What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[MSU]

036 -- Locke (#8 in the A24 series). A wonderful gem of a movie that kinda redoes Phone Booth where the Phone Booth is a BMW X5, the sniper is everything that can possibly go wrong in your life happening at the same time, and Colin Farrell is Tom Hardy with a Welsh accent. Hardy is a construction foreman, Ivan Locke, on the night his company will be pouring an enormous amount of cement ahead of building a skyscraper, his family are expecting him home for a football match, when a one-night stand he had months ago unexpectedly goes into early labour. The entire movie is Hardy on the phone to his wife, the mother of his new kid, his own kids, his boss, his apprentice as he tries to juggle everything in real time. I loved it. 8/10

037 -- Obvious Child (#9 in the A24 series). God, I hated everyone in the movie. Jenny Slater is Donna, a crappy New York stand-up comedian who gets dumped by her boyfriend because her act is their relationship, gets knocked up from a one-night stand and decides to have an abortion. It's vaguely interesting in the way it tackles this still difficult subject, but the words that fall out of everyone's mouths are so post-ironic and knowing, it's like it was written by Diablo Cody trying to parody herself. 3/10

Edited April 14, 2022 by MSU

[DA Baracus]

On 11/04/2022 at 07:55, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Lost in translation 2003

A rom com about a 50 year old guy who tries to groom a teenager. 

 

The film wouldn’t be made nowadays.

Why not?

[Detournement]

Lynch has denied secretly making a film. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

The content of Lost In Translation would probably get some Licorice Pizza style Twitter hysteria due to the racism and age gap. In terms of getting made it might be tough to find a 50 year old A Lister willing to work with a teenage romantic interest these days. 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Detournement

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

Johnny English Strikes Again, was on Film 4 after star trek earlier, missed the start but its very well done and funny.

[saint dave]

Nobody. 8/10

Bob Odenkirk as a beaten down family man whose home is burgled. He interrupts the robbery and seems to lose his bottle when he has the chance to take one of the robbers out , to the disgust of his son.

He finally snaps and goes on a revenge rampage that calls on his previous life skills.

Hugely enjoyed the action scenes and there's a decent bit of humour thrown in. Christopher Lloyd as his dad is great. 

[Frankie S]

16 hours ago, Detournement said:

Lynch has denied secretly making a film. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

It’s been clear for a while that Lynch has a new project brewing, and while we may or may not see any evidence of it at Cannes, I’d expect we’ll see something new from him in the not too distant future.

I recently rewatched Lynch’s entire filmography (all 10 films in a week), and my ranking is as follows:

1-Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me 10

I loved this when it first came out, despite the backlash from the Twin Peaks devotees who were expecting a continuation of the quirky coffee and cherry pie kitsch-fest that the TV series had become. It’s one of the best horror films of its era, and all the more terrifying for the horrors being rooted in the evil than men do, rather than confined to the supernatural realm. Sheryl Lee is simply magnificent as Laura Palmer, and she should have been nominated for an Oscar. The film crackles with a demonic intensity from start to finish, with Lynch confounding expectations at every turn, from the downbeat and disorienting Deer Meadow opening to the terrifying ending. This film grows in my estimation with each viewing.

2-Mulholland Dr. 10

This is such a rich and mysterious film. It discloses more of itself with each viewing, but never quite reveals all its secrets. Brings to mind Churchill’s famous quote - ‘It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key…’

3-Blue Velvet 9

One of the best films of the ‘80s. Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth is (for my money) one of the most terrifying villains in cinema history, and Dean Stockwell’s suave creep Ben is almost as memorable. Great work also from Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan. At times the saccharine sentimentality that Lynch uses as a counterpoint to the evil that lurks behind Lumberton’s facade can be cloying, but this film is so darkly subversive that it would be shocking even if released today.

4-Eraserhead 9

I saw this back in the late ‘70s at a midnight showing at Calton Studios in Edinburgh, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I knew then that I’d follow Lynch’s subsequent career closely. Nonetheless I didn’t rewatch it for over 40 years. It seemed forbiddingly inaccessible, and despite leaving a lingering impression, I wasn’t sure that I enjoyed it all that much. Having rewatched it twice in the last 12 months, I missed the humour first time round. It’s much funnier than I remember, but no less strange. 

