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01101010
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Reply #70 on: August 29, 2019, 03:55:31 PM

This has a chance to be one of those slow roasters that will develop a cult following in a decade.

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Reply #71 on: August 29, 2019, 06:02:57 PM

This has a chance to be one of those slow roasters that will develop a cult following in a decade.

It's Joaquin Phoenix, if it gets a cult following it's going to get one like after the first showing.
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Reply #72 on: August 29, 2019, 06:16:48 PM

It's going to be really shit.
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Reply #73 on: August 30, 2019, 04:15:43 AM

Jaoquin Phoenix going insane is a well established genre of its own.

But I didn't get much 'Joker' from the trailer.

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Reply #74 on: August 30, 2019, 06:06:46 AM

Ok, so the thing is, when I see this I don't see a Batman/Joker/Comic book movie.  It looks so far outside of any of that.  Its Jaoquin Phoenix playing a man going insane.

Could end up being good (looks pretty great to me) could be bad (trailers often fool me).  But this looks entirely like a stand alone movie.  The guy in the trailer going insane just happens to coincidentally look like a guy who is also a villain in a comic book series, and I think that's what Schild was getting at before.  People viewing this through any kind of comic book lens or prejudice seems really odd.

Might not work out that way.  Maybe they'll fuck it all up and somehow try to make it a comic book tie in?  Doesn't seem like that from the trailers though.

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Reply #75 on: August 30, 2019, 06:09:55 AM

Quote
Mayor Garcia: [regarding The Joker] What do we got?
Gordon: Nothing. No matches on prints, DNA, dental. Clothing is custom, no labels. Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint. No name. No other alias.

Along with him just making up stories about his past. That's all we need.

Agree. Have not watched the trailer but the lack of backstory is best backstory for this character. He is the embodiment of chaos. It has existed since the dawn of the universe and will be with us until the end.

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Reply #76 on: August 30, 2019, 09:03:54 AM

I think it's more that no matter what backstory you come up with, it diminishes the character by making his schtick merely or banally psychological, a response to circumstance. It's why almost all writers who've worked on the character have understood that the "dumped in a vat of industrial waste, hair goes green and skin goes white" can't even begin to explain what's going on with him, whether's it's the homicidal Joker or just the wacky-capers Joker. (Kinda the way that even Silver Age writers knew that Luthor losing his hair due to Superboy stopping a chemical fire was in no way a sufficient explanation for his vendetta unless you understood it as a metaphor for something way deeper.)

That's even true for heroes really--the only superheroes where a single event (more or less) is an adequate story engine for them are Batman and Spider-Man. Everybody else needs a lot more of a fleshed-out life to make them work--the Fantastic Four aren't reducible to their origin; Captain America isn't reducible to his origin; Superman's origin only makes him what he is in combination with being raised by Ma and Pa Kent, etc. (This is also why Wonder Woman is such a confused character: because she comes from a situation that's nearly wholly imaginary, and so it's hard to think about what kind of person she really is and what kind of motivations she really has).

The Joker is really an extreme case, though: everything that makes the character an effective villain will be radically diminished by trying to root it in a specific origin narrative. Alan Moore is the closest anyone's ever going to get to something interesting and even he knew to steer clear of saying it was the way it actually happened. (Same with Moore's really smart idea about who the Phantom Stranger actually is--it's best if it's not ever fully settled.)
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Reply #77 on: August 30, 2019, 09:59:52 AM

I think if this wasn't about the Joker it'd be much more intriguing to me. The commercial looks good and the movie looks well made. I just don't want to know the Joker's tragic backstory or whatever. I'll probably rent it for $4 on Xbox sometime when my dad comes by and wants to watch a movie but that's about the only way I imagine myself watching it.

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Reply #78 on: August 30, 2019, 02:17:37 PM

Might not work out that way.  Maybe they'll fuck it all up and somehow try to make it a comic book tie in?  Doesn't seem like that from the trailers though.

They've said over and over that this Joker movie is not connected to Batman or any comics universe in any way, shape or form.

