Holy shit this looks amazing!

https://youtu.be/t433PEQGErc

Started a new post cause well this is gonna be something.

I was not looking forward to this at all, but that trailer just got me really hype. Bart Scott!

I would have hoped Zazie Beetz would have given this flick the Heisman upon reading the script.

It will be pretty wild if this flick is better than the more DC based Joker movie that will drop.

Not saying the movie itself will be sympathetic to the MAGA point of view, but the character (i.e. white guy feeling wronged/beat down by the world, going full domestic terrorist) instantly reminded me of the right-wing mosque shooters and the like. High potential for "bad fans" who will latch on to the movie for the wrong reasons.

Which has no bearing on whether the movie will be good. I could have made the same exact statement about Taxi Driver and it's obviously a masterpiece.

>Not saying the movie itself will be sympathetic to the MAGA
>point of view, but the character (i.e. white guy feeling
>wronged/beat down by the world, going full domestic terrorist)
>instantly reminded me of the right-wing mosque shooters and
>the like. High potential for "bad fans" who will latch on to
>the movie for the wrong reasons.
>
>Which has no bearing on whether the movie will be good. I
>could have made the same exact statement about Taxi Driver and
>it's obviously a masterpiece.

That infamous Scorcese cameo from Taxi Driver definitely had some heavy MAGA tones to it.

You could be and probably are correct in your assessment for this Joker flick given these days and times. I do wonder how Todd Phillips and the actors/actresses will address if it mentioned in the media press run for this flick. Not to say the movie is responsible for folks twisting the movie's intentions for their own political bend, but I have to think folks working on the movie are well aware that could occur.

woo boy.

>Not saying the movie itself will be sympathetic to the MAGA
>point of view, but the character (i.e. white guy feeling
>wronged/beat down by the world, going full domestic terrorist)
>instantly reminded me of the right-wing mosque shooters and
>the like. High potential for "bad fans" who will latch on to
>the movie for the wrong reasons.
>
>Which has no bearing on whether the movie will be good. I
>could have made the same exact statement about Taxi Driver and
>it's obviously a masterpiece.


"Falling Down" is another one.

I love that movie.

I also realize it's totally on some pre-MAGA shit..

Which reminds me of the the bit from Random Acts of Flyness about the white anti-hero/white devil in which the pattern of championing the emergence of the white male antihero in pop culture as a sort of reclaiming of the white male's masculinity and dominance. I believe Breaking Bad and Falling Down were both referenced among other shows/films.

Every incel about to have a Joaquin Joker poster in his room.

>Every incel about to have a Joaquin Joker poster in his room.
>

I do think some of this will depend on how the turn to The Joker is handled. Will the character simply target his fury on those he felt wronged him (which I think ventures more in the MAGA territory) or will it be much more indiscriminant or far reaching?

>I do think some of this will depend on how the turn to The
>Joker is handled. Will the character simply target his fury on
>those he felt wronged him (which I think ventures more in the
>MAGA territory) or will it be much more indiscriminant or far
>reaching?

When they go on those shooting sprees or when they're chanting "build the wall," they weren't personally scorned by the shooting victims or immigrants. They feel scorned or bullied for one reason or another and think, "Fuck EVERYONE who isn't like me. Shake up the system." So then literally everyone who isn't a white Republican male can fuck off and die.

I'd have more faith that the obvious political climate parallel could work in a Joker movie if it wasn't Todd Phillips at the helm.

>When they go on those shooting sprees or when they're chanting
>"build the wall," they weren't personally scorned by the
>shooting victims or immigrants. They feel scorned or bullied
>for one reason or another and think, "Fuck EVERYONE who isn't
>like me. Shake up the system." So then literally everyone who
>isn't a white Republican male can fuck off and die.

Exactly. The trailer makes the movie look like borderline propaganda from the alt-right message boards, i.e. peddling a white male victimization narrative, leading to radicalization and ultimately a warped justification for violence.

I highly doubt the movie itself is intentionally endorsing this parallel, but there's a high likelihood of it being misconstrued that way by predisposed right wingers. Kind of how drug dealers worship Scarface when it's supposed to be a cautionary tale.

>I'd have more faith that the obvious political climate
>parallel could work in a Joker movie if it wasn't Todd
>Phillips at the helm.

This is kind of a tightrope act and Todd Phillips probably isn't the guy to handle it with any level of delicacy and nuance.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/white-nationalists-adopt-clowns-as-their-next-racist-symbol-yes-seriously/

theyre identifying themselves with clown emojis in their profile.

there are a lot of them starting to use the joker too.
https://twitter.com/realhonkhonk

i could easily see them co-opting the character. i dont think any of this is a coincidence.

a failed mediocre white comedian...the type to make regular appearances on joe rogan...being radicalized into an alt right criminal mastermind...wouldnt actually be that unrealistic in todays climate.

if a more capable director wanted to make a controversial and socially/cuturally provocative joker origin like that...my interest would def be piqued.

They way you folks are presenting this, it sounds as if it's going to be unsafe to see this flick in certain middle American cities.

Going to be interesting to see how this movie trends once it comes out.

but clearly the pepes are about to make it a thing. so *they* obviously see something in it.

Which begs the question.. Who's more MAGA? The Joker or the Batman?

If the movie can match the quality of that trailer, he might eclipse Heath and Jack as the best live action Joker

The cinematography looks great, the color palette looks great. BUT

I still think it's a mistake to go into The Joker's backstory. The Dark Knight showed that he is far more menacing when you don't know anything about where he came from or how he became the crazy MF he is now.

AT LEAST Nicholson's Joker was a dirty henchman before he became the Joker. He fell into the vat and lost his mind, but there was nothing sympathetic about it--just a bad guy becomes an insane, vicious bad guy.

While I don't think this falls into the MAGA/right wing area that the above poster thinks (I also disagree about Taxi Driver; even as the protagonist, I at least never lost sight of the fact that Travis Bickle was mentally unstable, not a martyr or fighting the good fight--which is why the climax was bloody and horrific, not shot like an action flick), I do think we've seen enough of the average white dude beat down so much that he snaps and rages out on everyone. I already saw Falling Down. I'm good.

but the fact Zazie Beetz is in this and Deadpool 2 speaks to just how much these comic book based flicks are dictating the stories told in Hollywood. I wonder if she'll return to the sequels for either this or Deadpool 2.

This looks good, the trailer at least.

As far as Zazie being in a potentially problematic movie, I think she's in a difficult spot.

She may object to the aspects of the movie, but she is an actor and she wants to tell stories. Sometimes even if the part isn't written well. Also, she's not at a point where she can dictate which parts she wants. That list of actors, (white actors included) is relatively small and wouldn't include an actor who has only begun to creep into notoriety. Mahershala only recently got on that list and it took winning an Oscar.

I say this because an woman actor, who's a friend and is Black, recently mentioned that she wouldn't mind playing a maid. Now the role she mentioned was an iconic role in a play, I believe. (I can't remember the name of the play.) She talked about her drive as an actor to play interesting roles and how limited the buffet for non-stereotypical roles is for Black women actors.

It made me rethink my arrogance regarding Black actors who play roles which don't subvert stereotypes and accept that blaming an actor for the role they choose isn't necessarily fair. Especially when people further up the food chain who approve scripts who could better influence positive representation.

Like this isn't supposed to be apart of the bigger DC universe of movies, or is it?

but you are correct, it's one off, separate, and different actor in the part as a break from what they were initially trying to do with these movies.

JOKER - Final Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY

didn't think about the MAGA parallels, just looks like a dope flick to me

I’m really anticipating this joint.
If it opens up a Joker-verse... so be it!
Meaning if a future Batman movie has a Joker villain
who was inspired by this Joker (who is old) that would be neat.

Would bring us another new Joker villain
but would bring us some continuity.

If the new Batman movie is going to be focused on
Bats as a detective in Arkham Asylum and dealing with numerous villains...
could cast a new Joker like I said, inspired by this Phoenix portrayal.

This looks like some Scorsese shit. I’m in.

There's a distinction IMO.

I'm not interested in a story of some dude that goes crazy, puts on a clown suit and goes on a rampage.

But a guy who goes crazy, puts on a clown suit and becomes an unhinged crime lord with henchmen--I'm all in.

More Breaking Bad, less Falling Down.

Man I hope it's as good as everyone is making it out to be.

And, like, Alex Billington, who literally raves over everything, lol.

I know that Ehrlich and Glenn Kenny hated it. I won’t be surprised if the critics who aren’t over the moon for anything comic-related don’t dig it at all.

I’m still tempering expectations.