5-Lost Highway 8.5

I’ve often thought this dark, terrifying neo-noir was my favourite Lynch film, and Robert Blake’s Mystery Man gives Frank Booth a run for his money as the scariest villain in Lynch’s canon. Blake’s malevolent performance resonates even more resoundingly after the subsequent sordid events that unfolded in his personal life. Watching it again, my main gripe is the ‘off the peg’ rock cred that the film seems to aspire to, with cameos by Marilyn Manson and Henry Rollins, and music by David Bowie, NIN, Rammstein, Lou Reed etc. giving it the flavour a celebrity rock ‘n’ roll Lynch fan convention. The soundtrack selections are often far too ‘on the nose’ (uncharacteristically so for Lynch), but I love ex-Bad Seed Barry’s Adamson’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’, which provides the background music to Fred Madison’s unforgettable initial meeting with The Mystery Man at the Hollywood party. I wish Adamson and Badalamenti had composed the entire soundtrack between them.

6-The Elephant Man 8.5

One of Lynch’s more accessible works, this is a wonderful film (which looks stunning in Studio Canal’s beautiful 4K edition) with an excellent performance by John Hurt in the title role.

7-The Straight Story 8

I didn’t really love this first time round, when I saw it in the cinema at the time of release, but I enjoyed it much more on a second viewing. It has a poignant central performance from Richard Farnsworth, who was dying from terminal cancer when it was filmed, and it’s a gentle, humane story, told with compassion and empathy, not qualities you’d always associate with Lynch (though they’re very much in evidence in The Elephant Man too)

8-Wild at Heart 7

This is a film with great moments, without being a great film. Nicolas Cage is the most Nicolas Cage he’s ever been, and that’s both a good thing and a very bad thing, and Laura Dern hams it up too, with the result that the protagonists (Sailor and Lula) are consistently annoying throughout. Willem Dafoe is superb as the sleazy Bobby Peru; Harry Dean Stanton is (as always) excellent as Johnnie Farragut; and there’s a fantastic supporting cast of memorably sinister minor characters, including W. Morgan Sheppard as Mr Reindeer, J.E. Freeman as Marcellus Santos, and Grace Zabriskie as Juana Durango. This is one of those films in which the cameos are way better than the leads (there are so many minor characters you wish had bigger parts - Crispin Glover’s Cousin Dell for instance). Wild at Heart Is definitely lesser Lynch, but the good bits are very good indeed.

9-Inland Empire 4

The first couple of times I saw this, I thought it was a dense, challenging and captivating work, even though it looked terrible. The lo-res digital video Lynch used to film this makes it looks amateurish, and ugly - hugely disappointing after its captivatingly stylish predecessor Mulholland Dr. Watching IE for a third time recently, I’ve changed my opinion: it’s a complete mess, and not just aesthetically. There are a few good scenes and ideas here and there, and a lot of self-indulgent meandering passages, and it all adds up to a fairly punishing three hours. Grace Zabriskie’s ‘neighbour from Hell’ turn at the beginning is great though.

10-Dune 2

I’ve tried several times, but I just can’t finish this. Lynch’s directorial low point. There are so many questionable artistic choices in this film that a lengthy post mortem is warranted, but the fact that Sting is in it, and isn’t even the worst thing about it, is all you need to know. I’m not a fan of the material by any means, but I much preferred Denis Villeneuve’s version.

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Frankie S

[accies1874]

I've never seen the TV show but really, really liked Fire Walk With Me. Maybe that would change if I had seen the show. 

The Straight Story also has the best theme OAT. 

 

[accies1874]

57. #Horror (2015)* – Film4

I watched this because it has a stupid-ass title and it ended up being one of the freshest things I’ve seen this year. The opening parts of it were a struggle and it was clear that the writer/director just wanted to get the teenagers, who the film follow, alone in the house but had to set some things up with context from the adults, although there were still some lowkey creepy images in this time. The stuff that didn’t work then didn’t really get better (its tonal and pacing shifts and portrayal of modern technology were pretty wonky) but when you start to spend time with the teenagers then it becomes really interesting.

