The cat is out of the bag... Juno (12/5, Fox Searchlight), far and away my favorite movie of the year, has been awarded the Best Film prize at the Rome Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival.

The dramedy—which was written by Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman, and features a star-making performance by Ellen Page—was the runner-up for the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, where I saw it in September, and probably would have won had it not come up against a native son (Canadian David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises).

It's been a long time since I've been this excited for others to see a movie.

ADDENDUM [10/29]: Add another win to the Juno column, and you gotta see this one to believe it! The Association of Italian Psychologists has announced that Juno is the 2007 recipient its Imaghia Prize (awarded to "Films That Are Good for You"). Their complete citation: "For the courage, the depth and the irresistable irony with which the challenging and conflict-ridden maternity experience of a teenager has been selected, understood, and translated to the screen. Thanks to a sense of humor full of wisdom and levity, important reflections on the most intimate feelings of adolescence can be proposed to the viewer. The film succeeds in giving evidence to the positive resources present in the turbulent world of today's teenagers and in the ambiguous reality of adults. These resources are oriented toward mutual comprehension and sharing, differently from what happens in contemporary culture."