{"id":871,"date":"2008-01-25T04:56:53","date_gmt":"2008-01-25T10:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=871"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:37:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:37:57","slug":"go-to-juno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=871","title":{"rendered":"Go To Juno"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve not had a chance to see Juno<\/em><\/a> yet, it’s worth a look. It’s a quirky, cute, whip-smartly written flick by screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman dealing with a tough and gritty topic–teenage pregnancy. It’s been nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and features extraordinary talent Ellen Page as the sassy and irreverent Juno MacGuff, along with several other strong supporting performances from the likes of Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janey and J.K. Simmons. Review cans be found here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But please, don’t go expecting another Facing the Giants<\/em><\/a>. The language and humor are a little earthy and raw and there are few explicit references to God or traditional morality. But the honesty is refreshing, and persons of faith will be impressed with many of the decisions that Juno makes as she finds herself growing up–and out–way too fast too soon after her overly-productive tryst with class geek and distance runner Paulie Bleeker played by Cera.<\/p>\n

My favorite laugh-out-loud line from Juno’s stepmom played by Janey (delivered with the Midwestern bluntness characteristic of Dancing Elk, Minnesota): “Someone’s going to get a special blessing from Jesus in this garbage dump of a situation!”<\/p>\n

I personally wouldn’t hesitate to allow older teenagers to see this, and in fact, it might serve as good discussion fodder. However, The Focus on the Family review site Plugged In Online<\/em><\/a> begs to differ<\/a>. They opined that the film “almost accidentally” comes across as pro-life and pro-adoption and that for teens “already swimming in the culture, Juno<\/em> will only reinforce the complete lack of a moral compass.”<\/p>\n

The complete lack of a moral compass? Did the reviewer watch the same movie I did? It’s true that Juno does not find her way with the help of scripture or a faith community (although she does get an assist from an abortion clinic protester), but she does seem well-attuned at times to the “moral law within,” plus the film strongly attests to the need for strong, supportive families to help guide teens through today’s moral morass.<\/p>\n

In the ways that matter most, Juno navigates a series of less-than-ideal circumstances and manages to find true north. It seems that considering the times, Christians ought to affirm the good whenever and wherever they find it rather than constantly playing the perpetual scold.<\/p>\n

Go to Juno<\/em>. I think you’ll enjoy it.\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve not had a chance to see Juno yet, it’s worth a look. It’s a quirky, cute, whip-smartly written flick by screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman dealing with a tough and gritty topic–teenage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,76,90,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-faith","category-juno","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9482,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/9482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}