Movies

Re: So The Question

AlaskaBoy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:05:29 GMT

So The Question, it would seem, is why everyone else- including the academy- thinks otherwise.

"Shallow, unimaginative, and unfunny" are fine if you back them up, but you don't. If the whole movie theatre was laughing, does that make them wrong? If some were laughing at the ironic subtext, while others were laughing at the humor resting a little more on the surface, such as the track team running by as if to usher in the seasons, does the latter group not count, because they really don't "get" it?

You mentioned in another post that "Alas, [you] can think of very little about the scenes that precede these gravity-laden punctuation marks that lead [you] to believe that the issue has been taken seriously by its protagonist."

Do all pregnant teens honestly take their clearly unplanned pregnancy seriously? Do they all ultimately feel the true gravity of their actions, and if they do not feel it, does it make them somehow not genuine?

Everyone here has seemed to write you off as merely a pro-abortionist who in turn writes this movie off because it didn't mesh with your vision of how all girls should behave toward the subject of teen pregnancy- especially one as outspoken and intelligent as the character of Juno.

But I still have hope for you, so if you could do one better than to just throw negative adjectives, and indeed elaborate, it would shock the other posters and make me look good because I stuck with you before it was cool.

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

mcgeorge — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:15:31 GMT

Thanks, Argento. I didn't want to come out and say it the first time (but I can't remember the reason for coyness). Draft #1 is extremely close to what we see on the screen, for better or worse. Having a script optioned -- like tons of people on here have done, including yours truly -- doesn't change that, or make perfectly possible things impossible to save your ego. But congratulations for being on the inside, guy.

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

the_other_argento_kid — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:32:22 GMT

Just an FYI to everybody: I read draft #1 of Juno, and it was virtually identical to what made it on the screen. There were one or two added scenes, a few deleted lines of dialogue, and a few minor changes, but in terms of the meat of the script, it was pretty much exactly what you saw on screen.

To assume that all she "ever wrote" was "nonfiction" is to assume that everything everybody writes gets published.

There's some sexism and snobbery inherent in your assumption too. Isn't it kind of douchey to assume that only The Man, Jason Reitman could save The Girl, Diablo Cody, from crappy script-i-tude? And who the hell says that just because somebody started out as a blogger means they are actually incapable of writing something entirely other than a blog entry? Are blogs so low-class that there isn't the remotest possibility that they translate?

If you're as insider-y as you say you are, why don't you ask her manager to show you a copy of her first draft. You can compare and contrast for yourself. 'K?

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

pawntucket — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:04:45 GMT

"This doesn't sound like a person who can write something halfway as thoughtful as the film Juno. This is a person who is ignorant and shallow."

I think it would be easy to agree with you if I thought Juno was halfway as thoughtful as you seem to think it is. For me, it's all-to-plausible for me to imagine someone like Diablo Cody writing Juno because I find the script shallow, unimaginative and unfunny.

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

blacktech — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:26:24 GMT

Exactly. She wasn't even a stripper for very long.

And thanks for your message. It's well appreciated!

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

blacktech — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:24:44 GMT

Actually, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying: it's not possible. People ignorant about how a film gets made -- and I'm not because I've optioned scripts -- don't realize what it's like. And people who aren't professional writers -- which you clearly are not -- don't know what goes into writing anything, much less a script. Writing well in any particular medium takes a huge amount of skill and talent specific to that medium. You can't automatically leap from being a fairly okay memoirist to a major screenwriter. It just doesn't happen.

I rarely have this kind of reaction to a film's marketing. What it is touching is a very deep nerve about how women are treated in Hollywood. It's ugly and needs to stop. Maybe Sofia Coppola's issues are because of her gender, but I suspect it's more due to living in the shadow of her massively successful father. This, however, is purely about gender and sex, as is proof through the marketing of Cody's stripper history.

