Oscar Movie Roundtable: Jojo Rabbit

exist within the chaos and Annie, I should say. I saw on the movie Crushers page someone said, hey, did it was everyone like me and went and watched Annie in the city about it's awesome. So people are watching it and this the gentleman who posted this particular post loved it awesome. Well, thank you. We've gotten a few nice like Amazon and letterbox reviews, so that's cool. Yeah, that's good, I think he said. I think his comment was, I could definitely see why Paul is doing a Sofia

Coppela series. Yeah, that's true, So that's great. There's nothing wrong with wearing your inspirations on your sleeve. I love it. I think the first like twenty things I tried to write seem like, what do you allen movies? But I can't write those anymore. Guys, you can, you can get you can kind of take over that territory because he's I think other people already sort of have for sure. You gotta move quicker. I mean, no, a bomb box exactly. I was just thinking that he's not too far off

from that field. Yeah, but he just is not a creep. But yeah, she said, be disappointment. We are here to talk about Joe. Joe Rabbit though delightful um what they describe it on wikipe is an American satirical tragic comedy film. Wow okay, written and directed by Taka Watiti. Did I pronounce that right? Yes? I believe so, who I think we can all agree is one of the most exciting, delightful people in the movie industry right now. I've doing ouf.

This is the first film of his I've seen. People have been telling me I've got to check out Thor Wragnarok, and It's What's the Wilder People one? And Hunt for the Wilder People? Yeah, boy? And What We Do in the Shadows was on my short list. I love that movie. So you have seen it? Oh gosh, I love that and you want to talk about it with me, I feel like Christmas came early. Yeah. Do you like the TV show? Yes? All right, save it? Okay. I just

wanted to know that. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing in your book, but now I love the TV show. Uh, Taka is great, Casey and Thor Wragnarok is in the Marble universe. Because you're not you're down with a lot of those movies right down with meaning like like sort of I'm more on the Scorcesean here we go. Uh well, thora Ragnarok is great, but if you're if you're not a fan of those moods, but I've heard that one kind of stands out from the from the crowd and is kind of um yeah,

worth checking out, even even on its own. All right, Well, it's it is good. But he's great. He's a delight of a human from what I can tell. And Jojo Rabbit is a uh it's a pretty complex film, and I think the first thing that I want to talk about, if it's okay with y'all, is the tone, Because getting the tone of a film right isn't always important, but especially in this case, you really gotta get it right.

This is about as like high wire balancing act, you know, as you can imagine, like there's so many places where you could miss step and and go off track and be utterly tasteless or just derail the film with too much, you know, deviate too much from the comedic into the tragic and so on. So it's such a fine balancing act,

and I think he does it really really well. Whether or not the film as a whole, I thought was, you know, I like the movie, but even even outside that, the fact that he pulls this off at all and it isn't a complete disaster, that it isn't like Springtime for Hitler and the Producers or something, you know, the fact that it's actually like watchable and funny is incredibly impressive. Yeah, yeah, what do you think? Anny? Totally? Yeah, I agree. I

Actually I love Takoa t t love him. And I was hesitant to see this movie because I thought, I just don't know, And and the trailer I was watching it thinking this is gonna be hard to put. It's a tough movie to trailer. I think, Yeah, oh for sure, Um, it's hard to explain. I mean that wikipedia just all

those genres shoved into the description that's tough, and I know. Um. They screened it fifteen times, and they eventually added the subtitle to to the name an anti hate satire because people were a little hesitant about especially in our current climate where Nazis are yep yep um. So I I definitely think that seeing through a child's eyes, um the hate and war, I feel like he succeeded in what

he was trying to do. I know that some people it's been divisive, and some people think that it is too silly or you're connecting too much with Nazis, the good Nazis um. But for me, I seeing it from from the child's perspective, and and because he purposely went out of his way not to try to recreate Hitler, trying to be like a child's understanding of what Hitler would be, says things like that was intense. Yeah, I think that that helps it work because it is just

this kid who doesn't really get it. He's like his imaginary friend. He's like a projection of JoJo's interior internal kind of like his shortcomings. His buddy Hitler is there to kind of like reassure him or tell him to be a little more assertive or whatever the case may be, like a like a girlfriend that was That was like the thing that I that I didn't necessarily know going in.

