About ten months ago, I went to the Marpole Curling Club in Vancouver. The idea was to try curling for the first time. "Beyond terrible" would be a charitable way to describe my performance. I had no aim and I fell over. Alot. I found curling to be sorta similar to bowling except way less fun and way more awkward and way colder and way off my list of things to ever try again.
While it was a memorable experience (thanks to the fun gaggle of Americans I was with), I haven't really thought about it much since that day last February. Until today. Today the Marpole Curling Club was credited in the brilliant and hilarious new film, Juno.
I saw Juno today down at the 'ol Tonsil Town. I gotta say, it's been a stellar week for me at Tonsil Town. The other day I blogged about it being my favourite movie theatre in Vancouver (even though its proper name is Tinseltown, I prefer to call it Tonsiltown for no other reason than to be a dork).
Not only is Tonsiltown the bestest theatre ever, it also has the desirable, consistent tendency to show the bestest movies as well - like Juno.
This movie is open-hearted hilarity from start to finish. Juno is the name of the lead character, a 16 year old girl who unexpectedly becomes pregnant. She's played by Ellen Page (she's from Halifax, Nova Scotia). Her character is impregnated by Bleeker, an orange-Tic Tac-addicted, long-distance runner played by Michael Cera (he's from Brampton, Ontario). Go Canada.
Props go to the supporting cast, too. Allison Janney plays Juno's stepmom and is perfect in the scene where she tells off an ultra-sound technician. Rainn Wilson shows up right at the start of the movie as a convenience store clerk and is also perfect while telling Juno, who madly shakes her home pregnancy test kit, that it's not an etch-a-sketch and the results won't change no matter how much she shakes it.
Some of the scenes in Juno reminded me of some of the streets in Vancouver. Scenes showing residential streets with stucco bungalows erected probably in the 50's or 60's. Their familiarity made me feel even more at home with Juno than I already was. Then, because we stuck around for closing credits, we learned that Juno was filmed right here in Vancouver. Nice! That's what got me thinking about the Marpole Curling Club again - the film makers "thanked" it in the credits.
I'm fairly certain that of all the films I've seen that were made in Vancouver, Juno is the best of those. Plus, Juno's soundtrack is overwhelmingly well-chosen for this film. It's a perfect sonic match to the tone, pace and vibe of the story and the characters. I've already downloaded it and I'm listening to it right now.
For your viewing and listening pleasure, here's a clip of Moldy Peaches performing Anyone Else But You (from the soundtrack) at the Juno premiere. A sweet tune, indeed. The song itself begins at 2:25 into the clip, but the part before the song actually starts is quite funny and worth watching.
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