CSI, to go [adverb] To search an area thoroughly.Expect more additions to Diablo Cody 'slanguage' as she's been hired to write the film adaptation of "Sweet Valley High". That's bangin'!As heard in: United States Of Tara ("She probably went CSI.")
Honest to blog [exclamation] Honest to God.As heard in: Juno ("What? Honest to blog?")
Pie balls [noun] Testicles.As heard in: Juno ("The freakin' receptionist was babbling away about her boyfriend's freakin' pie balls.")
Zombitch [noun] A female zombie.As heard in: Jennifer's Body ("You killed Chip! You goddamn monster! You zombitch!")
And speaking of Mystery Man, tomorrow we have a Q&A with MM, a wide-ranging discussion on numerous subjects including his recent switch from blogging to Tweeting.
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9 comments:
I love it. She's definitely a REAL writer and has a way with words, unlike many so-called screenwriters who have no writing skills and have never read a stage play or classic novel.
I was rather excited about Diablo's Oscar win, but after I read the screenplay, I was amazed that she was even nominated. The only reason the film got made was because she was extremely lucky to have Jason Reitman as a fan of her sex blog. The screenplay itself reads like a sarcastic high school girl wrote it without any care for timing or flow. It seemed like she just wanted to fill 90 pages with slang and sarcasm to the point of intoxication.
I took a screenwriting class for fun last semester and the teacher used Juno as a prime example of poor writing and how breaking into hollywood is almost always about being in the right place at the right time.
I'm not a huge fan, but you can't deny, she's got an original voice. I think that's what people react to.
@Garrett: Not sure who your screenwriting instructor was, but that's some chutzpah to claim that an Academy Award and WGA winning original screenplay - which Juno is - is an example of "poor writing."
When I saw the movie, I was, at first, put off during the first 30 minutes by Juno's 'adult' speak, all that cool slanguage. But then I realized that's part of the main point of the story: That Juno had skipped over her adolescence to adopt this uber-cool persona. And the reason is in the script and the movie, although blown by pretty quickly so you might have missed it: Juno was rejected by her mother. There was the divorce, then more importantly the replacement family. So rather than deal directly with that childhood hurt, Juno tries to jump past it by becoming Adult Juno.
Then she gets pregnant. And that changes everything.
I pose this question to my students in every class where they're taking up a writing project: Why does this story have to happen to this character now? There have to be some solid reasons - emotional, psychological, spiritual - why this story must happen now.
In my view, Juno needed to get 'knocked up' in order to get knocked down. She needed to find her perfect Adult Juno Mate -- Mark Loring -- then discover that he is a fraud, just like Adult Juno is. This and the experience of childbirth humbles her, shatters her attempt at bypassing her pain (related to being rejected by her mother) and brings her to a place where she should have been all along: A teenage girl. Hence the wonderful little moment of the denouement, she and Paulie Bleeker singing a song together, ending with her giving him a chaste peck on the cheek.
In my view, there is a ton going on in this story if you can get beyond the Diablo Cody slanguage.
I humbly urge those who didn't like or get the movie / script the first time around to give it another chance. Stop when Juno talks about the cacti her mother sends her ever year. Go through that dialogue and ponder those words. They speak volumes about what's going on with this Protagonist character.
I'm with Garrett. I just can't equate slick with good writing. And I think Scott is reading a little too much into the script - though I also think it's an interesting theory. Having been a teenage mom myself, I was truly quite annoyed at that glib look at a life-altering situation, and I never found evidence of a deeper struggle, as Scott did.
I also don't think an Academy Award is a definite indication of excellence. I mean -- really??
@Michelle: There's always a chance of reading too much into a story. However let me ask you this: Why include the business about her divorced mother, "new husband and three replacement kids," and the cactus gifts each year: "Thanks a heap, Coyote Ugly. This cactus-gram stings worse than your abandonment." Why include that in the script and more importantly as part of Juno's backstory? Why, unless it has some meaning. The hurt evidenced in that V.O. is not buried in subtext, but right there at the top of the surface. Reitman and Cody could have spent more time hammering home that point, however that would be inauthentic to Juno's character as the subject of her mother / abandonment is not something she relishes talking about.
Could all that be a reach? Yes. But again I come back to why is that backstory element in the script? There has to be a reason. I choose to believe it's there to provide a key insight into how and why Juno is the way she is.
Re Academy Awards and excellence: Given how many bad choices the Academy has made in its history, your point is well-taken. But when the WGA membership votes to recognize the year's best original screenplay, that's the assessment of professional writers working in The Biz, so more street cred. And Juno won the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2008. FYI, I voted for it, too.
I've neither seen the film nor read the script, so my view of Cody's breakthrough work is fairly neutral.
I would venture to guess that Diablo Cody, in using a very unique voice, in essence redefined the craft. And that's why many have responded so positively to her work.
Scott, do you recall the other scripts up for the WGA Award that year?
I thought Juno was an impressive story in many ways. But "honest to blog" is an abomination. No one would ever say that, no one should ever quote it, and no one should ever say it again.
The first thirty minutes of that movie would have benefited from a massacre of darlings.
But Scott... then the answer to her pain at being rejected by her mother is to reject her own baby? I mean, her mother left her in the care of her loving father and stepmother - and now she's doing the same, leaving the baby in the care of a parent she thinks will do a better job, and then carrying on in her own life without giving the child a second thought.
If her experience brings her to some loving understanding of why her mom did what she did, if it allows her to assume her rightful place as a normal, non-wisecracking teen, then I think it is CERTAINLY underwritten. And, if the story had had the emotional underpinnings you suggest, I think it would have been a MUCH better film.
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