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6 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

Saw this. Well what do you know, it turns out the real clown was Todd Phillips all along. A man who has nothing to offer here except '70s fetishism, being able to play music really fucking loud, and thinking that character drama = fakeouts and constant victimization (the worst offenders being asshole Wall Street bros who... know Sondheim lyrics by heart) - he even manages to take Phoenix down with him, given that he never seems interested in Arthur as a human being, only as a collection of crude surface tics to be paraded in front of the audience - and yet a man in a world (or should I say a society) where mass film culture has now been sufficiently infantilized that people can look at this rambling one-note Taxi Driver wannabe that pretends it has something to say and seriously take it on its word. Is it just me or is it getting crazier out there? 

That has become the big meme from the film, being used by a lot of political commenters over the past few days on the current political crisis in the US.

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2 hours ago, CoolioD1 said:

i believe it was todd phillips original vision that the third act consist of the joker fighting a giant CG mutant rat. but the studio made him cut it smh.

Cuts to reality and the riots in Gotham were just Fleck in an alley seated in dazed stupor drooling watching as swarms of super rats eat tear one another to shreds. He spasms into one of his uncontrollable fits of laughter but before he can catch his breath a rat dives into his mouth suffocating him to death. The rat squirms out of it and the camera freezes on his popped, dead eyes and a crooked smile on his face. The rats then begin feasting on his corpse. Roll credits. Maybe in the director's cut? Can't ever trust those unreliable narrators though so who knows, eh?

Edited by JohnnyGossamer
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28 minutes ago, dudalb said:

I am picking up that those who are really familiar with Scorsese's movies, althought they overall liked the film and though Phoenix was great, were not as impressed by it as those who are not familiar with Scorsese;s work.

I

 

I'd extend that to people familiar with decent flicks about present or even latent insanity in misunderstood loners turned psychotics aren't as impressed. There are a fair amount of decent movies that cover that territory beyond Scorsese.

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4 hours ago, Cmasterclay said:

The part where he crosses out the sign that says "don't forget to laugh" and the part where he literally screams the movie's "themes" right before he shoots Robert De Niro are two examples of how head thumpingly obvious this movie was with absolutely nothing new to say about society.

I almost had to roll my eyes into the back of my head during Arthur's big monologue during the De Niro interview about how men like him have been rejected by society in how on the nose it was. It's a testament to Phoenix's performance that he manages to sell some of the really trite dialogue he's forced to say in this with total conviction.

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9 hours ago, filmlover said:

I almost had to roll my eyes into the back of my head during Arthur's big monologue during the De Niro interview about how men like him have been rejected by society in how on the nose it was. It's a testament to Phoenix's performance that he manages to sell some of the really trite dialogue he's forced to say in this with total conviction.

 

I dont think the purpose of Jokers Dialogue was to make him agree with him but more show that is how people actually think. 

 

There are a lot of men who think like that and that is dangerous (then add in mental health issues). It is an issue to look into or else radicals will take their place. 

 

Like i find many say that the Jokers Critique of society is invalid, but that is not the point really because its more a symbolism of a greater problem out there in society. 

 

 

I really think a lot of you totally have misread the film for taking as some legit critique of society... 

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9 hours ago, Lordmandeep said:

 

I dont think the purpose of Jokers Dialogue was to make him agree with him but more show that is how people actually think. 

 

There are a lot of men who think like that and that is dangerous (then add in mental health issues). It is an issue to look into or else radicals will take their place. 

 

Like i find many say that the Jokers Critique of society is invalid, but that is not the point really because its more a symbolism of a greater problem out there in society. 

 

 

I really think a lot of you totally have misread the film for taking as some legit critique of society... 

I thought the point of it was to literally speak a very obvious prevailing theme directly to the viewers... A theme/s that the movie had already hammered home with the almost comically with oppressive cello strings, the Don't Laugh!, the physical abuse, the mental abuse, the living with with an invalid delusional mother, the delusions he has, the deceit he deals with, the pulling of his care and meds even though they make a point of showing he's beyond help before that, et cetera, et cetera... It never ends. Because... I don't think he trusted the audience being he'd never made this kind of movie.

 

And, with the what's a delusion and what's reality, I don't think he trusted himself to make the hard decisions. So, he doesn't really touch it... Leaves it to be argued whether the entire thing's a delusion. Or, maybe just one or two smaller things are delusions. Or, maybe five or six things are delusions? 

 

But, that speaking to audience directly spelling it out was completely unnecessary. It had me cackling. As did Dinero's exit. As did, even though he did do it, everyone taking a goof ass lunatic at his word within seconds when confessed to the subway murders. Felt like something South Park would do to mock movies. But, this one did it and meant it. 

 

Movie showed its cards in the biggest way in that moment. It looks challenging. Has all the window dressing - excellent costumes/makeup, excellent photography, excellent set design, loud lead performance - of something more substantive. But, really it's just screaming in your face about a whole hell of a lot of stuff that it doesn't actually care to engage or discuss. Just wants to yell. It's a rant. That's the point. It's "getting crazier." Everyone's just yelling and hating and hurting. Everyone's abusive and bullying. Everyone's exceedingly dumb with self-inflated egos. No one's listening. No one has empathy...ever. So, Phillips movies screams to the audience... My movie's gonna do the same! My movie's gonna "werewolf!" Fuck, yeah! Wolfpack, baby! This movie's so me!

