In Defense of "Jojo Rabbit"

Please welcome guest contributor Rita Maricone-Dorsch...

Last night, I sat down to revisit Jojo Rabbit, this time with my son, who is equal parts World War II aficionado, Marvel fanboy, and already-pretty-woke tween. Taika Watiti's self-labeled 'anti-hate satire' seemed custom made for his sensibilities. But why do you like this movie so much, he asked me. 

I've been wrestling with this question since the film's release, and since my own impression of it differed so drastically from most reviews, including the positive takes. I didn't see a too-tame provocation that poked easy fun at Nazis. I didn't see a project intended to humanize bigoted white men. I'm not sure it's even best described as an anti-hate satire. To me, Jojo Rabbit was a sweet little allegory about a dangerously underrepresented and urgent subject: the emotional education of boys...

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Oscar Dressed as Each 2019 Best Picture Nominee

Chris here. One of my very favorite annual Oscar traditions comes from artist Olly Gibbs. Every year he drapes the Oscar statuette with a memorable look from each of the year's Best Picture nominees, adding in small touches to fawn over. Some of my favorite details in this year's offering: the Parasite peach and Foofoo guest appearance, Marriage Story's award pedestal being split in two, Jojo Rabbit's secret cabinet, and the perfect color story match to Joker's curtain. You can get a closer look at each of Olly Gibbs' statues here!

Best Picture in Monochrome

by Cláudio Alves

The trend of rereleasing critical darlings in black and white is apparently here to stay. After George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road and James Mangold’s Logan, it’s time for Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite to be revisited in sharp monochrome. The artistic value of such exercises is dubious, but they do offer a chance to reflect upon a film’s visual idiom and aesthetic construction. After all, do these works gain something by being in color? Is that an intrinsic part of their form or simply a consequence of convention? Would they be better, at least better looking, in black and white?

Those answers will have to remain unanswered, but as a fun exercise here are some from this year’s Best Picture nominees. They’ve been drained of color for your pleasure…

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20:19 with "The Irishman" and "Marriage Story"

Time to play 20:19. We had intended to rank every Best Picture nominees by how intriguing their 20th minute and 19th second was until our DVD player (remember those?) decided to malfunction. Oops. So streaming it is with just two of 'em. Pretend you haven't seen either of these Best Picture nominees. What do you suppose these two movies are about based on these fleeting images?

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Echoes from Oscars Past

by Cláudio Alves

The past always returns, one way or the other. It haunts the present and prophesizes our uncertain futures. That's why History is a cycle of recurring nightmares and dreams, one overtaking the other in ruthless combat.

Anyway, we're here to talk about the Academy Awards. The ghosts of Oscars past always come to haunt the current races, helping shape narratives, setting records to be broken and announcing patterns of cyclical discontent. Regarding the Best Picture nominees of 2019, here are some of the Oscar champions of the past that haunt them… 

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