I thought when I saw the kind of like goofy Hitler that he plays, I thought that might actually be quote unquote Hitler within the world of the film, and the fact that it is really just this child's imagination, um, and that the whole film is kind of like any saying, it's grounded in that child's perspective. You have a certain

amount of innocence and and just not knowing. And as he kind of knows more and and actually meets like a real Jewish person and kind of realizes, oh, they're not these like cartoonish caricatures that we've been sold on, he immediately kind of starts to come around to the more you know, human kind of viewpoint that that um, these are not people to be afraid of, and you know, actually, this this Hitler guy seems pretty hateful, and so in that way, I think the film does work that that

it remains in that perspective, and so he gets away with a lot more in the way of you know, some of the goofier things that happen. It works because it is coming from this, uh, this little kid's perspective. Yeah, and it is a boy at dentse Dnse satire. Uh. And I can't imagine trying to sell this film in the room. Yeah, Like who asked for this movie? You know?

He's like it's sort of mel Brooks meets Wes Anderson where there's this kid who turns out as hiking a Jewish girl in his attic against his will and his imaginary friend as Hitler. But it's very sweet and also tragic and um, just trust me, give me. However, I don't know what the budget was, but it was not cheap. Yeah, this this has to be one of those like blank check sort of you've you've made a number of hits for us, and so we're gonna let you do this

one kind of thing. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because it's based on a book. Yeah, but the book has no imaginary friend Hitler or anything. But the company, the Film Studio, came to takeo with tcha and was like, we want you to do it based on his the indie films he'd already done, but we want you to play Hitler. And he was a little anxious about that. Yeah, they suggested that they did. Um. Yeah, And I'm not sure who I thought it was his idea to put the

Hitler in there. I just know that there was that was there. They really wanted him to be the Hitler character. Um comedy. No, he just spun this thing on its head. I don't know. Yes, he added a lot more comedic layers. I don't think it was necessarily an outright tragedy, only had elements of that. Um. But he I guess he knew his his wheelhouse and he thought what did he something about like the power of humor to connect with

people and change people's minds. So uh yeah, And it's interesting now because it's twenty century Fox, which is owned by Disney, like technically a Disney huge umbrella. Yeah. But I do think like the elevated satire of it, Um, when Rebel Wilson's character is like, let's go burn, like, that helps too, because it was so over the top. I think that that helped make it more palatable. Yeah.

I think there are certain Like I think the way people respond to satire is all over the map, and some people really have a brain that's geared towards that and get it. Um. Other people, you know, look at the onion and just are still stupefied. Um. And I think to your point, putting a rebel Wilson in there to do what she did really was helped to drive that home in a big way. Like, hey, everyone, don't take this seriously. What you're watching is really deep deep

satire or elevated satire. And she was so funny, she's great. Yeah, she said she had eighteen children for the call. I love her anyway, and she was she was just fantastic in this. Um the plot itself, I guess, uh, just to quickly go over, like what we said, is this Joe Joe Bettler is a ten year old boy Nazi Germany, uh, sort of at the end of World War Two, with a single mother named Rosy. Although we don't really know about the dad. He's supposedly fighting on the Italian front,

but um, do we even find out. I think he's probably more of like a defector, right, Yeah, there's somebody that's okay, was that the deal kind of working for the resistance but from outside Germany? Maybe? Okay? I couldn't I couldn't quite remember. It's been a while since I've seen it the rumors where he had either defected or ran away. Gotcha, Okay, I didn't know he was alive

or not. Uh. And then Joe Joe finds out he gets to the name Jojo rabbit Um from his by going to Nazi youth Hitler Youth training camp, and uh, it is picked on and he's bullied. And all this kid wants to do is be a good Nazi, which is one of the you know, the great character arcs in this movie. I think, is this young boy, you know,

and I think, tonally, that's such a fine line. But a ten year old boy in Hitler's Germany would have been this because the little boys like to play war and that's all this was to them, and that probably would have been his idol because he doesn't know any

better at that point. Yeah, And it's like it's a little counterintuitive at first because his mother is actively working against all this stuff, but then you realize that she has to basically, she has to allow her son to kind of, you know, um, be part of that that group think, because that's the only way he's going to survive if she If she starts to tell him right away that all this is wrong, and he's he's going to have no way to to blend in as a kid. It's going to come out one way or the other.