That guy is weird and thinks Not Another Teen Movie rules so...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/joker-review-1235309

10:15 AM PDT 8/31/2019 by David Rooney

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Phoenix rising.
10/4/2019

Joaquin Phoenix boldly reinvents Batman's cackling arch-nemesis in Todd Phillips' dark new vision of the supervillain origin story, also starring Robert De Niro.
The clown prince of crime is alive and mentally unwell in Gotham City in Todd Phillips' grippingly atmospheric supervillain origin story, Joker. While a never-better Joaquin Phoenix paints on the famed maniacal smile with his own blood at one memorable climactic moment of messianic rebirth, what's most noteworthy about this gritty entry in the DC canon and the lead actor's sensational performance is the pathos he brings to a pathetically disenfranchised character — just like countless others in a metropolis in which the social chasm separating the haves from the have-nots has become a pit of incendiary rage.

This is very much tethered to the superhero universe and intersects in ways both familiar and not with canonical Batman lore. But Joker could also be a film for audiences who don't much care about the usual Hollywood comic-strip assembly line. The smart screenplay by Phillips and Scott Silver anchors the story in a fiercely divided city with echoes of a contemporary, morally bankrupt America, albeit in the dire economic straits of a decade ago, or the next crisis that's just around the corner, depending on which financial forecasts you believe.


Built around a credible spiral from lonely outsider to deranged killer, it's as much a neo-noir psychological character study grounded in urban alienation and styled after Taxi Driver as a rise-of-the-supervillain portrait. It's arguably the best Batman-adjacent movie since The Dark Knight and Warner should see mighty box office numbers to reflect that. The must-see factor of Phoenix's riveting performance alone — it's both unsettling and weirdly affecting — will be significant.

The film is also an obvious homage to another Martin Scorsese title, The King of Comedy, with Robert De Niro playing the host of Live with Murray Franklin, a network late-night show on which it's the dream of Phoenix's party clown and aspiring standup comedian, Arthur Fleck, to appear.

Arthur tunes in to the show religiously with his sickly mother Penny (Frances Conroy) in their dingy tenement apartment, drifting early on into a fantasy in which he's plucked out of the studio audience to be embraced on-camera by Murray, stepping in for the father he has never known. Arthur even studies guests on the show and rehearses his entrance and couch banter at home, Rupert Pupkin-style, though it's clear from the outset that his disillusionment with Murray will turn ugly.

Some brisk scene-setting via opening news reports announces a city-wide emergency as an ongoing strike has left trash piling up, attracting a plague of "super-rats," while fire-sale signs line the depressed retail streets. Arthur is first seen trying on a smile and then a frown, a tear streaking his white clown makeup before he heads out for work carrying an "Everything Must Go" discount sign for a struggling business. He's jumped by a bunch of teen hoodlums who steal his sign and give him a beating in an alley.

"Is it just me or is the city getting crazier?" he asks his social worker (Sharon Washington), while requesting additional meds on top of the seven he's already taking. She agrees these are tough times, people are out of work and struggling.

One key symptom of Arthur's mental illness is a kind of ha-ha Tourette's — a medical condition that prompts him to laugh uncontrollably, usually at awkward moments. He carries a card by way of explanation, reading "Forgive My Laughter." This has contributed to his reputation as a freak at work and pretty much confined his social circle to his mother. She nicknamed him "Happy" from a young age and told him he was "put here to spread joy and laughter." But Arthur most of the time feels barely alive.

When Randall (Glenn Fleshler), a colleague at the clown-for-hire service where he works, slips him a handgun to protect himself, Arthur starts showing a little more spark. This manifests in the first of several mesmerizing sequences of shirtless dance (this one to "Slap That Bass," from the Fred Astaire movie Shall We Dance), in which Phoenix's sinewy body contorts in twisted rapture. The actor's dramatic weight loss for the role gives him an emaciated, reptilian look. Later those moves will become more elegant — almost balletic as he celebrates his first kills in a grimy subway restroom, and most memorably as he struts down a stone staircase in full Joker finery, to Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part 2)."

The music choices throughout are invigorating and slyly ironic, including a double dose of Sinatra ("That's Life" and "Send in the Clowns") and some vintage Cream ("White Room") as Arthur surveys the mayhem he's unleashed.

Some of the best moments of Phoenix's highly physical performance are the transformative interludes in which the increasingly unhinged Arthur applies his clown makeup and later dyes his hair, becoming the Joker.

The protagonist's simmering psychosis is echoed in the unrest rippling through the city, given gritty, grubby textures and deep, rich hues by cinematographer Lawrence Sher. The look of Mark Friedberg's production design is very much pre-Giuliani New York, with porn theater marquees advertising titles like Strip Search and Ace in the Hole (not the Billy Wilder film), and the blend of authentic NYC locations with sets is seamless. All this is rendered even darker by the disquietingly melancholy mood of Hildur Gudnadóttir's brooding orchestral score, which cranks up into thunderous drama as the chaos escalates.

Stitching their original supervillain genesis story neatly into the classic Batman world, Phillips and Silver have prominent moneybags Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) announcing a run for mayor with a promise to set the fractured city back on the right path. Penny Fleck worked for the Wayne family for many years, but her letters appealing for help, especially as she worries more and more about the stability of her son, have gone unanswered.

When Arthur reads one of them, he learns a different history than the one his mother has shared, leading to a pair of uneasy encounters — one with a brusquely dismissive Thomas Wayne at a gala screening of Chaplin's Modern Times, and a creepily portentous introduction through the iron gates of Wayne Manor to the mayoral candidate's young son Bruce (Dante Pereira-Olson), in which an unidentified Alfred (Douglas Hodge) intervenes. The murder of Bruce's parents sticks to the version depicted in the Christopher Nolan movies and elsewhere. But the Joker's evolution feels freshly minted, partially driven by a now far more personal resentment of the Wayne family.

Given that the world created here is clearly modeled on New York in the not-too-distant past, it will be interesting to see how audiences respond to the alarming depiction of a city under siege. The growing wave of vigilante violence includes a mob assault of two detectives (Shea Whigham and Bill Camp), left in critical condition. And the choice of a trio of cocky young Wall Street jerks as the murder victims that trigger a chain reaction seems a deliberate provocation, especially once tabloid headlines start blaring: "Kill the Rich: A New Movement?"

The more graphic violence is confined to just a small handful of key junctures, though it definitely gets visceral and bloody. But the movie's chief fascination is the tempestuous soup in Arthur's head as he steadily disconnects from reality and lurches into an alternate dimension. One example of this is his projection of a relationship with the cool single mom down the hall (Zazie Beetz), whose neighborly elevator chit-chat and eye-rolling acknowledgement of the lunacy gripping Gotham make Arthur believe she's on his wavelength.

What's so compelling about the title role, both as written and in Phoenix's full-throttle, raw performance, is that we're encouraged to feel sympathy for the Joker even as he's clearly turning into a homicidal maniac.

An innocent part of him really does just want to follow his mother's guidance and make people smile. But the city pulls funding for its welfare programs, forcing him to go off his meds; a video clip of him laughing uncontrollably while doing a spot at a standup club gets mocked by his idol Murray on national TV; even his doting mother is perceived to have failed him when he filches her medical records and finds what's either a disturbing cover-up or fuel for paranoia.

The trajectory of innocence to evil is a tragic one. But watching Arthur exult as the crime wave crescendos is a chilling spectacle illustrating what all the ridicule, abuse and marginalization he's been subjected to have wrought.

Phillips is a long way from the Hangover trilogy, working confidently in a more ambitious vein akin to what he did as a producer with Bradley Cooper (who's also on board here) to reimagine A Star is Born for contemporary audiences. With editor Jeff Groth, he keeps the pacing steady and satisfying over two hours, fueling the suspense and modulating the peaks and climactic builds with assurance.

De Niro appears to get a kick out of playing a smarmy character in a film that references two of his iconic screen roles, making Murray a slick showbiz pro but also a morally questionable figure ready to exploit Arthur's fragility for good TV. And Beetz demonstrates more of the relaxed appeal that makes her such a winning presence on Atlanta. (Her crony from the Donald Glover show, Brian Tyree Henry, makes a brief appearance as an asylum records clerk.)

But this is Phoenix's film, and he inhabits it with an insanity by turns pitiful and fearsome in an out-there performance that's no laughing matter. Not to discredit the imaginative vision of the writer-director, his co-scripter and invaluable tech and design teams, but Phoenix is the prime force that makes Joker such a distinctively edgy entry in the Hollywood comics industrial complex.



