Just shut up with the Juno already. With the Juno love and the Juno hate and the Juno snark and the Juno divisiveness. I wanna stick my fingers in my ears and hum a few bars of "I Am Woman" to drown it all out.

For the record, I am an apparent anomaly among human creatures -- if we're to believe all the endless blather being written about this movie -- in that I neither fell desperately in love with the film, nor do I despise it with an anti-passion that knows no bounds, like how you hate Hitler or syphilis. The flick is ranked No. 53 on my list of the 250-plus new theatrical releases I saw in 2007, which makes it a definite recommend but nowhere near one of the best movies of the year.

I'm alone in this middling positive middle ground, because, it seems, "everyone" either "adores" or "despises" Juno. I know our mainstream press is useless these days, but come on. A breathless puff piece in Entertainment Weekly -- which gushes a lot of stuff like "indie comedy sensation," "bona fide phenomenon," and "rare cultural touchstone" -- includes this bit:

Log on to YouTube and you'll find scads of homemade videos with girls (and guys) singing songs they've written about the film (''Good morning, Juno/You're going to get through this...''). Others are stenciling their favorite Junoisms onto T-shirts (''They call me the cautionary whale''), while Facebook and other websites are quickly filling up with breathless declarations of Juno love: ''[Juno] is everything a girl like me wishes she could be,'' writes one. ''Blunt, brave, chill, caring, hilarious, ingenious, mirthful...totally boss...alive, sparkling...retro...and nonchalantly kick-ass.''

That's quality reportage.

But then again, Monica Corcoran on the blogs of the L.A. Times is all "As the Oscars approach and 'Juno' fever spreads faster than chicken pox in a sauna, I must speak out. I despised 'Juno.' ... If it wins an Academy Award, the Oscars will become the new Grammys -- a popularity contest."

Movies can't win... because we're also being told that "no one cares about the Oscars" this year, what with all those movies nominated that no one has seen and that haven't made any money. Juno, of course, from this perspective is the one bright spot at the Oscars -- people love it (never mind the haters) and it may well pass $125 million in receipts this long upcoming holiday weekend.

Then again, the anti-backlash backlash has already begun, led by Dana Stevens in Slate and Jim Emerson of Scanners, both of whom wonder why everyone is hating the love that haters of this film love the lovers for hating. Or something.

Maybe if Juno had only screamed "I drink your Sunny D! I drink it up!" at a quiet moment in the film, we'd all be too terrified to say anything against her.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
reviews, reviews, reviews! at FlickFilosopher.com

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