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Reply #79 on: August 30, 2019, 04:17:53 PM

I've been trying to figure out why people were talking about this as some sort of canon for a whole now. It's clearly not. It's just a movie
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Reply #80 on: August 31, 2019, 08:40:57 AM

The Killing Joke was not meant to be canon either. The fans basically made it canon after the fact through sheer bloody mondedness. Thats one of the reasons why DC were happy to let Barbera Jordon be mutilated, as well as good old fashioned Mysoginy.

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Reply #81 on: August 31, 2019, 09:13:10 AM

That was one of the few things the New 52 got right for DC, it brought Barbara Gordon back as Batgirl.

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Reply #82 on: August 31, 2019, 10:09:34 PM

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Reply #83 on: September 01, 2019, 12:22:23 AM

GOD-DAMN.

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Reply #84 on: September 02, 2019, 07:59:35 AM

Watching the trailers my impression is: A well made film with a great performance by Phoenix, that I have no interest in watching. I mean that's OK, but I am struggling to see what the intended target audience is.

2) It sort of looks like it should be a "normal" film that got shoved into a comic book universe for the sake of getting funding.

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Reply #85 on: September 02, 2019, 09:07:44 AM

I will see it if and when it happens by my Netflix queue or whatever, but I feel kinda the same.  I appreciate what they are doing here, but without the ‘he seriously fucks up Batman’ payoff, I don’t find it super compelling.  Not enough to go to the theater, that is.

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Reply #86 on: September 02, 2019, 09:21:20 AM

I'm finding it wild that so many here keep thinking this is a comic book/batman movie.  It's a tragic story about a guy having a mental breakdown.  He's also a comedian and a clown, and this leads to some familiar parallels to a popular comic book franchise, but this has obviously nothing to do with it.  You may as well be saying you hated Taxi Driver because it was a shit origin story for Two Face and didn't have enough batman in it.

As for the audience, stories entirely about tragedy befalling the main character have been around longer than Ancient Greece.  I mentioned Taxi Driver above, but TV and film series about people who's lives go to total shit has been a mainstay of popular entertainment for a very long time.  You might not like watching them (honestly, I have a hard time with them myself), but this isn't' a niche genre.

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Reply #87 on: September 02, 2019, 09:31:27 AM

I'm finding it wild that so many here keep thinking this is a comic book/batman movie.  It's a tragic story about a guy having a mental breakdown.  He's also a comedian and a clown, and this leads to some familiar parallels to a popular comic book franchise, but this has obviously nothing to do with it.  You may as well be saying you hated Taxi Driver because it was a shit origin story for Two Face and didn't have enough batman in it.

As for the audience, stories entirely about tragedy befalling the main character have been around longer than Ancient Greece.  I mentioned Taxi Driver above, but TV and film series about people who's lives go to total shit has been a mainstay of popular entertainment for a very long time.  You might not like watching them (honestly, I have a hard time with them myself), but this isn't' a niche genre.

That's the fault of the title. Sorry, but Joker is iconic and tied to the Batman franchise. Same thing with Nightcrawler but on a lesser scale. Use a different name for your title.

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Reply #88 on: September 02, 2019, 10:02:05 AM

I'm finding it wild that so many here keep thinking this is a comic book/batman movie.

I get what you're saying to an extent, but really you're finding it "wild" that WB/DC are making a movie called Joker that takes place in Gotham City featuring a guy in clown makeup and people think it's a comic book/Batman movie?
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Reply #89 on: September 02, 2019, 01:05:58 PM

I'm finding it wild that so many here keep thinking this is a comic book/batman movie.

I get what you're saying to an extent, but really you're finding it "wild" that WB/DC are making a movie called Joker that takes place in Gotham City featuring a guy in clown makeup and people think it's a comic book/Batman movie?
This.   I mean, literally the ONLY thing the movie is actually missing is Batman, which makes sense, since this takes place before the guy in clown makeup shoots the guys parents.

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Reply #90 on: September 02, 2019, 01:08:14 PM

The film not only takes place in Gotham, the Waynes are named in it, etc. Of course people are going to judge it as being about *that* Joker, because it is.
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Reply #91 on: September 02, 2019, 01:49:49 PM

The Joker is defined heavily by Batman. If they wanted to make a 'Joaquin Phoenix plays a clown who goes crazy' they could have named it Clown or John Wayne Gacy or something. You don't get to use the name and the universe while also trying to avoid being comic-book-like; being ashamed of their source material has been DC's whole problem with movies post-Nolan.