Production company: Joint Effort
Distribution: Warner
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Leigh Gill, Douglas Hodge, Josh Pais, Marc Maron, Sharon Washington, Brian Tyree Henry
Director: Todd Phillips
Screenwriters: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, based on the characters from DC
Producers: Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
Executive producers: Michael E. Uslan, Walter Hamada, Aaron L. Gilbert, Joseph Garner, Richard Baratta, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Lawrence Sher
Production designer: Mark Friedberg
Costume designer: Mark Bridges
Music: Hildur Gudnadóttir
Editor: Jeff Groth
Visual effects supervisor: Edwin Rivera
Casting: Shayna Markowitz
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)

https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/joker-review-joaquin-phoenix-todd-phillips-1203317033/

Joaquin Phoenix is astonishing as a mentally ill geek who becomes the killer-clown Joker in Todd Phillips' neo-'Taxi Driver' knockout: the rare comic-book movie that expresses what's happening in the real world.

By OWEN GLEIBERMAN
Chief Film Critic
@OwenGleiberman

Audiences, as we know, can’t get enough of a great bad guy — the kind we love to hate. The worse he acts, the more we stare. Of course, the fact that we relish a villain doesn’t mean that we’re on his side; getting off on the catchy, scary spectacle of bad behavior isn’t the same as identifying with it. But in “Joker,” Todd Phillips’ hypnotically perverse, ghoulishly grippingly urban-nightmare comic fantasia, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the mentally ill loser-freak who will, down the line, become Batman’s nemesis, stands before us not as a grand villain but as a pathetic specimen of raw human damage. Even as we’re drinking in his screw-loose antics with shock and dismay, there’s no denying that we feel something for him — a twinge of sympathy, or at least understanding.

Early on, Arthur, in full clown regalia, is standing in front of a store on a jam-packed avenue, where he’s been hired to carry an “Everything Must Go” sign. A bunch of kids steal the sign and then kick the holy crap out of him. The beating fulfills a certain masochistic karma Arthur carries around, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we feel sorry for him.

“Joker” tells the story of Arthur’s descent (and, in a way, his rise), but it’s clear from the outset that he’s a basket case, a kind of maestro of his own misery. He would like, on some level, to connect, but he can’t. He’s too far out there, like Norman Bates; he’s a self-conscious, postmodern head case ­— a person who spends every moment trying to twist himself into a normal shape, but he knows the effort is doomed, so he turns it all into a “joke” that only he gets.

Arthur’s response to almost everything is to laugh, and he’s got a collection of contrived guffaws — a high-pitched delirious giggle, a “hearty” yock, a stylized cackle that’s all but indistinguishable from a sob. In each case, the laughter is an act that parades itself as fakery. What it expresses isn’t glee; it expresses the fact that Arthur feels nothing, that he’s dead inside. He’s a bitter, mocking nowhere man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

For all two hours of “Joker,” Arthur, a two-bit professional clown and aspiring stand-up comic who lives with his batty mother (Frances Conroy) in a peeling-paint apartment, is front and center — in the movie, and in our psychological viewfinder. He’s at the dark heart of every scene, the way Travis Bickle was in “Taxi Driver,” and “Joker,” set in 1981 in a Gotham City that looks, with uncanny exactitude, like the squalid, graffiti-strewn, trash-heaped New York City of the early ’80s (you can feel the rot), is a movie made in direct homage to “Taxi Driver,” though there are other films it will make you think of. As the story of a putz trying to succeed as a stand-up comedian, it evokes Scorsese and De Niro’s satirical riff on “Taxi Driver,” “The King of Comedy.” There are also elements lifted from “Death Wish,” “Network,” “V for Vendetta,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Shining” and “The Purge.”

More than that, though, the whole movie, in spirit, is a kind of origin-story riff on Heath Ledger’s performance in “The Dark Knight”: the comic-book villain as Method psycho, a troublemaker so intense in his cuckoo hostility that even as you’re gawking at his violence, you still feel his pain.

Phoenix’s performance is astonishing. He appears to have lost weight for the role, so that his ribs and shoulder blades protrude, and the leanness burns his face down to its expressive essence: black eyebrows, sallow cheeks sunk in gloom, a mouth so rubbery it seems to be snarking at the very notion of expression, all set off by a greasy mop of hair. Phoenix is playing a geek with an unhinged mind, yet he’s so controlled that he’s mesmerizing. He stays true to the desperate logic of Arthur’s unhappiness.

You’re always aware of how much the mood and design of “Joker” owe to “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.” For a filmmaker gifted enough to stand on his own, Phillips is too beholden to his idols. Yet within that scheme, he creates a dazzlingly disturbed psycho morality play, one that speaks to the age of incels and mass shooters and no-hope politics, of the kind of hate that emerges from crushed dreams.

Arthur and his mother sit around after hours, watching the late-night talk-show host Murray Franklin (played, by De Niro, as a piece of old-school Carson vaudeville), and as much as we think Arthur should move out and leave his mommy behind, we hardly know the half of it. When he gets fired (for revealing a handgun during a clown gig at a children’s hospital ward), there’s a suspense built into everything that happens, and it spins around the question: How will someone this weak and inept, this trapped in the nuttiness of his self-delusion, evolve into a figure of dark power?

At night, on the subway, Arthur, still wearing his clown suit, is taunted and attacked by three young Wall Street players. So he pulls out his gun like Charles Bronson and shoots them dead. The case becomes tabloid fodder (“Killer Clown on the Loose”), and the sensation of it is that the denizens of Gotham think he’s a hero. That sounds like a standard comic-book-movie ploy, but the twisted commitment of Phoenix’s performance lets us feel how the violence cleanses Arthur; doing tai chi in a bathroom after the murders, he’s reborn. And we believe in his thirst for escape, because Phillips, working with the cinematographer Lawrence Sher (who evokes “Taxi Driver’s” gray-green documentary seaminess), creates an urban inferno so lifelike that it threatens to make the film-noir Gotham of “The Dark Knight” look like a video game.


Of course, a rebellion against the ruling elite — which is what Arthur’s vigilante action comes to symbolize — is more plausible now than it was a decade ago. “Joker” is a comic-book tale rendered with sinister topical fervor. When Arthur, on the elevator, connects with Sophie (Zazie Beetz), his neighbor, the two take turns miming Travis Bickle’s finger-gun-against-the-head suicide gesture, which becomes the film’s key motif. It’s a way of saying: This is what America has come to — a place where people feel like blowing their brains out. The relationship between Arthur and Sophie doesn’t track if you think about it too much, but it’s a riff on one that didn’t totally track either — the link, however fleeting, between Travis and Cybill Shepherd’s Betsy in “Taxi Driver.” Arthur, in a funny way, hides his brains (they’re revealed only when he passes through the looking glass of villainy). He’s got a piece missing. But what fills the space is violence.

Many have asked, and with good reason: Do we need another Joker movie? Yet what we do need — badly — are comic-book films that have a verité gravitas, that unfold in the real world, so that there’s something more dramatic at stake than whether the film in question is going to rack up a billion-and-a-half dollars worldwide. “Joker” manages the nimble feat of telling the Joker’s origin story as if it were unprecedented. We feel a tingle when Bruce Wayne comes into the picture; he’s there less as a force than an omen. And we feel a deeply deranged thrill when Arthur, having come out the other side of his rage, emerges wearing smeary make-up, green hair, an orange vest and a rust-colored suit.

When he dances on the long concrete stairway near his home, like a demonic Michael Jackson, with Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2” bopping on the soundtrack, it’s a moment of transcendent insanity, because he’s not trying to be “the Joker.” He’s just improvising, going with the flow of his madness. And when he gets his fluky big shot to go on TV, we think we know what’s going to happen (that he’s destined to be humiliated), but what we see, instead, is a monster reborn with a smile. And lo and behold, we’re on his side. Because the movie does something that flirts with danger — it gives evil a clown-mask makeover, turning it into the sickest possible form of cool.


Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Competition), Aug. 31, 2019. MPAA rating: R. Running time: 122 MIN.

PRODUCTION: A Warner Bros. release of a DC Films in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, BRON Creative, A Joint Effort production. Producers: Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff, Todd Phillips. Executive producers: Richard Baratta, Bruce Berman, Jason Cloth, Joseph Garner, Aaron L. Gilbert, Walter Hamada, Michael E. Uslan.

CREW: Director: Todd Phillips. Screenplay: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver. Camera (color, widescreen): Lawrence Sher. Editor: Jeff Groth. Music: Hildur Gudnadóttir.

WITH: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Frances Conroy, Zazie Beetz, Brett Cullen, Brian Tyree Henry, Marc Maron, Dante Pereira-Olson, Douglas Hodge, Sharon Washington.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/joker-movie-review-2019

In mainstream movies today, “dark” is just another flavor. Like “edgy,” it’s an option you use depending on what market you want to reach. And it is particularly useful when injected into the comic book genre.

