Like most popular films in the age of the internet, Juno experienced a critical backlash after it reached Oscar-nominated heights back in 2008. For the record, I still enjoy that movie – Diablo Cody’s hyperstylized dialogue and all.

In any case, Cody is reuniting with Juno director Jason Reitman for a new project, this one called Young Adult. Deadline reports Charlize Theron is set to star; hit the jump for the plot synopsis.

Theron plays a ghostwriter of young adult novels who plots to reclaim her identity. Her campaign involves going back and rekindling a relationship with her high school boyfriend — who’s freshly married, is a new father, and wants no part of her. While she works on her plan, the ghostwriter reengages with high school acquaintances and their experiences in trying to fulfill all those high school hopes and dreams that often get crushed by the realities of life.

I’m calling it right now (although obviously this is speculation on my part): the high school boyfriend character will be played by Jason Bateman. Not only did Bateman have great chemistry with Charlize Theron in “Arrested Development” and the Will Smith superhero movie Hancock, he’s also worked with director Jason Reitman on both Juno and Up in the Air. If I had to bet on any casting decision so far this year, this is the one I’d put my money on.

Mandate Pictures hopes to start rolling on November 10th of this year (strangely specific date, eh?), and the production team is aiming to film in New York. Let us know what you think of a Juno reunion in the comments section.

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This weekend, I didn’t see the number one movie at the US Box Office. That belongs to Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, the new 3D animated family film from the creators of the VASTLY UNDER-RATED “Clone High” that only aired for one season from 2002-2003.

The Informant!, my review pick for the weekend, slid into second place with $10.5 million, vastly less than Cloudy’s $30.1. Love Happens, the release this weekend that gave away both the moral and the ending to the film in the title, slid in above Jennifer’s Body, which, with only $6,8 million over the weekend, has already been labeled a bomb.

Though I’m starting to wonder…

Rotten Tomatoes currently has Jennifer’s Body at a 42% Fresh rating, which isn’t horrible until you realize that Love Happens beat it at the box office with an 18% rating. That means critical response wasn’t necessarily the motivating factor in Jennifer’s Body taking a dive.

It’s a times like this I’m glad I have female friends who are also into film, because two of my colleagues have a take on Jennifer’s Body that is sounding scarily accurate. Take Vic (a guy) from ScreenRant, who put some data together about Jennifer’s Body reviews based on gender:

Male movie reviewers: 39% liked it, 61% disliked it.
Female movie reviewers: 54% liked it, 46% disliked it.

That at least spells out a mediocre movie amongst women, but the men reacting so differently to it is a little disconcerting. So let’s check with the women!

ScarletScribe, who also writes at Latino Review sets the stage:

Jennifer’s Body is dead at the box office — or so it seems after this opening weekend. And there are a couple of likely contributing factors: 1. that it opened against a fantastic children’s film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. that it’s battling against people’s cumulative hate/dislike of one of the stars, Megan Fox, and 3. that a lot of the reviewers just don’t understand the film.

And why don’t they understand the film? Because it’s one of the very few honest-to-goodness feminist films out there — and more so then being feminist, it’s one of the few films that views things from a female lens. Boys are there, and make up the majority of the victims in this body horror film, but they’re not a concern. For once we have a story with female main characters who aren’t obsessing about, fighting over, or bitching about boys every five minutes. Jennifer’s Body is about women and how they relate to each other, the horror moments are there for style and allegory, but at its heart the movie is about two girls whose own toxic friendship is eating them both alive.

Picking up from there is Annalee Newitz from io9:

This is a movie about female wrath. And it’s not the clean, sympathetic wrath we saw in Thelma and Louise; it’s not the trampy blankness we wanked over in Species. It’s ugly, wrong, powerful wrath. The kind that builds empires and destroys towns. And men are irrelevant to this wrath, in the same way Jennifer’s life was irrelevant to the guys in Low Shoulder who murdered her.

There’s something deeply subversive about a movie that says women are angry, but not at men. Women have enough power now that men are hardly the issue. Now, we’ve got something to work out among ourselves.

I’m not sure what people are expecting when they go to see a movie like Jennifer’s Body, but based on early negative reviews I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this. All I can assume is that they expected something really highbrow, based on the fact that it was penned by “I have a vocab” writer Diablo Cody. Or maybe they thought it would just be long scenes of Megan Fox’s tits, which would also be a letdown, since there are no tits.

Piling on is EruditeChick from All Things Fan Girl:

Case in point, the necklace moment. A trinket that holds no power other than what it represents to the girls, the act of its removal shocks Jennifer out of her attack, and undoes her. A BFF necklace. They probably got them at Claire’s. When they were ten. But in the world of the film, it is a mystical amulet, as powerful as the knife used in Jennifer’s murder or the words spoken over her before the act. Most of the men I’ve heard talk about the film mention that moment in particular as being cringe-worthy and corny, and most of all bizarre. I have not yet spoken to a girl for whom that scene did not resonate, didn’t hit something deep in them. Even if you never had one of those necklaces, you know what it means, the way you know what BFF can mean. A best friend is frequently not a ‘best friend’. They’re someone you’re tied to, through whatever events, and remain tied to, for whatever reason. When you’re friends with someone long enough, someone you don’t really necessarily like, but who you’ve nonetheless spent that much time with, your relationship becomes about domination and submission, finding, testing and expanding your boundaries, exerting your will and desires over someone else. This all sounds very dark, but it can be as basic as using someone to make you look better at a club (as Needy describes at the beginning of the movie), or using someone as nothing but a sounding board for you to talk about your life, your needs, your self about, completely disregarding and not caring about the other person’s life or what they have to say. Someone to keep around to assert yourself over. Find me a girl who hasn’t been on either end of this, and I’ll show you a robot or an alien.

