It is an undeniable fact Juno has been a smash hit indie success story. Indie is the new mainstream, or so we’re told by the mainstream. Indie is cool. Juno is cool. TV and Radio presenters are cool because they talk about Juno and play the Juno soundtrack on their cool shows. Diablo Cody is cool because she wrote Juno and Ellen page is the next big thing because she is Juno. Third rate film critics are cool because they dislike the mainstream and express the incontrovertible coolness of Juno. My Mum and Dad are cool because they have “heard of” (read a drab newspaper article about) Juno.

However, it isn’t with my Mum and Dad that I take umbrage. Their foe-indie-enthusiasm is passable. It is with the third rate film critics that jump on the indie bandwagon when they discover it is cool to do so, that give me “the rage”. Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not a case of a indie film geek hating on an indie success story, far from it. I loved Juno I thought the flick was light hearted and refreshing. I was impressed with both Ellen Page and Michael Cera and I thought that stylistically the film was strong. Overall, I was most impressed by the writing and dialogue, Diablo Cody (cool name btw.) is obviously a talent. However, back to them critics.

James King is a classic example. For those of you who don’t know he’s the vacuous and generally shockingly poor BBC Radio 1 “Film Critic”. While I don’t always despise everything that comes out of the man’s mouth – he does talk about the right flicks but he goes into no real depth or detail – he’s normally shallow and generally terrible at his job 90% of the time. Again, this is not an I hate successful critics session, so please no hate mail saying I’m a frustrated film critic crying out for attention, because I’m not. I say good on the man for getting where he is with the diabolical analytical skills he possesses. However, he has, as would be expected, jumped fully and wholeheartedly on the indie cool Juno bandwagon by playing clips from the trailer and berating the mainstream films currently in the cinema. These are the guys normally plugging the latest Rocky bullshit sequel or some other shite. It genuinely makes me wanna vomit that these third rate critics get to trade off the success of a creative talent. I know it’s all good publicity for the flick but still… critics are parasites.

Juno btw, is really cool… go see it! Trends, don’t you just love ‘em!

That’s enough from me…

K