 

This is made further obvious by any and every interview of Tod Phillips regarding Joker. Dude has nothing on his mind. All he talks about is chaos and mayhem being important in his movies and his life. That's it. Nothing else.

 

Edited by JohnnyGossamer
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22 minutes ago, JohnnyGossamer said:

It "looks" challenging but really it's just screaming in your face about a whole hell of a lot of stuff that it doesn't actually care to engage or discuss. Just wants to yell.

 

It's a con job.

 

This made further obvious by any and every interview of Tod Phillips regarding Joker. Dude has nothing on his mind. All he talks about is chaos and mayhem being important in movies. That's it. Nothing else.

"I don't believe in anything. I just thought it'd be good for my act" is the movie describing itself to the audience. 

 

Still, I liked Joker ranting and shooting people in the most basic sense that he was finally fucking doing something instead of being kicked around by everybody.

Edited by Jake Gittes
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4 hours ago, Jake Gittes said:

"I don't believe in anything. I just thought it'd be good for my act" is the movie describing itself to the audience. 

 

Still, I liked Joker ranting and shooting people in the most basic sense that he was finally fucking doing something instead of being kicked around by everybody.

In that moment, he does self- actualize. I'll give it that. And, yeah. That line really does sum it up.

 

For as raw as it is or wants to be with the pathology of a psychopath, thought Phillips pulled punches.

 

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since there's no spoiler thread for this, I'd just put down some thoughts here. 

basically an attempt to mix European personal cinema with American narrative cinema...some parts work, some don't. 

 

the embarrassing: the in your face, verbose exchange between Joker and Murray...too explicitly topical for any sort of decent filmmaking. 

 

the not so good: the soundtrack for the first 2/3 of the film, too American studio style dramatic, forcing the audience to feel in certain, precise ways, even when the visual and acting are not enough or already enough. the last 1/3 is much better when the silence (only surrounding sounds) is used, the apartment outburst sequence is a prime example. 

 

the almost perfect: Arthur's whole delusion of a girlfriend next door...those revealing shots of the presence/absence of that single mom is totally and completely unnecessary since everything is crystal clear when she was shocked by Arthur's presence in her living room.

 

the good, Phoenix's performance, or the director-actor collaboration in the 70s Scorsese, Coppola's way, and all those American new cinema references.

  

the absolutely beautiful: masking Bunuel's surreal cinema with an American drama. "The whole thing is simply a dream or delusion or God's intervention" (as the Devil's Advocate ending) is as far as most American narratives would go, and more often than not as superficial plot device. 

In Joker, it's not either or, nor both and, it's "could be": Joker could be saved from the intended car crash and it could be that Arthur simply deluded himself to think that he's instrumental in the death of Thomas Wayne... 

 

lastly, Joke refers to Taxi Driver, very much like Taxi Driver refers to The Searchers; Joke isn't derivative of Taxi Driver any more than Taxi Driver of The Searchers. Ford and Scorsese placed their characters in factual, historical time period because those two eras best illustrate people in transitions. Joker is about the marginalized people in contemporary, everything is political, society, there's no need for post-civil war or Vietnam war as scene, wars and struggles are everywhere within and without.

 

 

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On 10/10/2019 at 10:54 AM, filmlover said:

I almost had to roll my eyes into the back of my head during Arthur's big monologue during the De Niro interview about how men like him have been rejected by society in how on the nose it was. It's a testament to Phoenix's performance that he manages to sell some of the really trite dialogue he's forced to say in this with total conviction.

I don't think that is the valid argument, dialogue is a bit chessy but in consistent with his experience and character, he was indeed rejected at all by the society portrayed . Given his rage , it is realistic that he said something like that in full rage without a constructive point.

 

Arthuer is not a speaker nor debater, he can't even deliver a proper joke. He supposed to speak like a crazy person. That monologue isn't a social commentary from director, it is arthur's characterization .  

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The film isn't clever by any stretch of the imagination, but it's hard to deny it's a bit of a thrill to be watching something that you can't quite believe exists. Yeah, there have been R-rated CBMs, but this has neither the broad comedy of Deadpool nor the gritty heroism of Logan. It's two hours of pitiful, hopeless misery. You feel dirty after watching it. And for better or worse the MCU will never, ever make something like it.

 

But yes, beyond the dreamy style, it can be rather quite bone-headed. I think the incel stuff has been exaggerated - if anything this is a liberal-leaning movie that pounds you over the head with all the systemic failures that impact the individual. If Arthur is sympathetic it's only because things bigger than him are worse. Credit to Phillips, they don't make him an anti-hero, as I feared when the project was announced. Society may have created this horrible person, but he is still a horrible person.

