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Striped Socks & Hot Pockets

Our Review

Of all movies to have a suit-up, “Juno” isn’t the first to come to mind. After catching the tail-end of an “Arrested Development” episode, I started doing this subconscious thing where I count-out how many films I know an actor has been in by twitching my fingers one at a time, starting with the left pinky. Three movies into Michael Cera I get to “Juno”. At that point the image I have filed in my head for his character is the shot where he’s standing on the porch of his house in his track gear, Hot Pocket in hand.

Having seen this film three or more times, it never even clicked that what happens at the nine minute and thirty-four second mark, before he opens the door and steps outside, was actually a suit-up. Maybe it’s because I associate suit-up scenes with guns and the only guns Paulie Bleeker brandished were his skinny little stems.

So the scene opens with a shot of the edge of a bed, a pair of sock folded neatly; colored maroon and gold, the official Dancing Elk Condors Track & Field Team’s colors. Cera’s character Paulie Bleaker walks into frame doning some sweeeeeeet gold running shorts. He sits, pulls on the tube socks over ankle socks he’s already wearing (a runner’s thing, I’m told). Cut to a shot of wristbands which Bleaker slides on one at a time, then to a mirror where he uncaps what looks like a Mitchum antiperspirant/deodorant stick and applies it to the inside of each thigh, from his boys on down. This threw me off on the first viewing, as I, like ninety-six percent of everyone else, smear deodorant in my armpits… but, again, as I’m told, this is a runner’s thing.

We follow with a rather delicious shot of Paulie Bleaker unwrapping the definitive breakfast of champions, a Hot Pocket. After a short wait tapping his fingers on the kitchen counter, breakfast is served.

Bleaker steps out of the front door onto the porch, the camera trained on his feet, socks, then panning up to the (goodness that is a…) Hot Pocket and finally to the first clear shot of his face. It’s a nice, happy… content face. Which is good, since outside, there’s a chick waiting to tell him how she’s “with child”, and Bleaker, he’s the baby-daddy.

Short and sweet, this suit-up is as sexy as Paulie Bleaker's deodorant slick legs.