Armageddon Time (2022)

Jack and I liked this story of Paul, a rebellious, artistic, Jewish 6th grader in 1980 Queens New York, dealing with antisemitism, racism, and family expectations. Banks Repeta stars as Paul, and powerful acting from Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong as Paul's parents and Anthony Hopkins as his loving grandfather contribute to the fabric. Tovah Feldshuh plays Hopkins' wife, despite being 14 years younger than he in real life.

Inspired by director/writer James Gray's childhood, the movie does take a few liberties with the history of the Trump family, but it gives Jessica Chastain a nice cameo as the former guy's sister Maryanne Trump.

Fourteen minutes of the dreamy soundtrack by Christopher Spelman is available on Apple Music and elsewhere, and can be spiced up by these songs from the movie, available on Spotify.

Having been neither a child nor a parent in 1980, I have questions about discipline depicted here, so contact me after you've seen it and we can discuss!

Hathaway was last blogged for Ocean's Eight, Strong for The Trial of the Chicago 7, Hopkins for The Father, and Gray for The Immigrant. Now-16-year-old Repeta is no newcomer to acting but new to me, Feldshuh has made over a hundred TV shows and movies and has four Tony nominations, and Spelman scored The Immigrant, one other Gray feature, and worked in the music department of Two Lovers, which Gray directed and co-wrote and I somehow forgot to write that fact in the blog.

This movie is beginning to rack up awards and nominations, despite Rotten Tomatoes' critics just surviving with an average of 76% and its audiences dying off at 48%.

We rented it on Apple TV/iTunes on December 6.