Essentially you’ve got a group of volatile girls aged about 12 or 13 who are having a gathering at the rich(est) kid’s house. I initially thought the film was being played straight and they were exploring a pertinent message badly, but there’s a point where one of the kids is going nuts and it all clicked. The kids are horrible and incredibly hard to empathise with… but that’s the point. They’re portrayed in an exaggerated way which puts the viewer in a disconnected position from characters who are visibly going through horrible experiences – fat-shaming, severe mental health issues, classism, divorces etc (and the horror itself which has groundings in older horror flicks) – to try and make us think about how easy it is to look down our noses at people suffering. Its use of comedy is great too, providing guilt-laughs at both some of the slaggings and the often silly nature of the characters, again to put is in the shoes of the bad people and turn us away from the sympathetic elements. You’ve also got a peering camera that never seems to be where it should and is spying on a lot of situations rather than trying to put you into them. It’s not just the kids who the creator wanted to give that treatment too, as the dad in the film is a paranoid, controlling nutjob but once you look past that you see a v sympathetic helpless father.

The climax then becomes a nuts slasher which imo it earns. Not everyone will think so, tonnes of folk will think it’s utter shite. As I said, the opening is a mess, it has some of the worst portrayals of mobile apps I’ve seen on film, and I’m pretty sure some of their sound people’s mistakes actually made it in. However, I can’t deny that the way it uses cinema to convey its themes was compelling to me and I haven’t seen a film approach this subject matter in this way before and messy originality > OK OKness. Plus the fact it completely surprised me gives it bonus points and shows why you should usually go into things with an open mind. Unless it’s by Disney.

The director hasn’t worked in the seven years since its release lol.

58. Harold and Maude (1971)* – DVD

f**k, another black comedy. The blackest of all black comedies, maybe? I don’t think I’ve ever laughed at staged suicide “attempts” before so yeah maybe.

This has a whole host of contrasting tones that add up to a terrific emotional experience. Seeing what Harold and Maude do to each other is really poignant but comes from a place of deep despair, so when you compare that to the darkly comedic elements then you’ve got an emotional mangle.

The Ignorant Parent trope is taken to a whole new level here, and I really liked the songs, although listening to them without the content of the film made them quite a bit worse. 

59. Boiling Point (2022)* – Netflix

A trio of class flicks! Boiling Point’s a one-shot film that does so much with that instead of being a gimmick: the lack of cuts means that the intensity never lets go with a cut and you feel oppressed, it allows us to follow all of the restaurant’s staff seamlessly, and it makes the restaurant always felt alive rather than like a set (this reminds me of The Lighthouse which legit felt like a wee island with all sorts of secrets hidden beyond the camera).

As well as the one-shot technique, the characters feel real too. You weave in and out of these wee stories that flesh them out and give the chaos real stakes. When the shit goes wrong, and boy does it go wrong, you’re invested in these characters because a) the camera allows you to, and b) their actions make their character. You’re allowed to see the baggage that they have to bring into work and must brush off when their colleagues or customers are going mental at them. The cast have a blend of energy, intensity, sincerity and calmness that are a bunch of different ingredients adding up to a great film. It perfectly captures a day in the life of working in retail.

It is relentlessly stressful – Murphy’s Law to the extreme. Just hearing a table number sent my nerves crazy which shows how well it establishes all the things that are about to go wrong, and that idea of the one-shot making the restaurant feel alive made me think that some disaster was going on while we were spending time in another situation. It really is about boiling point – things simmer, bubble then fucking explode. And when they explode,  you feel it.

There’s also that more boring social commentary of money holding the power to make people abandon themselves.

I have two regrets about it, and one of them is a positive. 1) I regret not making it to the cinema when it was still playing, and 2) the ending is a huuuuge disappointment – the last five minutes really let it down and imo were at odds with what makes the rest of the film so great.

