Thoughts on the Joaquin Phoenix Joker Movie
Thoughts on the new Joker movie, as scribbled into my phone on the Uber ride home:
-Setting movies during riots of the past to gin up an apocalyptic vibe is an easy choice. If the movie is about alienation and isolation now, set the movie now. Mr. Robot that shit, except do more than rip off Fight Club. Making this movie set in a past decade turns it into historical fiction, which pulls its punch on societal commentary.
-Also I felt setting this in the past was a convenient way for the screenwriters to include halfshod plot points that wouldnt make sense with modern communications tech, security checks, dna testing, etc.
-Groan at the soundtrack. I feel like they made a playlist of classic rock songs from other movie soundtracks and applied liberally. Is this supposed to be ironic?
-There is so much "cigarettes = badass/gritty" in this movie it almost feels like a 2 hour R. J. Reynolds commercial. I wish it actually were the late seventies so I could have lit up in the theater. Smokers/former smokers trigger warning: this movie will make you nic hardddd
-Same with violence glorification. Protagonist only gains confidence/validation through murder. I get this is a villain's backstory, but there are more ways of showing progressive levels of villainy and dark motivation than enlightenment via violence.
-Same feel about "I stopped taking my meds, I feel better now" plotlines. I mean I hate big pharma as much as the next prole but fiction treating all pharmaceuticals as just omnibus brain suppressants holding geniuses back from revolutionary acts/art is as passe as it is offensive to anyone who uses meds to deal with serious mental health issues.
That being said, it's still a great movie.
I thought I was going to hate it til about halfway through (it felt like they had spoiled the whole story in the trailer til then) but the payoff at the end is mwah. I loved(with as few spoilers as possible):
-The love interest resolution, I thought this was the flimsiest plotline but they managed to wrap it up perfectly with an amber guyger reference to boot
-Count the 'taps his head on glass' motif usages and have your heart rejoice when the last one hits
-For all of its convenience and glorification re: character growth the killings are shot in a very sparing, visceral way that made me flinch nicely and felt very heavy
-Full of fun loner/recluse/antihero references, even beyond the batman stuff. Shouts out to Boo Radley in the scissors scene
All in all: probably like 85% good of a movie, and a top-tier showing for the superhero genre, but would still lose in a cage match to The Boys on Amazon Prime
Final thought: Heath Ledger still wears the Joker crown, at least until a fully-gone Jim Carrey reprises the role at the beginning of Trump's third term in early Thermidor of 2025.
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