Darkness no longer has much to do with feelings of alienation the filmmaker wants to express or purge, as was the case with a film like “Taxi Driver.” It’s not about exploring uncomfortable ideas, as was done in “The King of Comedy.” Do you think Todd Phillips, who co-wrote and directed “Joker,” which references those movies so often you might suspect that the director of those films, Martin Scorsese, was enlisted as an executive producer here as a way of heading off a plagiarism lawsuit, really cares about income inequality, celebrity worship, and the lack of civility in contemporary society, three of the themes ostensibly tackled in this movie? I don’t know him personally but I bet he doesn’t give a toss. He’s got the pile he made on those “Hangover” movies—which some believe have indeed contributed to the lack of civility in etc.—and can not only buy up all the water that’s going to be denied us regular slobs after the big one hits, he can afford the bunker for after the big one hits.

Which is not to go so far as to say that if you buy into “Joker,” the joke’s on you. (Except in the long run it really is.) If you live to see Joaquin Phoenix go to performing extremes like nobody’s business, this movie really is the apotheosis of that. As Arthur Fleck, the increasingly unglued street clown and wannabe stand-up comic down and out in what looks like 1980s Gotham (although who knows what period detail looks like in fictional cities), Phoenix flails, dances, laughs maniacally, puts things in his mouth that shouldn’t go there, and commits a couple of genuinely ugly and disgusting crimes with ferocious relish.

Much has been made, by Warner, and I guess DC Comics, of the fact that this is meant as a “standalone” film that has no narrative connection to other pictures in the DC Universe, but that’s having your cake and eating it too when you still name your lunatic asylum “Arkham” and your cinematic DC Universe is changing its Batmen every twenty minutes anyway. Maybe what they really mean is that this is the first and last DC movie that’s going to be rated R.

Which rating it thoroughly earns. The violence in this movie means to shock, and it does. Fleck’s alienation in the early scenes evokes Travis Bickle’s, but this movie is too chicken-livered to give Fleck Buckle’s racism, although it depicts him mostly getting hassled by people of color in the first third. Fleck is also fixated with a Carson-like talk-show host played by Robert De Niro, reversing the “King of Comedy” player positions. He also likes the black woman down the hall from him, played by Zazie Beetz. The casting is not just meant to give the movie bragging rights on the zeitgeist curve, but to evoke Diahnne Abbott in both “Taxi Driver” and “Comedy.” Fleck’s seemingly successful wooing of the character is a jaw-dropper that had me thinking Beetz ought to fire her agent, but a late-game clarification makes it … well, forgivable is not quite the word, but it will do.

As Gotham begins to burn (the civil unrest starts with a garbage strike), Fleck, who has been taken as a vigilante by much of the city’s 99%, doesn’t quite know what to make of his underground cult stardom. (The city is beset by rioters in clown makeup and clown masks; because this movie is rather suddenly behind the curve in “clowns-are-scary” awareness—only Pennywise gets a special dispensation these days—these sequences look like “The Revolt of the Juggalos” or something equally laughable.) His mom (Frances Conroy, the poor woman) has been writing letters to her former employer, the magnate Thomas Wayne, and Arthur opens one of the missives and reads them, learning something disturbing.

The storyline in and of itself is not a total miss. But once the movie starts lifting shots from “A Clockwork Orange” (and yes, Phillips and company got Warners to let them use the Saul Bass studio logo for the opening credits, in white on red, yet) you know its priorities are less in entertainment than in generating self-importance. As social commentary, “Joker” is pernicious garbage. But besides the wacky pleasures of Phoenix’s performance, it also displays some major movie studio core competencies, in a not dissimilar way to what “A Star Is Born” presented last year. (Bradley Cooper is a producer.) The supporting players, including Glenn Fleshler and Brian Tyree Henry, bring added value to their scenes, and the whole thing feels like a movie. The final minutes, which will move any sentient viewer to mutter “would you just pick a goddamn ending and stick to it?” are likely an indication of what kind of mess we would have had on our hands had Phillips been left entirely to his own cynical incoherent devices for the entire runtime. Fortunately, he gets by with a little help from his friends.

https://twitter.com/FemaleCritics/status/1167852752422211586?s=19

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDUkCxrU4AAf_TO?format=jpg&name=medium

Not to say this movie *won't* be a hit with incels, as we're seeing the usual assholery in response to critics who didn't like it-- especially female critics.

But this was a pretty obvious joke imo. And the author said as much.

lol

https://shadowandact.com/the-jokes-on-us-racism-ableism-and-more-in-the-new-joker-trailer

After reading the first few paragraphs I thought there was a different trailer released that I wasn't aware of.

The complaints about the Mom on the bus and Joker's psychiatrist seem like a reach (especially since the former is more than likely an inconsequential one scene character)

I've been seeing similar posts circulating on my FB timeline

out of 7,000 votes, that's the highest rating i've seen. it's either going to be really
good or really deplorable.

And most of those people, critics at Venice Film Festival, aren't wasting their time ranking films on IMDB, lol.

No, this is just the usual brigade of losers who vote on IMDB for films without seeing them first.

>No, this is just the usual brigade of losers who vote on IMDB
>for films without seeing them first.

a movie about the psyche and surroundings. wouldn't be surprised if its a bot
either.

Won the Golden Lion.

Wow.

https://twitter.com/erickohn/status/1171260869055041536?s=19

JOKER doesn’t reinvent the comic book movie, but it’s certainly the scariest one — a taut psychological thriller w/a few horror movie twists. Joaquin Phoenix, though, yikes: Looks like he stepped out of THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, or maybe he’s still trapped there. Astounding.

https://twitter.com/erickohn/status/1171262170413305857?s=19

Yes, JOKER could be misconstrued in some troubling ways that will require plenty of scrutinizing, but it’s engineered to interrogate lunacy from the inside out, which is a much subtler mission than, say, JOJO RABBIT. #TIFF19

White people really do ruin everything.


https://io9.gizmodo.com/u-s-military-issues-warning-to-troops-about-incel-viol-1838412331

The U.S. military has warned service members about the potential for a mass shooter at screenings of the Warner Bros. film Joker, which has sparked wide concerns from, among others, the families of those killed during the 2012 mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

The U.S. Army confirmed on Tuesday that the warning was widely distributed after social media posts related to extremists classified as “incels,” were uncovered by intelligence officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In a September 18th email, service members were instructed to remain aware of their surroundings and “identify two escape routes” when entering theaters. In the event of a shooting, they were instructed to “run, hide, fight.”

“Run if you can,” the safety notice said. “If you’re stuck, hide (also known as ‘sheltering in place’), and stay quiet. If a shooter finds you, fight with whatever you can.”

Article preview thumbnail
Joaquin Phoenix Couldn't Answer the Most Obvious Question About Joker's Subject Matter
Because Todd Phillips’ Joker tells the relatively grounded story of a disaffected white man who…

Read more
The Army said it became aware of potential threats after receiving a bulletin from the FBI, but that it was unaware of any specific plots or suspects. The notice, which was marked “For Official Use Only,” was sent purely as a precautionary measure, it said.

“We do this routinely because the safety and security of our workforce is paramount. We want our workforce to be prepared and diligent on personal safety both inside the workplace and out,” an Army spokesperson told Gizmodo.

Incel is a term that was adopted in the ‘90s by an online subgroup of self-professed “involuntary celibate” men. Over time, some radicalized members of the incel community have formed an ideology that promotes violence. Elliot Rodger self-identified as an incel before he killed six people near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014. And James Holmes, the man who opened fire in a crowded movie theater in 2012 has become a bit of a hero to the incel community. It’s often been repeated that Holmes was inspired by the Joker, a claim that primarily rests on statements the killer reportedly made to police after the fact in which he said he “was the Joker.” Speaking with the Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Oates, Aurora’s chief of police at the time, said that “there is no evidence” the shooter ever said that.

In the alert emailed to service members, authorities claimed that incels “also idolize the Joker character, the violent clown from the Batman series, admiring his depiction as a man who must pretend to be happy, but eventually fights back against bullies.”

Article preview thumbnail
Joker Is Powerful, Confused, and Provocative, Just Like the Character
If Joker wasn’t called “Joker,” you’d never know it was a DC movie. Though there are characters…

Read more
“While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is in touch with our law enforcement and private sector partners about the online posts,” an FBI spokesperson said. “As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to promptly report suspicious activity to law enforcement.”

In an age of frequent mass shootings by predominately white American men—at least some of whom have referenced in writing their frustrations with sex—the film has sparked controversy over its desire to compel its audience (at least in its first half) to empathize with a mentally unbalanced and unloved “loser” who inevitably resorts to mass murder.

