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The Narrator Returns wrote:The effusive praise seems to have lasted exactly as long as the embargo; Glenn Kenny didn't like it, David Ehrlich was mixed, David Jenkins at Little White Lies despised it.

So the grown-ups didn't care for it. All I needed to know.

My enthusiasm for this went down the tubes quickly today. My earlier comment about incels still stands, but in between today's Straight Pride Parade and the news of yet another mass shooting, the things I'm reading have confirmed that this movie would be a waste of my time.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:57 am My enthusiasm for this went down the tubes quickly today. My earlier comment about incels still stands, but in between today's Straight Pride Parade and the news of yet another mass shooting, the things I'm reading have confirmed that this movie would be a waste of my time.

Joker's unfortunate proliferation with edgelords in the same vein as say, Tyler Durden from Fight Club or Alex from A Clockwork Orange doesn't strike me personally as an endorsement from the creators (Burgess especially. His wife was a devout Communist.) but I understand why you feel that way. The broad appeal of a comic book character mixing with unsavory individuals is unavoidable and context is often lost in the often weaponized public discussion online. Joker doesn't make people attend Straight Pride Parades ( Each of which have been failures, with one attracting a laughable twenty people.) nor does it cause people to go on shooting sprees ( Numerous studies show this.) and he certainly isn't inspiring the violent misogyny of incels. He just happens to be liked by them because of broad appeal and association via the dissatisfaction that they feel with reality. Movies about these types of men have been made before and they'll be made again with the same nonsensical association from less than kind individuals.

I do however want to stress again that I understand how you feel. The idea that a character like this could be seen by anyone as a positive makes me deeply uncomfortable to the point it makes me feel sick at times. I suppose my personal feelings on a more logical level are dismissive of criticism on a broader cultural level but on personal level I really understand what you're getting at. I'm still going to see it and make my own decision but I imagine this will provoke wider think pieces from a wide array of people.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:57 am My enthusiasm for this went down the tubes quickly today. My earlier comment about incels still stands, but in between today's Straight Pride Parade and the news of yet another mass shooting, the things I'm reading have confirmed that this movie would be a waste of my time.

All of those things are awful, but they’re also so rare that I think they come up on our radars partly just to let liberals feel morally superior.

I suppose with time I'll come back to being interested in this, it's just the confluence of all those things happening yesterday left a bitter taste in my mouth. I remember reading a very reactionary, negative review of Todd Snyder's Watchmen, and later watching it and not feeling any of that for myself except that it was a mildly amusing if not flawed and overlong action movie. That I saw the things that offended the reviewer but didn't feel so "triggered" by them myself, yet understanding her position while also not hating the movie for it.

I'm still very curious to see how this will affect the films which will come out after this, namely Matt Reeves' Batman movie.

I really don’t think a feeling of moral superiority is an accurate description of my or anyone’s primary reaction to news of the 290-somethingth mass shooting this year.

These characters have always walked a vulnerable line between being interesting and worthy of presenting as ideas and dangerous in how they serve as canvases for the audience to project their own neuroses onto when humanized. To break it down, while I actually like the movie quite a bit, Alex from A Clockwork Orange should never be idolized, as he has been humanized and is too real a cancer in the world. Tyler Durden on the other hand, from a movie I don’t like, can work insofar as he serves as an idea only. He isn’t real and is literally the projection of Jack’s angry part within, taking over and becoming blended with him. However, because we understood him to be real for the bulk of the film and because he is in fact a real person acting in accordance with one dangerous part of them, he becomes a bit closer to Alex than the Joker.

The Joker, specifically out of Nolan’s film, serves as this second example, an idea in the body of a man. The presence of these characters validate the pockets of existential nihilism felt by many members of individualistic cultures in Gen Y who have grown up with more freedom of identity, yet found themselves isolated by the unintended consequences of this freedom: lacking identity due to a disconnect from ideological stage apparatuses. These people tend to be white middle-upper class. When channeled appropriately these characters can be positive, can make one feel safely able to see that ‘part’ of themselves that feels ostracized and anti-society in a figure and leave it there. However, when misinterpreted and idolized these characters become dangerous, and unintentionally reinforce the toxic masculinity or toxic whatever that absolutely runs concurrently with the Straight Pride Parades, All Lives Matter movements, etc. when the need to be seen and validated clouds one’s perspective and empathy to the world at large.

