My roommates, Natalie and I took a trip out to Bensalem, PA to see a special sneak preview of “Juno”. Bensalem is 2 hours away, and if it was 4 hours away, it still would’ve been worth it. If you follow this sort of thing, you’ll have heard that “Juno” recently was named “best movie of 2007″ by our friends at Paste Magazine. And on top of that, it just grabbed 4 noms at the Spirit Awards (the indie film Oscars), Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress and Best First Screenplay.

“Juno” tells the story of 16 year old Juno MacGuff, who after having sex with best friend Paulie Bleeker, gets pregnant. Deciding abortion isn’t for her, she decides to give the baby up for adoption. To say more would ruin the sheer fun “Juno” is, and yeah, it lives up to all of the hype.

Starting with the script, the first ever script from the woman I wish was my wife: Diablo Cody. The entire movie is insanely quotable, brilliantly paced and completely moving. The acting is great, with Ellen Page stealing the entire show. When Ebert stated that he thought she deserved to win the Oscar, he wasn’t lying, and I for one will be rooting for both and the film to go far come the big awards in February. Director Jason Reitman, responsible for the great “Thank You For Smoking” tops himself, and the soundtrack, primarily by Kimya Dawson of The Moldy Peaches fame, is a perfect soundtrack to, well, a practically perfect movie.

Even though we will of course be showing this in the spring, I hope you go see it when it’s out in theaters. The more successful this film is, the better it is for movies in general. And we really can never have too many movies of this quality, or of the quality of so many movies this year.

What a great year for movies, and there’s still so much to come out!