And then he get enough dead. So it's like he has she has to kind of let him, um, just go on thinking like everybody else, because it's it's a matter of his own survival in that way, which was incredibly painful. Hyeah as a mother. And I mean we can go ahead and talk about some of the performances.

Scarlett Johnson is really on a roll. Um, not that this is any kind of surprise, but like we talked about marriage Story, She's always been great, but these two powerhouse films here at the end of the year, and I think she's now. I think she's the highest paid actress in the world. She really, Yeah, because of the Marble stuff. I mean that has a lot to do with it, obviously, because they make gobs of money for those movies. But boys, she's good in this. She's fantastic now.

She's always been great, Um, right from the beginning. I thought she always made interesting choices for for roles. And you know, her performance in a film like Under the Skin is really really impressive to me. Yeah, she's in that early Coen Brothers. Well early for her, wasn't there. So yeah, she's always been great. She's just such a lovable um, such a good mom in this movie. Yeah, she was just fun and understanding and really caring, like

in a terrible situation. Yeah. Yeah, and just trying to subtly, I guess, convince her son that this war is bad and we can if we can just dance or have fun or enjoy things. Yeah. Yeah. And the part where she puts the ash on her face and pretends to be the dad is so sweet and just heartbreaking. There's so many moments like that, And talk about the tone of this movie, so funny and so kind of Melbrook's goofy at times and then just sucks you in the

face with stuff like that. Obviously, Um, their spoilers abound, So if you don't want to hear anything and you're this far into it, please turn it off. But when when she's killed, well there's the first public hanging that he sees his mother see and you know, he says,

what do they do? And she says what they could? Yeah, so you you know right there where she lands on it, and so he sets it up in two ways with that first public hanging and then that great shot of her shoes when she's walking on the wall next to him, because that's how he chose to reveal um, which is great, Like I didn't want to see her face, right right. I think he knew that no one wanted to see that. Yeah.

And the scene starts out so innocently because Joejoe is following a beautiful butterfly, and then he kind of stands up and the shoes are right next to his face. And I think I told you all when I saw it, somebody in the theater shouted no at the screen. Yeah. And it holds on that for a decent amount. It makes you really sit with the sadness of that. Yeah, And someone yelled out no, that's amazing, and like they shouted for everyone in the theater. Basically, it was one

of those moments like everyone wanted to scream now. Yeah. And again it anchors you in that child's perspective because he's eye level with the shoes, and you know that being the first thing he saw before he looked up, You know that that would be the thing that's kind of steared in your mind. I would think if you had that kind of experience that would be like the detail that stuck in there. So yeah, really well done.

And there's also the through line of him not being able to tie his shoes right and her always helping him tie the shoes, and so it's a really good example of what is he going to do now that she's gone, because she was taking care of him, she was doing this and now and and a good example of a payoff in a movie. Um, and it just now hit me that she ties shoes at the end of marriage time second movie this year. Yeah, think about that. I wonder if she's, like, what's going on, gonna be

a cobbler in my next film? Uh? And then Jojo learns that her his mom is hiding a Jewish girl in the attic played by Thomas and Mackenzie. She is fucking fantastic in this movie. I had never seen her before, did you know anything? She'd kind of brand new. I don't know, actually, but she's the first time I've seen her.

She I know she's been in one other thing. I hadn't seen it or heard of it, but yeah, pretty knew, I think, yes, Yeah, And the nature of their relationship and the evolution of their relationship is so it's also a coming of age movie and a and a love story like of young love in a way because, um, he learns of her her boyfriend what's his name, Nathan Neil, I have it in I have it in here somewhere Nathan Yet you're right, Uh, a boyfriend who we later find out she knows that he's dead, but he jojo

like a ten year old boy might do, takes upon himself to these fake letters. Um that you know, end up in the end being really sweet. But at first he's you know, he's being really mean about it all. Yeah. Yeah, and that he almost immediately back checks. I like the Chaney's cane. He's like, but no, it's really fine. And that was such a sweet part. That kid man what's his name, Roman Griffin Davis really great performance. Yeah, I'm really interested to see where he goes. I love his friend.

