'Nick and Norah' do New York

**1/2 out of ****

Whoever said opposites attract clearly hasn't met Nick and Norah. After a summer of raunchy R-rated, laugh-out-loud comedies such as "Pineapple Express" and "Tropic Thunder," "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" turns down the volume a bit with a romantic high school comedy.

Michael Cera ("Superbad," "Juno") stars as Nick. Heartbroken by his girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena), Nick becomes a recluse, but his band members (Aaron Yoo and Rafi Gavron) hope to cheer him up by convincing him to play at their New York City gig.

One girl at the gig is Norah (Kat Dennings), a straight-laced student who has been dragged there by her drunken friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor). After one of Norah's classmates teases her about coming to the club without a date, she grabs the first guy she sees and begs him to pretend to be her boyfriend.

The guy happens to be Nick and the classmate turns out to be Tris. With the rest of the night ahead of them, Nick and Norah hopscotch around the Big Apple trying to find drunken Caroline and their favorite band Fluffy, which is playing at a secret venue. While looking for Fluffy, they find love along the way.

"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" is based on a book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. First-time screenwriter Lorene Scafaria has a knack for dialogue that's sweet and touching, but misses the funny bone. Director Peter Sollett does a hip job that surpasses most of the recent glop in this field. He also has a great ear for independent music, although you wish at points some other genres were explored. Unfortunately, the film falls prey to predictability and sloppy transitions.

Cera and Dennings ("The House Bunny") have a fair amount of chemistry between them, but it seems forced or missing at times. Dennings pulls off a convincing performance as a timid spirit, while Cera stars as a dejected musician.

The supporting cast helps the movie move along, but sometimes a little too bluntly. Yoo stands out as Nick's best friend, but there is not much depth to his character. Graynor steals most of the laughs stumbling around New York City, though she seems out of place, as if she's in a different slapstick movie. The film has a few quirky charms, but mainly remixes the same old tunes.

As far as romantic comedies go, should "Nick and Norah" pop up on your movie playlist, you'll be in for an enjoyable time.

'Juno' finds comedy in serious subject

**** out of ****

Winning major acclaim at this year's Toronto Film Festival, "Juno" serves up a comedic look at the rather unfunny topic of unplanned teen pregnancy.

The film opens with Juno MacGruff (Ellen Page), a 16-year-old high school junior, finding out she's pregnant. Over the course of several days and taking many pregnancy tests that keep turning up positive, the store clerk (Rainn Wilson) gives Juno these foreboding words as she shakes her pregnancy test: "That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. That's one doodle that can't be undid, homeskillet."

Her geeky boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), becomes the father after their first sexual encounter. When Juno breaks the news to her best friend, Leah (Olivia Thirlby), she is offered the options of abortion or adoption. She picks the former, but at the clinic decides she can't go through with it and plans to have the baby and give it to a loving family.

Juno's vacuum-salesman father, Mac (J.K. Simmons), and stepmother, Bren (Allison Janney), a dog-obsessed nail salon owner, aren't quite thrilled with the prospect, but are supportive nonetheless.

With Leah's help they find a married couple seeking a child in the local paper. Living in a gated community, the wealthy couple turns out to be the immaculate Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) and her husband, Mark (Jason Bateman).

Vanessa is thrilled at the prospect of being a mother, but Mark, a composer for commercial jingles with dreams of being a rock star, isn't as ecstatic. However, Mark finds a connection with Juno, who shares the same interests in music and guitar.

"Juno" is quite the ride through a high schooler's ordeal of dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of being pregnant and the tribulations of carrying a child. Twenty-year-old Canadian actor Ellen Page is phenomenal as Juno, delivering her lines with great comedic timing and the ability to display emotion with ease. Breaking out in 2005's acclaimed thriller "Hard Candy" and then in "X-Men: The Last Stand," Page certainly has made a name for herself.

"Superbad" star Cera is charmingly funny as Paulie, but is slightly underused, not having much of a role during Juno's pregnancy, until the movie's end. Simmons and Janney deliver some of the funniest lines while supporting Juno throughout the film.

Bateman adds lighthearted comedy to his supportive role and Garner gives some of her best work as a mother-to-be.

Sophomore slump isn't a phrase you would use to describe Jason Reitman's second outing at a feature film. His first was the highly regarded comedy "Thank You for Smoking."

"Juno" is the first screenplay written by Diablo Cody (her real name is Brook Busey), a 29-year-old whose previous occupation was, oddly enough, as a stripper. Diablo certainly has proven she can write and her name will come up again soon with Showtime's "The United States of Tara," created by Steven Spielberg and starring Toni Collette, and an adaptation of her book "Candy Girl: A Year in the Unlikely Life of a Stripper."

With laugh-out-loud scenes every moment, a writer, director and actress who you can't wait to see what they'll do next, and a heartfelt ending, "Juno" is a film you need to see.