The Movie Nut

"Juno"
MPAA rating: PG-13

Smart, sassy Juno (a gifted Ellen Page) is 16 and pregnant. Her boyfriend (Michael Cera) seems to be numbed by shock while the perfect couple (Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner) hoping to adopt her baby may not be so perfect after all.

Juno's lucky in a way: Her parents are distraught but supportive, and Juno's spunky enough to endure the stares and whispers of her high-school peers.

A dramatic comedy about teen pregnancy could be fraught with stern warnings about safe sex and all those boring alternatives- but

"Juno" isn't a warning. It's an homage to the strength of keeping one's wits and self-esteem, choosing to make the right decisions once the original blunder has become yesterday's news.

Juno the young woman may be smart and sassy, but no less so than the film itself. Although occasionally choppy (a few key moments appear to have been lost to the cutting room floor), the film is otherwise utterly endearing.

Without resorting to prickly, preachy protocol, "Juno" manages to get the point across (to teenagers, one presumes) that motherhood might not be the brightest choice for a high school sophomore. But Juno doesn't see her predicament as "the end of the world." In its own quirky way, "Juno" is a celebration of life in a situation where many people may not feel like celebrating.

Take this short quiz. Your teenage daughter despairingly tells you she's pregnant. Your first reaction is: (a) a spanking, (b) cursing like a sailor, (c) a hug.

If we all don't know the correct answer, shame on society. Go see the film. It may provide a clue.

"The Bucket List"
MPAA rating: PG-13

A bucket list. Important things to do before we "kick the bucket."

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are two guys who, by happenstance, share a hospital room. Two men with no similar interests, who happen to learn they're both terminal, each with maybe a year to live. One has barely a nickel to his name, the other all the money in the world but little time left to enjoy it. One makes a list- "The Bucket List"- and the other dares him to live it.

I can't assume that anybody who's seen the trailers doesn't know exactly what they're getting into. You'd better bring a pocket full of Kleenex, figuring the film's going to dare you to use them.

(It does.)

I can hear the grumpiest of critics now: "Uh oh, two old guys making jokes about dying, squeezing tears and rattling sentimentality out of us like master puppeteers." Well, yeah . . . although few critics seem to mind young folks joking about teenage pregnancy (see "Juno" above), similarly plucking at our heartstrings.

This one's a baby boomer buddy pic, and right about now I suspect a lot of baby boomers are looking toward that Great Beyond and thinking, hmmmmmm.

For the record, I'm suspicious of films that use gratuitous emotional pap to reduce us to a pile of goo. I think "Babel" leaned in that direction. I think "Lions for Lambs" went there in spades. I also believe that while "The Bucket List" may cross the line now and then, for the most part it drives a straight, honest course toward an inevitable conclusion.

Maybe not honesty in any reality-based truth- I mean, when was the last time you shared a hospital room with a bejillionaire?- but rather in a cinematic sense. This is about second chances, about taking time to smell the flowers- a morality tale about not taking it with you and learning not to care. In that regard it succeeds.

Did I also mention Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman? One actor has made a career of making noise. The other likely has the most expressive silence in the business. Put them in a room together (like a hospital suite) and the chemistry can't help but work.

If double features were still a commodity in America, this cinematic duo would provide the perfect bookend to the human condition. Birth and death- maybe not exactly the way we imagine them to be, but if now isn't the right time to lighten up on our expectations, I don't know when is.