Thanks, Roy. This is not a movie I ever plan to see unless it eventually lands on Netflix, and then only for Phoenix’s performance. Aside from the consensus the film caters to the aggrieved white male incel demographic, like you I lived in NYC in the ‘70s and I have a pet peeve about films that turn it into Dystopian Hellhole, USA. That is, unless you’re Tim Burton and really lean into the surreal Gotham angle. Otherwise, if I wanted to watch Death Wish, I’d, you know, watch Death Wish. Spoiler: I don’t want to watch Death Wish.
Eh, the incel angle is massively overblown imo. Mostly it’s just dull. The performances are great, but are all in service to a story without conflict or tension. There’s a few minutes at the start of the third act where that changes and the film suddenly springs to life...and then it just drops back dead again and you’re left watching exactly what you’d expect play out. Then it’s over, you walk out and if you’re like me forget about it in roughly three minutes. That it made a billion dollars and got an Oscar nom baffles me.
Oh, find your rage! Seek satisfaction after being falsely provoked by feigned thuggery you subjected yourself to for only God knows what reasons when the troubled hero achieves and offers catharsis by killing others not directly responsible for his woes and sorrow but more generally part of the great evil such as I felt myself at a tender age when I failed to receive the gifts I desired or the lift ticket on an adolescent ski outing! I am forever enraged against the evil in the world, for those indignities of deprivation in my remote childhood, and seek release in the simulated death and suffering of celluloid villains graphically presented in multimedia splendor.
I totally agree with you about comic book movies. They're cinematic chewing gum, amazingly forgettable, no matter how much CGI nonsense they lay on. I still think comic books were at their best when the only people who cared about them were me and a bunch of other boys under twelve years old, namely the early '60's. Stan Lee was a hack and a fraud who ripped off Jack Kirby, Ditko, and a lot of others. Oh, and Cesar Romero was the best Joker ever.
I sort of liked comic book movies until I saw the first Avengers, when it dawned on me that no one, in that universe, including normal people, actually die. If they do, they're brought back for the convenience of the next story. The multiple-realities at the climax of Dr. Strange was nice, but so what? The sequel to Avengers was 3.5 hours of so-what, Ironman notwithstanding. When I watched Spiderman and saw the kid falling off buildings and bouncing off sidewalks, all I could think was, "So he's immortal? Like what? A spider?" And I'm able to like junk as much as the next schmuck. Genug already.
I'm not a superhero movie fan either, but I've seen a few. I really liked the first Iron Man movie. Then I saw the second one. For some reason, they made all the characters insufferable assholes, which was not really the case in the first flick. Maybe to spin it as more Serious?
I share Roy's opinion on Black Panther. It was solid, but mostly a big shrug from me. And I saw the much-lauded Wonder Woman. That one was OK, but FFS, so much talking. Not enough action. And the last 1/3 was a CGI-fest snooze. When every movie has world-destruction as it's ticking bomb, then world destruction starts coming off like a single stick of dynamite with an alarm clock.
Yes, Caesar Romero. Good call to recognize the rightful place of comic books in the context of life and appropriate developmental interests. You may censor me anytime.
I admire Joaquin Phoenix's acting though I've always found the guy a bit eccentric and many of his films pessimistic and defeatist. Also, his twitchy/awkward/silent schtick on Letterman whilst supposedly promoting his "I'm still here'' 'documentary' was almost a rehearsal for his Joker date with Di Nero.
So, I'm not going to see Joker because I've seen enough craziness in real life without having it portrayed bizarre, grotesque and up close and intense on screen.
Regarding Watchmen: I saw 2.5 episodes of that show, waiting for something interesting to happen and then decided to do something more mentally stimulating: I fired up my PS4. These grim-dark comic book adaptations completely baffle me. Comic books are already abstractions of other art, drama and comedy. What's the purpose of de-abstracting them, other than to make a bajillion dollars? What's next? Are we gonna see The Flintstones re-imagined as a live-action Honeymooners without the jokes?
Up-voted for the rarely used but very appropriate "bathetic". I haven't seen "The Joker" and probably won't since I'm kind of tired of the Batman franchise except for the old TV series, which was very camp and quite funny.
I'm an old timer (49) and I like video games. I never got into comic book heroes other than the Batman teevee show and the Spiderman cartoon from the '60s I used to watch in reruns on UFH channels while wrestling with the bunny ears.
