Juno A Movie/DVD Review	DVD Rated - PG-13 It's 1:32 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

It did.

Here’s a brief story breakdown…

Juno (Ellen Page) is a smart-alecky 16 year old who finds herself pregnant thanks to the super-sperm of her friend Bleeker (Michael Cera). Now faced with the decision of what to do with the pregnancy she knows one thing – she’s not ready to be a mom. As such there are only two solutions for her, abortion or adoption. I know I’m not giving anything away here when I say she decides against the abortion solution. Her best friend, Leah (Olivia Thirlby), suggests checking out the Penny Saver magazine for people looking to adopt children (who knew?), and sure enough Juno believes she has found the perfect couple, Vanessa and Mark (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman). Vanessa is a perfectionist/clean freak, whose ultimate life goal is to be a mom but hasn’t been able to get pregnant while Mark, on the other hand, is relegated to a marriage where Vanessa doesn’t appreciate his music and movie tastes. Anyway, with the wonderfully awkward telling of her dad (J.K. Simmons) and step-mom (Allison Janney) of her little miracle out of the way, and without giving up too much more , we get a look at Juno’s progressing pregnancy, the life of Vanessa and Mark as they await their new baby, and Juno learning lessons about life and love.

You’re probably saying to yourself, "Self, at the beginning of this review you said the movie was funny as hell. That little synopsis doesn’t scream funny at all. What gives?" Well, the funny in this movie doesn’t come about in a slapstick, "Knocked Up" kind of way, in fact "Juno" is a bit on the artsy side, but it’s the writing of the film, portraying Juno’s pregnancy in a human light, not tragic and not preachy, that is great, and every person in their role is pretty much perfect. Ellen Page gives a great portrayal of a 16 year old girl facing the difficulties of pregnancy, the ostracizing at high school, and the wonderment of love, and deserves every acting accolade being put upon her, while the oddness of her relationship with Bleeker couldn’t have been done without someone as great at being geeky as Michael Cera. And while Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman are great as the adopting couple, the final keys to this movie are J.K. Simmons as the dad who loves his daughter with all his heart, will do anything to support her, but has a wickedly sarcastic tongue, and Allison Janney as the step-mom, trying to keep her teenage daughter reined in, yet willing to come to bat for her and talk down anyone who thinks Juno is irresponsible.

There are so many things in "Juno" I could list as perfect but most of those would give away moments that will either make you laugh or bring a slight tear to your eye, and sure, there are probably a few of you out there who won’t like this movie, but hey, if you're a Netflix kind of person, put it on your queue because hey, it doesn't cost you anything extra.  For me the movie still holds up as a super-solid 5 stars out of 5 for "Juno."

In terms of the DVD extras, I have to say I was a little bummed at one thing, and we'll get to that at the end.  The Gag Reel was sort of funny, but mostly punctuated by cast members just saying "Sorry," I do like seeing the screen tests, and for being an indie kind of film I wasn't expecting tons of things to keep me occupied.  The thing that I do like to see, though, are deleted scenes, usually reaffirming why they were deleted in the first place, but most of the time the director "previews" the scene, explaining why it was deleted. That wasn't the case for this DVD, though, because they decided to do "commentary" over the scene, instead of the "preview," thus necessitating your having to actually watch the deleted scene twice if you want to fully understand.  I know that might sound confusing, but I'm not that much of a film nut to have to watch the same thing twice.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!