View Poll Results: Joker (Todd Phillips)

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  • Comedy

    13 61.90%
  • Tragedy

    8 38.10%
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Thread: Joker (Todd Phillips)

  1. #126
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)
    So in the pantheon of all comic book related films, sounds like slightly upper mid tier?
    In terms of how much I actually liked it? Middle. In terms of appreciation for at least trying something outside of the norm, upper tier. I'm happier to have watched this than to have watched, say Ant Man 2, even though I liked Ant Man 2 more and it is more successful at what it attempts. Probably doesn't make sense, but there you have it.
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  2. #127
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
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    Makes sense. I'm not arguing your points, just curious.

  3. #128
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting [ETM] (view post)
    Well, if it was an unpleasant experience that engaged you it can be good. But Joker doesn't ask any real questions nor does it offer any insight beyond generic tidbits about inequality and abuse. Sure, it is handsomely packaged, like I said in my first post, but the veneer is too thin to cover up the clumsy innards.
    I'm gonna have to disagree with that bit wholeheartedly as I've been questioning my own thoughts about mental illness since ive watched it. As for offering any insight, does it have to? It's a movie, not a college course.

    For the record, I dont even know if I'm putting this flick upper tier. I know its problematic. I dont care if people hate it, but seems like some are expecting it to be the most perfect mindblowing perfection ever or go fuck itself.

  4. #129
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    Somewhat unrelated, but this reminded me of someone online (Letterboxd I think) saying that Joker is kind a sad reflection of where mainstream movies have ended up - this exact same movie about someone not the Joker probably wouldn’t have been greenlit, let alone make any money. So going forward, all our adult genre films need to have a superhero angle? A romantic comedy starring Catwoman? A regular legal thriller but with Harvey Dent the main character? We are deep in an era of pandering to references. “I recognize that!”
    That is a sad reflection of the movie business right now, and why I think more and more of the "adult" movies will just end up on Netflix instead of in a theater.

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  5. #130
    The more I think about it, the more this seems like a dumber comic-book version of Fight Club that spends far too much time on watching Tyler Durden do stupid shit just because, you know, Batman!, and not enough time on the environment that (a) allowed loonies like Tyler Durden to seem like an attractive alternative and (b) the ramifications of allowing loonies like Tyler Durden to take power. Basically this seems like one of those silly movie pitches - it's DC meets Fight Club, but 70s! - that you see pitched in a Hollywood satire, but made real.
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  6. #131
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
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    Watched this in theater tonight. I absolutely got that Great Value Fight Club vibe. Even at the first (pertinant) scene, my wife looked and me whispered "that's in his head, right?" At least those scenes were shot in such a way that you could pick up on it, instead of flat out lying to you. That's an even worse technique imo.

    Still have issues with that ending.

  7. #132
    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    (Fleck doesn't seem to be all that clued into pop culture, so the music cues (e.g., Gary Glitter on the stairs) seem artificial and audience pandering rather than reflecting anything going on inside the character)
    This is a great point. Feels like an iconic scene, but I didn't love the music choice here. Should've been opera.

  8. #133
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)
    Watched this in theater tonight. I absolutely got that Great Value Fight Club vibe. Even at the first (pertinant) scene, my wife looked and me whispered "that's in his head, right?" At least those scenes were shot in such a way that you could pick up on it, instead of flat out lying to you. That's an even worse technique imo.

    Still have issues with that ending.
    In Fight Club's case, the film is expressly driven by Edward Norton's character's narration (he is in every scene), and because he is equally in the dark regarding the big reveal, it justifies both the "deception" on the film-maker's part and the use of the flashbacks to recontextualize what the narrator had told us before the reveal because Norton's character is literally doing the same thing at the same time, and we have been in his head the whole time. But in the Joker, the filmmakers are literally just inserting the flashbacks for the slow kids down the back.
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  9. #134
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    In Fight Club's case, the film is expressly driven by Edward Norton's character's narration (he is in every scene), and because he is equally in the dark regarding the big reveal, it justifies both the "deception" on the film-maker's part and the use of the flashbacks to recontextualize what the narrator had told us before the reveal because Norton's character is literally doing the same thing at the same time, and we have been in his head the whole time. But in the Joker, the filmmakers are literally just inserting the flashbacks for the slow kids down the back.
    Yep I totally agree.

  10. #135
    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    1. Batman Returns
    Had no idea you were a fan too, trans

  11. #136
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    This is happening in Chile right now. Every sanctimonious concerned citizen was afraid this movie was going to spawn massacres and serial killers. Instead, the people seem to have picked up on the social message of the film and turned Joker into a Guy Fawkes figure. Absolutely love it.
    Last edited by Grouchy; 10-24-2019 at 01:32 PM.

  12. #137
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting transmogrifier (view post)
    In Fight Club's case, the film is expressly driven by Edward Norton's character's narration (he is in every scene), and because he is equally in the dark regarding the big reveal, it justifies both the "deception" on the film-maker's part and the use of the flashbacks to recontextualize what the narrator had told us before the reveal because Norton's character is literally doing the same thing at the same time, and we have been in his head the whole time. But in the Joker, the filmmakers are literally just inserting the flashbacks for the slow kids down the back.
    That "reveal" was one of my big issues w/ the film (the other being the very last scene). For a good hour or so, I thought they were going to leave his "relationship" ambiguous, even though it seemed obvious to me what was being presented. It actually reminded me of the final scene in First Reformed ... but nope ... gotta hand hold for the cheap seats in the audience.