But I played Batman Arkham City (and another recent one, can't remember the name). Those games made me into a Batman fan. Hamill does the Joker voice, and OWNS it. You don't get the sense that it's Luke Skywalker, or even an actor. It's the Joker! And it's different than Romero, or any of the other Jokers. Those games nailed the spooky atmosphere, and the menacing, clownish-creepiness of the entire setting and all the characters. They are dark, rainy and forbidding, but they are colorful and freaky in such a great, loving way. It's a crazy nightmare I didn't want to leave. Even Batman is pretty creepy in the game—but in a good way. The bad guy Lackey-Henchman-Thugs you beat up on by the dozen even have character. You can listen to them get more and more scared and creeped-out as you (as Batman) knock-out and tie up their friends one by one by leaping from the shadowy heights of a Gothic art museum at night, or whatever lurid, ominous environment I found them in.
I for one cannot stand the grim-dark of the Nolan movies (saw 2 of them, that was more than enough). And while the games are not uplifting or outright "funny", they just ooze style and mystery and lore. I found myself reading a bunch of backstories of batman villains I had never even heard of! I got so, so into those games. I highly recommend them, best Batman entertainment ever.. though the '60s show still is the REAL Batman to me.
Adding: the games are "serious" in their own internal logic. But the overall tone is FUN, like the best kind of over-the-top monster or Vincent Price flicks. The games don't try to make you believe their bullshit.
I don't know how much more you care to actually think about this, but I do recommend Film Crit Hulk's (very long) essay on the movie. I haven't watched the thing myself, but FCH is one of my favorite film writers. Especially since he stopped publishing in all caps. https://www.patreon.com/posts/joker-and-of-33213577
I like that essay! And your instinct is sound, I couldn't possibly care as much about it as he does. But he's mostly right, and very right about "look what you made me do." Ditto the Taxi Driver comparison, which he properly demolishes.
I haven't seen Joker, and the only reason I was intrigued was because of the discourse surrounding it prior to release; that it was a right-wing film that would inspire incels to mass shootings. With the exception of Clint Eastwood movies, maybe (and I haven't seen any of his since El Camino), I'm not aware of any large-release films since Trump that have been both "artful" and promoting an explicitly right-wing worldview. (But I'm no cinephile.) Alas, it appears that Joker couldn't even rise to being that kind of dreck, and it seems like it's a completely hollow movie, but I guess I shouldn't have expected anything from the dipshit who directed the Hangover films.
Glad someone endured this film and wrote a reasonable response. I have been sitting mystified and annoyed, not understanding what this nonsense was all about, why anyone would watch, let alone make this film. I find comic book movies ridiculous; graphic novels themselves get all kinds of hype, not unlike a lot of fundamentally juvenile fiction and genres, from folks who want to elevate their own psychological stagnation to profundity. I do watch all kinds of things because as greater thinkers than I pointed out many times, there is nothing too silly for silly beings. The path to great insights both personal and public also often works through silliness. But it is an error I seldom make to mistake my own fascination with my psychology and response to creative works with something more important for all humans. Entertainment and indulgence of one's fantasies are different from recognition of masterworks. A lot of people confuse their personal responses with something greater. Joker and Batman seem to me another example of this mistake.
The novel Pride and Prejudice. In film, Citizen Kane, The Big Lebowski, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Movies are more difficult for me because there's a to scrutinize, a lot of elements, and a collaborative character that can allow for a wide range of opinions.
I really feel like an outsider amongs these comments, where a bunch of people seem to have joined on just to slag comic books and movies based on comic books. (I read Roy as just saying "not my thing", which is fine, there's plenty of things that are not my thing. But he's not saying "this is shit because it comes from a comic book which are shit", he's saying I'm not that big a comic book fan and I thought some comic book movies were at best okay but I don't see why this thing even exists. I'd say "I used to read a lot of comic books and I've enjoyed a bunch of comic book movies to varying degrees and found many embarassingly bad and this one looked so much like a self-conscious combo knockoff of "King of Comedy" and "Taxi Driver" that borrowed a brand name label from comic books that I couldn't think of any reason why I'd want to see it, and I haven't.