The Joker as an idea is chaos, and for me it’s the ultimate villain due to his unpredictable nature and no Achilles Heel, no human trait to latch onto (the burning of the money is the most harrowing scene in Nolan’s film in a way). I think some people are so drawn to Ledger’s Joker for the same reasons people wear the Scream, Jason, or Michael Myers masks, a figure that’s strangely attractive because they have no true identity, or tangible pathways to understanding them or their actions. The Joker as an agent of chaos for the purpose of only disruption of social order is the ultimate sociological horror condensed into a familiar representation: a figure that resembles a man.

While I believe Nolan and Ledger’s Joker was successful because he started and ended the film as a constant unchanged idea, Phillip and Phoenix’s Joker runs the risk of humanizing this idea due to the structure of the story, and thus unfortunately may become more of an Alex/Tyler kind of oppressed white male channeled into evidence for the toxic singleminded reversion to self-pity and solipsism found in a small subset of this population and these films’ viewers.

I’ll also be going in with an open mind and will admit to finding these kinds of films interesting from a psychological standpoint, with a dash of comfort in validation for the always-shrinking (thank god) existential nihilism within me, an idea that I philosophically understand and at times believe in objectively (apatheism, moral relativism) but choose not to endorse or entertain at all subjectively in my value system that is anything but apathetic and embraces personal morals. This kind of character’s journey is interesting just as watching Michael’s change in The Godfather is, but these films and their depictions of such characters always run the risk of glorifying their anti-heroes (see using Pacino in Scarface which had been completely misinterpreted by criminals ever since as an aspiration) beyond the relatable aspects we get to provoke existential thought. The problem is that this is an invaluable process that movies give us to empathize with characters and see parts of ourselves or our own struggles usually broadly as ideas (“oh I’ve also felt invisible!”) in them, but taken too far these projects can be interpreted as giving credence to support extremism in harmful worldviews.

dustybooks wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:01 pm I really don’t think a feeling of moral superiority is an accurate description of my or anyone’s primary reaction to news of the 290-somethingth mass shooting this year.

I was reacting to fly’s comment about the movie being a waste of time - being offended, triggered etc. It seems like “incels” are a very very small portion of the population - like white nationalists - likewise the number of people who would attend a “straight pride” parade. And there have only been 290 mass shootings by the broadest possible measure, which counts all sorts of incidents other than “mass” murders.

So there are a bunch of possible reasons why those phenomena are mentioned so often - but it seems like one effect is to reinforce identity - we liberals are weeping angels, helpless witnesses to the cruelty of man, etc.

Why so many mentions in this thread of how “incels” will be fans of the movie? It seems almost compulsive, unless it just feels compulsory..

onedimension wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:57 pmIt seems like “incels” are a very very small portion of the population - like white nationalists - likewise the number of people who would attend a “straight pride” parade. And there have only been 290 mass shootings by the broadest possible measure, which counts all sorts of incidents other than “mass” murders.

Pareto's Law probably is applicable here in a way that'd say 1% of the population is responsible for 95% of issues like that. While I understand where you're getting at, not only does it seem like having a strange prism through which looking at this kind of things, but is also missing the point on how a handful of persons can do way more harm than their number should warrant for.

This movie has become a kind of blank slate for people to project their fears and anxieties onto.

I welcome a movie that’s troubling and complicated, where easy moral judgements are confounded and I am left conflicted, even discomforted at the end. I would love to feel both sympathetic towards and repulsed by the character, to both wish him to succeed and be horrified that he does. I would love to leave the theatre being a bit less sure where I stand.

No idea if the movie will be that way, but that’s the hope. I seem to be in the minority, tho’.

I’m with you. The discomfort at holding conflicting feelings together that result in critical thinking and existential evaluation with moral complexity is why I see these (and most) movies.

I will watch Phoenix in anything, even this. I don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other beyond that, but I wouldn’t say my expectations are high going in. Like every other facet of my life, what incels think of it matters not one bit

I was a little bit interested when Phoenix came on board but the trailers are putting me off, and reviewers comparing the tone of the film to Nolan's Batman films which I'll never stop finding absolutely insufferable makes me think that I'm not the target audience for this. There are much worse things than being a Scorsese fan and especially of King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, but I get the impression (confirmed by reviewers whose opinions I trust) that Todd Philips is trying too hard, much like the guy behind Psych with that horrible Twin Peaks homage episode Dual Spires. I think when I want my Phoenix fix, I'll re-watch The Master instead. Maybe the Reeves/Pattinson Batman will be more up my alley.