The gritty film, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, reportedly makes strides to depict its titular character in a far more realistic fashion than his comics counterpart. Rather than being transformed into the “Joker” after falling into a vat of acid—as the villain so often does in depictions of his DC Comics origin—a harsh life compounded by constant mockery and an inability to “get the girl” is what ultimately leads to his rise as the infamously batty executioner of comic book lore.

The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday that families who lost relatives in the Aurora shooting, which claimed the lives of 12 moviegoers in 2012 during a screening of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, signed a letter this week to Warner Bros. sharing concerns about the Joker film. With the film set to open on October 4th, the families asked the legendary film studio to donate to groups that aid victims of gun violence.

“We are calling on you to be a part of the growing chorus of corporate leaders who understand that they have a social responsibility to keep us all safe,” the letter reportedly says. The film will not be shown in the Colorado theater where the shooting occurred.

An Air Force officer at Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia—granted anonymity to discuss the Defense Department’s warning freely—said that such notices are occasionally circulated by security managers, but only when deemed “credible.” The officer said that in some cases, commanders may issue an advisory in response; however, one was not issued in this case.

“Frankly, beyond the email, I’ve heard little about it,” the officer said. “A few folks said they’d avoid opening night, or passed it on to their family members for consideration, but I haven’t heard much else in conversation beyond that.”

Warner Bros. did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement broadly addressing the controversy over the film, Warner Bros. called gun violence a “critical issue” and said that in recent weeks it has called on policymakers to enact legislation to address what it called an “epidemic” of violence. Regardless, the purpose of storytelling, it said, was to “provoke difficult conversations around complex issues.” The company went on to make clear that the film does not endorse real-world violence and said that “it is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.”

You can read the email that was circulated by the military in full below:

Team,

Posts on social media have made reference to involuntary celibate (“incel”) extremists replicating the 2012 theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, at screenings of the Joker movie at nationwide theaters. This presents a potential risk to DOD personnel and family members, though there are no known specific credible threats to the opening of the Joker on 4 October.

Incels are individuals who express frustration from perceived disadvantages to starting intimate relationships. Incel extremists idolize violent individuals like the Aurora movie theater shooter. They also idolize the Joker character, the violent clown from the Batman series, admiring his depiction as a man who must pretend to be happy, but eventually fights back against his bullies.

When entering theaters, identify two escape routes, remain aware of your surroundings, and remember the phrase “run, hide, fight.” Run if you can. If you’re stuck, hide (also referred to as “sheltering in place”), and stay quiet. If a shooter finds you, fight with whatever you can.

** this is a condensed version of an HQ Army Materiel Command, G-3, Protection Division Security message **

Got a tip? Contact the reporter by email (dell@gizmodo.com) or send an encrypted text using Signal to 202-556-0846.

Update, 6:30 p.m.: We’ve added a comment from the FBI.

but even if I did, there is absolutely no way I would see this movie in a theatre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Lafayette_shooting

Not sure if the U.S. is same for any movie.

A History of Violence at the Movie Theater
https://www.thewrap.com/a-history-of-violence-at-the-movie-theater-from-1979s-the-warriors-gang-showdown-to-2015s-lafayette-tragedy/

anybody else find that weird?

With a specific threat, they’ll tell local law enforcement or state law enforcement to stay alert. For something broader, they’ll cast a wider net.

If anything, I’m surprised this news has gone public. The military gets reports about potential threats on a regular basis that don’t hit the media. I imagine that may be part of the strategic approach to dissuade these potential threats? Not sure.

>With a specific threat, they’ll tell local law enforcement
>or state law enforcement to stay alert. For something broader,
>they’ll cast a wider net.

they the warning to military members as if only military members would targeted. if they consider it a broad credible threat (which they clearly do) then why not 'cast a wider net' and warn the general public?

They get those in the hundreds per day across the country. Even when they have specific threats, they aren’t going to tell the public about them— they’re just gonna try to find and catch the guy.

I don’t think the story implies that the memo suggested that military people specifically would be targeted. I don’t really know why the military chose to share *this* to the media of the many threats they get warned about on the regular. But sharing credible non-location-specific threats with the military doesn’t strike me as strange at all. It’s fairly common. It’s just not common that it’s written up in the news.

phishing, car hacking, copycat crimes, sim card swapping, cryptocurrency trading, tampered halloween candy, etc.

theyve issued warnings to every school in entire states based on a single snapchat video threat.

theres obviously a credible threat based on incel internet postings (something we worried about in this very post) that are 'disturbing and very specific'. seems like something you would wanna just give moviegoers a heads up about since they are the ones potentially with their lives at risk.

i guess they have their reasons but it just seems weird.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/halloween-non-poisonings/

Pretty sure the FBI never warned people about Halloween candy

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

It's probably why I could never get into his series when I was a kid collecting comics, I was always like "kill the motherfucker already" even though I know it would never happen.

I didn't care for the "Heath Ledger" Joker, and I didn't like the one in "Suicide Squad" and probably not going to like this new one either, I'm kind of over the psycho killer with no super-powers type characters in DC movies though.

DC doesn't have any good guy characters to bank off of in movies like Marvel with Wolverine & Spider-Man?

I know this has been done to death by now, but my only real interest in the Joker is the relationship he has with Batman. How they're both really screwed up in the head, but Batman needs the Joker to be absolutely Batshit crazy for him to be, just, you know, Batty (pun intended). His moral code only holds up in comparison to someone even further off the deep end than him, with no moral code.

The comics has exhausted that dichotomy, but only the Dark Knight has come close to it in the movies. If Christopher Nolan can't pull that off, I don't think anybody will. Daren Aranowsky (sp?) could have showed that, but that's never going to happen.

So yeah, all we get is crazy clown crime lord, and I don't blame anyone for getting sick and tired of it (for the record, I'm not). It seems like Joker is going to give us a bit more, but ultimately a satisfying standoff against Batman is not in the cards.

That the Batman re-re-boot is based off The Joker?

Like..we get to know the villain first..then bring the hero in.



*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

>Like..we get to know the villain first..then bring the hero in.

Tim Burton basically introduces the audience to The Joker first and how he came to be and then you get to know more and more about Bruce and Batman over the course of the movie.

*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

I've never been interested in the Joker outside of the Batman relationship while the reverse isn't true. For some reason WB doesn't seem to have a lot of faith in Joker-less Batman though. And likewise Luthor-less Superman. But I can kind of see that one.

They've had what? a show about young Bruce BEFORE he becomes batman, a show about his butler (lol), a movie about joker, a movie about suicide squad, a show about batgirl...I feel like I'm forgetting stuff even.

I know theres movies coming, but they sure do a lot of shit about the batman "universe" without batman...and its weird to me.


That said, fuck this movie. I don't know who wanted this movie other than frustrated white dudes. Nah.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/joker-director-says-it-doesnt-make-sense-that-john-wick-movies-arent-pulled-up-for-violence-110236687.html

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/outrage-commodity-joker-director-far-left-critics


Definately appears a MAGA hat in this guy's closet.

since theyre the ones sending out official memos about incels being radicalized into action around this movies.

maybe if some theater gets shot up then he will have a lil more perspective.

...much ado about nothing.

Like, seriously, having part of the villain's origin story be that he was "wronged" somehow by society is basically Supervillain Origin 101. It's far from revolutionary stuff and is part of every villain from Lex Luthor to Dr. Doom to Magneto. Plus, in terms of Joker's origin, they've originally gone down the paths of "tied to his arch-nemeses origin" (Burton's version) and the "it doesn't matter what made the way he is!" (Nolan's version).

Yes, incels and alt-right shitheads are fucking losers. And Phillips sounds like a goof. But a few years down the line, I'm guessing we're all going to be wondering what the big deal was here.

https://www.amazon.com/Further-Adventures-Joker-Martin-Greenberg/dp/0553285319/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=

It had great stories. Even stories from Jokers childhood that make sense.

I just bought again because I am wondering if the stories will standup as I am older.

**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Every interview he does seems to land him in deeper hot water. You've got WB saying this movie in no way appeals to alt-right incel types... then you have Phillips in every interview railing against the left. Someone at WB really needs to send him on a 2-3 week paid vacation, because if this truly was an Oscar contender, its chances diminish with every passing comment he makes.

instead he is out here sounding like the type of dude that the film is supposedly not appealing to.

imagine making a fortune off 2 extra unfunny hangovers then crying about ‘woke culture’.

if WB was smart they'd yank his fucking chain

Don't get me wrong, I'm far, far from the right.

But it is kind of the left that called the movie out just based on the trailer alone, like months before it actually dropped.

I almost feel bad for him (as bad as I can feel for any big Hollywood name...which is not very). The left is throwing him under the bus, and yet defending himself and his movie makes it seem like he made the movie for the right.

And I say "almost" feel bad for him, because honestly he should have known this was going to pan out like this way back when he first read the script. You can not make some Travis Bickle shit in today's climate and not expect to catch a boiler room's worth of heat for it.

