***Joker*** movie Review Thread - Oct 2nd Release

Posted: 4 years ago

Joker Movie Review: This Portrait Of A Villain Leans On Joaquin Phoenix's Astounding 

Joker Movie Review: As a portrait of anxiety and nihilism stemming from poverty and systemic oppression, it is magnificent.


Evil never gestates in a vacuum. To take shape, go out into the world and evolve, it requires a countervailing force to challenge it on multiple planes - from the visceral at one end to the ethical at the other. Joker, a dark, subversive and wholly absorbing account of the origin of the seminal DC Comics villain, delves into the nature and substance of malevolence through the means of a story that, for the first time ever, does away with Batman. But that does not mean Arthur Fleck, played with stunning aplomb by Joaquin Phoenix, does not have a fight on his hands. It is so extreme that it drives the mentally fragile man over the edge. Joker, Batman's bete noire, is born.

In this sweeping construct, Fleck isn't obviously incited by a crime-busting superhero but by social realities loaded heavily against his ilk, people who are easy to paint into a corner and crush. For all the numbingly abominable violence that he unleashes when rage gets the better of him, he morphs into an inadvertent rallying figure for those that have been hung out to dry by rapacious stockbrokers and insensitive administrators. Fleck has been dealt a terrible hand. As he sinks into insanity as a result, he makes common cause willy-nilly with others who are similarly down in the dumps.

Joker opens with Fleck coming out of a correctional home and walking straight into a city where sanitation workers are on strike, garbage is piled up everywhere and he is brutally assaulted by a gang of teenagers for making off with a signboard announcing the demise of a music store. "We live in a society that stinks," he later says. Up until a point, Fleck isn't bad at all. He makes visible efforts to be as inoffensive and unthreatening as he can be although his hollow, rasping laugh, which he is unable to control owing to a neurological condition, cannot but draw unwanted attention.


Fleck lives in a cramped, dimly lit apartment with his ailing mother Penny (Frances Conroy) and plays the dutiful son to the hilt. Embedded in the old lady's back story is one of the precipitants of her son's metamorphosis. The building's elevator does not work and on his trudges up and down the stairs he bonds with Sophie (Zazie Beetz), a single mother and his neighbour. He is aware of the absence of a father and searches in vain for a stand-in. "I've been the man of the house ever since I can remember," he says (with a mix of remorse and pride) in the course of a spur-of-the-moment conversation with Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), a late-night television show host he idolizes to the point of distraction.

The Fleck-Franklin relationship, another reason that hastens the onset of Joker's destructive streak, is an obvious reversal of the 1983 De Niro-starrer The King of Comedy, where the actor played a wannabe stand-up comic who looks up to a senior in the business who he goes to the extent of kidnapping. Another Martin Scorsese film (Taxi Driver) is cross-referenced in Joker, but not quite as directly. Like De Niro's Travis Bickle, Arthur Fleck receives the rough end of the stick and is pushed to the wall by the scorn repeatedly heaped upon him by a society that, as his counsellor reminds him, doesn't "care a shit" about him.

Joker definitely wouldn't rank alongside Scorsese's finest films, but it has enough inherent heft and ambition to be in a league way, way above that of most superhero flicks. The screenplay, jointly written by Scott Silver (The Fighter) and the film's director, Todd Phillips (The Hangover trilogy), combines the tropes of a grim, gritty psychological thriller with overt stabs at social commentary. It turns Gotham City of the late 1970s/early 1980s, where chaos reigns supreme, into a microcosm of contemporary New York, where a war is on between "those who have made something of their lives" and "those who haven't".

The man who speaks of this era-defining divide - business magnate and mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), father of the future Batman, Bruce Wayne - elaborates on why the former group sees the latter category of citizens as "clowns". This creates a socio-political context for Fleck's "rebellion" against the established order. When funding for the social services that pay for Fleck's meds and visits to his social worker is cut, he is left to fend for himself.

Joker Movie Review: It opens with Fleck coming out of a correctional home

The director of Joker leans heavily on the astounding brilliance of an emaciated-for-the-role Phoenix to create an accidental moral disruptor so strong that he blows everything away like a gust from hell. The actor, all skin and bones, fires on all cylinders. As a clown-for-hire languishing at the very bottom of the socio-economic pecking order, Phoenix uses accentuated dance movements to express both agony and ecstasy, the angularities of his scraggy body rendering his swaying particularly disquieting.


The film plunges into the life of the archvillain in a way, and to an extent, never attempted before. In doing so, it delivers a provocative and corrosive take on the very notion of villainy and radically pushes the boundaries of the genre, turning into an unsettling yet fascinating character study.