    I actually think it's one rewrite or even re-edit away from being a very strong film.
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  13. #138
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    I myself want some rewrites/edits of the first act; I rewrote my first paragraph a few times because I wanted a better wording of how the subway wallstreet bros scene makes me feel, after that thick miserablist pretension of a first act, rather than "yessss finally SOME violence!" I got a bit frustrated that I skipped a fair share of awardbait miserablism films, that many trusted people/critics I follow don't care for, only to get a full heavy dose of a particularly shallow version here. As I was feeling a bit apologetic for the unseen-by-me likes of Biutiful and Capernaum, that scene came along and pushed the film into pulpier and/or more varied tones, and I was into the film much better.
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
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  14. #139
    Scott of the Antarctic Milky Joe's Avatar
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    There's no heckin way he could have left that relationship ambiguous. It had to be spelled out because ambiguity is dead in the mind of the public, and it would have been interpreted as real and then thoroughly shit upon.
    ‎The severed arm perfectly acquitted itself, because of the simplicity of its wishes and its total lack of doubt.

  15. #140
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    That "reveal" was one of my big issues w/ the film (the other being the very last scene). For a good hour or so, I thought they were going to leave his "relationship" ambiguous, even though it seemed obvious to me what was being presented. It actually reminded me of the final scene in First Reformed ... but nope ... gotta hand hold for the cheap seats in the audience.

    I actually think it's one rewrite or even re-edit away from being a very strong film.
    My feelings exactly. Take away the dumb cutaways overexplaining the black girl wasn't there, a bit of the heavy-handed writing (like that "What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner...?" line, I really hated that bit), show the Wayne murder more elliptically and end the movie with Joker on top of the police car and the Sinatra song on the soundtrack. It's almost a masterpiece.

  16. #141
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    Thought the climax on Murray's show was quite good. Phoenix does some fine work, tho the camera sometimes lingers too much too often. The movie certainly doesn't trust the audience much. There's one shot, though, toward the end after Fleck gets off the clown-stuffed subway and huffs and strides while leaving, and the camera slowly zeros in on Fleck's icy, zoned-out stare. Really wonderful bit from Phoenix. After all the hullabaloo about Society and maybe-shooters, this turned out to be merely alright. De Niro didn't bring much, unfortunately. They used him for the texture, the winking nod, and that's kind of obnoxious.
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  17. #142
    Second star to the right [ETM]'s Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Grouchy (view post)
    Every sanctimonious concerned citizen was afraid this movie was going to spawn massacres and serial killers. Instead, the people seem to have picked up on the social message of the film and turned Joker into a Guy Fawkes figure. Absolutely love it.
    Are you sure you're not reading into it as much as the sanctimonious concerned citizens, though? "Picking up on the social message" sounds cooler than "stir shit up while masked the latest popular anarchist from a movie".

    To be clear, I'm glad people in Chile are standing up for themselves, but I feel that any connection to Joker lessens what they are doing.

    I mean, Fawkes was a failed terrorist, the "Guy Fawkes figure" is actually V from "V for Vendetta". The mask is part of a long tradition that celebrates his failure and death, not as an iconic symbol. That's all comic.

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  18. #143
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Yeah but Fawkes was already a contradictory symbol of iconography in Britain before Alan Moore took on him. I'm reading on the Gunpowder Plot and it was basically meant to be a coup-d-etat against King James I (a protestant king) and put a Catholic queen as head of state - and by the way, the custom to refer to these dolls as "guys" developed into the modern use of the term. What I mean is that he's a valid symbol reconfigured by pop culture into something else. Same as Joker.

    And what is happening in Chile is fucking unheard of and terrible. The media doesn't cover it all and, although I take everything on the internet with a grain of salt, I've seen enough terrible pictures and videos to know what's real and what's not. Piñera, the president, declared a state of war and sent the military to what basically amounts to shoot at the citizens and, if they resist, kill and/or rape them. It's mayhem over there.

  19. #144
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    Quote Quoting Grouchy (view post)
    This is happening in Chile right now. Every sanctimonious concerned citizen was afraid this movie was going to spawn massacres and serial killers. Instead, the people seem to have picked up on the social message of the film and turned Joker into a Guy Fawkes figure. Absolutely love it.
    The first photo you posted appears to be from Beirut, not Chile. (I saw it in another context, but look closely and you'll see the Lebanese flag.)

    I dunno if I'd call Fawkes a "contradictory symbol of iconography" when he's burned in effigy every November.

    (But then I wouldn't call him a terrorist, either, unless one really wanted to align oneself with the Church of England and the court of James I. Which would be a considerably odd thing to do in the 21st century.)

  20. #145
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    The first photo you posted appears to be from Beirut, not Chile. (I saw it in another context, but look closely and you'll see the Lebanese flag.)
    Damn you're right, and it's not even necessary to look that closely.

  21. #146
    Second star to the right [ETM]'s Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    But then I wouldn't call him a terrorist, either, unless one really wanted to align oneself with the Church of England and the court of James I. Which would be a considerably odd thing to do in the 21st century.)
    I meant in the context of his own time.

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  22. #147
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    In the context of his own time, he wouldn't have been considered a terrorist in France, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, either.

    How surprising it is that you're a Royalist, ETM.

  23. #148
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    *sigh*

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  24. #149
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    LOL

  25. #150
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