I'm Stephen McHaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest Making Matt edition.

It's Wednesday, January 29th, 2020.

On today's show, we continue our journey to the Oscars with Jojo Rabbit,

the daring curio about a young boy whose imaginary friend is. Yes, it's true. Adolf Hitler.

And then cheer on Netflix is, it's captivating everyone I know. We discussed the docu series about

the quintessentially American phenomenon of competitive cheerleading.

And finally, we have a Grammy wrap-up with Slate's own Carl Wilson. It's been too long. He is a

supreme friend of the program in S-FOP. It'll be great to talk to Carl again. But first,

Julia Turner is a deputy managing editor of the LA Times joining us from LA. Hey, Julia.

Oh, hello. And of course, Dana Stevens is the film critic for Slate.com. Hey, Dana. Hey, there.

We should note that my sound might be a little bit off today for various boring technical reasons,

but hopefully you'll be able to hear me and I'll be clear as a bell next week.

Superb. So I think let's dive right in. I'm so eager to talk about this movie.

Johannes Jojo Betzler is a young boy of 10. He lives in Nazi Germany in the waning days of the war with his mother.

His father has disappeared perhaps into the front. That's not entirely clear right at the beginning of the movie. But to

make up for this absence and to buck himself up for being a pitiably underperforming Jungvolk,

he imagines that Hitler is his friend, his life coach and mentor. The movie is written and directed by

Taika YTT, who also stars as Hitler. He's the New Zealander best known, I think, for invigorating the Thor franchise, among other things, which I'm sure we'll discuss.

Let's listen to a clip.

Poor Jojo.

What's wrong, little man?

Hi, Adolf.

...