Joker's acts of violence are as random as they are pure and unalloyed, unleashed with the sole intention of registering his presence in a world where he is a mere clown, a failed one at that, and a perennial butt of ridicule. Fleck's misgivings propel him into situations that are fraught with danger. The more trouble he gets into the harder he recoils from the world. As he goes into a shell and plans his reprisals, each action of his is bloodier and more startling than the previous one. His tussle is as much with his own worsening psychosis as it is with a city that he believes should be burnt down.

It is an environment in which Fleck's wounds inevitably fester and his fury mounts. At one point in the film, he admits that "I don't believe in anything" although we see him right from the start of the film jotting down his thoughts and jokes in a notebook that, in its sheer arbitrariness, mirrors the state of his mind.

Many may find this heightened portrait of a villain bordering on the irresponsible and tendentious because it seems to make a 'hero' out of Joker. But don't we live in a world that is increasingly being taken over by democratically elected madmen thriving on fear-mongering and viciously divisive strategies? It is also problematic that in times in which mass killings have been hitting the headlines with alarming frequency, evil is sought to be equated with mental instability.

Yes, the dark, disturbing worldview of Joker may leave you severely discomfited. However, as a portrait of anxiety and nihilism stemming from poverty and systemic oppression, Joker is flat-out magnificent and undeniably compelling. No two ways about it.

Edited by awesomegurti - 4 years ago
Posted: 4 years ago

Joaquin Phoenix's Joker Pre-release Ticket Sales Suggest Record-breaking Opening Weekend for R-Rated Films

Joker's opening weekend is expected to break the record held by Venom for the opening weekend.

Posted: 4 years ago


'Joker' Review: Comedy is subjective and nobody's laughing during Joaquin Phoenix's film by Todd Phillips

'Joker' is a statement on society and perspective



Joker claims 'Comedy is subjective', in front of a live TV show audience while trying to convince them of his perspective, much like the makers trying to convenience us about their perspective of our society. Joker has been around for 80 years and people have talked in his defense and against him. The 2019 release is just about his story, it tells it like it is, no excuses, no explanations with added foreshadowing of the real world. Todd Phillips brings forth the Gotham City as a dark place where everyone in need for a hero and Joaquin Phoenix's Joker gives them one.

In 1980s Arthur Fleck was working hard to become a stand-up comedian. Despite all failures, he kept himself chirpy just as his mother had taught him 'always live with a smile on his face', which he did, even if he had to paint it on. Arthur faced some issues, he had a pathological laughing condition that he carried a card for, any emotional disturbance would cause him to laugh uncontrollably. Even after getting beaten up and cursed at by people around him Aurthur found happiness in small things. Things like having a neighbour talk to him, or daydreaming about being on the Murry Show, he kept going until that one moment when he lets go of the expectations and restriction he put on himself and it sets him free.

'Joker' follows Arthur Fleck as he brings colour to the bleak story of a DC villain. While the colour is mainly a grim bloody red we also see a need for change, humanity, fear, and absence of it. Numerous times we have seen a mugger kill Bruce Wayne's parents in Batman's origin story now we see what went on that led to the incident. Joaquin Phoenix as the titular role has such a strong presence it is hard to take your eyes off him even as he is bashing someone's head into a wall. While there are other exemplary actors in the picture like Frances Conroy, Robert De Niro, and Brett Cullen, Joaquin makes you forget about them almost instantly.

The screenplay of the film keeps it slow-paced while the music to draw in the audience and increase the intensity. More than anything the background score by Hildur Guðnadóttir is used to express Joker's emotions and the change in his behaviour. The film is a technical marvel, from the character's development to its interpretation in every scene, all of it works together to bring a psychological thriller that will disturb you. The film is meant to make you want to take your eyes away, to cringe and to feel bad. It will make you question, Do I laugh at the irony? or do I question my sanity?  

Verdict: Joker is a statement on society and perspective. It claims everyone has their side of the story. Truth is the one you chose to believe in.

Edited by awesomegurti - 4 years ago
Posted: 4 years ago

Here is why Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker movie is unnecessary



Created by the trio of Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson, The Joker is perhaps the most resilient villain in pop-culture, having first appeared in 1940 and returning to the comics and big screen again and again in different avatars. With the trademark grin, that is just a little wide enough to unsettle the coulrophobic in you, the wild green hair and that manic gleam in his eyes, he is also one of the most recognisable fictional characters. Although killer clowns are common in horror fiction, most famously in Stephen King’s horror novel It, it is the Joker, the most rogue of Batman’s rogues’ gallery, who is the most well-known.

