Speaking of pregnancy: Kimya Dawson's adorable.

Thanks to a movie about a smartass, cynical 16-year-old Minneapolis white kid who is pregnant and wants to give her baby to an even whiter couple, the rest of the world who comfortably lived above the music underground now know who this female Seattle cat named Kimya Dawson who sings about love and being awkward. If you hadn't noticed by a) my blog title and b) my constant blabbings, I'm a huge fan of the K! Records posse, even those who aren't on the label. The Microphones, Mount Eerie, Karl Blau, Laura Veirs (on Nonesuch, actually, but are part of the posse), Modest Mouse during their youth, Mirah and Dawson are all wonderful people who provide wonderful music to me.

Funny story about Dawson. After I graduated college in May Oh-Six I went to meet up with my friend Mai in Seattle for our Northwestern excursion. Instead of getting a hotel, Mai thought it'd be a genius idea for me to shack up with a chick named Tiffany I never met who likes to have shows in her living room every Friday and was tight with some K! Records cats, Blau and Dawson included.

Anyway, the first thing she asks me when we talk about music is, "Do you know who Kimya Dawson is?" I said no, but I bet she's good if you like her. For some reason, Tiffany was shocked I didn't know her, but not in a judgmental way. Then later on into my stay somehow the fact that I'm black and like indie music is brought up (sigh--this topic is mentioned a lot, actually) and she laughs and says, "Yeah, that's why I was so shocked you didn't know who Kimya Dawson was, because she's black." I guess her point was that I needed to know every black musician involved with indie rock.

Well, it took me another two years to get into her stuff, and I'll say, why I do like it, I can't listen to it on a regular basis. Kinda like how I feel about the Silver Jews and Papa M. I dunno, the whole "words and acoustic guitar" vibe can be a little much at times, where you just focus solely on what the person's saying. I need distractions, which is why I'm not against solo artists working with several musicians, i.e. Phil Elvrum. But this all has a lot to do with my very short attention span.

ANYWAY, so long story short, I'm really happy Dawson's getting her due. She's a talented kid, that woman.

Listen:
Kimya Dawson - Loose Lips
Kimya Dawson - My Mom

I'm a sap who likes coming-of-age movies dealing with love.

Coming-of-age films are just things I cannot ever steer away from, EVER. Well, coming-of-age films dealing with witty, acerbic and cynical 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds in high school, though I developed said characteristics when I was 11 years old. So I guess when I see films like Juno and Thumbsucker and The Squid and the Whale and et ecetera, I am always emotional because I can relate to the main characters. They usually the way they are because they want to have so much faith in humanity and believes in honesty and sincerity and true love.

Now on to my thoughts on Juno. To be honest, I was a little nervous and starting to backtrack on how I initially felt about it because of all the hooplah it was getting. Not to say that hype ruins films, but sometimes, it does, such as last year's Little Miss Sunshine, 2004's Sideways or 2005's Brokeback Mountain (I'm sorry, but even after I waited a little over a year to watch it after all the hype died down, it still gave me the cotton candy effect). I also got a really lame pretentious vibe from screenwriter Diablo Cody, simply because she boasts about leaving her Minneapolis middle-class background and neverminds the fact that she got a Media Studies degree from University of Iowa and to become a stripper for a year and talks about it in a blog and says she wears a "busted weave." I dunno, just felt weird about it.

But with all that pre-judgmental shit being said, I finally got to see the film today and lemme tell ya: I was very pleased. I was really happy to know that my gut instincts were right about how the movie was gonna be good and I actually like Cody's writing style. Every single actor in that film was incredible. But although everyone's going ga-ga for Ellen Page's performance--and rightly so--my boy Michael Cera was amazing. He now replaces Jamie Bell as my favorite young talent. He is just down-right fantastic with his straight-laced, dry sense of humor. I love his reaction to Juno when she says the only reason she fucks him is because she was bored that night: "...And I know you weren't bored because there were lots of stuff to watch on TV; The Blair Witch Project was coming on Starz, too." All with a straight face. Grand.

I really love the theme of understanding true love and how you can conquer the ugliness of it all if you actually tried really hard, as Juno proposes to Mark (Jason Bateman), who is a burnout post-modern rock musician who once opened for The Melvins in 1993. It's just something I firmly believe that most films do not focus on, and I'm not even talking about the lame romantic comedies that is just a shit storm of sappiness. I'm talking a realistic comedy that really pinpoints the beauty and grotesqueness of it all, in which Juno succeeds tremendously.

Two very important tracks from the film:
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You
Sonic Youth - Superstar (Carpenters cover)

p.s. I love when Juno argues with Mark saying that she got a Sonic Youth album and it was nothing but a bunch of noise. Ha. That's exactly how I reacted when I got Daydream Nation when I was 18. And now look at me. Obsessed.

I'm ready for Juno to come out now.

Apparently this movie comes out Dec. 21. I don't know if my mundane life can handle waiting another 11 days in order to get some excitement going here. Oh, wellz.

I have a feeling that this movie will be my fave of the year. I'm not sure. My list was quite small and selective. Unfortunately, I left off quite a few good to great flicks due to the fact that I'm really slow when it comes to movies. I forget that movie houses don't hold films in their theaters too long, and by the time I'm interested in seeing the damn thing, it's already gone.

I don't know. I guess I've become less excited about movies coming out lately due to the rapid DVD releases. I mean, I enjoy being able to wait 'til it hits DVD, but at the same time, that mentality makes me not want to go to a movie. It kills my motivation, man.

Nevertheless, I will be eager to purchase my ticket to see this baby:


Sidebar:
I just want to say that I'm so glad that Jason Bateman and Michael Cera are getting really good roles ever since they were brutally violated by Fox when they decided to cancel Arrested Development (which is ironic because Fox Searchlight released Juno). It's a match-up between two child stars of different generations. How astute.