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

gobot90 — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:30:54 GMT

I would add to that excellent assessment: they gave her exclusive writing credits so the sexy back story would add to the marketability of the movie. It's like knowing the White Stripes once dated but like to say they are brother and sister. Just a quirky selling point. But "Diablo Cody" was a stripper like I was a bike messenger: I did it on and off for a year, because I was bored with my 9 to 5 job and wanted something to write about. It may be sour grapes, but that doesnt make it any less true.

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

mcgeorge — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:58:19 GMT

First, man, Reitman adapted "Thank You for Smoking" from Christopher Buckley's book so that's a bit of cheap comparison.

Second, your post REALLY sounds like sore apples. Are you really saying that it's not physically possible for a first-time screenwriter to get an Oscar nod (as if an Oscar nod was some objective standard)? Why? Is it physically possible on the second try? The third? And if so, what happened between Script One and Script Three. The venerable Sylvester Stallone ("Rocky") would disagree with you. Writers like everyone to think scriptwriting is brain surgery; it is not. A decent writer with a good story, great actors, a buzzy story can get nominated for anything. Period. Sounds like that upsets you because it's REALLY not outside the realm of possibility.

Third, I have to doubt your insider-ness in the film industry. The very poorly kept gossip on "Juno" is how LITTLE the studio touched up the script. (they probably should have done more).

This stuff sounds like the backlash Sofia Coppola got on "Lost in Translation": Oh, it was Bill Murray. Oh, it was Lance Acord. It was Daddy. Funny how these targets tend to be women...

Oh, and if stupid quotes disqualifies people from writing good work, then please don't read any Hemingway quotes. I really like him and would like it to still be possible that he wrote "The Old Man and the Sea."

Re: Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

blacktech — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:32:41 GMT

Oops. That line should say, "it's highly unlikely" not "she highly unlikely." And I should point out that when I say "blogged extensively," I wrote one article a bit longer than this but better annotated. Outta here now...

Will the Real "Juno" Author Please Stand Up?

blacktech — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:11:28 GMT

There are a number of things wrong with this film that have nothing to do with the film itself. I've published extensively about this in my personal blog, so I'll make some of the same points here.

For starts, as some people have noted, Cody isn't a screenwriter. She was a blogger who was "discovered" by Reitman (at least, that's what EW reports). She wrote her first ever screenplay for him. It is simply not possible to write an Oscar-nominated screenplay on one's own out of the gate. And coming from someone who has only ever written nonfiction? Please ninja. That just isn't going to happen, not even if a million Codys bang on a typewriter alongside the monkeys. Whatever it is that's good about Juno came from veteran Reitman working with her on it.

So, in short, it's very likely smoke and mirrors: she highly unlikely that she could have written the script everyone is saying she so "beautifully" wrote. What's far more probable is that she wrote something that was seven leagues off from god-awful -- because even with talented screenwriters, that's what happens with their first ever scripts -- that Reitman probably did a gazillion rewrites on with her and chose for whatever reason to not take writing credit for. (Given that she was writing about her vagina online, who knows what Reitman's motives really were with her in the beginning.) I'm deeply familiar with the film industry. I know how this works. I'm just flat shocked that no one is talking about this. Even Tarantino didn't write Pulp Fiction as his first script. He'd written TONS of scripts before that to be able to pen award-winning material.

Not to mention the excitement about Cody and this flick is entirely bizarre. People have written very good scripts before -- much better than this. Young people. Younger than Cody. Women, too. The shoulder riding is not warranted for what's happened. What's worse is that it's almost insulting. It's as if Hollywood is saying, "Look! Look at our new talking dog! It's a girl who used to be a stripper!" What is that about? When I'm not gobsmacked by the weirdness of it all, I'm totally offended by the sexism of it.

And to that point, people have made comments about Cody's background. All I can say is, in her memoir Candy Girl, she says, "I guess I was never molested as a child because I wasn't pretty enough."

This doesn't sound like a person who can write something halfway as thoughtful as the film Juno. This is a person who is ignorant and shallow. If this quote doesn't clear up the question as to who really wrote the Juno we saw -- Reitman who wrote the brilliant Thank You For Smoking or Cody -- then I don't know what does.