The Joker is so popular that he sometimes outshines the hero Batman. Indeed, the greatest ‘superhero’ movie of all time, The Dark Knight has precious little superhero in it. The movie mostly revolves around the psychopathic, murderous Clown Prince of Crime bent on terrorising Gotham City, and the Caped Crusader takes a back seat in his own film, and admits defeat even at the end by taking the blame for murders committed by Harvey Dent. But Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger’s interpretation is only one of the many. This character has appeared in many live-action movies, animated features, video-games, and of course, his original abode, the comics and played by top-end actors such as Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill (as voice-actor), Heath Ledger and others.

Advertising

heath ledger as the joker in the dark knightHeath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.

The most recent depiction of this supervillain by Jared Leto in Suicide Squad did not find much traction with critics and audiences and now it seems Warner Bros and DC want to eventually dump Leto and get a better actor to play the role. Leonardo DiCaprio’s name had also popped up, but later Joaquin Phoenix was confirmed to play the character in an origin movie. However, this Joker will not be in DC Extended Universe and the movie is supposed to be a one-off.

Phoenix is a great actor, and even the negative reviews say he has given an amazing performance, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why Joker’s origin movie was even being considered. Let me explain why I think so. As I already said, the Joker has seen numerous iterations in different media, but it is Heath Ledger’s interpretation that is the gold standard now. So I will consider his version only for my argument.


Usually, audiences like villains to be complex with solid, poignant backstories to explain their current motivations properly. It needs to be told in a satisfactory manner the reason why the bad guy is doing bad things. Being bad just for the sake of it makes for boring, generic villains. Take Justice League’s Steppenwolf, for instance, who I consider the masterclass in how to write bad villains when it comes to superhero movies. That CGI behemoth was being destructive because that is what alien warlords supposedly do. His personality was like dozens of other superhero villains with no unique trait to speak of.

But Heath Ledger’s Joker was, as he said it himself, an agent of chaos. Explaining his backstory and things like how his face was disfigured and how he went mad, and so on, would have been counter-productive. For the most part, in The Dark Knight, Batman, that world’s greatest detective, struggles to understand the enigma that is the Joker. He desperately seeks for a rationale, and is horrified to discover that there is none. The Joker was an unstoppable force (as he says at one point), and not simply a man. Can something as primal as a force have an origin?

“Do you wanna know how I get these scars?” the Joker asks thrice in the film. And save for one instance when Batman prevents him from answering the question, he gives different answers in the other instances. Once, he says he gave them to himself to please his scarred wife, and the second time, he says it was his father who blemished his face. This was dashed smart writing. Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer, who together wrote the story, realised that Joker’s charm lay in the mystery itself. When it comes to this singular character, over-explaining leaches away his frightening charisma. It makes him less scary, less interesting, and less evil. So, no soppy, tragic backstory, please.

Edited by awesomegurti - 4 years ago
Posted: 4 years ago

Joker Review: Joaquin Phoenix Holds Together A Beautiful Yet Problematic Film

This article is part of our Mash'O'Meter review series, where Mashable India delves deep and obsessively into movies and shows. Sit back, grab a cuppa. This is going to be a long ride.

I think it has become customary for me to put up disclaimers before my reviews, so here we go again. Firstly, Joker has little to nothing to do with the main continuity of the DCEU movies and only borrows elements from the comics. So, although it is a comic-book movie, don't expect comic-book accuracy from it. And secondly, I'd advise people to tread cautiously even though it has an R-rating due to its depiction of mental illness. If you are suffering or recovering from any form of mental illness, please think twice before watching Joker. If you think you can digest it, buy a ticket this very moment.

Edited by awesomegurti - 4 years ago

Related Topics

doc-text Topics pencil Author stackexchange Replies eye Views clock Last Post Reply
Last Movie you watched?

pencil preity*zinta   stackexchange 724   eye 165261

preity*zinta 724 165261 20 days ago Pete15rogmourey
Adult movie star Kagney Linn Karter dies by suicide

pencil oyebollywood   stackexchange 0   eye 566

oyebollywood 0 566 1 months ago oyebollywood
New Hollywood movie in Hindi Dubbed

pencil Jashangrewal28   stackexchange 1   eye 1588

Jashangrewal28 1 1588 4 months ago Jashangrewal28
Hollywood forum chit chat thread #1

pencil carisma2   stackexchange 0   eye 1681

carisma2 0 1681 4 months ago carisma2

Topic Info

2 Participants 19 Replies 2576Views

Topic started by awesomegurti

Last replied by bhootkiaatma

loader
loader
up-open TOP