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Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary's Life
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Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in southern Ukraine, Trotsky was both a world-class intellectual and a...
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Field of Shadows: The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany 1937
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Adolf Hitler despised cricket, considering it un-German and decadent. And Berlin in 1937 was not a...
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Holly Johnson recommended Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk in Music (curated)
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Gertigstrasse 56
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A gripping narrative account of one family's struggle against fascism in Germany. Spanning...
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Goebbels
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Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler's most loyal acolytes. But how did this club-footed son of a...
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Operation 235
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Set in the summer of 1939, Operation 235 pits the United States against Nazi Germany, as the two...
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Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Jojo Rabbit (2019) in Movies
Jan 11, 2020
Jojo wants to be a good German, but as he's about to go off to a Nazi Youth Camp he worries about how he'll do. Luckily he has a friend to help him through it, Adolf Hitler. The Fuhrer is always with him in spirit.
Recovering at home after an accident Jojo discovers that he's not alone in the house. He discovers Elsa hiding in a wall space upstairs, hidden by his mother. Jojo is torn, he should report her to the authorities but that could be bad news for him and his mother.
I was genuinely surprised about who was turning up to see this. There were a lot of family groups and groups of teenagers. It shouldn't really shock me, everyone has their own interests in a wide variety of things, but I wasn't expecting to see such young people coming to see it.
By far my favourite thing about this film was Sam Rockwell as Captain Klenzendorf, a little bitter with his situation and begrudgingly training the kids for the battles ahead, he's making the best of a bad situation. He's funny, and more importantly, glorious in battle. From the ridiculous to a surprisingly moving scene at the end, he was the performance of the whole film for me.
Child actors have their ups and downs, some have the knack right out of the gate but I didn't really get that from Roman Griffin Davis or Archie Yates. Both got some good moments out of the script but their delivery and the consistency of the characters didn't carry through it as a whole.
Thomasin McKenzie however brought a little something extra to her role of Elsa. I didn't mind her slightly more serious parts in this but it was difficult to get much more out of it when so much revolved around her and Jojo in scenes together. I don't like "awkward" and some of the scenes are *shudder*.
I can't really talk about the film without talking about Taika Waititi as Hitler. I found him quite amusing to begin with but when the character started to change as Jojo did I felt it was a little over the top.
Dramatic moments pop up when you really aren't expecting them, two in particular stuck with me afterwards. One, as I mentioned, with Sam Rockwell and the other with Scarlett Johansson. Rockwell's was a complete surprise, but ScarJo's, though unexpected, was overplayed a lot in the build up.
Jojo Rabbit is a very odd film, I didn't know what to expect at all really and the final result left me no wiser. Entertaining yes, but not something I would have to see again.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/01/jojo-rabbit-movie-review.html
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The War Diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano 1939-43
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"In this state of mind, which excludes any falsehood, I declare that not a single word of what I...
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Freud: In His Time and Ours
Elisabeth Roudinesco and Catherine Porter
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Elisabeth Roudinesco offers a bold and modern reinterpretation of the iconic founder of...
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Joseph Goebbels
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Coming generations will ask themselves how it was possible that millions of people, victims of an...