Diablo Cody Brings the Poetry of Baby Batter One Step Closer to the Mainstream
Having flirted with dangerous levels of underexposure since winning her Best Screenplay Oscar a little over a month ago, Diablo Cody is back with a double-barreled blast of creative miracles. First up, The Hollywood Reporter notes that Cody's long-rumored comedy series The United States of Tara — starring Toni Collette as the title character afflicted with multiple personalities — is nearing a full-season order from Showtime. We can handle this without much difficulty — and by "handle" we mean "believe," because the second project has the calendar-conscious skeptic in us praying for an April Fool's Day revelation:
"Juno B-Sides: Almost Adopted Songs," a 15-track collection boasting a ditty performed by star Ellen Page, will debut exclusively through iTunes for a suggested list price of $9.99 on April 8, distributor Rhino Records said. Page performs 'Zub Zub,' a song written by the film's Oscar-winning screenwriter, Diablo Cody, for a scene that was eventually cut for time. Page's character bemoans her fate with such lines as "he filled me with baby batter, then we ate some orange tic tacs after."
[Director Jason] Reitman said the scene provided one of his favorite memories. "I just remember directing with my daughter strapped to my chest in a BabyBjorn (baby carrier) and the whole crew watching on as Ellen noodled around on guitar."
When we consider the original Juno soundtrack's ascent to No. 1 during the film's cultural saturation point, such ecstatic milking of the twee Juno juggernaut doesn't come as a surprise. Yet our bullshit detectors shriek at the possibility that Page's "baby batter" lament could ever be a casualty of the running-time considerations noted in this report, and even Cody's gold-plated, animal-print imagination couldn't have conjured a more muscular irony than Reitman directing the scene with an infant strapped to his chest. And no one out side Fox Searchlight's marketing department actually uses the word "Junoverse" attributed here to Reitman, do they? Will someone please confirm that this isn't actually happening? Anyone? Echo?
