Juno – Blu-ray Disc Review

April 6, 2008 – 8:09 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: Diablo Cody, Digital Copy, Ellen Page, FOX, Jason Rietman, Michael Cera, Oscar Winner

has an average rating of 8.2 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 & Dolby Digital 5.1
are totally boss with Digital Copy
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– 2007
– 96 minutes
– FOX
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This uses 26.9GB for the movie out of 34.2GB total.

Overall Verdict – A Solid Recommendation

Buy it for $22.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss

The Movie Itself is written by stripper / blogger turned Screenwriter Diablo Cody who actually walked away with the Oscar this year for this film. The Director is Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman who’s past effort was the amazing “Thank You For Smoking” which he also did with FOX. The focuses on a touchy subject to some, teen pregnancy and actually manages to play it off in a very comedic yet heartwarming way. Our main character is “Juno MacGuff” (played by Ellen Page) who starts out explaining that “it all started with a chair” regarding her coming to grips with the most likely fact that she’s pregnant at the young age of sixteen. This whole time as our introduction to the film starts she’s chugging her weight in orange juice so she can be able to keep going to the bathroom because she’s taken 2 pregnancy tests so far and she figures third time’s a charm. As she soon discovers from that “evil plus” sign for positive (pregnant) at a local drug store she’s badgered by the clerk behind the counter. The dialogue delivered from Juno (Ellen Page) here and throughout the film is elaborately witty as hell and also at the same time very very funny.

She first consults her best friend “Leah” (played by Olivia Thirlby) over her “hamburger phone” telling her that she’s pregnant. Leah cries out “honest to blog!?” which totally hits the language teenagers and even the 20 something crowd use today. Juno then decides to move an entire set of living room furniture that’s been abandoned in a neighbors front lawn with the help of Leah to her friend’s house. The friend is the father of the baby and his name is “Blinker” (played by Michael Cera). Blinker walks out of his house ready to go jogging in his bright yellow running shorts only to be surprised by Juno sitting in the chair of the living room furniture she moved to his front lawn telling him she’s pregnant. She first decides she’s going to get an abortion (“nip it in the bud”) but then easily decides against that option. Her option she sets on is giving the baby to a couple that aren’t able to have children. By this time she’s told her father and stepmother that she’s pregnant and they agree to this idea as well as support her all the way.

The couple that is planning to adpot the baby are played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner who put forth awesome performances here. The film co-stars J.K. Simmons as Juno‘s father “Mac MacGuff,” Allison Janney as her stepmother Bren MacGuff and even Rainn Wilson (from the American version of the show “The Office“). This is an all around well acted, directed, produced and written film that is one of those that comes along every once in a while that really is worth the hype. In fact I’d totally suggest everyone see this film but it does help to have a good sense of humor and a very open mind. “Juno” is easily one of THE BEST FILMS of 2007 that I’ve seen and a lot of critics agree, including Roger Ebert. This film just mainly strikes me as being so well written and I totally can now understand why Diablo Cody (the Screenwriter) won her Oscar this year for best original story. This film is very unique (original) and one that really grabs your attention early on and doesn’t lose you at any point during the journey.

Video Quality on this release is 1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte Dual-Layered Blu-ray Disc). Things start out in a dusk setting which looks nice in the style of cinematography and then we’re treated to the very unique animated introduction credits which look great. This was shot on 35mm and makes a nice transition in the transfer to High Definition and yes I’m well aware that rhymed. There’s overall a nice detailed picture quality for pretty much a self-proclaimed “Indie” film but what comes with that is at times a large amount of film grain presence. The flesh tones are very dead on in their accuracy and we get a very rich vibrant color palette making strong emphasis mainly on the hues of red and blue. The cinematography is pretty nice for such a small film like this and pleasing to the eyes.

The black level is very solid and there’s absolutely no signs of any compression problems in the transfer. In fact this hits well around 42Mbps in the AVC video codec at times, usually averaging at 28Mbps according to FOX on the back of the case which I’ll agree is correct. This isn’t by any means the most amazing High Definition material but it’s a very impressive video transfer and enough for me to give it a “4 Star Rating” for overall video quality. FOX continues to really impress me with their latest Blu-ray Disc releases.

