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Juno: Don't bother looking for Signs or Significance!
Screenshot of Ellen Page from Juno, pretending to hang herself from a tree
'Well, you know, I just — I was thinkin' that I'd just nip it in the bud. Before it gets worse. 'Cause they were talkin' in health class about how pregnancy can lead to ... an infant.'
It's not giving much away to say that Juno MacGuff does not nip her pregnancy, "in the bud" or otherwise. Instead, after a brief flirtation with abortion, the 16 year-old opts to carry the foetus to term and give the baby up for adoption. Significantly, Juno is not punished for her transgression (except insofar as the pregnancy itself meet be considered a punishment) persons seeking in the entrails of Juno any overt anti-abortion, pro-choice, pro- or anti-sex or other coded messages are in for a serious disappointment. The movie's eponymous title gives the game away. Juno is a story about (nearly) a year in the life of a teenage girl named "Juno". It is not an issue movie, or a cautionary tale, or a call to arms. The fact that Juno is about a pregnant 16 year-old girl does not mean it is "about" teenage pregnancy. At its heart and despite its subject-matter, Juno is a romantic comedy. Where we might once have had Katherine Hepburn as a wise-cracking career-woman in a man's world, we now have Ellen Page as a wise-cracking teenager, who is every bit as independent as Hepburn ever was, if in a very different world. (Spoilers ahead, but not many; this is a movie whose surprises are worth keeping.)
Geoffrey Dow Mon, 10/04/2010 - 16:20
Diablo Cody
Ellen Page
Jason Reitman
Juno
film
review
movies
abortion
teenage mother
romantic comedy
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Smokers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your jones(ing)!

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Submitted by: Geoffrey Dow
on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 10:17

Allen Carr's Way was easy for me

Photo of Young Geoffrey smoking, 1992.
For about a quarter century, photos of me without a cigarette in my hand were few and far between. This, from 1992.

Tᴜᴇsᴅᴀʏ, Aᴘʀɪʟ 14, 2020 — I was a smoker for many years, starting in my teens. It seems almost impossible to believe, now, that I was utterly addicted to cigarettes for decades, going so far as to walk around collecting butts during bad times.

I stopped smoking in the fall of 2009, now more than a full decade in my past. And I don't think I would have done it without help from Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. Read more ...

review
books
alan carr
easy way to stop smoking
smoking
cigarettes
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Review: Chronicles Volume One, by Bob Dylan

Partial photo of both front and back cover of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume one

Dylan was already a long-standing legend when I reviewed this memoir back in 2004 (to which I made some minor corrections when I posted it here in 2009). Since then, he has won the Nobel Prize for literature and, very recently, seems to have taken up song-writing again. Which Pati Smith's memoir, Just Kids, Chronicles Volume One remains one of the most interesting musician's memoir I've ever read.
Geoffrey Dow Wed, 09/09/2009 - 10:38
review
book review
Bob Dylan
The Weavers
Ronnie Gilbert
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Review: Admonishments and Aphorisms, by M.C.A. Hogarth

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Submitted by: Geoffrey Dow
on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 23:23

This review was originally published on June 6, 2009. Links and pricing information may be out of date.

 

Dawn - The Admonishments, by M.C.A. Hogarth
Dawn - The Admonishments, by M.C.A. Hogarth

 

MCA Hogarth
review
kedrishar
science fiction
furries
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Review: A Lion Among Men, by Gregory Maguire

Sometime in 2007, I sent in a review of Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, Sixty Days and Counting, on spec to The Globe and Mail. When they didn't reply in what I considered a reasonable length of time, I shrugged and posted it to my Livejournal account and finally remembered to republish it here.

But sometimes good things take time. More than a year later, I received an email from an editor at the Globe saying he understood I was interested in reviewing things science fictional and would I be interested in taking a stab Gregory Maguire's latest. Naturally, I said yes, very much so, and another four or so months later, the following showed up in the Globe's Books section.

It remains my only paid review; if any of you reading this are editors, I am still open to offers. Read more ...

Geoffrey Dow Sun, 03/15/2009 - 15:35
book review
Gregory Maguire
A Lion Among Men
review
fantasy
allegory
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