My understanding of the value of The Joker as a character - as he's developed over decades in the comics - is both in his being fun to watch, gleefully evil, really enjoying his deadly jokes - and in his standing as a complete offset to Batman, brightly-colored while Batman is in grays and blacks, having a wonderful time while Batman is grim and tortured, attractively bad while Batman is ascetically good and suffers for it. [There's a later-developed theme that each became what they did in response to "one bad day"; Batman wants to redeem the Joker to prove that people are inherently good and can come back from circumstances and the Joker wants to get the Batman to kill somebody, possibly including him, to show that his own complete turn into a psychotic killer wasn't because of his previous inherent weakness, and that has played out in interesting ways in the comics although I'm sure it wasn't Kane/Finger's original intent when they introduced him full-blown without an origin story.] I don't see the point in The Joker without Batman; that just nihilism, and making the movie (or at least the trailers) look like '70s Scorcese movies is just borrowing credibility.
All that said, folks, comic books are a medium, a vessel, and can hold trivial works and serious ones, ambitious work and hack work, emotionally resonant work and flat work. Superhero movies can be well or badly done. This is not unlike any movie.
I'm really just admitting a prejudice there. I'm no fan of the hierarchy of genres. And I can imagine that if you're really into the form, you may uncover things in it I just can't see, and my loss. One day one of these movies may jolt me into awareness. Not this one, though!
Romero's Joker remains the best. He played the character so perfectly that you didn't really care what his backstory might have been.
Next up from the comic book to movie sausage machine: Edward Furlong in “The Penguin: From Antarctica to Anarchy.”
Thanks, Roy. This is not a movie I ever plan to see unless it eventually lands on Netflix, and then only for Phoenix’s performance. Aside from the consensus the film caters to the aggrieved white male incel demographic, like you I lived in NYC in the ‘70s and I have a pet peeve about films that turn it into Dystopian Hellhole, USA. That is, unless you’re Tim Burton and really lean into the surreal Gotham angle. Otherwise, if I wanted to watch Death Wish, I’d, you know, watch Death Wish. Spoiler: I don’t want to watch Death Wish.
Eh, the incel angle is massively overblown imo. Mostly it’s just dull. The performances are great, but are all in service to a story without conflict or tension. There’s a few minutes at the start of the third act where that changes and the film suddenly springs to life...and then it just drops back dead again and you’re left watching exactly what you’d expect play out. Then it’s over, you walk out and if you’re like me forget about it in roughly three minutes. That it made a billion dollars and got an Oscar nom baffles me.
Luckily, you needn’t. It wouldn’t make much sense.
Yeah, it's such lazy stupid shit. Like if some 80s TV movie with a Gritty Urban angle had a $20 million budget.
Oh, find your rage! Seek satisfaction after being falsely provoked by feigned thuggery you subjected yourself to for only God knows what reasons when the troubled hero achieves and offers catharsis by killing others not directly responsible for his woes and sorrow but more generally part of the great evil such as I felt myself at a tender age when I failed to receive the gifts I desired or the lift ticket on an adolescent ski outing! I am forever enraged against the evil in the world, for those indignities of deprivation in my remote childhood, and seek release in the simulated death and suffering of celluloid villains graphically presented in multimedia splendor.
I totally agree with you about comic book movies. They're cinematic chewing gum, amazingly forgettable, no matter how much CGI nonsense they lay on. I still think comic books were at their best when the only people who cared about them were me and a bunch of other boys under twelve years old, namely the early '60's. Stan Lee was a hack and a fraud who ripped off Jack Kirby, Ditko, and a lot of others. Oh, and Cesar Romero was the best Joker ever.
I sort of liked comic book movies until I saw the first Avengers, when it dawned on me that no one, in that universe, including normal people, actually die. If they do, they're brought back for the convenience of the next story. The multiple-realities at the climax of Dr. Strange was nice, but so what? The sequel to Avengers was 3.5 hours of so-what, Ironman notwithstanding. When I watched Spiderman and saw the kid falling off buildings and bouncing off sidewalks, all I could think was, "So he's immortal? Like what? A spider?" And I'm able to like junk as much as the next schmuck. Genug already.
I'm not a superhero movie fan either, but I've seen a few. I really liked the first Iron Man movie. Then I saw the second one. For some reason, they made all the characters insufferable assholes, which was not really the case in the first flick. Maybe to spin it as more Serious?
