The Joker

[The NZA]

Scoop: DoD has issued a warning to U.S. service members about a potential mass shooting at screenings of the film Joker, telling moviegoers to "run, hide, fight"@io9 confirmed the warning is based on an FBI intelligence bulletin (FOUO) about "incels"https://t.co/pcJBpKoLWd

— dell cameron (@dellcam) September 24, 2019

[Iambaytor]

On 9/9/2019 at 7:18 PM, Iambaytor said:

I'm optimistic that this will turn out good but based on the bad reviews and the good reviews I'm concerned that beyond the social commentary angle this may just be a dumb fucking movie and Joaquin Phoenix may be reaching for the coveted Most Acting Award. I'm hoping not, but Pheonix does occasionally overdo it and there is no evidence that Todd Phillips can handle a project of this caliber at all.

 

Just when you thought it was safe to think Todd Phillips wasn't a dumbfuck who doesn't understand context or nuance, hoo boy he sure is!

 

Still gonna give this a chance but if his comments were meant to calm the concern that maybe this was just some filmbro aping tropes of better movies without a proper understanding of those movies and their messaging, then he really fucked that up.  If this thing ends up being everything we've dreamed I think we can file this and Green Book as exhibits A and B of why raunchy sophomoric comedy directors shouldn't make movies that have something to say.

[The NZA]

yeah...I'm gonna sidestep the horseshoe theory bullshit of far left & far right (read: the far left doesn't care/want this banned at the least), but his comments on john wick "getting a pass" make me question the foundation of his understanding of the character here

 

like, he does know an anti ?-hero from a villain, yeah? cause I'm not so sure now 

[Iambaytor]

Not only does he not seem to know the difference between anti-heroes and villains he maybe doesn't understand the differences between genres and tones. Considering the tightrope this movie will have to walk to not be a dogwhistling trainwreck it doesn't bode well.

[Donatella]

I was looking forward to this but now I just want it to come and go so this conversation ends (not on Hondos, but in general!). 

[Iambaytor]

Oh me too, I'm sick of the "How will people know that violence is bad LOL" and "Just wait and see it LOL" takes coming from people who are smart enough to understand that criticism isn't censorship, tone and representation matters, and the way a piece of art is presented is a very big part of how it is received. If I hear one more Joe Lieberman jibe by somebody with a brain, I swear to fuck-

 

[Iambaytor]

This movie is hot fucking garbage.

 

 

I won't spoil plot points but no, Todd Phillips does not handle the idea of the Joker with nuance. No, it does not reveal The Joker to be wrong, delusional perhaps but he sees through all the bullshit to like how the world really is, man. It totally glorifies Arthur Fleck's worldview and even if you're going to argue that it doesn't because some people react in horror, the movie totally blames exterior forces for Arthur being the way he is. This is two hours of excuses for why it's society's fault that someone would become this.  There's not even a good counterpoint to Arthur Fleck, the closest thing to a good person in this movie is a character played by Zazie Beetz who is a massively underwritten female character even by Todd Phillips standards. But that's just the social aspect of the film, lets focus on it from a film-making standpoint.

 

There's a lot of great set design here. Gotham City is 1970s New York, there's no modern technology, modern music, modern vehicles. This is a period piece though it exists in Stranger Thingesque year of 197*cough*. Cinematography is great, like really really good, and hey there's Shea Whigam. He's great in everything.

 

You know who's not great? Joaquin Phoenix. I don't mean in general, I mean in this movie. This is to dramatic performances what Jim Carey is to comedic performances. He's acting so. hard. every. minute. And the movie is fucking loving it, there's several bits where he just dances like an idiot while ethereal music plays as if something profound is happening. It's like Wes Bentley and the plastic bag in American Beauty, except stupider somehow.

 

And remember how I said Todd Phillips didn't handle the sociological element with nuance? That's partially because he handles nothing in the movie with nuance, he's playing a grand piano with two claw hammers here. This movie is shallow as shit and it's not even slightly subtle, the movie all-but stops and has Phoenix step out of character to explain what's happening.

 

Oh but there's tons of visual tributes to 70s films, especially the films of Martin Scorsese whose Taxi Driver and King of Comedy were nakedly plagiarized to create this film. Do you remember that time they had Sting come on stage with Bruno Mars and play Locked Out of Heaven but Sting couldn't give two shits about Bruno Mars or his silly The Police soundalike song? That's Robert De Niro here, outside of interviews I have never seen this titan of acting less invested in anything.

