Jojo Rabbit!

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Trailer here.

Who’s with me?

ETA:

Writer director Taika Waititi (THOR: RAGNAROK, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE), brings his signature style of humor and pathos to his latest film, JOJO RABBIT, a World War II satire that follows a lonely German boy (Roman Griffin Davis as JoJo) whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his single mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic. Aided only by his idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

I marked 18 October on my calendar!

[Sunny_Daze]

That sounds both odd and interesting. I’ll keep an eye out.

[Banksiaman]

Trailer and article with a bit of context on the film’s background here.

A bit of his earlier work that people may not have seen.

[lisiate]

This could end up being amazingly terrible or terribly amazing. And I have no idea which.

[DerNils]

That Trailer left me openmouthed - latest when I realised Taika is playing Adolf himself! That is so out of the left field. And I just came back from Hearing he is doing Thor 4 AND probably Akira afterwards (as the Studio is ready to wait for him). Good times! That man has an aboslutely amazing Output at the Moment and never ceases to surprise me.

[GuanoLad]

Somebody else mentioned somewhere that it looks like a Wes Anderson film but with proper jokes in, and it totally does. Taika doesn’t really have a signature style cinematographically, but he definitely does structurally and comedically.

On a tenuously related note, I once worked on a movie that had Taika in it, before he was famous, and here’s some info on it.

[ZipperJJ]

All of his projects have been a huge hit with me, so I am very much looking forward to this!

[Equipoise]

@lisiate

This could end up being amazingly terrible or terribly amazing. And I have no idea which.

I refuse to believe that the man who directed What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok could possibly direct anything terrible. The premise is strange, but I’m there opening day.

(I know he co-directed Shadows with Jemaine Clement)

[gaffa]

@Equipoise

I refuse to believe that the man who directed What We Do In The Shadows, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok could possibly direct anything terrible. The premise is strange, but I’m there opening day.

(I know he co-directed Shadows with Jemaine Clement)

He did Eagle Versus Shark which was absolutely horrible.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

This film just had it’s premier at the Toronto International Film Festival and according to this article, reactions were somewhat mixed. I think that’s prolly normal for a film this far out of everyone’s comfort zone, so I remain optimistic.

Whether Waititi managed to pull it off was of considerable debate once his film did hit audiences Sunday night in Toronto. “Jojo Rabbit” was hailed as a masterpiece, Waititi’s eccentric opus and a worthy heir to Charlie Chaplin’s “The Dictator” by some, while others deemed it a badly misjudged misfire that awkwardly melds humor with atrocity no better than Roberto Benigni’s schmaltzy “Life Is Beautiful” did two decades before it.

Entertainment Weekly called it “an audacious piece of Third Reich whimsy that almost definitely shouldn’t work as well as it does.” Variety called it ”‘Life Is Beautiful’ made with attitude.’”

“Jojo Rabbit,” which Fox Searchlight will release Oct. 18, had come into Toronto one of the festival’s biggest question marks. It might leave that way, too.

Another 6 weeks and the rest of can see it and decide for ourselves, eh.

[ftg]

@lisiate

This could end up being amazingly terrible or terribly amazing. And I have no idea which.

The “dark comedy” aspect troubles me. Nearly all the alleged “dark comedies” I’ve seen in recent years are not at all funny. And with the Hitler thing, I think the odds of this being negatively received are going to be quite high.

[DigitalC]

Wait, the negative review compares it to “Life is beautiful”? lol, holy shit. What’s the opposite of damning with faint praise?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Life Is Beautiful was, for me, an incredibly difficult film to watch and immediately went onto my list of Films I Am Glad I Watched But That I Don’t Ever Want To See Again.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@DigitalC

Wait, the negative review compares it to “Life is beautiful”? lol, holy shit. What’s the opposite of damning with faint praise?

Yeah, I don’t get how comparing a film to a Best Picture nominee (and Foreign Film winner) is supposed to be a negative.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Life Is Beautiful also made more than 10x it’s budget.

[Jonathan_Chance]

Yeah, that’s sure not exactly a bad thing.

In any event, Waititi’s got enough good will from me to bring me to the theater. I know a bunch of people will get uncomfortable seeing Hitler portrayed in this style but that’s part of the message, I think. It’ll be fun to see what he does with it.

[Richard_Pearse]

@GuanoLad

On a tenuously related note, I once worked on a movie that had Taika in it, before he was famous, and here’s some info on it.

On an even more tenuously related note, I once worked on a short film directed by Robert Sarkies (the director in GuanoLad’s link), Dream Makers. I wonder if we have crossed paths in Dunedin?

[Snowboarder_Bo]

This is encouraging: ‘Jojo Rabbit’ wins Toronto’s sought-after audience award.

Taika Waititi’s Nazi Germany-set satire “Jojo Rabbit” won the People’s Choice award Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, a prize that has historically been one of the most ironclad predicators of Academy Awards chances.

Because so many of the top fall movies play in Toronto, the festival’s audience award has often been almost prophetic. For more than a decade, every People’s Choice winner has gone on to score a best-picture Oscar nomination. Last year’s winner, “Green Book,” eventually won best picture.

[Dale_Sams]

I didn’t even know Sam Rockwell was in it until i saw him on a press tour…and then he was sitting in the back mostly being quiet!

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Article/Interview with Taika Waititi:

“I still don’t even really know how to describe it without making people shift uncomfortably,” says Waititi with a shrug.

But Waititi, who’s Jewish and Maori, from the Te Whanau-a-Apanui tribe, has long delighted in melding light and dark, playful and serious. “I don’t like something where I feel like I know what’s going to happen next,” he says. “I like going from a fun moment to something tragic or shocking.”

Sam Rockwell chimes in too:

Sam Rockwell, who plays the Hitler Youth camp leader Captain Klenzendorf, considers Waititi a visionary. “He was a smart. He had a little clout from ‘Thor’ and he was like, ‘Now I want to make this movie that nobody would make,’” says Rockwell.

Rockwell, a fan of Waititi’s previous film, was drawn to the part because it’s far from a typical Nazi. Klenzendorf, to him, had a Bill Murray vibe. “Like if Bill Murray was a disillusioned Nazi,” says Rockwell. “That was my sort of take on it. Like Walter Matthau in ‘Bad News Bears,’ a little Richard Pryor in ‘Bustin’ Loose.’”

“It’s a very unique film,” muses Rockwell. “You can’t really put your finger on it.”