I don’t know if these reactions mean that Jennifer’s Body is good or if it just means that it was grossly mis-marketed and suffered from Megan Fox’s PR gravity that manages to make everything about her tits (which I’m fine with, for the record). But, I do know that the rants and reviews I have read from cinephile women I respect all lining up like this gave me pause.

I guess I should check out Jennifer’s Body? At least so I have something to talk about with the opposite sex.

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UPDATE: Before people accuse me of making a post out of nothing, here’s the stakes on Jennifer’s Body: The Red Band trailer (CLICK) that was released just so the filmmakers could present their movie like they saw it makes the film look interesting. The Green Band trailer (CLICK), cut by a studio hack to look like every toss-away horror film out there, just premiered at Yahoo! and makes me want to claw my eyes out. And now back to my previous ramblings…

It’s images like this that really raise my hopes for Jennifer’s Body. But much like a groomsman before a bachelor party, these expectations make me nervous.

Megan Fox: She’s super hot, rules internet traffic like it’s nobody’s business, can’t really act, talks so L.A. it hurts, likes to smoke pot and plays video games.

Diablo Cody: She used to be a stripper, is also hot, won an Oscar for writing indie smash Juno, wrote the pilot for The United States Of Tara that got picked up by Showtime, she might be a one trick pony and she is fluent in snark.

Either of these women alone, I would not take a chance on. But their combined powers and wit (or lack of wit) funneled into a horror film might actually have potential. Megan Fox is barely a real woman anyway, at least she’s not portrayed as such. If she’s going to pull a Natasha Henstridge and go from sexy/steamy making out directly into eating people, I’m thinking that could work.

Bonus points of Diablo Cody does what no other filmmaker has managed to do and makes Megan Fox appear like a character instead of “Megan Fox as…”

Not that you can tell any of this from a special effects photo, but the shot has its own charm. For once, I’m suggesting you look at a picture of Megan Fox that has little to do with her ample breasts. Even Jennifer’s Body set photos up to this point have been a flashing arrow reading: “Megan Fox will be partially unclothed in this film!!!!”

Ladies, don’t debase yourselves. I want to see more creepy Megan Fox and I want her to talk in her nasal, high-pitched way but actually surprise me with what she’s saying.

Please. It’d be nice if you both proved my above assumptions wrong.

CLICK HERE to see the full Fangoria pic!

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Unless you want to plunk down more cash for Transformers, best to put away your Megan Fox obsession until this September, when she play’s the titular body, encasing a demon who eats high school boys.

Yes, this is the Diablo Cody follow-up-feature to Juno, this time lending her snappy witticisms to the horror genre as a rock band somehow leads to Megan Fox possessed as Amanda Seyfried tries to stop her.

Director Karyn Kusama, Cody and producer Jason Reitman gave a Red Band trailer to ShockTillYouDrop.com with the following note (possibly carved into the flesh of the unfortunate messenger):

“Fox is putting a trailer of Jennifer’s Body in front of Bruno this Friday. Great, right? Only problem is it’s not our trailer. It’s kind of a straight horror preview and while we’re sure it’ll appeal to many of you, we wanted to make sure you guys got to see our cut… Lets call it the “filmmaker’s cut”. We think it captures the comedy and scares of the horror films we grew up on – a kind of nostalgia for when horror films were fun. Can’t wait to show you the whole film… In the meantime, here’s the red band trailer we wanted our fans to see.”

CLICK HERE to be taken to the Red Band trailer for Jennifer’s Body!

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Film School Rejects has some hi-resolution photos from Jennifer’s Body, the Diablo Cody-penned horror flick starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried. In the film, Megan Fox plays Jennifer, a cheerleader who is sort of a Heather/Plastic/Ice Queen until she is possessed by a demon and starts to eat her classmates. Amanda Seyfried plays the plain and unmemorable best friend of Jennifer, who has to save the day.

This film got a large boost in internet buzz when, soon after Cody took home the Oscar for Juno’s screenplay and post-Transformers 1 Megan Fox-mind-gasm, pictures were leaked of Megan Fox emerging from a lake nearly topless (pasties only, folks). I’m guessing you’ve seen these photos, but for those who haven’t seen it…well, Google “Megan Fox topless,” it’s the first result.

Since, the Megan Fox and Diablo Cody obsession factors have lowered, with word-of-mouth occasionally turning on them. It’s interesting, though not uncommon, to see two female stars go through such scrutiny and changes in perception completely independently of each other or the movie they made together, Jennifer’s Body. The flick has to be good on it’s own merits, sure, but its opening weekend (this September) could potentially be affected by the public personas of both these women.

CLICK HERE to be taken to Film School Rejects’ Empire Mag scans, where you can see more than bloody Megan Fox at higher resolutions!

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