This is the first of two spotlight reviews this week. I was planning on doing full featured reviews, but a trio of screeners showed up late, not to mention of pair of screeners that arrived on time. There’s only so much time in the day…

Ford v Ferrari - Buy from Amazon: DVD, Blu-ray Combo Pack, or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack
Ford v Ferrari was a success both in terms of box office numbers and Awards Season, for the most part. It cost a lot to make, so it will need a lot of help on the home market to break even. Additionally, while it was one of the Best Picture nominees, its only wins came in technical categories. This creates great expectations, but with some caveats. Can it live up to these expectations?

The film begins in the 1960s with … IT’S PRONOUCHED POR SCHE! IT’S TWO DAMN SYLLABLES!!! … I had to get that off my chest before the film drove me completely nuts.

The film beings in the 1960s with the Ford Motor Company in financial difficulty. They are losing market share to their rival and they need to do something to survive. Lee Iacocca has an idea. Henry Ford II should buy Ferrari from Enzo Ferrari and use their racing division to win Le Mans. Enzo agrees to a meeting; however, it’s a trick. He had no intention to selling to Ford, but was only using them to raise the sales price from a competing Fiat offer. That would have been bad enough, but Enzo goes out of his way to insult Henry Ford II.

After that, Henry Ford II is 100% committed to winning the Le Mans and is willing to spend a lot money to do so. He gets Lee Iacocca to put together a team and the first person he hires is Carroll Shelby, the only American to win the Le Mans in the past, but who was forced to retire from racing due to heart troubles. Shelby in turn hires Ken Miles, a temperamental racer who has the skills to be a pro, but not the people skills to be part of a team. Personality clashes will make the technical challenges even more difficult.

I’m of two minds when it comes to this film. On the one hand, I liked the movie well enough to recommend it. On the other hand, it didn’t live up to its reviews / Awards Season success. It’s a movie about manly men doing manly things, in this case driving cars really fast, for the manliest of reasons, spite. The film can be quite compelling in this regard. Matt Damon and Christian Bale do have enough chemistry to keep the film engaging, but they can’t elevate the material beyond the genre clichés. I especially disliked the film turning a real life person into a villain for dramatic reasons. Overcoming the technical challenges should have been enough and they could have made the nameless French rules enforcers the bad guys in the end. Spoiler warning, Even if Ken Miles had been tied for first place in Le Mans, he wouldn’t have been given first, because his teammate started out in behind him, thus robbing him of the Triple Crown regardless.) It also would have more strongly tied in with an earlier scene were Ken gets around a different regulation by pounding his car trunk out of shape and with the brake change scene, thus it would have been a perfect example of the Rule of Three. There was no need to make a real life person the bad guy.

There is only one extra on the disc, but it is a multi-part, hour-long making-of featurette. Definitely quality over quantity and while I would rather have quality and quantity, I’d pick quality if I had the choice.

Ford v Ferrari is a good movie, bordering on great, and it is definitely worth checking out. The DVD / Blu-ray / 4K Ultra HD doesn’t have a lot of extras, but what it has is worth picking up.

Jojo Rabbit - Reviews - Buy from Amazon: DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack
Video on Demand
The second spotlight review of the week is also for an Oscar winner, although this one earned it for Best Adapted Screenplay, which is a much more prestigious award. This does raise the expectations, but are expectations too high?

We meet Jojo Betzler as he is getting a pep talk from his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler. Jojo is about to join the Jungvolk under the leadership of Captain Klenzendorf, but he’s unsure he has what it takes. He doesn’t. He tries to make up for his deficiencies by being an enthusiastic Nazi. It doesn’t work, as he still becomes a target for older bullies. Fortunately, Yorkie, his best friend, also doesn’t have what it takes, so at least he has someone to be miserable with.

Jojo lives with his loving mother, Rosie, while his father is on the Italian front. They lost communication with him a while ago. Furthermore, his older sister, Inge, died of the flu, so it is just the two of them. Because of this, it is understandable that Rosie is upset when Jojo blows himself up with a grenade. He survives and is relatively unharmed. Rosie convinces Captain Klenzendorf to allow Jojo to work in the office and his first assignment is putting up propaganda and sending out conscription notices. Jojo arrives home early, but his mother isn’t home. Jojo does hear noises and when he investigates, he find a girl hiding in their sister’s bedroom. It’s Elsa Korr, who was a friend of Inge... and who is Jewish. Jojo’s first instinct is to tell the authorities, but Elsa counters with an intriguing proposal, do that and I’ll kill you. Also, as she points out, if anyone finds out she’s there, the authorities will hang Rosie for being a traitor and we know this is a real threat, because Rosie and Jojo saw several people hanged in the town square that day.

Jojo has a plan. He will negotiate with Elsa, and in exchange for not telling anyone, she has to tell Jojo all of her Jewish secrets. After all, in order to defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy. Of course, it is no surprise that as Jojo spends more time with Elsa, he realizes she’s not his enemy. That’s not really a spoiler, as it is the entire point of the movie.

While Ford v Ferrari missed expectations, Jojo Rabbit actually beat them, for me. I’m annoyed that Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie didn’t get more Awards Season attention. If the film didn’t have two stellar young actors in the lead, then it could have been painful to watch. I think we can all think of a film or two that was greatly harmed, if not ruined, because one of the main roles was cast too young and they couldn’t find an age-appropriate actor for the part that had the talent to carry the film. That is not a problem here. Even Archie Yates, who is only in a few scenes, is amazing in the film. Every time Yorkie is on screen, he steals the movie.

The film also has a bounty of impressive supporting actors. Scarlett Johansson earned an Oscar nomination for her performance and she really deserved it. However, she isn’t the only actor who deserved a lot of praise here. Sam Rockwell again proves he one hell of a talented actor and he should certainly get more respect than he currently does. Of course, a lot of the credit has to go to Taika Waititi, both with his script and his direction. Also, you can’t talk about the film without giving him credit for his performance, which takes the piss out of Hitler in a way I haven’t seen since The Producers and I don’t compare a film to the work of Mel Brooks lightly.

The only negative aspect is the film’s subject matter. Even the filmmakers understand there are parts of the movie that will make audiences uncomfortable, so if you are looking for a light-hearted comedy, then look elsewhere. Then again, I don’t think there are many people who would go into a movie where Adolf Hitler is a character and expect to not be made uncomfortable at least once or twice in the film.

The extras are solid with an audio commentary track with the director, a 30-minute making-of featurette, nine minutes of deleted scenes, and three minutes of outtakes. It is easily worth picking up and a contender for Pick of the Week.

I went into Jojo Rabbit with high expectations and it exceeded them. The DVD, Blu-ray, or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack have more than enough extras to be a Pick of the Week contender.