I'm still going to see it on Friday.

>But it is kind of the left that called the movie out just
>based on the trailer alone, like months before it actually
>dropped.

The script leak played a huge role in the backlash, because many people had been worrying since before the trailer dropped. Then, when it did, that poured a bit of gas on the fire, to be sure-- but even then, the "outrage" didn't really hit its stride until the first reviews started dropping. That's when those who may have been privately concerned started going public. And then when the FBI story hit, shit *really* took off to the next level.

>I almost feel bad for him (as bad as I can feel for any big
>Hollywood name...which is not very). The left is throwing him
>under the bus, and yet defending himself and his movie makes
>it seem like he made the movie for the right.

He also just needed to say the same things WB and Joaquin said: "depiction doesn't equal endorsement." That's it. That's all they've said. And that's all they needed to say. But he can't resist trying to fire back at those who question his film. Which is so fucking stupid.

>You can not make some Travis
>Bickle shit in today's climate and not expect to catch a
>boiler room's worth of heat for it.

He's trying to make a Scorsese movie, right? But look at two of Scorsese's most recent, Wolf of Wall Street and Silence. Both got blasted by some folks who claimed those films were something they weren't. But Scorsese didn't come out and try to roast people for their bad interpretations. He just talked about the movie.

Phillips's problem is he is neither the filmmaker nor the thinker that Scorsese is. Scorsese sees criticism as a net good for cinema, and Phillips sees criticism as an impediment. Scorsese's dealt with backlash the types of which Phillips couldn't even fucking *dream* of, and he's handled it with grace for the most part, because he knows that his films have very clear morals and statements at day's end.

Meanwhile, Phillips is coming out with "artists should be able to say what they want!" Forgetting that critics saying what they want is exactly what's pissing him off. All of these "freedom of speech" people are so fucking thoughtless, because they don't believe in freedom of speech-- they believe in the idea that they should be able to say and do whatever they want and get paid to do it without ramification.

And ultimately, Joker is EASILY gonna cross 100 mil at the box office. So his protests look even *stupider.*

>The script leak played a huge role in the backlash, because
>many people had been worrying since before the trailer
>dropped. Then, when it did, that poured a bit of gas on the
>fire, to be sure-- but even then, the "outrage" didn't really
>hit its stride until the first reviews started dropping.
>That's when those who may have been privately concerned
>started going public. And then when the FBI story hit, shit
>*really* took off to the next level.
>
I didn't know some of the backlash was due to a script leak. That makes sense.

>He also just needed to say the same things WB and Joaquin
>said: "depiction doesn't equal endorsement." That's it. That's
>all they've said. And that's all they needed to say. But he
>can't resist trying to fire back at those who question his
>film. Which is so fucking stupid.
>
Again, I understand being angry at backlash for a film that audiences (not critics) haven't seen yet. Especially when it's getting glowing reviews and awards. But yeah, trying to clap back instead of shrugging it off until the release date is stupid. It's almost like he anticipates shootings and is trying to defend himself from blame.

>Meanwhile, Phillips is coming out with "artists should be able
>to say what they want!" Forgetting that critics saying what
>they want is exactly what's pissing him off. All of these
>"freedom of speech" people are so fucking thoughtless, because
>they don't believe in freedom of speech-- they believe in the
>idea that they should be able to say and do whatever they want
>and get paid to do it without ramification.
>
THIS. Again, Phillips is being salty about backlash that he should have expected back when he decided to make the movie. The producer(s) that greenlit the movie should have known. The cast should have known when the read the script. And yet you're right. His "freedom of speech" stance is more like "freedom from speech".

>And ultimately, Joker is EASILY gonna cross 100 mil at the box
>office. So his protests look even *stupider.*

Also true.

>
>>But it is kind of the left that called the movie out just
>>based on the trailer alone, like months before it actually
>>dropped.
>
>The script leak played a huge role in the backlash, because
>many people had been worrying since before the trailer
>dropped. Then, when it did, that poured a bit of gas on the
>fire, to be sure-- but even then, the "outrage" didn't really
>hit its stride until the first reviews started dropping.
>That's when those who may have been privately concerned
>started going public. And then when the FBI story hit, shit
>*really* took off to the next level.
>
>>I almost feel bad for him (as bad as I can feel for any big
>>Hollywood name...which is not very). The left is throwing
>him
>>under the bus, and yet defending himself and his movie makes
>>it seem like he made the movie for the right.
>
>He also just needed to say the same things WB and Joaquin
>said: "depiction doesn't equal endorsement." That's it. That's
>all they've said. And that's all they needed to say. But he
>can't resist trying to fire back at those who question his
>film. Which is so fucking stupid.
>
>>You can not make some Travis
>>Bickle shit in today's climate and not expect to catch a
>>boiler room's worth of heat for it.
>
>He's trying to make a Scorsese movie, right? But look at two
>of Scorsese's most recent, Wolf of Wall Street and Silence.
>Both got blasted by some folks who claimed those films were
>something they weren't. But Scorsese didn't come out and try
>to roast people for their bad interpretations. He just talked
>about the movie.
>
>Phillips's problem is he is neither the filmmaker nor the
>thinker that Scorsese is. Scorsese sees criticism as a net
>good for cinema, and Phillips sees criticism as an impediment.
>Scorsese's dealt with backlash the types of which Phillips
>couldn't even fucking *dream* of, and he's handled it with
>grace for the most part, because he knows that his films have
>very clear morals and statements at day's end.
>
>Meanwhile, Phillips is coming out with "artists should be able
>to say what they want!" Forgetting that critics saying what
>they want is exactly what's pissing him off. All of these
>"freedom of speech" people are so fucking thoughtless, because
>they don't believe in freedom of speech-- they believe in the
>idea that they should be able to say and do whatever they want
>and get paid to do it without ramification.
>
>And ultimately, Joker is EASILY gonna cross 100 mil at the box
>office. So his protests look even *stupider.*

I'll watch Joaquin read the classifieds, but I can't say I'm very excited by the little that has pierced my no-spoilers bubble

I'll read about it around 5pm Saturday afternoon.



*************************************

Fuck aliens

-Warriorpoet415

#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

https://www.goliath.com/movies/joaquin-phoenix-walks-off-set-during-joker-outtake/

Around 8 minute mark.

This is Todd basically saying, "I never want to work with you again", right?

>https://www.goliath.com/movies/joaquin-phoenix-walks-off-set-during-joker-outtake/
>
>Around 8 minute mark.
>
>This is Todd basically saying, "I never want to work with you
>again", right?

there permission. strange.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Either this is some "I'm Not There" shit, or what the fuuuuuuck, Todd Phillips.

I liked it. This shit is A LOT.

Todd said that this movie is supposed to represent society's lack of love and empathy which I totally understand.

Q&A was great until some dumb motherfucker just ruined it so badly that a WB rep had to speak to couple of people to be reassured nothing would get out.

And with that said, the discourse for this movie has been tiring and I'm going to stop here. Between this thread, Twitter and people IRL, I'm good on a discussion.

I wish I were joking. Like you, for a movie only getting released today, I'm already over the debate about it.

But real talk a brother don't want to get shot at a comic book movie.

It is bananas that this is a serious threat. I can only imagine what the rest of the world is thinking. Everywhere else people get popped off over land, politics and religion. Meanwhile here we are terrified of young white kids that can't get their OKCupid game on lock.

people to do some bad shit are valid and should not be taken lightly.

because the execution of that climactic scene near the end definitely felt surreal (in a weird, unintentional way), far fetched, and much of the dialogue was way too on-the-nose. But I do actually buy the general premise/arc of that particular plotline. I think overall it still added value to the film.

Even though I liked the film & think the transformation was believable, I can tell it's not going to stick with me very long. Wasn't quite disturbing or relatable enough to haunt me like say...First Reformed for example.

Phoenix was very good but I doubt it's worthy of actually winning awards...nomination, sure.

Do not put any of your lives at risk for a movie

Obvs an origin story for the Joker was never gonna be a happy-go-lucky affair, and yet this one pushes through its justification for how he went from sad clown to villain with very little pause, as if it can't see the point in any other outcome.
Phoenix is great, I loved the score and the DP used a great palette of blues in many of the night shot, but the writing had a crowd-sourced from political Reddit quality to it, as if inspired by a trip on Youtube that started with Bernie videos and then went down the rabbit hole to a very dark place. Not a bad movie by any means but definitely feel no need to revisit it at any point.