He's fantastic. Let me look him up Archie Yates, I think, yeah, I just saw he's the lead in some new movie. So he's already been cool. Yeah, tapped. Yeah, it's so good and it's the kids playing adult. You know that the end scene or one of the ending scenes where the war is over basically and Hitler has died at this point and uh and and little Yorki comes running through with his with his gun, playing war and they accidentally shoot off the uh was it a rocket rocket

launcher or something. But it's funny still, it's amazing. He's really good. There's something about the little like chunky kid that like respond to in movies. It's very endearing. Yeah, But at the same time, if you really think about it, it's so sad that, you know, the German forces have been so decimated that now they're just grabbing kids or whoever to kind of be on the front line and effectively just be a decoy or or you know, a

distraction from the other soldiers that might remain. Undercurrent of realness is always there. Like it's satirical and funny, but also there was Hitler youth camps, and there were they were sticking kids out there, and I mean, you know that some of those kids did end up getting killed in combat. And so it's just on on one hand,

it is kind of light and funny. It's kind of absurd on its face that they're out there kind of quote unquote playing at war, but then the reality of it was they really are at this point functioning as soldiers and you know, like, like I said, some of them are being killed. So yeah, heavy. So let's talk a minute about Sam Rockwell and Alfie Allen. I spent the entire movie trying to remember where I'd seen Alfie Allen,

and I was like, yeah, the very end. See, I'm not a big Game of Thrones guy, watched it, I think the first season and that was it. So I did the same thing and then had to look him up afterward. But he uh, I mean two characters that are are clearly homosexual, and that's played for laughs, but in also the satirical way that like you can't be

out in Hitler's army at all um. But you know, by the end when they have on like full on makeup and he finally designed that outfit uniform, it was such a such a great payoff to actually have that happen. They were just great together. Sam Rockwell can do no wrong. No, no, he was great. He's one of the best. Stephen Merchant pops up near the end. I really enjoyed him to kind of kind of doing that trope of like the hyper intelligent menacing. Yeah, yeah, that we've seen. You know.

It's it's sort of the the Christoph Vaults character from Inglore's Bastards or the guy from the Indiana Jones movies, and you know, yeah, that's such such a common trope that that sort of idea that, um, I think the point that's always been made with those characters is kind of like you can be this highly cultured, highly educated, sophisticated person and still be utterly evil, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I thought it was really interesting that he finds

the book Joe Joe is working on about how monstrous Jewish people are, in part inspired by um, the girl into yeah, yeah, and he Stephen Merchant's character is looking at it like this is really good. But yeah, and it's I thought that was interesting because it's almost like racism can just blind you to what you see and what you'll accept, because it to me, it felt pretty like he was being pretty legit when he said that, yeah, looking at this ridiculous thing. Yeah. Yeah, they were way

into it. They're all like, this is fantastic. There's there is that moment where, um, you know, she realizes that she got the birthday wrong, right when he quizzes her, and she knows that, you know, although he acted like everything was on the level as they were leaving, she kind of knows deep down that, like they're probably gonna come back, you know, this is this is just his way of like planning it a little more before it

has to happen. Yeah. Well, the big reveal though, we learn is that is that Sam Rockwell's captain has saved the day. And that's the tonal thing that is tough here when um, you're portraying nazis not as nothing but evil, as sort of funny or fun and or potentially helpful or an ally but you know, if he was a turncoat, which it turned out he really was, I mean, they carried that to its fruition fully. Yeah. Um, as he saved Jojo in the end to his own, you know death.

So I think it's fair, you know, I mean, I I do think that is. Like I read a number of reviews for this movie that kind of ran the spectrum from super positive to kind of somewhere in the middle two more like heavily critical, and Richard Brodie's review I thought was pretty fair. He's He's a critic for one of the critics for The New Yorker, and um, I'm a big fan of his work. Sometimes I find him a little frustrating, but overall I'm I'm in favor

of Richard Brody. Um. But his his big critique was was essentially that you know, by by by having this kind of trope of like the good German the good Nazi, you are kind of soft pedaling the reality of what this is because you're saying, this is a film about satirizing the Nazis and satirizing hate, but you're kind of filling it with characters that are somewhat the exception to that rule. And you know, the vast majority of these people were hateful, were you know, murderous and evil and

so on. Um, So to kind of center the film around the one or two exceptions, it just it just kind of it makes it feel more palatable certainly, but it also kind of, um, it just softens the blow, and maybe it's a blow that should not be softened. What do you think any Yeah, I I I get that vpoint. I'm still kind of I guess wrestling with

where I land on it. Um. I I remember I saw inglorious bastards in Europe in Germany, and I the difference of seeing it with that audience versus seeing it here made me really think about because for me, for I, World War Two is sort of removed and I know all about it, but I've seen more about it in movies and TV or read about it in books, so it's sort of easier for me to distance myself from it.

