Joker movie discussion

[PurplDrank]

Let me start out by saying that Heath Ledgers Joker is Legendary and no one will ever out perform him. He is the Greatest of all time!

 

I have to say though that the new joker movie is the best drama film i have seen in a long time. The past couple of years have been about over the top super heroes and starwars films. The Joker is a more down to earth character study about societies affect on the mentally ill, the rich vs the poor, love and hate, lies and deceit, bullying. I see why many critics have review bombed the film.....it is scary close to the society that we live in now despite the film being set in the 1970s. Hell, I was blown away and scared coming out of the movie. 

 

Joaquin Phoenix performance as the Joker was absolutely stellar and can stand along side Heath Ledgers Joker as its own thing.

 

If you hate comic book movies......go see it! If you loved Heath ledger as the Joker go see it! want to see the best performance on screen in years? GO SEE IT!

[PlayStation 2]

I’m pretty sure it’s being review bombed because of all the memery about “incels” being drawn into it lmao 

I’ve heard it’s a good movie, though. Might watch it later down the line.

[Joey-Joe-Joe]

Yeah, reviewers are bombing this because they think it's going to incite violence. I've seen more than one review that it's going to encourage angry white males to go out and do horrible things. Instead of blaming a sick individual for their bad choices, lets try and blame the movie. Kind of like how Mortal Kombat made us all go out and punch people's heads off in the early 90s.

[WereCatf]

56 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

I’m pretty sure it’s being review bombed because of all the memery about “incels” being drawn into it lmao

One thing I see a lot from "professional" critics is that....they go on about what this movie might do to the society and how it might incite people to violence, instead of, you know, actually reviewing the movie itself. Personally, I think that's bullshit; the movie is a movie and it should be reviewed by that and not by any effects it may or may not have on the society. Besides, I think the whole scaremongering-business is equally bullshit -- crazies will find an excuse to go crazy, whether it is from watching Joker or a butterfly farting in Tokyo.

 

Anyways, I ain't seen the movie yet, but it looks to be right up my alley. I love movies with strong and maybe even uncomfortable themes. Oh, and there's a reason why I never look at "professional" critics' reviews; 99.9% of them are a load of stinking shite. On IMDB, Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes etc. I only look at the audience-score for whether I should or shouldn't watch something.

[PurplDrank]

10 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

I’m pretty sure it’s being review bombed because of all the memery about “incels” being drawn into it lmao 

I’ve heard it’s a good movie, though. Might watch it later down the line.

 I dont see it that way....yes it is a bit of a revenge tale. It has bits of quenten tarantino and david fincher. How many revenge tales have we had.....sooo many! Kill Bill 1 and 2 to name a few. 

 

Maybe instead of outcasting the mentally ill or bullying them. Maybe we can bring them in and help them.

 

The film is very reminiscent to current times. 

[PurplDrank]

8 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

100% go watch it. those who fear "what the movie would do to public consciousness" severely miss the point of the first half of the movie and shouldn't be dealing with the subject on a personal and social level

 The best performance ive seen in years! Best movie of the year. 

[MrFixitBlankFace]

Well, don’t all modern action-drama movies incite violence these days?  If they’re gonna ban Joker they might as well ban the Terminator Dark Fate, Mission Impossible Fallout, and whatever else that involves excessive amounts of shooting and related violence.  
Now, about the movie: It’s understandable that The Joker is a guy suffering from mental illness and that was the obvious idea from the Dark Night.  But, to make him a failed comedian doesn’t really make sense.  Anyways, sure there will violence, but at the same extent of the other modern action movies today.  
 

What I am mildly afraid of is how this might inspire people suffering from psychological issues.  Especially for people with more severe psychological issues, I wouldn’t recommend this movie.

[Volbet]

I don't really know what to think of the movie.

 

It's beautiful as far as movies go, but I thought it was way to ambivalent in terms of its themes. It's a scating critic of capitalism and capitalist realism throughout the movie, but it frames this critique as nothing but political nihilism. It essentially tries to spark a change, but also paints all alternatives to the reigning discourse as meaningless.

 

It basically tells you to fight, but simultaneously tells you that fighting is pointless.

[PurplDrank]

1 hour ago, Volbet said:

I don't really know what to think of the movie.

