Diablo Cody is the faux-hipster Nia Vardalos, maybe.

So USA Today has another one of those tiresome "the Oscar nominees this year hardly made any money" stories, which I dutifully read as it's a professional obligation and all that, and therein Variety Oscar prognosticator Kris Tapley commands "You can't ignore that Juno is the biggest platform release since My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

Well, okay, Kris, if you say so. One may recall that the remarkably drab, trite and unfunny Wedding, written by and starring one Nia Vardalos, was an indie fluke hit whose box office numbers were driven into the stratosphere on account of its catching fire around the vicinity of a number of retirement communities, whose filmgoing denizens—despite the picture's occasional forays into sexual humor—were heard to opine that this was the kind of wholesome entertainment they just don't make any more. One might also recall that for all the gazillions of dollars this "platform release" made, its only Oscar nomination was for Best Original Screenplay, by Vardalos, who lost.

One might also recall that after losing, Vardalos found herself hard pressed to reproduce Wedding's success, and pretty much disappeared from the zeitgeist, albeit now with permanently ironed hair. The downturn might have had something to do with all the fans she made in the retirement communities dying or something. So I'm not exactly sure what lesson Tapley wants us to draw from the Juno/Wedding comparison, unless you're a Diablo Cody hater and hope that her career turns as vestigial as Vardalos' did about twenty minutes after the Oscar ceremony is over.
Of course Juno's partisans are younger than Wedding's were, and hence not so likely to die, unless it's of shame at some unspecified point. But man, some of that Cody bile out there is getting vicious, as you can see and enjoy for yourself by going over to Spout Blog and checking out a reasonably sharp comedy vid that Karina Longworth's embedded.

I would be remiss if I did not note that Vardalos is poised for a, um, comeback this year, if only by dint of having made some stuff—two movies she's written and stars in (one of them directed by longtime backer and pal Tom Hanks) appear to be scheduled for release in '08.

Comments

[cheap red bottom shoes]

The greatest of evils and the worst of crims is poverty.