[SweeperDee]

It’s been clear for a while that Lynch has a new project brewing, and while we may or may not see any evidence of it at Cannes, I’d expect we’ll see something new from him in the not too distant future.
I recently rewatched Lynch’s entire filmography (all 10 films in a week), and my ranking is as follows:
1-Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me 10
I loved this when it first came out, despite the backlash from the Twin Peaks devotees who were expecting a continuation of the quirky coffee and cherry pie kitsch-fest that the TV series had become. It’s one of the best horror films of its era, and all the more terrifying for the horrors being rooted in the evil than men do, rather than confined to the supernatural realm. Sheryl Lee is simply magnificent as Laura Palmer, and she should have been nominated for an Oscar. The film crackles with a demonic intensity from start to finish, with Lynch confounding expectations at every turn, from the downbeat and disorienting Deer Meadow opening to the terrifying ending. This film grows in my estimation with each viewing.
2-Mulholland Dr. 10
This is such a rich and mysterious film. It discloses more of itself with each viewing, but never quite reveals all its secrets. Brings to mind Churchill’s famous quote - ‘It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps there is a key…’
3-Blue Velvet 9
One of the best films of the ‘80s. Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth is (for my money) one of the most terrifying villains in cinema history, and Dean Stockwell’s suave creep Ben is almost as memorable. Great work also from Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan. At times the saccharine sentimentality that Lynch uses as a counterpoint to the evil that lurks behind Lumberton’s facade can be cloying, but this film is so darkly subversive that it would be shocking even if released today.
4-Eraserhead 9
I saw this back in the late ‘70s at a midnight showing at Calton Studios in Edinburgh, and it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I knew then that I’d follow Lynch’s subsequent career closely. Nonetheless I didn’t rewatch it for over 40 years. It seemed forbiddingly inaccessible, and despite leaving a lingering impression, I wasn’t sure that I enjoyed it all that much. Having rewatched it twice in the last 12 months, I missed the humour first time round. It’s much funnier than I remember, but no less strange. 
5-Lost Highway 8.5
I’ve often thought this dark, terrifying neo-noir was my favourite Lynch film, and Robert Blake’s Mystery Man gives Frank Booth a run for his money as the scariest villain in Lynch’s canon. Blake’s malevolent performance resonates even more resoundingly after the subsequent sordid events that unfolded in his personal life. Watching it again, my main gripe is the ‘off the peg’ rock cred that the film seems to aspire to, with cameos by Marilyn Manson and Henry Rollins, and music by David Bowie, NIN, Rammstein, Lou Reed etc. giving it the flavour a celebrity rock ‘n’ roll Lynch fan convention. The soundtrack selections are often far too ‘on the nose’ (uncharacteristically so for Lynch), but I love ex-Bad Seed Barry’s Adamson’s ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’, which provides the background music to Fred Madison’s unforgettable initial meeting with The Mystery Man at the Hollywood party. I wish Adamson and Badalamenti had composed the entire soundtrack between them.
6-The Elephant Man 8.5
One of Lynch’s more accessible works, this is a wonderful film (which looks stunning in Studio Canal’s beautiful 4K edition) with an excellent performance by John Hurt in the title role.
7-The Straight Story 8
I didn’t really love this first time round, when I saw it in the cinema at the time of release, but I enjoyed it much more on a second viewing. It has a poignant central performance from Richard Farnsworth, who was dying from terminal cancer when it was filmed, and it’s a gentle, humane story, told with compassion and empathy, not qualities you’d always associate with Lynch (though they’re very much in evidence in The Elephant Man too)
8-Wild at Heart 7
This is a film with great moments, without being a great film. Nicolas Cage is the most Nicolas Cage he’s ever been, and that’s both a good thing and a very bad thing, and Laura Dern hams it up too, with the result that the protagonists (Sailor and Lula) are consistently annoying throughout. Willem Dafoe is superb as the sleazy Bobby Peru; Harry Dean Stanton is (as always) excellent as Johnnie Farragut; and there’s a fantastic supporting cast of memorably sinister minor characters, including W. Morgan Sheppard as Mr Reindeer, J.E. Freeman as Marcellus Santos, and Grace Zabriskie as Juana Durango. This is one of those films in which the cameos are way better than the leads (there are so many minor characters you wish had bigger parts - Crispin Glover’s Cousin Dell for instance). Wild at Heart Is definitely lesser Lynch, but the good bits are very good indeed.
9-Inland Empire 4
The first couple of times I saw this, I thought it was a dense, challenging and captivating work, even though it looked terrible. The lo-res digital video Lynch used to film this makes it looks amateurish, and ugly - hugely disappointing after its captivatingly stylish predecessor Mulholland Dr. Watching IE for a third time recently, I’ve changed my opinion: it’s a complete mess, and not just aesthetically. There are a few good scenes and ideas here and there, and a lot of self-indulgent meandering passages, and it all adds up to a fairly punishing three hours. Grace Zabriskie’s ‘neighbour from Hell’ turn at the beginning is great though.
10-Dune 2
I’ve tried several times, but I just can’t finish this. Lynch’s directorial low point. There are so many questionable artistic choices in this film that a lengthy post mortem is warranted, but the fact that Sting is in it, and isn’t even the worst thing about it, is all you need to know. I’m not a fan of the material by any means, but I much preferred Denis Villeneuve’s version.
 