If your not a fan of Taxi Driver, you won't like this. If you love Taxi Driver you may not like this. Very similar story, direction and feelings tho that I come away with watching them. Joaquin is excellent. Some of the stuff I still need to digest, lots of racial components that are probably intentional, along with music choices like Gary Glitter, Phillips seems aware he's trying to incite something here but Im not sure what. Is the ending a twist? Guess open to interpretation same as Taxi Driver. I'll see again on video but it was one of the better movies I've seen this year, not a comic book movie other than location and character names.

Like they got 60% of the way to a good movie but really fumbled the other 40%

The twist(s)? Obvious. Zazi Beetz? Wasted. Robert De NIro? Ugh.


SPOILER TERRITORY
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NO REALLY, SPOILERS





About not-so-recent the remake of Carrie, Stephen King expressed disappointment. What they got wrong was the idea that when Carrie's power was unleashed, it was mostly used to get revenge on everyone who wronged her. King's point in the book, which the original movie depicts, is that once you unleash the beast, everyone feels the wrath. The guilty and the innocent. The Joker is an psychopathic villain. VILLAIN. Not a man with an unclear mental illness who murders the people who have wronged him. What the movie was missing was the point at which he crosses the line and started killing innocent people. People who DON'T have it coming. As much as it would have darkened the tone even more, if he had killed Zazi Beetz character and her kid (although, IMO, it is subtly implied, but not clearly enough to alter the direction of the movie--I can say more if anyone actually reads this), we would get a man who went off the deep end and developed a moral compass that the audience could no longer get behind. What we get is revenge that seem justified even in its brutality. IN TODAY'S CLIMATE WE DO NOT NEED THAT SHIT.

Jaquin Phoenix gives an amazing performance. But this is not the Joker that I wanted. At all. I'll even take Leto's pimped out Joker over this.

I hear everything that you're saying...

But I'm looking at it like he did kill Zazzie, so the turn to where the innocent get killed is there for me. Even when he kills his clearly mentally ill mother was a "kill the innocent" moment in that, she clearly was too ill to care for a child properly.

So in that regard it works for me.




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The Greatest Story (N)ever Told (finished)
http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=18&topic_id

Todd said during our Q&A that he neither killed Sophie or her child.

*************************************

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#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/bobgeorge87

https://www.instagram.com/thirtythree.three/

SPOILER:



















His walk down the hallway at the end, with the bloody footprints, was similar to his walk down the hallway as he left her apartment. Plus we never see her again in the movie. But then she didn't outright wrong him like the other people he killed, so he didn't really have a reason to kill her. It didn't fit with his twisted moral code.

But I mean if the director himself said he didn't intend it that way, eh, it's probably not worth debating.

*************************************

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#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/bobgeorge87

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Hollywood consistently gets them wrong. Treats them as incredible simple, flat, and with no nuance. "Kill The Rich. A New Movement?" is the headline of the newspaper, and that's more or less what the movement amounts to. When the movie isn't dealing with the "movement" specifically, it does an okay job at laying out what the frustrations of the people are. Funding cuts to public services, the arrogance of the rich. But when dealing with the movement itself? It's just "kill the rich" and Joker is a hero for doing so. No, that's not how that works. Protests treated as warzones and protesters shown as violent, unlawful, unrepentant. I'm sick of that shit.

Gotham is supposed to represent the worst case

Gotham is always on the razor's edge of anarchy. That's just the canvas. There's never going to be a story told about Gotham which you will be able to have a 1:1 with real life. Metropolis, maybe. Never Gotham. The people of Gotham fall for just about everything every time.

now if this wasn't Gotham, i'd fully agree. I think this one is about the only time you can get away with a dramatic, really silly protest scenario outside of satire.

Tim Burton's Gotham was a cartoon, and none of the films since then have ever explored or explained anything about the city. So, what you're saying works if you're into the comics, I suppose, but if not -- it's just par for the course in hollywood's portrayal of social movements.

its a cartoonish, violence filled, hopeless, godless, city.

the comics have explored it a little more, but it all circles back to Gotham and its citizens just being helpless and the city tragic. what you see is what you get with Gotham.

>Tim Burton's Gotham was a cartoon, and none of the films
>since then have ever explored or explained anything about the
>city. So, what you're saying works if you're into the comics,
>I suppose, but if not -- it's just par for the course in
>hollywood's portrayal of social movements.

Got it

Because i thought Falling Down was reprehensible - others thought it was brilliant.

Is it in that area where a not good guy who is troubled is mistaken for the good guy by the audience?

*************************************

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#2dopebrothersandastackofwax

https://www.instagram.com/bobgeorge87

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i thought it would have worked better as just a stand alone story not something tied to Batman.

i didn't really go in expecting much and it really played on my middling expectations.

i didn't see the Zadie thing coming cause i wasn't really giving the movie enough credit that her being with him was implausible.

I wasn't expecting the dark humor which is exactly the way i would go if i was doing a Joker movie, so that was nice. There wasn't a ton, but the bits that were there were pretty good. Even the moment he runs into the glass door. The timing was so good. There was something about that moment that read comedy, but you couldn't laugh at it. pretty good writing on that moment.

I don't have too much to take it to task for - I don't think it earned the "dream" type twist they employed and it's amazing to me that they felt the need to include the Wayne murders. I also can't be the only one that saw all the technical homages to shots from The Dark Knight and found that a little...odd for a movie that's ostensibly not connected to that timeline at all.


I also agree with people that the movie didn't always feel as dreadful or defeated as it should've; part of me wonders if there's anything they could've done about that other than using old film and scaling the resolution down to the standards of the '70s. But then we have You Were Never Really Here is a counterpoint to that, I guess.


I don't know, I think the most common sentiment I'm seeing about this movie is the correct one: Phillips is a smart director and he lucked out in getting Phoenix for this, who's asked to do a lot of digging to elevate the material from a series of references to something more original. I don't think it's going to be a movie that keeps people thinking about it the way King of Comedy has the power to do, because while that movie also has a lot of minor nagging flaws it ultimately didn't have to carry the weight of a comic book IP and felt more real / relatable as a result.


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> I don't think
>it earned the "dream" type twist they employed and it's
>amazing to me that they felt the need to include the Wayne
>murders.

Every Line of Dialogue Is Like This. So, so bad.

When you watch Phillips's old comedies, he struggles with pace and transition because he just tends to throw shit in that he thinks is funny. A lot of this feels thrown together too.

But really it could've all worked with sharper dialogue. The dialogue is sooooo rough.

Also, it's a movie where the rich are bad, and the world recognizes the rich are bad, but the protagonist adamantly refuses to join the world on this. He keeps saying he's apolitical. Why would Phillips build up to a "fuck the system" vibe... only to both-sides it at the end? So embarrassing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/movies/joker-movie-controversy.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

The Real Threat of ‘Joker’ Is Hiding in Plain Sight

What the film wants to say — about mental illness or class divisions in society — is not as interesting as what it accidentally says about whiteness.



By Lawrence Ware

Oct. 9, 2019

This article contains spoilers for “Joker.”

Before “Joker” opened last weekend, much was being made of how its tale of a murderous villain echoed news stories of mass shooters and incel threats, and how the film might encourage unbalanced viewers to commit acts of violence. As it turned out, it mainly inspired audiences to open their wallets for the biggest October opening ever.

After watching the film, I could understand the concerns: Directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the deranged clown Arthur Fleck, the title character, “Joker” is simultaneously a well-made film in its own right and a blatant mash-up of “The King of Comedy” and “Taxi Driver.” It nods at classism and winks at the Bruce Wayne family mythos, but at its core the movie is about a mentally ill loner.

Still, what struck me most is that what the film wants to say — about mental illness or class divisions in American society — is not as interesting as what it accidentally says about whiteness. For it is essentially a depiction of what happens when white supremacy is left unchecked. It shows the delusions that many white men have about their place in society and the brutality that can result when that place is denied.

The fact that the Joker is a white man is central to the film’s plot. A black man in Gotham City (really, New York) in 1981 suffering from the same mysterious mental illnesses as Fleck would be homeless and invisible. He wouldn’t be turned into a public figure who could incite an entire city to rise up against the wealthy. Black men dealing with Fleck’s conditions are often cast aside by society, ending up on the streets or in jail, as studies have shown.


And though Fleck says he often feels invisible, had he been black, he truly would have been — except, of course, when he came into contact with the police. They’d be sure to see him.


Though Fleck is pursued and investigated by Gotham’s finest, his whiteness acts as a force field, protecting him as he engages in the violent acts of the latter half of the film. Consider his appearance on the live talk show hosted by Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). A black man acting as strangely as Fleck does would not have been allowed to go on the air. But the white Fleck is given access, and bloodshed soon follows.