At that moment of seeing Inglorious Bastards in Germany really crystallizing what was the was it just dead silent and if you could feel it, you could just feel the tension in the theater the entire time. So you know, when I saw Jojo Rabbit, the theaters was mostly people around my age. Um, so I don't know. Yeah, I'm I'm wrestling with it. The approaches are both different from Tarantinos because he brought that up. Yes, I mean Glorious Bastards. There's a lot of the Christoph Wall stuff. I think

you're meant to laugh at, but it's not satire. He's always menacing at the same time, like it's funny, but you're still terrified. You know that opening scene, for instance, that he's going to hear the people under the floorboards. You know that the tension is is incredible. But at the same time he is this kind of like charismatic screen presence. He's so good at being a villain. You can't help but kind of be I don't know, energized or something by his Yeah, it's hard to find the

right word. Yeah. Yeah, because you're certainly not like on his side or anything like that. You sort of love to root against him or something. He's like you. I think I appreciate this approach a little more. I mean, I loved Inglorious Bastards, but this is so over the top satire to me, um, and my brain is so wired for satire that it it hit me and in all of the right ways, I think, But I certainly

see how it might not. Yeah, And I think that's the key, is that it is so over the top that, at least for for a lot of the characters, you're supposed to be making fun of them, like look how silly this is, and again framing it from the child's perspective of look how childish this is, And like teaching hates to children, it's something that has learned. It's not like a natural thing. Yeah, tough them that you sent

him to essentially Boy Scouts to Learn Hate. Yeah, I mean part of the movie felt like what a lot of people have, you know, nicknamed it moon Wreck Kingdom. Of course they have, you know, it's way ahead of me everybody. Um, it had that feel. I mean, it's clearly an inspiration and I think that was totally kind of the right thing to do too. Um. I'm curious about when he was flashing out the the Hitler role though, like how many, just privately, how many iterations he went

through to get where he landed. I thought his performance was really good. It was fantastic, and um, yeah, it's funny that that, um that it's the people who had the rights to the book who kind of came with that idea. Yeah, I find that fascinating because just to me, I assumed it was more like he took on this project and he's like, how am I going to navigate

this incredibly tough tonal balancing act. Well, at least I can put myself in the lead role so that I'm not putting that on somebody else, you know, so that I'm I'm kind of falling on the grenade if it's going to explode, you know, I'm going to be the one who's getting the majority of the blowback, you know. Um, so I kind of I thought that was something kind of honorable that he was doing. Like, if I'm going to ask somebody to to play this role in this way,

it might as well be myself. Yeah, but it's such a good job. Yeah, he's I mean, he's he's a great performer. Yeah. I love at the end when he's he's got like the bloody nose and he's trying so hard to maintain his hold on Joe Joe. It's just like a total mess. Um. Yeah, it's funny to read a lot of the actors when they got the script were a little anxious about the whole thing. And he's gonna play Hitler. Yeah, imagine the page. It's it's a

difficult read. Yes, and then to be directed from what I read he was sometimes in his Hitler outfit directed, Yeah, you would have to be kind of like going from yeah, yeah, wow that stuff. Yeah. Probably probably not so many like behind the scenes photos splitting around. So yeah, I wonder if he found himself taking a more genteel approach behind the camera, not raising his voice or anything exactly, that

would be weird. Um, But yeah, to end up playing him as like almost like a schoolgirl slumber party relationship. I think it was just kind of perfect. I mean, it was funny and um it also got a little almost Looney Tunes esque at times, especially the end, you know, when he when he kicks him through the window, which again I think those heightened approaches are what help help it be more palatable. Yeah, and the mask does slip from time to time and he does start to sound

genuinely like hateful and frightening. It's a cool balance that he is like the kind of happy, go lucky, goofy imaginary friend, but there is that darkness kind of underneath it that you can sense as well, and that comes to the surface sometimes again just walking on a fishing line, Yeah, and trying to get that tone just right. It's a very ballsy movie, I think. Uh. I mean, I'm not one to call with a straight face called movie making brave, but um, you know, I think you're putting yourself out