 

I did enjoy the talk-show scene. You know something horrific's going to happen and the film never lets you off that queasy hook. Seeing him become the Joker after 100 minutes of foreplay struck the right note. Sitting in his full make-up, on the verge of exploding, he is genuinely menacing. The dancing and the camper voice were also great, they paid homage to their comic book roots in the right way. I'd say I wanted more of that, but then the effect would be lost. Perhaps the mere glimpse was enough.

 

I don't know if I'll ever have the energy to watch the movie again. But I enjoyed how much it made me want to have a shower. And a cigarette.

 

 

Edited by Hatebox
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I thought it was fine. For me it works at a visceral surface level but all the thematic stuff and character stuff fall completely flat. 

 

As a bare bones story is extremely manipulative but it works. Guy with very serious mental issues that thinks he is owed something, gets kicked around by an indiferrent world until he snaps. Simple and effective to the point that the tv interview in the finale is a really intense and full of suspense sequence, like waiting for a bomb to go off. It's also very pretty to look at with a lot of visual bell and whistles. There's even some hints at great ideas that would in theory amount to something but in the end they amount to "dark shit and real stuff amirite?"

 

The movie keeps hinting at interesting things it could go to and doesn't follow through on any of them. Class warfare, mental health and everything else it evokes sometimes in hilariously obvious ways (ZOOM at the newspaper headline! ) is only paid lip service to. Even the interesting choice to flip the Batman narrative of "Good guy rich man helps the city from the rats" kinda becomes a moot point with the reveal about Joker's childhood abuse and his crazy mother. The movie kinda says at that point Arthur Fleck is already 95% the Joker, you 're just watching that final stretch of abuse for 2 hours which also nulifies Joaquin's character arc to me. Same goes for the embarrasing "twist" with Zazie Beetz. I mean really? Couldn't Todd Philips put a little effort to at least try and hide it with a bit more dialogue for her?

 

I think I sound overly negative but I'm not. The movie is not bad, Joaquin chewing scenery is always fun, it's interesting while you watch it and packs a visceral punch in the end. Despite Joker being a slave to Scorsese's style it feels a lot more like Innaritu to me. It's like the Revenant. There's craft in every scene, there's a lot of pretty stuff, there's some thrills, some good actors getting milage out of cardboards characters. I like a few Innaritu movies despite them constantly hinting at profundity that amounts to absolutely nothing. I like Joker the same way. 

 

The much talked aboud Scorsese rip-off style is also not a problem for me. It's pretty to look at and feels comforting and familiar (because it is), but it's  weird how he 100% zeroes in these TWO specific Scorsese movies and not Scorsese's style in general. And he did the same thing with War Dogs which was a carbon copy of Wolf of Wall Street. Brace your selves for Todd Phillips foray into the period costume drama. You know it's coming.

 

 

B.

 

Edited by Joel M
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Changing my grade to a C, the flaws of the movie get more glaring and frustrating in retrospect.  The script is really bad, and Phillips’ direction is that of somebody trying to copy an art house film without understanding why the successful ones make the decisions they do.  It’s remarkable that Joaquin and the tech crew managed to make this an overall passable movie

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On 10/12/2019 at 3:49 AM, Hatebox said:

The film isn't clever by any stretch of the imagination, but it's hard to deny it's a bit of a thrill to be watching something that you can't quite believe exists. Yeah, there have been R-rated CBMs, but this has neither the broad comedy of Deadpool nor the gritty heroism of Logan. It's two hours of pitiful, hopeless misery. You feel dirty after watching it. And for better or worse the MCU will never, ever make something like it.

 

But yes, beyond the dreamy style, it can be rather quite bone-headed. I think the incel stuff has been exaggerated - if anything this is a liberal-leaning movie that pounds you over the head with all the systemic failures that impact the individual. If Arthur is sympathetic it's only because things bigger than him are worse. Credit to Phillips, they don't make him an anti-hero, as I feared when the project was announced. Society may have created this horrible person, but he is still a horrible person.

 

I did enjoy the talk-show scene. You know something horrific's going to happen and the film never lets you off that queasy hook. Seeing him become the Joker after 100 minutes of foreplay struck the right note. Sitting in his full make-up, on the verge of exploding, he is genuinely menacing. The dancing and the camper voice were also great, they paid homage to their comic book roots in the right way. I'd say I wanted more of that, but then the effect would be lost. Perhaps the mere glimpse was enough.

 

I don't know if I'll ever have the energy to watch the movie again. But I enjoyed how much it made me want to have a shower. And a cigarette.

 

 

So far as R rated CBMs that push some heavy cynicism and lack of faith in humanity, do Sin City and/or Watchmen count? Honestly, don't love or hate either but they do exist.

 

History Of Violence is easily my favorite that's a hard R.

 

I know people love Road To Perdition too. Not a huge fan. Looks great though. Great score too. And, Jude Law's fun enough to watch as a pure pulp hired gun.

 

Edited by JohnnyGossamer
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In a weird way I'm glad the film didn't really show much of Phoenix as the actual Joker. I really enjoyed the transformation but his actual Joker isn't as threatening or as clever as someone like Heath Ledger's. Not saying the performance is bad or the character wasn't given due but yeah feel like any decent Batman would take out this guy easily. 

 

Not that's the point of the film of course (or is it?)

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