I share Roy's opinion on Black Panther. It was solid, but mostly a big shrug from me. And I saw the much-lauded Wonder Woman. That one was OK, but FFS, so much talking. Not enough action. And the last 1/3 was a CGI-fest snooze. When every movie has world-destruction as it's ticking bomb, then world destruction starts coming off like a single stick of dynamite with an alarm clock.
Yes, Caesar Romero. Good call to recognize the rightful place of comic books in the context of life and appropriate developmental interests. You may censor me anytime.
I loved Batman but now I have Bernie. When you have hope, beating criminals to a bloody pulp isn't as much of a priority.
I admire Joaquin Phoenix's acting though I've always found the guy a bit eccentric and many of his films pessimistic and defeatist. Also, his twitchy/awkward/silent schtick on Letterman whilst supposedly promoting his "I'm still here'' 'documentary' was almost a rehearsal for his Joker date with Di Nero.
So, I'm not going to see Joker because I've seen enough craziness in real life without having it portrayed bizarre, grotesque and up close and intense on screen.
Anyway, Heath Ledger was the best Joker.
Regarding Watchmen: I saw 2.5 episodes of that show, waiting for something interesting to happen and then decided to do something more mentally stimulating: I fired up my PS4. These grim-dark comic book adaptations completely baffle me. Comic books are already abstractions of other art, drama and comedy. What's the purpose of de-abstracting them, other than to make a bajillion dollars? What's next? Are we gonna see The Flintstones re-imagined as a live-action Honeymooners without the jokes?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109813/mediaviewer/rm1598442240
I imagine Fred's Flintstonemobile moving in slo-mo over a slick puddle a la Taxi Driver.
Barney nodded out in the passenger seat from the oxycontin the Quarry nurse gave him after Dino accidentally ate his foot....
Fred: Some day a real rain will come and wash all these dinosaurs off the streets.
The Great Gazoo: Careful what you wish for, dumb-dumb, that rain might make you The Riddler. [Gazoo is played by Gary Oldman]
Up-voted for the rarely used but very appropriate "bathetic". I haven't seen "The Joker" and probably won't since I'm kind of tired of the Batman franchise except for the old TV series, which was very camp and quite funny.
I've always--despite the Roy Lichtenstein BAM POWs--called it Andy Warhol's Batman.
Haven't seen this movie and don't plan to, but I have to say this: Mark Hamill from Batman: The Animated Series is the best Joker.
And I think Kevin Conroy is the best Batman ever...
So they tell me!
I'm an old timer (49) and I like video games. I never got into comic book heroes other than the Batman teevee show and the Spiderman cartoon from the '60s I used to watch in reruns on UFH channels while wrestling with the bunny ears.
But I played Batman Arkham City (and another recent one, can't remember the name). Those games made me into a Batman fan. Hamill does the Joker voice, and OWNS it. You don't get the sense that it's Luke Skywalker, or even an actor. It's the Joker! And it's different than Romero, or any of the other Jokers. Those games nailed the spooky atmosphere, and the menacing, clownish-creepiness of the entire setting and all the characters. They are dark, rainy and forbidding, but they are colorful and freaky in such a great, loving way. It's a crazy nightmare I didn't want to leave. Even Batman is pretty creepy in the game—but in a good way. The bad guy Lackey-Henchman-Thugs you beat up on by the dozen even have character. You can listen to them get more and more scared and creeped-out as you (as Batman) knock-out and tie up their friends one by one by leaping from the shadowy heights of a Gothic art museum at night, or whatever lurid, ominous environment I found them in.
I for one cannot stand the grim-dark of the Nolan movies (saw 2 of them, that was more than enough). And while the games are not uplifting or outright "funny", they just ooze style and mystery and lore. I found myself reading a bunch of backstories of batman villains I had never even heard of! I got so, so into those games. I highly recommend them, best Batman entertainment ever.. though the '60s show still is the REAL Batman to me.
Adding: the games are "serious" in their own internal logic. But the overall tone is FUN, like the best kind of over-the-top monster or Vincent Price flicks. The games don't try to make you believe their bullshit.
Really great review. Thanks for that. A movie needs a reason to exist! It's like "duh" once you said it, but was obscure prior.