 

It's beautiful as far as movies go, but I thought it was way to ambivalent in terms of its themes. It's a scating critic of capitalism and capitalist realism throughout the movie, but ul frames this critique as nothing but political nihilism. It essentially tries to spark a change, but also paints all alternatives to the reigning discourse as meaningless.

 

It basically tells you to fight, but simultaneously tells you that fighting is pointless.

I agree there couldve been some improvements. But overall the film deserves a 93 percent from audiences. I havent seen acting like that in years and Joaquin  Phoenix is mind blowing

[Volbet]

8 hours ago, PurplDrank said:

I agree there couldve been some improvements. But overall the film deserves a 93 percent from audiences. I havent seen acting like that in years and Joaquin  Phoenix is mind blowing

Oh yeah, as a movie it's bloody brilliant. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting from all parties is brilliant. It deserves all the praise it's getting on those fronts.

That's probably why the indecisive messaging irks me so much. Obviously, a lot of care went into film, so counteracting narratives really should have been caught in pre-production.

[WereCatf]

27 minutes ago, Volbet said:

Obviously, a lot of care went into film, so counteracting narratives really should have been caught in pre-production.

Or maybe they're there on purpose? I mean, Joker is deliberately an unreliable and confusing narrator -- maybe there just isn't a single, cohesive message to give in the first place. Joker certainly wouldn't be capable of one.

[Volbet]

6 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Or maybe they're there on purpose? I mean, Joker is deliberately an unreliable and confusing narrator -- maybe there just isn't a single, cohesive message to give in the first place. Joker certainly wouldn't be capable of one.

That's certainly true, but that doesn't really translate into a real world message. It only really works within the movie itself. There would have been ways to show that the Joker is just a nihilistic madman, while preserving the overall theme of the movie. If the movie had just

Spoiler

Skipped the interview with Robert DeNiro and maybe shown Joker at the riots, the the message could have easily been preserved.

 

The thing is, it does give a cohesive message, but that message just isn't well thought it out. The entire movie is a great critique, as previously mentioned, but the last 20 min. just throws that out by essentially failing to acknowledge the validity of ideologies outside of current trends. The movie is examplifying the ills of capitalist realism and the need to rebel against these, but also tells you that there's no viable alternative.

Considering how much of Gilles Deleuze's work the movie makers have taken inspiration from, it's a weird way to end the movie. 

[Origami Cactus]

Surprisingly there was a lot of handycam, didn't expect the whole movie being filmed by handheld camera. That was a little off-putting, it wasn't bad, but it was weird. You could see the camera shake in almost every scene.

 

Storywise mom didn't let joker play videogames past 5, so he took matters into his own hands and become an epic streamer, because he could play all night long. 10/10

[PurplDrank]

31 minutes ago, GrennyR said:

I give it 9/10

An impressive origin story of the Joker which will really make you empathise with the character.

Superb acting, great music and a strong, balanced plot which successfully builds up the tension for the predictably shocking grand finale.

The story is tragic, darkly comical, and stylishly put together, although they could have done more to make the city feel like Gotham.

 

I actually didnt notice somethings. My girlfriend told me that arthur was imagining things when it came to the women down the hall. And that those things didnt happen.

 

When he enters her apartment and she is unfamiliar with him......i totally missed that. After we left the movie theatre my girlfriend explained it to me. 

 

All in all i loved the film tho. Best movie ive seen in a long time. Best acting ive seen in a long time.

[Lathlaer]

I'd like to say that I haven't seen the movie yet but about the critic reviews - I've heard that there was some weird fuckery with the RT score when they assigned aribtrary "fresh" or "rotten" inconsistently. For instance, a reviewer could give the movie a 3/5 rating and it got sorted into rotten whereas the same note given to a different film was considered as "fresh".

 

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2480290/controversy-over-jokers-rt-score-relaunches-fans-dc-vs-marvel-feud

 

Apparently it's not even up to the reviewer to say whether review is negative or positive.