 

Watch Maniac, Falling Down, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, Death Wish, or just pull up a list of movies from the seventies and point at a random one. Leave this turd on the sidewalk where it belongs.

[Donatella]

Okay, but tell us how you really feel. 

[The NZA]

....well, damn

adjusting expectations accordingly here

[Donatella]

Yeah. That was bad. My expectations couldn’t have been lower and even that didn’t help. It was almost insufferable. 

[The NZA]

it was...okay, i guess?  somewhere between missed opportunities & just way overdone

 

- the early bits (that we saw from the trailers) really did just push jokes as a mentally unwell but otherwise kind dude pushed into becoming what he is, and it doesn't really relent on that even after the various beatings

 

- baytor's right, phoenix is trying super hard at a lot of times, not so much with his ticks as just to show pain behind the laughter & all.  the only times it shined were the few deliveries that actually felt subtle

like he wasn't so terribly off the mark as say esinerberg's lex, but joods made the mistake of having us see a few clips of ledger's joker this evening and i know, not really the same character but damn, the look of effortlessness on heath's part felt masterclass in comparison

 

- hoo boy the way this thing handled mental health was ah-not-so-good

 

-speaking of: okay the pump fake of is-he-bats'-brother was something for a moment, but why have him adopted?  to maintain an iota of mystery, or just verify to the audience he's totally not thomas'? 

because i gotta say, setting up his poor ma as psychopathic delusions & narcissism, then clearly showing him with all of that, just to say they're not actually related but maybe his childhood trauma passed on those specific conditions i guess?  that was a few unnecessary hoops to jump through

 

- 70's NY/gotham was just a place of people waiting to fuck everyone around them up and that kinda made joker's ascent feel a little hollow but that might be me

 

- his savage attack on his shitty cowoker towards the end with the scissors was...like was i watching mr zsasz here or what

 

- i feel like we needed another have dozen dancing scenes, maybe some quiet smoking ones too.  hopefully the snyder cut features these

 

- i know it's not just DC doing this but man some of the overproduced scenes still feel like they're shot for hot topic merch.  given that i'm on other forums seeing nerds talk about how this should take the oscer, i guess this formula works but i still don't get it - sure, if you've built towards your big transformation scene, some booming epic music can accompany but too much and it feels like parody

 

- this really didn't warrant the controversy - there wasn't really incel stuff, yeah he's a glorified shooter and again, the mental health shit was mostly horrible but this wasn't interesting enough to be this era's falling down or something

[Mr. Hakujin]

Just saw JOKER tonight. Firstly, I went in to this with really low expectations. The trailer did not impress me. I felt like it revealed too much of the plot (which it did) and that plot seemed very derivative (which it was). And the one review I read prior to seeing the film took a giant shit all over it. Secondly, fuck was I surprised by how much I liked this film! 

 

Good: Cast. Characters. Cinematography. Soundtrack. Pacing. An origin.

 

The cast is outstanding. Phoenix takes a roll that has had at least two other actors perform it with the word "iconic" attached to it yet his is still fresh, engaging, and totally his own. Is he looking about 10-15 years too old to fit into the traditional Batman/Joker dynamic? Yeah. Is it a big deal? Not really.  Fleck Joker is not Killing Joke  Joker. He doesn't just have "one bad day" to push him over the edge. Fleck's journey over the edge is the film. It's not a bad day that creates Fleck's Joker but literally a lifetime of them.

 The supporting cast was also great. They all are memorable in their roles but not distracting from the main attraction. Even DeNiro just kinda fits in to the aesthetic of the whole film. The only face that really stands out is Fleck/Joker's gorgeous neighbor, Zazie Beetz, but that is even calculated as it's a clue to the "delusion twist" later in the third act. 

Part of the allure of the Joker as a character is that he represents the "unknown." He's unpredictable. His motives seemingly random. Chaos personified. The perfect unbalanced yin to Batman's balanced, methodical, and calculated yang. Nolan & company exploited this aspect of the Batman/Joker dynamic brilliantly in The Drak Knight. However, like Burton's 1989 Batman, this film gives laughing boy a definitive origin. Mostly. It's still left a bit open as to his parentage--is he really Thomas Wayne & Penny Fleck's love child? Thomas certainly comes off as enough of a dick in this film to leave that doubt. And the inscription on the back of that photo of a young Penny was from "T.S." But the adoption papers are somehow in her mental health file at Arkham? Okay. But the evidence that Penny was/is a cook is also pretty strong. But despite the mystery of Fleck Joker's lineage, this film chronicles the mental breakdown of one man into a supervillain pretty clearly. Unlike Nicholson's Joker, who was motivated by revenge and power, Fleck's Joker is a crossroads of pain and insanity meeting at rage junction.

