JoJo Rabbit

 

Roman Griffin Davis as the 10 year old JoJo is so incredibly attractive that the movie is wonderful from the opening scenes.  The "Heil Hitler" montage at the beginning shows clearly how a country was taken captive by Hitler.  JoJo is ardently German, to the extent that he has a wonderful imaginary friendship with Adolf himself (played by director Taika Waititi).  

I have to admit that my damn hearing made it difficult to understand everything.  Usually I watch movies with closed captioning, but that was not available for this film, so I missed a lot, but still I got the gist of it.  An ardent Jew-hater, JoJo finds a Jewish girl hiding in the close of his late sister's bedroom and began to learn that they aren't all as bad as he was led to believe -- they don't all smell like broccoli and don't all have horns, for example.

The relationship between the two grows and strengthens when JoJo finds his mother hung in the public square. 

It's an entertaining film and easy to see why it was nominated for an Academy Award.

The Bookshop

This is a very British, slow moving, yet engrossing story, based on the book by the same name by Penelope Fitzgerald. 

Set in the 1950s, a war widow moves to a small town to open a book store in an abandoned building which has stood empty for many years.  For reasons that are never made very clear, everyone seems to hate the idea, particularly the rich bitch who suddenly decides she wants the building for an art center.  She has so much influence that she manages to get a special bill passed by the legislature which allows the building to be taken over by the government, and ultimately the widow loses everything, but manages to get back at the town and its residents for her treatment.

In between there are friendships, mentorships, and wonderful narration.  scenes between the widow and the town's male curmudgeon are marvelous. 

I'd probably give it a 3-1/2 out of  5.  Ned would not have liked it at all.

Strike Up the Band

 

This is one of those movies where you roll your eyes on just about everything, since nothing is believable.  Still it's Mickey and Judy and it's fun to watch.

Teenage drummer Jimmy Connors (Mickey Rooney) dreams of winning the contest for school bands hosted by popular band leader Paul Whiteman (himself). In order to enter, Jimmy and his pals, including vocalist Mary Holden (Judy Garland), must accumulate $200 for the train ride to Chicago, where the contest will be held. Jimmy and his friends decide to put on an epic student play to raise the funds they need, but a sudden illness threatens to cost the band their chance.

The high school play is hilarious.  There must be 1,000 in the audience and the costumes would cost a fortune...and there is no question about whether or not Busby Berkley choreographed it!

Rent

 

Rent is the only big show I have seen on Broadway.  We've been to New York a few times and usually see a show, but it's the off Broadway shows.  I can't remember when it was that we saw Rent, but when he learned we were coming to New York, my friend Ron was thrilled to buy us tickets to see the show, which he loved.  It was early in my life as part of the The Last Session group, where it seemed most of the people loved Rent as much as they loved The Last Session.  And I was excited to actually see a BIG Broadway show.

I hated it.  It's not my kind of music, I couldn't follow the plot and I had trouble staying awake.  I raved about it, of course, because Ron was so happy to share the show with us, but I did not like it.  (I can confess that now that Ron died a couple of years ago).

As a critic, I have reviewed Rent three times and it's a difficult review to write because I still don't like the show, still have difficulty following it, don't like the music.  But I decided to record the movie and watch it, carefully.

I loved it.  I don't know what it was about the movie vs. the stage show, but got involved in the various characters and remembered who was who.  I was so glad I had seen the movie and suspect I will have a completely different feel for it the next time I have to review it