there with this kind of film. It's a huge gamble, particularly in the in the current climate. You know, like I said, there's there's a lot of people who would probably rather this movie have not been made, just the idea of of doing anything remotely humorous or playful or you know, satirical, let's say, around such a serious topic at a time where we are seeing the resurgence of that kind of ideology. So yeah, I mean it's or

is it the perfect time? Well, that's the thing. I mean, chaplain made the great dictator, right, and and that's that sort of undercutting of the thing that we're so afraid of. That is this kind of like pure embodiment of evil, let's say. And to make that, to render that absurd and ridiculous, yeah, take away its power. Yeah, I mean that is like that. It's one of those things that when you can laugh at it, that's really when you when you kind of have power over it and you've

taken the power back to say, you're ridiculous. You know, you don't deserve our fear, you kind of deserve our contempt or are are just our ridicule? You know? Yeah, he's almost panting Hitler, Yeah, in front of the whole world because he's so serious, you know, it takes himself so seriously and to make him an object a ridicule really undercuts that more than pretty much anything. What about just filmmaking wise. I mean it looked great. The costuming

was fantastic. In the set design. Um, you know, say what you want about the Nazis, but they had great uniforms. Well, they had that a very strong aesthetic sense, you know. I mean that's again, that's there's that, There's that the awareness of that gap, that that you could be highly um developed in your sort of appreciation of art and form and aesthetics and so on, and still end up so far yield of you know, good or morality and so on. Yeah. Yeah, And I think the music was

really good. I love the German Beatles. Yeah, right in the beginning started to end it. Yeah, it's funny because I took German in high school and I remember singing I want to hold your hand. That was one of the like the things we did in class, was brought in the German Beatles. And yeah, so when that first came on, I was like, oh man, I'm in from

mcculla's class, tenth grade all over again. After this movie, I got home and went on YouTube and just like, listen to the whole playlist of all the job It's great. You know, there's like five or six of them. I think yeah, it was the kind of the perfect choice. What other music was in it? I'm trying to remove at the end Heroes, you know, a German version of that as well. Yeah, And I'm trying to remember there were any other like pop songs. I don't think so

it's just those too. Yeah. And the rest is like score maybe yeah. I think they shot it in Prague? Makes sense? Was that it? It makes sense? Well, I just mean like the in terms of ping stuff that still feels like it's from that. Yeah. You can't shoot it in Atlanta? Yeah, right right. That would have been great though, because then I could have bugged to get him in the studio. Oh you did throw out here? Oh that's true. Yeah, I know these you can't get

a director. I've tried in there. If they're in town shooting, everyone's like, come on, I don't have time. They don't. They don't have an hour for you, in ten minutes for you, which is fine, I get it. Um, what else can we talk about? What else you got? Great script? I mean it was nominated already for Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, uh at the Golden Globes, and then um Best Actor for for the Kid and that's it. I kind of thought it would be a shoe in

for a screenplay nomination. I don't know, it's maybe it's tough competition this year because they're only doing five in each category, right, are they for Golden Globes? Oh? I don't know Golden Globes. I have no idea. Yeah, Oscars, I'm thinking, yeah, are they back down to five? I think they are. Yeah, Well that's WoT you no idea? I do you know that? Like, you know, they did the ten for Best Picture for a year or two, and it seems like they've kind of walked that back

a little bit. Ten's too many. Yeah, yeah, I think we can all agree. I think it'll be a nominee for for writing. I'd love to see a couple of acting nods. I mean, I guess Scarlett Johansson is a lock for marriage Story, so I doubt if they will, although it could be a supporting actor exactly, it could be both categories. She gets leading in a supporting nomin for her to be pretty sweet? Um, and maybe you know you always like seeing kids nominated. Oh yeah, yeah,

I definitely deserve it. I mean that's it's a rarity that you get like a great performance from a kid, you know, and we got a bunch of it. That's a really special thing when that happens, Like Thomas and Mackenzie. She she should get nominated too. Yeah, I loved her demean her when she first came out. She feels kind of dangerous. She's the one hiding, right, but she feels like she has more power than he does. It does.

