollars. The struggle he faces is that he is sued by his best friend and co-founder of Facebook Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield), and fellow Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer) who claims Zuckerberg stole their idea. He is also faced with multiple design pressures by the creator of Napster, Sean Parker. (played by Justin Timberlake) Mark has difficulty deciding whether to follow the business pursuits of Eduardo or Sean. The film is very compelling, emotional, and full of great moments. I especially liked Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg. He's nerdy, antisocial, and most importantly a genius. one of my favorite performances ever. I also loved Andrew Garfield's performance. You really felt for him when tragedy overcame him. The cinematography is excellent. Every shot looks official and cool. It was a nice touch that most of the background music was 8-bit. It was a strange inclusion, but I assume it had to do with Zuckerberg's attachment to computers. It was, to say at the least, a pleasant surprise. The only things I really disliked about the movie was rowing in the Olympics scene, and the ending. The rowing scene just felt out of place and it looked fake too. They could've just cut to them losing the race and the story would be exactly the same. And the ending was bad per-say, but it felt a bit rushed. It also didn't really wrap up the trials in my opinion. But aside from those points, the rest of the movie is phenomenal. Justin Timberlake did a great job as the "villain" if you will. The club scene with Mark and Sean is iconic. Same with Eduardo smashing Mark's computer. If you're a fan of Facebook, this movie might not be what you expect, but in a good way.

- Eamon