This is one title worth adding to your high definition library.
Audio:
The film comes packed with an English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio mix. This high bandwidth soundtrack does allow "Juno" to sound quite clean, but the film is heavily dialogue based and the nearly all acoustic song selections do not provide too much more excitement than dialogue. Don´t get me wrong. I love the soundtrack and purchased the CD, but "Juno" is a minimalistic exercise in sound. The DTS HD soundtrack is quite clean and you won´t hear any flaws. Every spoken word comes through crisp and perfectly intelligible. The rear surrounds and center channel are used to some effect with a few scattered environmental effects populating the rears and vocals nicely anchored front and center. The .1 LFE channel is used very sparsely, with only a few sound selections providing source material for a proper thump. The disc is clean, but the sound design hardly pushes the technology provided.
Extras:
"Juno" arrives on Blu-ray as a feature-packed "Digital Copy Special Edition." The Digital Copy of Juno for Portable Media Players is packaged on a DVD disc contained within the 2-disc packaging. This can be transported to a laptop, Zune, iPod, Playstation Portable or other device capable of holding a digital movie. The disc has installers and formats for various platforms and requires around 600MB of storage to hold the entire film. This is an interesting marketing approach that a couple studios have been taking to combat the threat of digital distribution. Although I love my Zune, I am a physical media advocate and will support any endeavor thought up by the studios to keep producing physical media.
The film itself is contained on a dual layer Blu-ray disc and features a number of nice supplements. The Commentary by Director Jason Reitman and Screenwriter Diablo Cody is a solid listen. Cody has based much of her life into this film and she goes into details about the biographical elements of the story and her and the director share information that fleshes out the story and details the making of "Juno." This is an entertaining chat and well worth watching the film again to enjoy this commentary track. I found myself very quickly watching the film a complete second time to fully digest everything said by Reitman and Cody and was never bored.
Nearly two hours of additional features are packed on the disc. The eleven Deleted Scenes (20:24) may be played individually or collectively and features an optional commentary track with Reitman and Cody. Some of these excised bits would fit very nicely into the edited film. Some were removed to help achieve a PG-13 rating, while others were simply cut for pacing or time reasons. This was a very nice collection of supplements. The Gag Reel (5:11) and Gag Take (1:57) showcase some of the tomfoolery that went on in the making of the film. They are both short, but fun. A Crew Music Video (3:12) continues the fun with the crew as a bogus music video showcases yellow running shorts and those that starred in the film.
Things get a little more serious after the collection of bonus footage. A very long collection of Screen Tests (22:35) is included and shows the stars and co-stars of the film acting out scenes from the film in hopes of getting hired. Way Beyond "Our" Maturity Level: Juno-Leah-Bleeker (8:59) finds writer Diablo Cody discussing her film, the three young characters and the story Cast and crew lend their thoughts to this series of interviews and footage and this isn´t a bad little featurette. Diablo Cody is Totally Boss (8:35) is a continuation of the first featurette and finds the director and writer talking about how her writing was based upon her blog about strippers. Jason Reitman for Shizz (8:08) is a featurette that has the producers talking about hiring Jason for the film and his efforts in bringing "Juno" to life. Honest to Blog! Creating Juno (13:01) is a promotional featurette that covers much of the same ground of the previous three featurettes, but is a little more polished and glossier.
The Fox Movie Channel supplies two supplements to wrap up the bonus offerings for "Juno." Fox Movie Channel Presents: World Premiere… Juno (5:26) is a promotional reel from the television channel that shows clips from the film, discusses the story and promotes the film for Fox from a red carpet premiere. J.K. Simmons and others are interviewed on the red carpet by a lovely woman in a purple dress. Finally, Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session: Juno (7:51) is a second short from the Fox Movie Channel and finds the director and others providing talking heads interviews and promoting the film. This is a prototypical EPK supplement and is about as interesting as any of the umpteen EPK shorts you may have seen. Surprisingly, there was no theatrical trailer.
Closing Comments:
Twice I refused to go to a theater and watch "Juno." There were other films I wanted to see and I viewed the picture as either a ´date film´ or a ´chick flick.´ I had seen very little of its promotion and only knew the film was about a pregnant teenage girl. Although I´m not sure I would have paid full price for popcorn and soda to sit down and enjoy "Juno" in a cinema, it is a far more entertaining film than "Cloverfield;" one of the movies I had chosen in lieu of "Juno." The truth of the matter is that "Juno" is a very funny and highly entertaining film with solid acting, great jokes and a wonderful performance by J.K. Simmons. The rest of the gang is solid as well, but I really enjoyed Simmons´ performance as Juno´s father. The Blu-ray release is hindered because of the Indie low-budget nature of the film, but the supplements are very nice. While the film will never be used as reference material, it is entertaining enough to more than make up for its technological shortcomings. This is one title worth adding to your high definition library.
