Two of my favorite movies of 2019

Heyyyyy. It’s been a while. I guess that will be how I’ll start every blog post from now on haha. It’s been over a year and so many things have changed and so many movies watched. I got married 2 months ago and now have some more time to (hopefully) bring this back. It’ll feel good to write for fun again. So far this year I have seen about 37 of the films released in 2019- 20 of them in the theater. Head over to my Letterboxd list to see all the films I’ve watched so far this year. I’ll make sure post my top ten here once the year is up, even though probably no one is reading this. 

The last 2 movies I saw will most likely be on top of that list- ‘Jojo Rabbit’ and ‘Honey Boy’. November was a really hard month for me and it’s slowly getting better now but these movies both really hit home for me in different ways. Both have similar messages- “keep going, you can get through this”. Movies have always been my one constant in life. The characters and stories help me feel comforted even when I’m feeling so alone. That’s one reason why I love movies so much (not that you asked at all). Ok enough of this fucking pity party, let me tell you about ‘Jojo Rabbit’.

Jojo Rabbit (RT 79%)

Cut to the chase: A World War 2 satire that makes fun of nazi’s while also showing the real life horrors of living in germany during that time.

I loved this movie so much. It is all about a boy named Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) who aspires to be a nazi. Seems like a weird premise but it made the film unlike any other nazi germany movie I’ve seen before. It gave me Wes Anderson vibes and I loved the style. Jojo is totally brainwashed by his facist government (hmm sounds familiar) and wants nothing more than to fight for germany in the war. Throughout the film Jojo is visited by his imaginary friend in the form of Hitler- played by the director Taika Waititi. His scenes were some of my favorites, he poked fun at Hitler and added comic relief to the darker points of the movie. When Jojo is at an SS training camp and asked to kill a rabbit with his bare hands he refuses and tries to set the rabbit free. All the kids make fun of him and call him Jojo Rabbit and then they snap the rabbits neck in front of him. It’s clear that Jojo is blindly following the nationalist propaganda at the time and isn’t aware of just how horrible his “heroes” really are. 

The turning point of the movie is when Jojo discovers a jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in the walls of his house. His mom (Scarlett Johansson) is letting her take sanctuary in their house until the war is over. Jojo fights with whether or not to tell his nazi friends about her but the more he gets to know her the harder it becomes. 

Fueled with panic attacks, I walked into this just hoping to get through the movie without dying. I had been wanting to see this since it first came out so even though I didn’t feel good, I wanted to see it in theaters before it was too late. At the time I was in and out of panic attacks for weeks on end. It’s getting better and I know I’ll be fine but it still sucks so much to live with this. We went to a little theater in Palo Alto that only has 2 theaters in it. I like small theaters, it reminds me of what movie-going used to be like. It was the only theater that was playing the movie at the time but conveniently it is now back in our theater with tons of showtimes. Oh well, it was a fun adventure. At the end of the movie there was a quote that appeared at the end with a german version of David Bowie’s Heroes playing. The quote says: 

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final

-Ranier Marie Rilke

That really helped me start to overcome everything. It made me feel less alone and gave me a sense of hope.

I hope this movie gets nominated for some awards even though it is an indie movie. I thought it was really unique and the kid actors were so good. I highly recommend checking this one out!

Honey Boy (RT 94%)

Cut to the chase: Written in rehab by Shia LaBeouf, ‘Honey Boy’ is a painful sneak peek into his life struggling to grow up as a child actor and his complicated relationship with his unstable and volatile father.

I had been looking forward to this movie for such a long time now. I grew up watching Shia LaBeouf in ‘Even Stevens’ and always read that he had a troubled past. I remember hearing that he got an audition for ‘Even Stevens’ himself by calling and pretending to be his manager. I had no idea of what kind of life he was living while working on that show though.

The film is based on his life but he renames his character Otis- an equally unique name as Shia. We start out seeing him as adult Otis (Lucas Hedges) doing stunts for what had to have been one of the ‘Transformers’ movies. Then it cuts to him as young Otis (Noah Jupe) doing a similar stunt in what looks like ‘Even Stevens’. After they cut he tries to take the harness off but can’t do it himself so he finds his dad (played by no other than Shia LaBeouf) and asks him to do it for him. This scene was so painful to watch as his dad starts to help but keeps getting distracted by a woman on set that he is flirting with. I could feel Otis’ frustration as his dad keeps starting to help and stopping again. With something so quick like unbuckling a harness, it was painful to watch how long it took his dad to free him from it. This was definitely a good way to show his dad’s personality and set up the dynamic between him and his son early on in the film. His dad was always distracted in the moments that he needed him the most. 

Otis and his dad live out a dingy motel while he is getting his start on ‘Even Stevens’. As the film progresses you start to see the emotional abuse that he has to endure every day. At times it seemed that his dad was just down on his luck and really cared for his son while other times he was depicted as a straight up monster. The emotional rollercoaster that this film puts you through is rough but in the end makes you really aplaude Shia LaBeouf for all that he has gone through in his life. Just goes to show, you never know what someone is going through until you walk in their shoes.

Alma Har'el directed and shot this 90 minute movie in 20 days. 20 days! I have a whole new respect for this film after finding that out. Some of these scenes are so emotional and gut wrenching it really shows how great these actors are that they were able to produce such phenomenal work in that small amount of time. Having only directed documentaries before, this was Har'el’s narrative debut and boy did she crush it. I can’t wait until it comes out to video so that I can watch it again.

I was worried when we went to see because there was literally only one showing of ‘Honey Boy’ and it was at 10:40 at night. I was hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep but I knew I had to see this movie and with only one showtime it is only a matter of time before it leaves the theater. Hopefully it gets an Oscar nod but considering how small of a film it is and the fact that it isn’t nominated for any GG’s I feel doubtful. Regardless, you should go find out where it's playing near you and see it to support the filmmakers. I still can’t believe this whole film was shot in only 20 days.

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed reading the reviews. Oscar season is upon us again so I’ll be seeing lots more movies coming up. Stay tuned for my top 10 of the year. Thanks for reading and see ya later!