It's almost like, yeah, and it's interesting to say it this way, like there's a monster in the attic to him, the Jewish girl is the monster in the attic, so that that's probably the threat that he feels. But then all of a sudden, he's a little boy, got the butterfly, and yeah, she's she's cute, and oh boy, what are

these feelings? I mean, I mean that that's another critique you can make, like what if it were somebody older, somebody you know, who's not cute, you know, he probably would have sold them that might not be there, you know. So it does it does kind of raise that that question of like the dominoes had to fall a certain way for Jojo to kind of find his way out of this this mentality that he was in, because it

could have easily gone the other way. You know, it could have been somebody that he was not hesitant to report on. You know, for instance, true Love wins. Is that a message love conquers all, conquers all. Yeah, that that heartbreak at the end. You know, she doesn't feel that way about him. So she's he's tin and she's what like twelve. I think, Okay, it's one of those things where it's like the age gap kind of in a way ensures that there can't really be a relationship

there in that way, a romantic relationship. Um, so it's but I think I think she her way of looking at him is just like once once things have kind of leveled off, and he's more like he has like a crush on her. I think she just finds it endearing, but you know she's not going to act on it. Yeah, and she calls him a little brother. Yeah. Yeah, he's like the classic yeah exactly right him. Yeah, He's like, you're not a little in that opinion. It's just now

hitting me to that. Sam Rockwell, he played a character that had some controversy in the Billboards movie too. Yeah, I've heard he's like cornered the market on that Yeah, authority becomes sympathetic. Yeah, yeah, I gets. I mean I see the point people are making. Maybe I'm just a dumb dumb who checks my brain at the door a little bit. I mean, you see, you see him do much worse on screen and three billboards than you do

here here. He's just kind of like the goofy camp counselor who I think there's some reference to he Like he's already messed up in some other capacity, so he's been reduced to this kind of that's like the first speech that he has when he's in front of all the kids, he's like, you know, I forget what it was, but he's like, I goofed up and that's why I'm here, you know. So and then he gets further the Great Grenades, Yeah,

is blown back. So he's not like he's a bad Nazi in a number of ways, you know, Yeah, And I mean at the clearly the worst way that he's a bad Nazi is that he's I don't think he's a true Nazi in his heart, Like every action he takes in the movie kind of subverts it. Yeah, for the most part, And that ending is great, you know, he he gives up his own life to save Jojo. Yeah, I do. I love that scene where you know Jojo

as a child. It really doesn't understand why he's telling him to leave, why he's telling him to run away, why he's taking his uniform off him and all that. Sam Rockwell of course obviously knows that, Yeah, he's liable to get executed if he hangs around, so he's just like, just you know, just get out of her. Yeah. I kind of wondered if it was a throw back to

the beginning when Jojo can't kill the rabbit. Um, and just that like when you're faced with the moment and then and Sam Rockwell kind of seeze this innocent rabbit, it was like trying to save it. Yeah, I think you're right, Annie, I totally think you're right. Uh. And then the real ending, you know, with those kids going out on the street and seeing life returning and then dancing together. It was just so perfect, such a sweet ending. Uh. It really like, uh, hit you in all the right spots.

I think, Yeah, And and and this is after Jojo has lied to her and ny one and she has to stay and that forever. But then he that was a tense moment. I was like, oh, man, like you were going in the right direction. Yeah, you have aired. So what was going on there? He just wanted to keep her. He was afraid of what was going to happen. He was going to lose her, to leave because he doesn't have anybody now yeah, I mean he's an orphan now.

So yeah, there were so many tense moments like that, and of course, you know you already mentioned briefly the one where she got the age wrong. Uh man, I was I thought they were going to take her. That was super tense that scene. Yeah, yeah, that would have been the other big moment. So what happens to Jojo? Now he's I mean, is there a dad that's going to come back? No? I think I think don't they don't They even say that he's dead at some point.

They might make a casual reference to I thought I remember that, but yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of throughout that either he deserted or died or right away. And the way it's Scarlett Johanson's character, Rosie, she kind of carries herself as if he's not coming whatever. In the cases, he's not coming back right right. So I feel like they said something about going to Paris. I know that her boyfriend was dead. For some reason, I

seemed to recall that they were talking about going to parents. Yeah, it seems about right. Yeah, man, I hated losing Rosie. It's one of those things in a movie where like it's the right thing for the movie, but it's just so devastating to a to a viewer. But it's a reminder of the stakes. You know, if everybody comes out okay, then it's like, what's the movie about. Really? Yeah, you had to have something like that. Yeah, And I honestly I should have seen it coming, but I did it.