[Ravendarat]

So I was VERY skeptical of this movie going in. Im not a fan of Phoenix and all the previews made it look bad to me. I was happily mistaken as I found it to be a great movie. I liked the reality breaks such as the various scenes with the woman down the hall, and the title performance by Phoenix was exceptional. The only critique I have really is that in almost every other version of the Joker ive seen in regards to movies (im not a comic book reader) he has always been portrayed as a similar age to Bruce, now all the sudden hes 20+ years older, and we are supposed to believe Joaquin Phoenix is 30? That one is tough to reconcile 

[Radium_Angel]

The Joker doesn't need a backstory.  To give him one, is to do a disservice to the character and pull away the mystery behind the mask (as it were)

[Shreyas1]

5 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

The Joker doesn't need a backstory.  To give him one, is to do a disservice to the character and pull away the mystery behind the mask (as it were)

Except we don't know how accurate the backstory is anyways, the whole thing could have been made up for all we know

[Radium_Angel]

44 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

Except we don't know how accurate the backstory is anyways, the whole thing could have been made up for all we know

This is correct, but even then, it's not required.

Take, for example, Heath Ledger's backstory of his wife deep in gambling debts.

It's not shown, only briefly told, and as such, makes much more of an interesting backstory in our head, than what could have been filmed. Ditto the father was a fiend story. What runs through our heads is infinitely more vivid than anything Hollywood could have filmed.

 

This Joker movie is the same, even if it's not his real backstory, it didn't need to be made, an offhanded line is a proper Joker film "I had a life once, a mother, a girlfriend, then it all went to shit." would still be more interesting .

 

Just my 0.03$ worth (adjusted for inflation)

 

[roudyloo]

I loved it. Have been talking about this movie with others and they keep saying that it's hard to watch. Idk for be it was a beautiful movie with amazing actors and dialoges. Loved every second of it and would watch it again

[Bacon soup]

I do hate super hero movies so I think I will go watch this one. The professional jurinalists are pathetic. The commercial smear industry can't die fast enough. They think a movie will turn people into mass murderers but their industry killed a well loved princess, and many many other crimes.

[jellyjoo100]

I think it's important to understand that this is nothing like your regular superhero movie. It's mainly about a persons psyche and mind. I really really enjoyed it, and invite all sceptics to give it a try

[Sauron]

On 10/5/2019 at 7:58 AM, Joey-Joe-Joe said:

Instead of blaming a sick individual for their bad choices, lets try and blame the movie.

The point is that you should blame society, not just him, but hey

 

I strongly disagree with the memes about it inciting some sort of incel revolution, if anything it's about the worker class rebelling against an out of touch upper class that only pretends to give a damn about them - and while the Joker is portrayed sympathetically I think it's made clear that he's a victim, not a role model.

On 10/15/2019 at 1:33 PM, roudyloo said:

I loved it. Have been talking about this movie with others and they keep saying that it's hard to watch. Idk for be it was a beautiful movie with amazing actors and dialoges. Loved every second of it and would watch it again

It can be hard to watch because of the violence and the protagonist's grief, not because it's poorly paced or anything.

On 10/8/2019 at 3:17 AM, Radium_Angel said:

Take, for example, Heath Ledger's backstory of his wife deep in gambling debts.

I'm pretty sure that's meant to be entirely made up by the character - he changes story every time he tells it...

 

This movie isn't really about giving us "the backstory", it's more of a story about mental illness, abuse and abandonment by society. It's about the Joker but it also isn't; he's just a well known character who can give the audience a sense of the framing the movie is going for.

[cluelessgenius]

great movie. but i heard they cut a couple of scenes.

 

apparently some flahsbacks to his father abusing him were cut 

also some scenes of him later robbing pharmacys after loosing his job were cut

and most sadly they supposedly changed the smile scene where he paints on his smile with his blood after the car accident. originally he was supposed to cut it with glas shards or so ive heard.

 

honestly especially given jokers nebulous backstory i think this was an interesting look into the characters history but again it could still not be the full picture. and given that were talking about the joker i dont think well ever get a full backstory like 'here this is what happened'.

 

anyway i think he did a great job and immidiatly wanted them to make the next one. but apparently its a one off?

the movie was geat for the backstory and all but i left the cinema really wanting some classic joker action. went home and re-watched batman

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, cluelessgenius said:

apparently some flahsbacks to his father abusing him were cut 

Isn't it a major plot point that it was his mother and her lover abusing him? They probably cut that scene to avoid confusing the audience