Joker

[Maou]

I haven't seen it but lost interest in superhero movies about a two years ago. It's almost as if I know everything that will happen every time no matter what. This seems like a nice change in the rig he direction.

I wouldn't even call it a superhero movie, in fact, the batman references felt a bit shoehorned into a movie about a mentally ill person in a fucked up society.

 

[Tomb1]

The Joker is unapologetically nihilistic by the end of the movie. Mental illness doesn't account for that.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I thought of this post immediately when I saw the scene. Laughed inappropriately too.

This movie doesn't glamorize violence. At all.

This movie depicts class war. It's about culture and alienation.

This movie indites neoliberal austerity and cuts and makes a great argument for robust social provisioning and change. Yes, you are suppose to care about these people.

This movie makes one look at mental illness from a first person POV and doesn't let you come away without empathy.

Every moronic media person that trashed this movie without seeing it needs to be punched in the mouth.

Interested to see where this goes in further movies.

Yes the female character treatment bothers me as it does in a lot of movies and TV. But this wasn't the "incel" flag waving that was predicted, the film sees to that. Penny was as much of a victim as Arthur.

He'll be nominated for every best actor award there is. He won't win the vast majority.

I really like most Joaquin Phoenix films, this is no exception. He's such a gifted actor.

I liked it. Regarding the controversy, I can definitely see why it would make people uncomfortable, but....

This movie was nowhere near as bad as those stupid fucking neo-fascist Kingsman movies (which were also way more violent than this) which I've never seen a media outlet go after.

Of course the Kingsman movies were also really weird about class. Like everyone had to wear a blazer and act like some propre English gentleman and the bad guy seemed like he was some noveau-riche type, and he got a blowjob by some blonde scandinavian princess or some bullshit at the end. That movie got praised by critics as "subversive" for some reason; really I think it was a harbinger of Trump. 2015 was a goddamn mess.

Oh, I was unclear on one thing...

Was Penny Fleck right about the adoption being a front? My reading of it was that she was. The postcard with her pictures said TW. The documents in the file flashed by too quickly for me to read; I only noticed "abandonment" which I assume was a reference to the radiator thing.

The movie reads differently depending on that detail.

I actually found the movie rather thought-provoking... definitely a lot of rewatch value for sure. Anyway, my final take on the whole controversy is that it's not like people don't still study movies that had a far worse impact than this probably ever will in film school. I don't think Arthur's actions were morally justifiable and a lot of his behavior was legitimately off-putting, but so much about the wider context was really interesting.

Also... about relating it to the Batman canon... I think it's kind of interesting to maybe interpret this as the origin of the Heath Ledger version, at least as an experiment. To watch Dark Knight with this in mind. I think there were a few things in the movie that leaned toward that, even if age and a bunch of other details don't match up. There's the fact that he painted his face and had a shaggy unkempt green mane rather than something more manicured like Jack Nicholson. There were also a few things he said in the last third that could belong on the same contiuum. Hell, maybe even "these people need now, but when they don't, they'll turn their backs on you", which might reflect a change in attitudes among Gotham residents marking a shift towards greater levels of cruelty.

 

[Venus Rose]

it does seem like a psych thriller to me, yeah
I personally liked the movie, and I have trouble responding to how well he portrayed Joker relative to others since there is a lot of information I am missing about the character. The only other portrayal I have seen is the Heath Ledger one (and Jared Leto - Suicide Squad, but I didn't like the movie...)