Um And in that part where Jojo witnesses her like handing out the flyers after he's putting up all of these ro Nazi fires and she's handing out these kind of resistance flyers. In the first group of people they saw hanging in the square, they had those flying to

them as a warning. So she knew, yeah, that they were they were onto her, and she kept doing it anyway to stuff anything else, Well, I was going to talk a little bit about this movie does have kind of a number of I would say predecessors or or

or just movies that are somehow in conversation with this movie. Uh, there's a movie that Roberto Russellini made right at the end of World War Two in the actual bombed out Berlin, like in the actual ruins, called Germany Year Zero, which is about a young kid around JoJo's age who was you know, former Hitler youth. The war now being just over, and it's it's a very kind of like brutal film about this kid wandering through the rubble of the city and it does not have a happy ending. You know,

things do not work out well for that kid. He's really Um it's about sort of this generation that was caught in the crossfire of all this stuff, of being indoctrinated into this this hateful ideology and then having all that fall away, and now they're kind of just in this awkward position of we're still kids, so we're not really fully morally responsible in the way that an adult would be, but we are still kind of we've been given that belief in what do we do now. That's

one film. There's a German film called The Tin Drum, which I believe might have one um like Best Foreign Film at the Oscars and I think nine when it came out, Um which is kind of told from the perspective of this German boy and he has It's it's sort of in that absurdist fantasy kind of tone as well, Um, who kind of reject you know, all of society, Um, German society at that time. Yeah, it's sort of felt familiar. I mean, kids during war and it was Empire of

the Sun and hoping glory. Like there are films that have sort of danced through that world before. Uh, that is just so tragic, you know, a child in wartime and most of these movies are either alone or with a gang of other kids who have been either disassociated from their folks or they've died. Yeah, there's there's sort of left without an adult figure and they really have to grow up fast if they're going to survive. Another film like that's come and see. Have you seen that film?

No that I listened to the Friendly Fire episode on that made me totally want to see it and never see it. At the same time, I would say see it, you know, um it sounds like a slog well, I mean it is unrelenting lye bleak ye and it's the kind of film that I probably I probably will not watch again. You know, maybe maybe because it is extremely well made. Um, but man, it is it is just like a knife in the heart for like two and a half hours. It's really long as well. And um,

it's it's one. But to me, it's just kind of it. It is what the most real feeling film about being a child abandoned in wartime and really like what that must have been like. And to me it made the war so much more like viscerally, um understandable in a way that I had never quite grasped before from even other films about children in wartime. Um, this one is just like it's so um unblinking, you know, in in the way it depicts what happens in war. So you know,

it's it's an important film. It's a really really well made film, but it is extremely hard to watch. Cann't see, Annie, I have not seen it. No, all right, that's all I've got, Jojo Rabbit fantastic. Shall we give it some thumbs out of five? Annie, you go first, I'll give it four, all right, Casey, I'll give it three and a half, three and a half thumbs. Yeah, it's it's it's one that I mean, I saw it a couple of weeks ago. It's one that hasn't necessarily stuck in

my mind very much. Um So, I don't think it's it's something that I'm going to be thinking about for a long time per se. But I do have to give it, you know, a lot of respect for for just taking something so challenging as this material in this tone and actually coming out of it looking pretty good. So he's certainly an exciting filmmaker. Yeah. Yeah, He's one of those where we're catching him right at the beginning

and we get to see so much. I'm so thankful that we get to see all this stuff unfold before us and what is going to be a really unusual career. It does make me want to see his other films, so that's always a good sign. I'm gonna give it four and a half because I thought it all all worked and for what it was, it it hit all the marks for me, So four and a half thumbs for Joe Joe Rabbit. I can't wait to see it again.

It did stick with me. I found myself thinking about this movie a lot for like the week after I saw it, And uh, Emily has not seen it yet, and she really wants to so maybe I'll try and get out in the theater before it leaves again with her. That's my goal. Alright. Uh, New Year's over. Thanks y'all. Thank you a lot of fun. I think. Well, we'll definitely do more round tables. It didn't necessarily have to be oscar stuff. Uh, these are a lot of fun,

so let's just do more thistly alright, Happy Holidays. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.