Monday, February 11, 2008

critique the critic

It seems everyone except for me has seen "Juno", and raved about it. After checking out a review by Ty Burr I want to see the movie even more so than before but also feel like I’ve already seen it.

Burr credits the actors for putting on a spotless performance and director Jason Reitman for excellent screenplay. He is a big fan of Ellen Page's attitude and amazing character portrayal as Juno. He even went as far as saying,

"Page lets the character keep tripping until she has to look down; in a way it's as insightful a portrait of a kid stumbling toward adulthood as Dustin Hoffman's in "The Graduate"

With words like that this movie is either fantastic, or this reviewer doesn’t know his left from his right (I’m betting on the first one). The man's details are endless. He goes on and on about all the little details in the film and how each and every part pulls itself together to create this seemingly perfect dry comedy.

I think Ty Burr did a good job in describing the film in an exciting way to make one want to go see it, but in the process he gave away too much about the characters through over description of their attitudes. In a single paragraph the man tells you all about the would-be adopting family and it’s too much.

“Juno decides to have the baby and give it to the nice childless couple whose advertisement she finds in the Pennysaver, next to the exotic bird ads. They are Mark and Vanessa Loring (Bateman and Garner), living in yuppie splendor in a nearby McMansion sub-development, and just when both the girl and we have pegged the wife as an overwound power-tripper and the husband as a totally cool dude, the ground shifts.”

The point of going to a movie is to review it for yourself with fresh eyes and ears. I wouldn’t pay eight dollars to see a movie when it seems I’ve already read the script. Big pockets of information regarding the plot were given away too easily and now when I finally get around to seeing "Juno" I'll be waiting for these certain events to occur rather than enjoy the film.

After reading this review I have more of a desire to see the film but feel there will be less shock value. I still am going to go see it, but it kind of sucks that a reviewer would give away too much information. All in all I found this review enriched with unnecessary big eloquent descriptive words that basically gave away the entire plot. Ty Burr should probably stick to reviewing crappy films because it’s not like anyone would be willing to pay eight dollars to go see “Good Luck Chuck” after getting the low-down from one of his reviews.

1 comment:

Mr. K said...

Zoe,

Nice job overall -- you've got a strong writing voice (I liked the Good Luck Chuck slam at the end). A couple of things: break it into paragraphs -- all that text together scares people away. Also, integrate your link into the text -- highlight something like "Ty Burr's review" and click the link button. Other than that, good work.