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Reply #92 on: September 02, 2019, 02:21:35 PM


Even discounting Batman it's not really interesting to me. Joker as a human being (Killing Joke aside) I really don't care about. I guess I think of him more of a force of nature than man. If it was Doom, Thanos, or really pretty much any Marvel (talking comic not MCU in case that matters) villain I'd care more. Lex Luthor I'd be interested in. Which reminds me I saw a video where basically John Byrne said he modeled his take on Luthor on Trump. I don't know if that's revisionist or not but I found it funny.

I guess I feel that whatever problems DC have with their heroes (in terms of being relatable and not seen as gods) they have the same issues with their villains. I like what Moore did and to some extent what Miller did with Joker in TDK but I can't think of another DC villain I care enough about. Maybe Mordru when the Beirbaums were writing Legion of Super-Heroes but it's been awhile since I read that series so I don't know how well it stands up.
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Reply #93 on: September 02, 2019, 03:25:56 PM

Luthor is a DC villain.

Actually DC heroes have some pretty good villains. At least Batman and the Flash do. Superman's are a mixed bag, Wonder Woman has never had any villain worth a shit for complex reasons.

Heck, I thought the Aquaman movie even found a way to give Black Manta something like a motivation (though way back in the day, DC did something pretty edgy by suggesting he was a black separatist who wanted to found an all-black nation under the ocean where folks would have gills. But they did that an issue after he was responsible for murdering Aquaman's toddler son for no particularly specific reason, sooooo not all that complex.)

Marvel doesn't really have that deep a bench of interesting villains either really.
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Reply #94 on: September 02, 2019, 05:15:43 PM

Luthor is a DC villain.

Actually DC heroes have some pretty good villains. At least Batman and the Flash do. Superman's are a mixed bag, Wonder Woman has never had any villain worth a shit for complex reasons.

Heck, I thought the Aquaman movie even found a way to give Black Manta something like a motivation (though way back in the day, DC did something pretty edgy by suggesting he was a black separatist who wanted to found an all-black nation under the ocean where folks would have gills. But they did that an issue after he was responsible for murdering Aquaman's toddler son for no particularly specific reason, sooooo not all that complex.)

Marvel doesn't really have that deep a bench of interesting villains either really.


 I should have rearranged my sentences. I know Luthor is a DC villain although it may not look like I'm including him in the 2nd paragraph.

I'm not saying they aren't good villains. Joker is a great villain, I just don't care about him as a human, but as an obstacle the hero has to overcome (physically and emotionally/psychologically). 

There have been specific stories where DC made their villains interesting on a human level but from my experience there have been few examples. I mentioned the ones I could think of and that's from the comics I've read from late 60s to late 90s. Admittedly from the late 80s to present I've read more Marvel than DC.

Now that I think about it I liked Miller's Two Face as well.

As for Marvel I think it's really up to the writer. For example I think Claremont really made Mystique and Magneto interesting characters (I'm not counting Rogue because she only became interesting when she became a hero). I think Lee wanted Doom to be a 3 dimensional character and Byrne (and to some extent Hickman) pushed that further. Kingpin had a really great story in Spider-man before Miller turned him into a Daredevil villain. As an aside I think that story is a basis for the Spider-Verse movie (Kingpin's wife threatens to leave him if he doesn't quit crime).

Elektra during the original DD run was great.

Going back to Byrne I think he made both the Puppet Master and Dr. Octopus sympathetic villains.

Superior Foes, a 21st century series is great (basically Spider-man's Sinister Six as the protagonists, but not the most recognizable members like Dr. Octopus).

I hear  the newer version of the Secret Six (DC) is good but I never read it.