I don't know how much more you care to actually think about this, but I do recommend Film Crit Hulk's (very long) essay on the movie. I haven't watched the thing myself, but FCH is one of my favorite film writers. Especially since he stopped publishing in all caps. https://www.patreon.com/posts/joker-and-of-33213577
I like that essay! And your instinct is sound, I couldn't possibly care as much about it as he does. But he's mostly right, and very right about "look what you made me do." Ditto the Taxi Driver comparison, which he properly demolishes.
Good essay. Haven't seen this Joker yet, but I'm going to read more of his essays. Thanks!
Ooo, a good essay. Only got halfway through, tho. Had to stop for a breather.
I haven't seen Joker, and the only reason I was intrigued was because of the discourse surrounding it prior to release; that it was a right-wing film that would inspire incels to mass shootings. With the exception of Clint Eastwood movies, maybe (and I haven't seen any of his since El Camino), I'm not aware of any large-release films since Trump that have been both "artful" and promoting an explicitly right-wing worldview. (But I'm no cinephile.) Alas, it appears that Joker couldn't even rise to being that kind of dreck, and it seems like it's a completely hollow movie, but I guess I shouldn't have expected anything from the dipshit who directed the Hangover films.
I liked American Sniper. Really not up for Richard Jewell, but when I inevitably catch up with it I wouldn't be surprised if I were surprised! http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-to-oscar-3.html
Glad someone endured this film and wrote a reasonable response. I have been sitting mystified and annoyed, not understanding what this nonsense was all about, why anyone would watch, let alone make this film. I find comic book movies ridiculous; graphic novels themselves get all kinds of hype, not unlike a lot of fundamentally juvenile fiction and genres, from folks who want to elevate their own psychological stagnation to profundity. I do watch all kinds of things because as greater thinkers than I pointed out many times, there is nothing too silly for silly beings. The path to great insights both personal and public also often works through silliness. But it is an error I seldom make to mistake my own fascination with my psychology and response to creative works with something more important for all humans. Entertainment and indulgence of one's fantasies are different from recognition of masterworks. A lot of people confuse their personal responses with something greater. Joker and Batman seem to me another example of this mistake.
So what do you regard as masterworks?
The novel Pride and Prejudice. In film, Citizen Kane, The Big Lebowski, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Movies are more difficult for me because there's a to scrutinize, a lot of elements, and a collaborative character that can allow for a wide range of opinions.
I really feel like an outsider amongs these comments, where a bunch of people seem to have joined on just to slag comic books and movies based on comic books. (I read Roy as just saying "not my thing", which is fine, there's plenty of things that are not my thing. But he's not saying "this is shit because it comes from a comic book which are shit", he's saying I'm not that big a comic book fan and I thought some comic book movies were at best okay but I don't see why this thing even exists. I'd say "I used to read a lot of comic books and I've enjoyed a bunch of comic book movies to varying degrees and found many embarassingly bad and this one looked so much like a self-conscious combo knockoff of "King of Comedy" and "Taxi Driver" that borrowed a brand name label from comic books that I couldn't think of any reason why I'd want to see it, and I haven't.
My understanding of the value of The Joker as a character - as he's developed over decades in the comics - is both in his being fun to watch, gleefully evil, really enjoying his deadly jokes - and in his standing as a complete offset to Batman, brightly-colored while Batman is in grays and blacks, having a wonderful time while Batman is grim and tortured, attractively bad while Batman is ascetically good and suffers for it. [There's a later-developed theme that each became what they did in response to "one bad day"; Batman wants to redeem the Joker to prove that people are inherently good and can come back from circumstances and the Joker wants to get the Batman to kill somebody, possibly including him, to show that his own complete turn into a psychotic killer wasn't because of his previous inherent weakness, and that has played out in interesting ways in the comics although I'm sure it wasn't Kane/Finger's original intent when they introduced him full-blown without an origin story.] I don't see the point in The Joker without Batman; that just nihilism, and making the movie (or at least the trailers) look like '70s Scorcese movies is just borrowing credibility.
All that said, folks, comic books are a medium, a vessel, and can hold trivial works and serious ones, ambitious work and hack work, emotionally resonant work and flat work. Superhero movies can be well or badly done. This is not unlike any movie.
I'm really just admitting a prejudice there. I'm no fan of the hierarchy of genres. And I can imagine that if you're really into the form, you may uncover things in it I just can't see, and my loss. One day one of these movies may jolt me into awareness. Not this one, though!