We saw Jojo Rabbit yesterday. It was phenomenal; perhaps the best movie I've seen this year. I'd been worried that the trailer--while funny--might feature all the parts worth watching, but that wasn't the case at all. The trailer's funny bits come almost exclusively from the movie's first few minutes. The rest of the movie is just as funny, but it's also heartwarming, and heartbreaking, and it's often all of these things at the same time. Taika Waititi threads a very, very fine needle with his script but does so beautifully and is obscenely comedic in the role of Hitler, whose appearances he's wise enough to use judiciously instead of trying to steal the limelight with them in every scene. And Roman Griffin Davis' portrayal of the titular character is stunning, especially given his young age.
I contrast all of this with Between Two Ferns: The Movie, which we've tried unsuccessfully to watch several times now. The online episodes may be funny; I've never watched one and don't know. But the Netflix movie is decidedly not. Galifianakis' tone deaf interview questions are individually humorous, but coming one after the other in a barrage of insults interspersed with other characters' "Oh my god, he's so tone deaf and insulting but he doesn't even know he's so tone deaf and insulting" reflections, there's absolutely nothing surprising about the next joke, because it's exactly the same as the one that came before. Social ineptitude and cutting shade can both be incredibly funny, but are often much less so without subtlety, or at the very least, variety.
I also got a rundown on Joker from several friends who have seen it; their take was that it's a good movie but definitely one written to appeal to a very specific demographic. And fundamentally, "run-of-the-mill white dude feels hard done by because life dealt him some challenges instead of All The Success" is just boring as a narrative.
これで以上です。
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
