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I’ve read two stories in two hours that refer to Juno as “crossover hit.” I’m not denying that it is, so far, a hit, both with audiences and with critics. But tell me again how this film––made by a not-exactly-maverick director for a studio specialty division, starring three known actors and one tabloid staple, targeted at teens and young adults, both thematically and stylistically indebted (or, at the very least, related) to previous hits like Superbad, Ghost World and Napoleon Dynamite––qualifies as a “crossover”?
Yes, Searchlight bought “indie” credibility by taking Juno to a bunch of festivals and rolling it out slowly. But we’re also talking about a film that’s been advertising on NYTimes.com for over three months. This is so clearly a studio film that, in a bit of smart awards season strategy, has been sold by its distributor as an indie. Why are journalists who should know better playing along?
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We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Not to mention two famous television actors! My aunt refers to Juno as “that JK Simmons movie” hee.
Oh Spoutblog. Thank you for validating my sanity. I haven’t had a chance to see the film yet, but man oh man are these journalists lapping up the “indie” moniker. I guess if it’s not Die Hard 4 or Shrek 8, it’s now an “indie”.
after seeing it in a theater full of freshmen college students who were home for the holidays I can tell you it must have indie sensibilities as I would say a good 70 - 80% of the people coming out of that theater were not as impressed as I was.
they thought the music was strange and that no girl would like the Michale Cera character. And out of a packed theater my 6 friends were the only ones to laugh at the dig at sonic youth.
I think just as in music indie has come to refer a genera of aesthetics instead of a direct reference to how it was produced.
Karina - You’re actually asking why journalists would play along with a studio-produced talking point? As GOB would say, “COME ON!!!”
It’s not like I’m asking why Access Hollywood or Entertainment Weekly is pushing the party line. I’m wondering why bloggers and independent journalists are furthering the fiction instead of having a real conversation about what this movie is and what Searchlight is making it out to be. If we can’t do that, then we’re not really serving our function as an antidote to the studio-controlled media.
Boo hoo, your special indie sensibilities are now mainstream. Welcome to adulthood.
I agree with Stephan that “indie” now refers more to the style of the film than to how it was produced/released. Like when Modest Mouse puts out records with Sony, they’re still an indie band because they sound like one, and it’s the easiest way to describe them. So maybe we need a new word for actual indie films? Maybe there should be a distinction between “indie” and “independent.”
Sure, in theory. But JUNO is a mainstream sex comedy with some vague, mostly visual similarities to fims that could be generically described as “indie.” The term “crossover” is still misapplied.
Um… budget? Wikipedia has Juno at $2.5 mil and Knocked Up at $30.
I’d be surprised if they spent less than 4 times the production budget on publicity.
That’s true that the “crossover” thing is bunk.
So they marketed the hell out of it. Isn’t that a good thing? Small movie gets buzz at festivals, so the studio pushes it during awards season and hope people take a chance on it. Maybe the word “independent” doesn’t mean what it used to, but it’s hardly fair to single out Juno.
How is it small?
PRODUCTION BUDGET!! Okay, so it’s not mumblecore, but $2.5 mil is still pretty cheap. Look, feel free to argue that the studio had some insidious plan to buy cred at festivals and then force the movie down our throats by showing the (excellent) trailer everywhere they could. The fact remains that they made a solid movie for relatively little money. Wouldn’t you rather they spent their marketing budget on this than on Snakes on a Plane?
Dudes, I think you might be David Cross’ing over.
Oh, don’t get me started on THAT thing…
Nah, just kidding, I’m done.
Independent or not independent. Who cares ? I don’t care if they spend 5 dollars or 500 million. The only question you need to ask your self is, is it a good film. If people get hung up on stuff like that you have a too closed of a minded to be considered a true artist .
Oh, “not-exactly-maverick director” was a cheap shot. “Thank You For Smoking” was one of the best films of last year, indie or not.
[...] these once-modest pictures. (Not that Juno even scrimped on the star-power. Related discussions at Spout and Cinematical.) It’s a shame to see a good, not great film in Juno see daily commercial [...]