The script definitely reeks of somebody trying way too hard to make the darkest film imaginable; there's a pretty tasteless child-abuse subplot and weird throwaway bits like a child licking a disgusting elevator pole. It reads so tiresome that only Phoenix could make it the slightest bit appealing.

I don’t understand why this movie exists because the nature of the Joker means no story is fulfilling without the batman. As a character, the joker is a pretty boring sociopathic anarchist. It's only when you run him up against batman, another boring character, do things start to get interesting.

I like the idea behind the film, of society basically creating an absolute lunatic, but I hope it doesn’t lean too hard into the comicbook stuff which has a way of trivializing real trauma with tropes and “origin story” signposts. I’ll see it eventually but I’m definitely not expecting much.

Btw, isn’t the timeline kind of goofy? Batman’s dad punches him in the trailer, and Joaquin is clearly in his 40s. So that would make Joker at least a sexagenarian by the time Batman shows up.

RIP Film wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:30 pm Btw, isn’t the timeline kind of goofy? Batman’s dad punches him in the trailer, and Joaquin is clearly in his 40s. So that would make Joker at least a sexagenarian by the time Batman shows up.

Or Joaquin's Joker is the antecedent for the future Joker we see in the Batman films.

Or it's all disconnected '90s style and shouldn't be treated like a dumb puzzle box.

That’s what I’d hope for, the most nauseating thing about superhero films is the need for continuity... like ‘where does this fit into a 3 film arc?’. It seems to me you have the most freedom of expression if you don’t have to think about an entire timeline, and how several different realities collide into one. I think the most interesting thing superhero films can do is to offer a kind of window, of fiction looking back on reality.

I heard that the script for The Batman is set in the 90's, where this is a decade before

Whilst I'm looking forward to it, and I'm sure the two films aren't comparable at all.. but an entire film dedicated to a man becoming the Joker oddly reminds me of Rob Zombie's poor attempt to explain Michael Myers...

waitingforgodard wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:23 am I don’t understand why this movie exists because the nature of the Joker means no story is fulfilling without the batman. As a character, the joker is a pretty boring sociopathic anarchist. It's only when you run him up against batman, another boring character, do things start to get interesting.

This is my visceral reaction to this film too, though as superhero films aren't my bag to begin with, maybe I should stay out of this! Still, I have never begrudged fans of these works the high-production-value, exhilarating, edge-of-your-seat entertainment that they promise – each to their own, basically – but I can't help but find the grandiose origin stories and self-serious narratives of these "dark" superhero films super-corny.

Also, Todd Phillips might be just about my least-favourite director ever (I think Road Trip and The Hangover might both be in the bottom 10 films I've ever watched), so all signs are pointing to this film officially being my Room 101.

Didn't he direct a documentary on G.G. Allin? I haven't seen it (or can say I am a devotee of Allin's work) but it would seem to me that some of what Phillips explored there must have carried over into this piece.

Yeah I believe he did, and also Bittersweet Motel a doc on Phish that’s both entertaining and manipulative. Granted, much of the band’s community enjoys the film for its inside eye and I’ll be the first to admit as a fan of the band myself that this was filmed during some pretty rough years right before Trey went off the rails and long before sobriety. Still, the film is clearly filtered to expose and exploit in its purpose, while Phillips presents to the interviewees with different intentions. So despite some talented comedic work I’ve always questioned his motives, not that I believe he would intentionally make the kind of film some are fearing will appeal to toxic masculinity (though his track record certainly contains enough of those films already...)

This section from Ehrlich’s review is exactly what I was afraid of: “There’s a fundamental difference between telling a story like this in the form of a dingy, misanthropic art film like “Taxi Driver” and telling it in the universal language of a superhero movie that’s going to open in multiplexes the world over. In this context, that story can’t help but feel aspirational. And Phillips is the first person to be seduced by its pull — to be helplessly pulled along by an innate desire to see Joker at the height of his power.”

This is the same affliction that Fight Club, American Psycho, or even Mad Men suffers from: the form belies the content, the “message.” People love to say that those who venerate Durden, or Bateman, are misreading the film, but they’re not. The form and the content of those films are at odds with each other, leading to an incoherentness that allows for those readings to occur.