Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

Juno is, for me, a near perfect movie.  It owes a lot of its success to a clever script by Diablo Cody and great direction by Jason Reitman, but the bulk of its magnificence rests on the shoulders of its cast.  Ellen Page is Juno, and all of the supporting cast (Michael Cera, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney and Jason Bateman, just for starters) give heartfelt and genuine performances that are simultaneously hilarious.  But one character that I feel has always gotten a bad rap is Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa.

I’ve had several conversations about Juno with people I know.  Some of them love the movie, some hate it, but one of the surprising things that I hear often enough to bother me is that people hate Vanessa. Continue reading →