I love the way this film was shot and scored. We're all the heroes of our own stories and Fleck's Joker is no different. The cinematography reflects this. Scorsese  and early 80s NYC is a huge influence on the aesthetic of this film, and I dig it. I am also a huge Sinatra fan, so I loved that both the soundtrack to the film and the one in Fleck's head is filled with Sinatra's music. A lot of dancing Joker memes going about already, and yeah, the movie could've done with about 10-12% less dancing Joker, but I think it's a big part of who this guy is. There was one scene when, no kidding, I felt like Joaqin Phoenix did the only interpretive dance performance I'd ever watched from start to finish. He expressed his anger, sorrow, and loneliness all through dance. And I was transfixed. Bravo. 

And the music was also a big part of the pacing of the film. I'll go more into it in the next section, but for a movie that had a glaringly predictable plot, it moved along nicely and never had me bored.

 

Bad/Meh: Plot-

 

You really see where this thing is headed from the get go and there are few to no surprises. Again, a lot of that is the fault of the trailer. The

Taxi Driver & King of Comedy parallels were all there. The only mild surprise was the relationship with his neighbor (Domino!) being a figment of his imagination/psychosis. However, I was still glued to the screen even though I knew where this road was headed. I liked how this film basically tried to say, "Hey, what if Scorsese made a superhero movie in the early 1980s? It probably wouldn't be about a hero at all." Derivative? Yep. Entertaining? Also yep.

Naturally, given his mental state and knowing even the slightest about the villain he becomes, you're going into this movie assuming Fleck is an unreliable narrator. However, the fact Fleck and not just Joker (I'd say post fridge scene he is  more JOKER than Fleck) is revealed to be an extremely unreliable narrator opens up the floodgates for the YouTube 'theorists" to hack away at every piece of dialogue in the film. And that ending scene in the white room, at what we're meant to assume is Arkham, is apparently confusing some people--is it a flash back? Does this mean the previous entirety of the film was all a figment of Flecks twisted imagination? Eh. Nah. It was just a pretty great lead-in for one of the best endings to an anti-hero film ever--those bloody footprints and him running away from an orderly. How many Batman comics have begun with a similar scene? Tonally, this ending was spot on for the Joker.

 

The Ugly: The DCEU

If they did a trilogy of these Joker films with Phoenix, a la Nolan's DK trilogy, I'd be on board. However, with Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in her own film, who knows where this will end up. If there is never...

 

...a Batman to go alongside Phoenix's Joker on screen it'd be a damn shame. Maybe Robert Pattinson's Batman will be the one to meet Fleck Joker? Pattinson's Batman movie isn't slated for release until 2021. So they could meet up in Joker 3 in 2024-ish?

 

So, in my perfect world, the Joker 2 would be about Fleck Joker turning his cult status into a criminal organization and introducing mass chaos to Gotham. Lt. James Gordon and his family are introduced. Harvey Bullock is his partner. Bruce Wayne & Alfred would be the B-plot. Batman shows up in the third act. Third film would be something along the lines of The Killing Joke meets Death in the Family. But it's unlikely to go down that way. Knowing Warner Brothers Johnny Knoxville will be the next Joker in Suicide Squad III. Meh.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Mr. Hakujin
formatting :/

[The NZA]

another take

 

 

[Iambaytor]

I think that theory has legs but there's just one problem with that: If it's just a make-up fake story within a story then why the fuck am I watching it, Todd?

[Keth]

I feel like the Joker only ever works when he doesn't have an origin at all (at least keep it super ambiguous).  I need to watch this before i can fully form my opinion, but y'all are just confirming alot of what i originally thought this would be. And I don't feel like spending money on this now even just to waste an afternoon. More than anything it just sounds kinda boring. 

 

Still would have loved to see that Azzarello\Bermejo story get an adaptation instead. 

[Donatella]

6 hours ago, Axels said:

I feel like the Joker only ever works when he doesn't have an origin at all (at least keep it super ambiguous).  

 

YES. 

 

And it was a little boring. I was more excited about the pretzel nuggets I was eating than the entire first half of this movie. It ends a little stronger but they’d lost me by then.