Or look at how Fleck interacts with others. He is frequently in conversation with people who occupy a lower rung in society than he does: a state-appointed therapist he sees early on; a protective mother who chastises him for playing peekaboo with her son on the bus; his possible love interest, a neighbor who lives in the same building; and the psychiatrist he sees in Arkham Asylum. Every one of these characters is a black woman with whom he eventually has confrontations. Phillips consistently places Fleck in an oppositional or antagonistic position to these women.

I don’t know if this is intentional on Phillips’s part, but it is significant. When we learn that his relationship with the neighbor (played with artful restraint by Zazie Beetz) was merely a figment of his troubled imagination, the way he leaves the apartment implies that this realization has led Fleck to kill her and perhaps her child. After his final conversation with the Arkham doctor, his bloody footsteps suggest that he kills her as well.
Editors’ Picks


Fleck kills white men because he cannot access their status and is ostracized by them, but his black female victims are so invisible that the film does not bother to show their deaths. We as viewers can and should take note of them.

There are other ways that whiteness informs Fleck’s character. He anticipates he’ll be treated as a son by the Wayne family, and assumes he’ll be given medical records just by asking the hospital orderly (played by the great Brian Tyree Henry). The privileges that come with Fleck’s race set him up for these unrealistic expectations. When they’re not met, the consequences are deadly.

Whiteness may not have been on the filmmakers’ minds when they made “Joker,” but it is the hidden accomplice that fosters the violence onscreen.


A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 10, 2019, Section C, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Maniacal Killer Shielded by His White Skin. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

What exactly is Arthur Fleck's mental illness?

All of them. He has all of the mental illnesses.

- There's the uncontrollable laughter: the Pseudobulbar Affect. Sure. Let's say that they nailed that one down, and it could be explained from his brain injury.

- You could say he's a psychopath, which really isn't a mental illness per se. Only outside of the murders, he doesn't really show the symptoms of psychopathy.

- Schizophrenia? I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but except for the hallucinations of Zazie Beetz, he doesn't really show any symptoms of that. The movie doesn't give us any, at least.

- PTSD. The past trauma is revealed, but we aren't shown any flashbacks or triggered episodes symptomatic of that.

None of these things except the first are actually stated in the movie. We're just left to believe he has whatever mental illness would cause him to act child-like and soft spoken, create his own imaginary girlfriend, and then start killing people, and then reveling in chaos. Which is bullshit and an insult to anyone with an actual mental illness.

You could say this is picky, but a movie about how badly society treats people with mental illness should at least tell us what mental illness the main character has, instead of basically shrugging and saying he has whatever mental illness makes him fucked up and cwaaaaazy.

The laughing condition was clear and possible Schizophrenia and PTSD were directly tied to the circumstances he found himself in. I think the first murders and subsequent reaction of Gotham probably triggered some NPD, but i don't think those had anything to do with his mental illness. It was obviously self-defence.

after that, yeah, i think its up to interpretation

>You could say this is picky, but a movie about how badly
>society treats people with mental illness should at least tell
>us what mental illness the main character has, instead of
>basically shrugging and saying he has whatever mental illness
>makes him fucked up and cwaaaaazy.

idk if it matters which illnesses he has since A. its Joker, and B. it seemed like the movie was just pointing at the lack of help for anybody with any illness in Gotham. I mean, you were already sympathising with Arthur anyway so i think getting granular with which illness he has is kinda doing to much for a 2.5hr movie about the Joker.

They're definitely walking a line. i agree with that.

It just wants to make you feel like Arthur "can't help it." Because, as we all know, mentally ill people are murderous assholes waiting to be unleashed.

the more I think about it, the more I think "fuck this movie."

I mean even if you try to justify most of his actions, the murder of the doctor at the end is inexcusable.

I loved the flick, and there are moments when you feel for Art, but over all not enough to make you excuse his wrong actions.

Though I can see the danger in incels and mentally ill people viewing him as a hero.

I just took it as a more realistic view of a comic book character. I mean this is the same character who nearly beat a kid to death with a crowbar and then blew him and his mother up with a bomb.

I saw Travis Bickle as far more sympathetic, that even though he was a racist weirdo, he didn't really have bad intentions .. i guess except for the senator, but he didn't actually do anything. pretty much all his violence was in service of saving Iris.

i suppose Arthur was symathetic in the sense that he wanted people to smile and laugh, and he doesn't start the movie as a violent guy but he feels circumstances drove him to where he is. he gets shit on, made fun of by his peers and society, his "dad" rejected him, his mom lied to him, Deniro talk show host used him to mock him. I can see the 4chan/incel type crowd feeling he was justified on some fuck everyone, but I don't see him as all that sympathetic to your average viewer, and it's sealed at the end as you mentioned with the doctor.

i loved the movie though

Shocked to see Bob in it though.

It's a pretty big nod to two of his signature performances

>Shocked to see Bob in it though.

nm

This is exactly what I imagined.

Fucking abysmal.

The second I saw the Wayne family photo with the necklace I was like, 'yo, they better not show those fucking pearls again' and sure enough.

Awful storytelling

https://deadline.com/2019/10/joker-profit-global-box-office-avengers-1202767490/


I know this was supposed to be a one off but I bet a sequel will be made at some point or they incorporate it into the new Batman again.

Phillips said it absolutely would not tie into the Robert Pattinson Batman reboot.

I hated this movie and hope there's no sequel. But if there were I don't know what the point would be if not to introduce Batman. While a Batman movie told from the POV of the Joker might make me interested again, I don't think it's going to ever happen.

https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1187619362003472384

The trailer made this obvious (along with casting) but this is an attempt at Taxi Driver and King of Comedy that comes nowhere close to either. But Joaquin is excellent.

for all the reasons listed above, and more.

even pheonix's performance is not much more than a shell of things he's done much better in movies that were much better than this.

easily among the worst of the year.

I felt like I was taking fucking crazy pills

at best it's a comic-branded, shitty copy of better films.

at worst it is literally dangerous. the template for this villain is all too real: marginalized single white male who blames bullies (his low-level colleagues at the clown job, as well as college-educated subway yuppies who have opportunities he envies) and lack of a father figure (Wayne and Murray are written as complete dicks) for his crimes.

the fact that so many black and brown characters were cast to personally aggrieve him made me queasy -- him playing with a black kid on a bus and stalking a black woman before both rebuff him, equaling some kind of failed race relations that excuse his later behavior (one black social worker lets him down, so he kills the next one). and the shot of all the news stations giving him continuous coverage at the end is haunting.

it's valid to bring those issues into a movie, but Todd Phillips is too dumb or racist of a director to have them make any valid sense. so there is no punchline.

I like Taxi Driver BTW.

dont know what thh fuck yall are on about this crap

And I swear I tried to go in and watch it objectively but I don't think I really did. I will say my main objections to the film are based on moral or "woke" reasons (though the films treatment of Black Women is noticeable).

My main objections:

1. I am a Joker comic book fan from the 80s and given the Joker a backstory I think is a bad idea. And if you ae going to give him a backstory, you better make it good. I kept watching it thinking, how could this guy grow into becoming Batman's greatest rival?? (more minor gripe, wouldn't he be 40 years older than Batman?)

2. This movie was just super derivative of the King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. To borrow so heavily from two movies from One director is bullshit.

**********
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"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I kept watching it thinking, how could this guy grow into becoming
>Batman's greatest rival?? (more minor gripe, wouldn't he be 40
>years older than Batman?)
>
Yeah the age thing was weird to me too. By the time Bruce Wayne was Batman the Joker would be like 70. Plus the Joker that we got was not a psychopathic criminal mastermind in the making. I think we just had to accept that the writers/director didn't give a single fuck about either the comic books or the comic book fans.

>2. This movie was just super derivative of the King of Comedy
>and Taxi Driver. To borrow so heavily from two movies from
>One director is bullshit.
>
It brings absolutely nothing else to the table.

I hope it wins 0 Oscars. Phoenix is a shoe-in, but thinking on it he is my least favorite Joker, counting Jared Leto.

>Yeah the age thing was weird to me too. By the time Bruce
>Wayne was Batman the Joker would be like 70. Plus the Joker
>that we got was not a psychopathic criminal mastermind in the
>making. I think we just had to accept that the
>writers/director didn't give a single fuck about either the
>comic books or the comic book fans.

i definitely get this criticism, but one reason i like this film so much is how decidedly noncanon it is. it's simply its own thing. i would argue it maintains the anarchic spirit of the character. for what it's worth, this anecdote may shed light on the lack of future worldbuilding: https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a30366935/joker-movie-alternative-ending-revealed/


>I hope it wins 0 Oscars. Phoenix is a shoe-in, but thinking on
>it he is my least favorite Joker, counting Jared Leto.

i think each actor, including mark hamill, brings something unique to the character. it's one role i really don't mind seeing very different takes of.

need to see it again though