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Reply #95 on: September 03, 2019, 07:20:52 AM

Any time either company publishes a book where the villains are the protagonists, they instantly get more interesting--Thunderbolts, Suicide Squad, Secret Six, Secret Society of Super-Villains (though that one snuck a hero into the mix). As soon as you have to tell a story where those characters aren't just motivated by beating the hero up, you have to make them more human, more rounded, more complicated. Think about Deadshot--he goes from being one of the innumerable "shadow Batmen" in Batman's history (a guy kind of like Batman who has villainous motives, like Killer Moth) to being out for revenge with a GREAT costume make-over but still being pretty simplistic, to being a super-complicated and interesting assassin with a really rough family background.

It's what superhero films are going to have to do more consistently in a much more constrained time frame. But I'd still say Joker is one of the few characters where you *don't* want to do this to him--he's better if we really don't get a privileged look into how he thinks or why he is the way he is.
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Reply #96 on: September 10, 2019, 02:36:58 PM

So many positive reviews flowing in I might change my mind.
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Reply #97 on: September 10, 2019, 02:42:29 PM

One of the best living character actors fully taking on one of the more loved villains in his own movie was only going to get good reviews.

There was basically never a second it was going to be bad. Maybe hard to watch, but never bad.
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Reply #98 on: October 05, 2019, 07:15:24 PM

So I went and saw this today. For those of you wondering why it exists, trust me, watching the entire movie from start to finish will not give you any more clarity on that subject. I know why it exists and I still left the theater feeling ambivalent and confused.

Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant (but we knew that). Visually, it is a stunning homage to Martin Scorsese's version of 1970's New York. The soundtrack and score is really good (also loud). It is a movie that is a love letter to Scorsese AND a pretty scathing treatise on how we as a society treat mental illness.

It just should never have been a Joker movie. The Joker, like any iconic character, creates expectations and this movie could not fulfill those expectations while also doing the two things I mentioned above. It is long and hard to watch and I think it IS worth watching if for no other reason than Phoenix's performance. But man it felt like a wasted opportunity. You never really get to see him be THE JOKER for more than a few seconds at a time. He doesn't get to be the balls out manic clown prince of crime - he's just a dude in clown makeup with serious mental issues who gets violent. I'd really have loved to see Phoenix get to play that fully formed Joker character because I think he'd have rivaled Heath Ledger's performance. But the story never let him do that. It felt like there were a number of avenues they could have explored (delusions, hallucinations, violent mania, the desire to "eat the rich" or just burn the whole system down) but they didn't go far enough with any of them.

The more I think on it, the more disappointed I am in it as a movie, apart from the direction and the performance by Phoenix.

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Reply #99 on: October 06, 2019, 06:17:58 AM

It’s the Joker as Travis Bickle. Some scenes are more or less shot for shot remakes.

It’s a movie for people who like Fight Club or Falling Down because they think the protagonists are heroes and don’t get the deeper message.
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Reply #100 on: October 06, 2019, 09:19:55 AM

One other thing, I think I'll agree with Khaldun (I think that's who said it) that the Joker as a character suffers when you humanize him. The Joker's entire thing is built on lacking character growth, like he's stuck in some adolescent phase where he just wants to see destruction and chaos, and he works well as that, especially as a contrast to Batman's obsessive need to enforce order on the world. Without the contrast with Batman, he's just a sad, violent, depressing guy.

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Reply #101 on: October 06, 2019, 10:35:16 AM

I like this movie but I'm also glad that this is a stand alone. Like this movie will only be deep if your 12-16 years old. The director behind this wants to sit on top of his soap box and declare he made a "real movie" because something something 'comic book movies are bad'. And to that I say "fuck you".
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Reply #102 on: October 07, 2019, 06:14:48 AM

Has anyone called this Falling Clown yet?  Because I think we should.
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Reply #103 on: October 07, 2019, 06:26:32 AM

I've never been so appalled at anything I like this much.

I salute you, Phildo
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Reply #104 on: October 08, 2019, 02:38:57 AM

Going by the comment sections of various sites the 4chan, "woe is me" "PoLiTiCaL CoRrEcTnEss gOne MAD!!!111" incel crowd is hearing the underlying message from Phillips loud and clear.

Phoenix might have done one of his finest performances to date but Joker was clearly written and made by someone with a huge persecution complex and more than one axe to grind and it resonates quite well with a certain crowd of men.
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