Audio Quality on this release is in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and Dolby Digital 5.1 @448kbps. Two very important things in this film (just like the last film I reviewed) are the (amazingly witty in this case) dialogue, subtle Score and awesome Soundtrack. The dialogue is delivered brilliantly and at all times easy to make out (understand) so you won’t find yourself adjusting the volume at all. As far as things go with the musical presence we get songs by Artists like The Moldy Peaches, Buddy Holly, The Kinks, Belle & Sebastian and The Velvet Underground to just name a few. The music itself honestly seems a bit front heavy (meaning that it mostly seems to come out of the front channel speakers with a very discrete rear channel presence). The music to me was a really big part of the film and at times it doesn’t feel like it has a surround presence that is “whole.”

This DTS HD 5.1 does manage to get the job done but I just wasn’t totally satisfied with the rear channel presence for the music. It’s nothing to really complain too much about or something others will complain about. I’ll give it a “4 Star Rating” for the overall audio quality on this release but it just feels it could have been a tad bit better of a surround mix with. One last thing though (in it’s defense actually), the closing musical performance by Michael Cera & Ellen Page covering The Moldy Peaches song “Anyone Else But You” does sound incredible and has a good rear channel presence when the song finishes and the runners pass. Beautiful ending to the film and it’s presented very well here in the 5.1 mix, I will definitely give the audio presentation that.

Bonus Materials first off contain a 2nd disc (DVD-ROM) that allows you to transfer a “Digital Copy” to your computer (Mac or PC) and personal video player such as an iPod. You’re given the option once you insert the DVD-ROM into your computer to digitally transfer the film to either iTunes or Windows Media Player. This Digital Copy feature is starting to become rather common on releases (mainly by studios like FOX and Lionsgate so far) but this is the first review of a title that’s included it I’ve done. I’m pretty impressed by this bonus feature to have multiple copies of the film for playback on other devices but at the same time I’m not happy with the limitations of the amount of times you can copy the film to computer or personal devices. It’s safe to say my impression of this feature (Digital Copy) so far has been somewhat positive. I believe Digital Copy shows some promise if more studios start to feature it on Blu-ray releases. Hat’s off to FOX!

The standard bonus materials on the Blu-ray Disc (with the film) are presented in 480p SD (16:9 Widescreen) video using MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound @224kbps.

• Commentary with Director Jason Reitman and Screenwriter Diablo Cody
• Deleted Scenes (20 minutes) includes optional audio Commentary from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. This runs rather lengthy and is definitely worth watching if you enjoyed the film like the majority of the public did.
• Gag Reel (5 minutes) is pretty funny but goofy. It’s a nice little set of outtakes of the actors screwing up their lines. It’s funny when Jason Bateman messes up on a line and co-star Ellen Page says “Arrested Development” (which was a successful FOX show he starred on) and he reminds her “that was all cue cards.”
• Gag Take (2 minutes) involves one of the actors in the film (I won’t name names, honestly because I don’t know his really and I’m too lazy to look it up) having trouble with the takes on a scene and Director Jason Reitman comes in and shows them how it’s supposed to be done. This is clearly being done for fun and not real but either way very funny to watch.
• Crew Music Video (3 minutes) looks like something you’d find on YouTube in ways but it’s honestly pretty funny in a silly way.
• Screen Tests (22 minutes) include stars Ellen Page and Michael Cera. This runs extremely lengthy and probably isn’t something the average consumer will end up watching unless they’re a “die hard” fan of “Juno” or something.
• Way Beyond “Our” Maturity Level: Juno – Leah – Blinker (9 minutes) starts off with Screenwriter Diablo Cody talking about how much the teenagers of today are more “savvy” in ways much like our characters in the film of Juno, Leah and Blinker who we also get interviews with discussing this topic. This is actually worth watching to most fans of the film I think.
• Diablo Cody is Totally Boss (8 minutes) focuses on the woman who went from stripper, blogger to being the Screenwriter of this film. We get interviews with Diablo herself, Director Jason Reitman, some of the cast and Producers.
• Jason Reitman is for Shiz (8 minutes) much like the previous featurette focuses on the quest to get Jason Reitman who had previously done the amazing “Thank You For Smoking” to Direct this film.
• Honest to Blog!: Creating Juno (13 minutes) is a very nice “making of” style documentary on the film that includes interviews with everyone you could imagine. This is probably the bonus feature most worth watching for casual fans of the film.
• FOX MOVIE CHANNEL presents WORLD PREMIERE… Juno (5 minutes)
• FOX MOVIE CHANNEL presents Casting Session: Juno (8 minutes)

Overall these bonus materials are rather lengthy even if they are only in Standard Definition. The “Digital Copy” option is something I’m glad was included but haven’t been able to test out yet. I think the fans of the film will be pretty pleased with what they get here for bonus materials on the Blu-ray Disc release of “Juno.”

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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