A local film critic has a given Joker a pretty harsh 2.5 star review.
Says that it makes a joke of the Venice film awards, Todd Phillips has no business making serious films, and overall calls it a bad remake of The King of Comedy.
Joker is not a particularly good film, much less an important one. It is, however, an interesting cultural phenomenon: the Venice prize may represent a milestone in the history of taste, implying a new conception of quality cinema.
Whatever its pretensions, this is undeniably a comic-book movie; moreover it’s directed by the brazenly low-brow Todd Phillips, known for a string of wilfully tasteless comedies such as The Hangover.
Phillips says he doesn’t see Joker as a major departure, and it’s clear what he means: he has made a career out of manchild movies and here is another
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But this is not the sort of subject-matter Phillips knows how to handle – and it's telling too that he seems to have forgotten that The King of Comedy contains not two remarkable performances but three. A 2019 remake with no equivalent to Sandra Bernhard? Seriously, you’ve got to be kidding
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All of my regular reviewers are giving Joker a pretty fantastic review. Most of the negative reviewers seem to say this a comic book movie for a man child. As someone who's almost 40, yet still has action figures and comic books, this movie seems aimed directly at me.
Quite frankly it's a bit of a relief to get to see an actual food comic book movie, as opposed to just the stuff aimed at kids that adults can tolerate.
All of my regular reviewers are giving Joker a pretty fantastic review. Most of the negative reviewers seem to say this a comic book movie for a man child. As someone who's almost 40, yet still has action figures and comic books, this movie seems aimed directly at me.
Quite frankly it's a bit of a relief to get to see an actual food comic book movie, as opposed to just the stuff aimed at kids that adults can tolerate.
Obviously I havent seen it yet, but I dont really think that calling it a 'man-child' movie is particularly scathing.
Maybe it is. So what?
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The Joker is tremendously violent, I think too many people are fixated on the 60's Batman joker.
I love the character from the dark knight, because frankly it makes you almost think of a origin story of your own. I always felt like Ledger's joker had a military background, maybe a traumatized Afghan War Veteran, who had lost faith and hope. I had him as a psyops expert or intelligence expert with a sociology background.
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All of my regular reviewers are giving Joker a pretty fantastic review. Most of the negative reviewers seem to say this a comic book movie for a man child. As someone who's almost 40, yet still has action figures and comic books, this movie seems aimed directly at me.
Quite frankly it's a bit of a relief to get to see an actual food comic book movie, as opposed to just the stuff aimed at kids that adults can tolerate.
Just got back from an early showing of Joker. It's good. Almost great. Phoenix is incredible. I don't want to say anything else until more people have seen it. If someone else wants to make a spoiler thread we can discuss it there.
Personally I'm sick of dark gloomy mostly origin movies, if I want to watch a dark gloomy film about the treatment of mental health in our modernish society I would prefer it to be a serious movie that most of the audience cant just dismiss as an action hero movie, conversely if I want escapist fun it needs to be escapist and fun.
The joker may be a great movie but I don't really see the point myself
Personally I'm sick of dark gloomy mostly origin movies, if I want to watch a dark gloomy film about the treatment of mental health in our modernish society I would prefer it to be a serious movie that most of the audience cant just dismiss as an action hero movie, conversely if I want escapist fun it needs to be escapist and fun.
Then go watch one of those movies. Infinitely Polar Bear starring The Hulk and Gamora was fantastic.
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The joker may be a great movie but I don't really see the point myself
I really don't think so. The idea that comic books and their movies should always be acceptable to a general audience has no historic grounding. There have always been comic books for adults. They're just like other form of literature. Some are slower, some are more action packed, some deal with character study, etc..
I really hate this idea that's taken over that since it's a "comic book movie" it has to be one way. I definitely enjoy some of the amusement park ride type movies, but it's also good to see a comic book movie get back to it's roots.
The Joker as a character has always been psychologically based. This was why Leto's depiction was so bad for me. He was just a zany guy in makeup.
Now that I have watched all the superhero films of the year here is my rankings. Also Joker was the last superhero film of the decade here is my quick top 10 DC and Marvel films of the decade:
The Dark Knight Rises
Joker
Wonder Woman
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Aquaman
Shazam!
Man of Steel
Justice League
Suicide Squad
Teen Titans Go! To The Movies
Top 10 Marvel 2010-2019
Logan
Avengers: Infinity War
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Far from Home
Black Panther
Avengers: Endgame
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Captain America: Civil War
Deadpool
I really don't think so. The idea that comic books and their movies should always be acceptable to a general audience has no historic grounding. There have always been comic books for adults. They're just like other form of literature. Some are slower, some are more action packed, some deal with character study, etc..
I really hate this idea that's taken over that since it's a "comic book movie" it has to be one way. I definitely enjoy some of the amusement park ride type movies, but it's also good to see a comic book movie get back to it's roots.
The Joker as a character has always been psychologically based. This was why Leto's depiction was so bad for me. He was just a zany guy in makeup.
The interesting thing with the Joker is that it follows the Marvel blueprint for making comic book movies. You take a genre of movie that already exists and overlay a comic book character. Civil War was a Tom Clancy movie, Ant-Man is a Heist movie, the buddy comedy, and on and on. The joker is a continuation of this type of movie making where they make taxi driver / falling down / king of comedy in the Normal guy going crazy genre.
Thought it was okay but not great. A better effort from DC for sure, and way better than Aquaman (which I still think was terrible) but to me the icing still dragged a little bit at times.
Thought it was okay but not great. A better effort from DC for sure, and way better than Aquaman (which I still think was terrible) but to me the icing still dragged a little bit at times.
Shazam might be the best DC film to date. Because it was fun.
They captured the spirit of the character well, the acting was good, where it fell down somewhat to me again was 'punchiness.'
I dont know what it is with DC and punching, but its come to eye-rolling levels of preposterousness.
The climactic battle was just a bunch of characters who cant hurt each other punching themselves silly.
Beyond that though I enjoyed it, I thought the actors and characters were good and relatable and did well and the spirit of the characters was well done.
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This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a Fire Exit. - Mitch Hedberg
Shazam might be the best DC film to date. Because it was fun.
They captured the spirit of the character well, the acting was good, where it fell down somewhat to me again was 'punchiness.'
I dont know what it is with DC and punching, but its come to eye-rolling levels of preposterousness.
The climactic battle was just a bunch of characters who cant hurt each other punching themselves silly.
Beyond that though I enjoyed it, I thought the actors and characters were good and relatable and did well and the spirit of the characters was well done.
I thought the end battle was the exact opposite.
If anything they went out of their way to make it very very clear (to the point of ad nauseam) that each of the Shazam family was really good at one area, and they used their power accordingly in the fight. Yeah...we get it Darla you are really fast....you just said so...and now you're moving really fast.
It's obviously a family a movie, so they are going to go out of their way to explain that. However, it did depart from the usual DC failing of just having everyone randomly punch each other without taking into account weaknesses/strengths and, if anything, went to far in the opposite direction. It was basically the action equivalent of how DC plugged in a bunch of jokes after the criticism of being too dark.
Overall, I thought the movie was great though. My girlfriend is obsessed with it and has watched half a dozen times.
In the wake of Joker, which Phillip's has openly said draws inspiration from many Scorsese films, some harsh words from the master director himself about comic book movies:
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"I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema," Scorsese told Empire. "Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being."
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