The film comes packed with an English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio mix. This high bandwidth soundtrack does allow "Juno" to sound quite clean, but the film is heavily dialogue based and the nearly all acoustic song selections do not provide too much more excitement than dialogue. Don´t get me wrong. I love the soundtrack and purchased the CD, but "Juno" is a minimalistic exercise in sound. The DTS HD soundtrack is quite clean and you won´t hear any flaws. Every spoken word comes through crisp and perfectly intelligible. The rear surrounds and center channel are used to some effect with a few scattered environmental effects populating the rears and vocals nicely anchored front and center. The .1 LFE channel is used very sparsely, with only a few sound selections providing source material for a proper thump. The disc is clean, but the sound design hardly pushes the technology provided.
Extras:
"Juno" arrives on Blu-ray as a feature-packed "Digital Copy Special Edition." The Digital Copy of Juno for Portable Media Players is packaged on a DVD disc contained within the 2-disc packaging. This can be transported to a laptop, Zune, iPod, Playstation Portable or other device capable of holding a digital movie. The disc has installers and formats for various platforms and requires around 600MB of storage to hold the entire film. This is an interesting marketing approach that a couple studios have been taking to combat the threat of digital distribution. Although I love my Zune, I am a physical media advocate and will support any endeavor thought up by the studios to keep producing physical media.
The film itself is contained on a dual layer Blu-ray disc and features a number of nice supplements. The Commentary by Director Jason Reitman and Screenwriter Diablo Cody is a solid listen. Cody has based much of her life into this film and she goes into details about the biographical elements of the story and her and the director share information that fleshes out the story and details the making of "Juno." This is an entertaining chat and well worth watching the film again to enjoy this commentary track. I found myself very quickly watching the film a complete second time to fully digest everything said by Reitman and Cody and was never bored.
Nearly two hours of additional features are packed on the disc. The eleven Deleted Scenes (20:24) may be played individually or collectively and features an optional commentary track with Reitman and Cody. Some of these excised bits would fit very nicely into the edited film. Some were removed to help achieve a PG-13 rating, while others were simply cut for pacing or time reasons. This was a very nice collection of supplements. The Gag Reel (5:11) and Gag Take (1:57) showcase some of the tomfoolery that went on in the making of the film. They are both short, but fun. A Crew Music Video (3:12) continues the fun with the crew as a bogus music video showcases yellow running shorts and those that starred in the film.
Things get a little more serious after the collection of bonus footage. A very long collection of Screen Tests (22:35) is included and shows the stars and co-stars of the film acting out scenes from the film in hopes of getting hired. Way Beyond "Our" Maturity Level: Juno-Leah-Bleeker (8:59) finds writer Diablo Cody discussing her film, the three young characters and the story Cast and crew lend their thoughts to this series of interviews and footage and this isn´t a bad little featurette. Diablo Cody is Totally Boss (8:35) is a continuation of the first featurette and finds the director and writer talking about how her writing was based upon her blog about strippers. Jason Reitman for Shizz (8:08) is a featurette that has the producers talking about hiring Jason for the film and his efforts in bringing "Juno" to life. Honest to Blog! Creating Juno (13:01) is a promotional featurette that covers much of the same ground of the previous three featurettes, but is a little more polished and glossier.
The Fox Movie Channel supplies two supplements to wrap up the bonus offerings for "Juno." Fox Movie Channel Presents: World Premiere… Juno (5:26) is a promotional reel from the television channel that shows clips from the film, discusses the story and promotes the film for Fox from a red carpet premiere. J.K. Simmons and others are interviewed on the red carpet by a lovely woman in a purple dress. Finally, Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session: Juno (7:51) is a second short from the Fox Movie Channel and finds the director and others providing talking heads interviews and promoting the film. This is a prototypical EPK supplement and is about as interesting as any of the umpteen EPK shorts you may have seen. Surprisingly, there was no theatrical trailer.
Closing Comments:
Twice I refused to go to a theater and watch "Juno." There were other films I wanted to see and I viewed the picture as either a ´date film´ or a ´chick flick.´ I had seen very little of its promotion and only knew the film was about a pregnant teenage girl. Although I´m not sure I would have paid full price for popcorn and soda to sit down and enjoy "Juno" in a cinema, it is a far more entertaining film than "Cloverfield;" one of the movies I had chosen in lieu of "Juno." The truth of the matter is that "Juno" is a very funny and highly entertaining film with solid acting, great jokes and a wonderful performance by J.K. Simmons. The rest of the gang is solid as well, but I really enjoyed Simmons´ performance as Juno´s father. The Blu-ray release is hindered because of the Indie low-budget nature of the film, but the supplements are very nice. While the film will never be used as reference material, it is entertaining enough to more than make up for its technological shortcomings. This is one title worth adding to your high definition library.
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