What year is this?

[Blootoon87]

What year is this?

I absolutely shat myself at that.

[Detournement]

I sat in the dark for about five minutes after the credits post "What year is this?". Fire Walk With Me and Inland Empire end on notes of huge positivty but The Return tears everything away. 

Anyway.... I just watched The Worst The Person In The World after reading a few comments here. I liked how neutral it was, every character was flawed but also justified in their actions. Norway is probably the most affluent society that has ever existed so it's interesting to see they interpret that. The new Knausgaard novel has quite a few characters like Julie who are just able to drift along aimlessly in a way that isn't really possible in the UK. 

Bits of it reminded me of the more meta parts of the new Matrix but obviously far, far better. 

[MSU]

038 -- The Rover (#10 in the A24 series). Guy Pierce and Robert Pattinson in a western that just happens to be set in Australia after some apocalyptic event. Guy's car is nicked by Robert's brother and his gang after a robbery and Guy isn't having any of it. It's quite weird in places and tries to hide its secrets a bit too hard in others but great performances from the two leads cover up most of the cracks in a fairly thin plot. 6/10

039 -- Life After Beth (#11 in the A24 series). It's a RomZomCom that didn't make me think of Shaun of the Dead once, so extra point for that. Zack's girlfriend, Beth, dies unexpectedly and in his grief he spends time trying to process everything by hanging out with her parents. But they've secretly been hiding Beth from him and the outside world when she came home after digging herself out of her grave. It's an odd little comedy of manners type thing as they all attempt to hide the fact that Beth is a zombie from her. Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, John C Reilly, Paul Reiter all make pretty good work of a script that made me laugh out loud several times. An enjoyable romp. 7/10

[accies1874]

60. Tangerine (2015) – MUBI

A really funny farce for pretty sad reasons. There’s a real loneliness to the characters and I think SOCIETY means that they don’t really know how to process their emotions properly which leads to farcical situations. Funny, sad, farcical situations.

Filming on an iPhone worked in this too, as the lens made lonely characters even lonelier and the kinda shite quality was as if Sean Baker just covertly filmed in LA. The fact that he likes to use non-professional actors helps too.

61. The Worst Person in the World (2022)* – Cinema

This is a therapy movie delving into the mind of this one character and I found it really captivating. There’s a scene where time stops that won’t be bested this year and tbh might be my favourite of recent years too, but as with a lot of the film I can’t quite explain what made it so effective, it just really worked on an emotional level. It’s at its best when that’s the case. It’s got some really funky moments and techniques that are more flourishes which are quite low-key in how often they happen but work really well and make the film all the funnier.

Bad cinema experience though. The room was tiny with a pretty big screen so I often had to sacrifice the subtitles for the images (and vice versa) so I didn’t get THE FULL EXPERIENCE. Quite a few a-holes in the screening too. Worth going though.

[Paul Kersey]

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

Super cool French thriller about a tough guy slumlord who dreams of being a concert pianist.

Everything about this is hip, from the clothes, the indie soundtrack, the good looking female support cast. 

This is a remake of an American film from 70s called Fingers, which I've never seen so I've no idea how they compare.

8/10

 

[DrewDon]

I finally got round to watching Boiling Point today. It was an intense, relentless experience. 

It was really good, and I made a point of watching it because Stephen Graham is always excellent, but I was kind of willing it to finish so that my blood pressure could begin to recover. 

[Detournement]

I just watched Scorsese's After Hours. It's the first time I've seen it. A very strange movie which seems to have loads of MK Ultra references despite being made in 1985 and a few scenes which are referenced in Shutter Island which is definitely a MK Ultra film.

There's also moments that are echo'd in Lynch productions and also Eyes Wide Shut. 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Detournement

[velo army]

Glad to hear some good reviews of good movies. I haven't watched Lynch, so I'll have to remedy that.

