Juno

Just got home from watching Juno.
See, it's gotten a lot of press recently, and I'm not sure if it's because leading starlet Ellen Page is Canadian or because it's a good movie (that has gotten 4 Academy Award nominations).
I'm a little confused about what I think of the movie. The fact that I didn't hate it means that it couldn't be all too bad because that's usually how I feel about movies, but I didn't love the movie, so well, that's never the best either.
I enjoyed the quick witted banter. That was the best part for me. I felt like the actors did a good job with their respective roles, although I'm not really sure that Ms. Page did an Oscar worthy performance. It was good, but not the best thing I've ever seen. I thought Jennifer Garner was quite convincing in her role.
I was thrown off by the obvious effort at teenaged slang at the beginning of the movie, because I consider myself quite lingo-forward and I thought that it was a little bit too forced and over exaggerated for who the character turned out to be. They seemed to scale back a bit as the movie went on, which I appreciated. Either that, or I just got used to it.
I thought certain sections/plot lines weren't flushed out enough. Or I wanted to read into certain parts of it, hoping that there was more symbolism in objects or sentences, but it was a pretty literal movie, so that didn't work out so well.
I thought each of the characters were well cast and at the same time did a good job portraying their respective roles.
I didn't really know anything about the movie before seeing it. Vague idea of the plot line, but more went to watch it because of the buzz it was getting. About 15 minutes in, I clued into the fact that it had played at TIFF07, but it must not have gotten any serious recognition because it wasn't on my radar. Strange.
Anyway, I'd recommend the movie. It's quite amusing, I'm sure most people will love it, I'm just not sure why I am not head over heels.
Oh, and the soundtrack was splendid. As was the costume and set design. Ensemble cast = splendid.