Search - The Kinks, Kimya Dawson, Cat Power :: Juno

Director Jason Reitman's warm, compassionate comedy about an unanticipated teen pregnancy was not only a dark horse Oscar® nominee for Best Picture, but saw this soundtrack CD top the charts just two weeks after its release. It's a collection wherein quirky, generation-spanning folk and rock choices are rooted in something more rewarding than mere eclecticism for its own sake--namely the sense of unlikely, hopeful humanity that Kimya Dawson's core songs bring to its slightly askew axis. Dawson's spotlight performances here range from a handful of decidedly twee solo cuts, to the album's key "Anyone Else But You," (her 2001 duet with Adam Green released under the Moldy Peaches moniker,) and a couple more upbeat oddballs by the singer's more recent Antsy Pants project. That effusively innocent musical core is augmented with a pair of eminently sympathetic tracks from Scottish twee-pop magnates Belle and Sebastian, then seasoned with a mix of catalog tracks that spans eras from Buddy Holly to Sonic Youth--utilizing styles as diverse as the Kinks, Mott the Hoople, and Velvet Underground--that nonetheless manage to bolster the film's tender emotions with a graceful, (if skewed,) charm that's hard to resist. --Jerry McCulley