Anyway.

Lost Island (2022)

I laughed at the trailer, so I had hoped that this would be enjoyable and funny. Bullock is a fine comedy actress and Pitt had me chuckling watching the trailer. I wasn't expecting Marx Bros level comedy, but a light movie with some good laughs.

It started well enough, with the snobbish Bullock and the vapid but well-meaning Tatum providing a bit of absurdity. The big baddie of the movie is played by Daniel Radcliffe, and the scene where they meet for the first te is just boring. Dull as f**k dialogue and Radcliffe has zero charisma. 

The adventure starts and we're introduced to Pitt's character. Pitt is a fine comedy actor and sends himself up perfectly here. I was looking forward to seeing more of him. 

Normally I don't spoil, but he gets shot in the head. It's very sudden and shocking. It absolutely shook me tbh. It was a tonal shift that was unnecessary, and the worst part was, we were expected to go right back to the "comedy". The scene that I laughed at in the trailer (a car falling off a cliff) was done immediately after this, but I was still in shock. It was a fucking gory death too, with brains spattered over Tatum. 

I was already being tolerant of a script that was just full of empty dialogue. That modern style of "comedy" where everything is over explained and the arse is booted out of "jokes" rips my knitting, and there was loads of that. Tatum's character was ridiculous too. Just a helpless and stupid manchild who needed constant mothering. I didn't stick around to see how it all played out. Any good will had evaporated with what felt like an entirely spiteful and incongruous shooting scene. I left the cinema about 10mins later, felling pretty shaken up. 

2/10, one each for Pitt's performance and character.

[BallochSonsFan]

You Only Live Twice.

Decided to try to watch all  the Bond movies in order whilst they're on Prime. I grew up watching Bond films without being a massive fan. My era of cinema Bond started with Brosnan. I thought You Only Live Twice was the weakest of the first 5 films. Best of the first 5 for me is From Russia With Love. I think that FRWL got the balance right between classic suspense movie and exotic spy film. Bond isnt some gadget using super hero in the movie. Something that I don't think they really got right in a lot of later films. YOLT was fun enough, but the plot is preposterous and a lot of the characters are really terribly written. I know its a product of its time, but From Russia With Love just feels like a far better movie. It's telling that pretty much everything that Mike Myers parodied with Dr Evil seems like it came from You Only Live Twice.

Watching On Her Majesty's Secret Service now. A movie I've managed to miss so far. Always knew it was eventually very well received after initially being seen as a complete outlier. Planning on getting through at least 2 tomorrow in between the Irish national racing.

Edited April 17, 2022 by BallochSonsFan

[MSU]

039 -- Cow. In the last year or so, Mrs MSU and I have seen Pig, Wolf, and Lamb, so we were always going to see this. It's a documentary about a dairy cow on a farm in England. It's an oddly moooooving (sorry) and heartfelt look at what a cow's life really looks like and although it seems to be a well-run farm with people who love the animals, it's still a bit depressing. 6/10

Edited April 18, 2022 by MSU

[coprolite]

Been catching up on some comedies i missed when they came out. 

Little Miss Sunshine

Family of misfits go on a road trip. 

Mostly pretty amusing. The main plot, about trying to get a young girl to a beauty pageant and then her being out of her depth, was engaging and had a good deal of inherent satire. 

The subplots were all hamfisted and ott, totally over-cooking the satirical angle and just bolting on over-kooky characters. 

Everything about the brother's subplot was really shit.

I'm sure that rattling on about nietzsche and Proust probably means it was very clever but that just annoyed me. 

Lots of good stuff too though. They just threw too much in. 

6/10

Juno

Teenager gets pregnant. 

Some of the attempts to be "cult", like namedropping sonic youth and The Stooges, felt a bit forced. Some of the soundtrack was irritating. 

That's all i can say bad about it. Sucked me right in and played me like a fiddle. 

The lead performance from Ellen (as was) Page was great at capturing the impetuousness and spontaneity of youth. The main  supporting performances (4 of them: her Dad, the Couple and her friend) were perfect, and Michael Cera's one baffled expression worked too. The teen talk dialogue felt natural and was funny, which is an achievement. 

I can't remember the last time i got so emotionally involved in a film. 

8/10