Let's All Go to the Movies

LurchingBeast said:
Joker - 5.5/10

A bleak, twisted, but still quite superficial origin story that will bend the image of the superhero movie for better and worse.

Since we can't talk about Joker without addressing the commentary surrounding it, no, I don't feel this movie is 'dangerous' as certain critics think. For Joker to be dangerous, it would need to have a coherent ideology. It's angry but unintelligibly so. Todd Phillips can't articulate any kind of stance on the surface level questions he raises. I also believe the incels that commentators fear this story empowers lack the self-awareness to identify with certain character traits of this Joker. I would still like to hear Phillips explain the reactions I experienced in the theater. What does he think when some audience members burst into applause at the first homicidal eruption? Should some in the audience be laughing at a mentally ill man completely breaking down? Are little people jokes still funny? What is the difference between being inspired by Scorcese and Lumet and outright stealing from their films?

You have to watch this thing through a thick Disney-fied Marvel lens to see it as shocking or perverse. It's really quite a huge drag the whole way through. Yes, the violence is sudden and vicious and no this is absolutely not a movie for kids. It seems though, that by shoehorning a 70's 'inspired' crime drama into a superhero adjacent studio picture, which after Joker I expect to be a standard practice, you can have the press calling it the most subversive piece of pop culture out there.

Phillips was lucky to get Joaquin Phoenix for a gritty character study. The man is the best actor working today. His portrayal of a mentally ill loser down and out in the slums of Gotham is captivating. The best moments are when Phoenix, the cinematographer, and the score are perfectly in-sync; the scenes capturing his movement in the apartment and bathroom, while unable to support an entire movie, are gorgeous pieces of filmmaking. The problem is and always would be the story. Todd Phillips doesn't have deep thoughts, only basic questions. The Thomas Wayne storyline is total trash. There wasn't even an attempt to write another interesting character so you have great actors like Zazie Beetz and Robert DeNiro with nothing to work with. Bill Camp and Shea Whigham have maybe three lines each.

We were told we would be shocked by the Joker. I left a bit shocked at how vapid it was.
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Sooooo watch The King of Comedy this weekend and call it a day?
 


I guess Jeff finally needed some money.

Once more to the well!

I do have a perverse attraction to seeing a 'Clerks 3' come to fruition (since I was a fan of Part 2) but it's kinda a shame that Kevin Smith has fallen back onto Askewniverse sequels.... I really really liked what he did with Red State and Tusk to a lesser extent (Yoga Hosers was hot trash though).
 
BigFrank said:
I think I scared my wife with how excited I was to see what was on Netflix.

Is 12 too young to watch these movies?
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Butting in here... depends on the kid...

I think it all depends on if they're capable yet of separating movies and reality. Otherwise they're going to be quite ... distraught, lol.

I mean... my dad took me to Pulp Fiction when I was 10 in the theater and I'd definitely seen shit like the Terminator franchise and a bunch of Scorsese films with him before that.
 
Lutter said:


I guess Jeff finally needed some money.

Once more to the well!

I do have a perverse attraction to seeing a 'Clerks 3' come to fruition (since I was a fan of Part 2) but it's kinda a shame that Kevin Smith has fallen back onto Askewniverse sequels.... I really really liked what he did with Red State and Tusk to a lesser extent (Yoga Hosers was hot trash though).
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I know he's been wanting to do 3 since he decided to do 2. You know his love of trilogies. For a while he even fooled around with the idea of it being a stage production which I thought would have been brilliant.
 
LurchingBeast said:
Joker - 5.5/10

A bleak, twisted, but still quite superficial origin story that will bend the image of the superhero movie for better and worse.

Since we can't talk about Joker without addressing the commentary surrounding it, no, I don't feel this movie is 'dangerous' as certain critics think. For Joker to be dangerous, it would need to have a coherent ideology. It's angry but unintelligibly so. Todd Phillips can't articulate any kind of stance on the surface level questions he raises. I also believe the incels that commentators fear this story empowers lack the self-awareness to identify with certain character traits of this Joker. I would still like to hear Phillips explain the reactions I experienced in the theater. What does he think when some audience members burst into applause at the first homicidal eruption? Should some in the audience be laughing at a mentally ill man completely breaking down? Are little people jokes still funny? What is the difference between being inspired by Scorcese and Lumet and outright stealing from their films?

You have to watch this thing through a thick Disney-fied Marvel lens to see it as shocking or perverse. It's really quite a huge drag the whole way through. Yes, the violence is sudden and vicious and no this is absolutely not a movie for kids. It seems though, that by shoehorning a 70's 'inspired' crime drama into a superhero adjacent studio picture, which after Joker I expect to be a standard practice, you can have the press calling it the most subversive piece of pop culture out there.

Phillips was lucky to get Joaquin Phoenix for a gritty character study. The man is the best actor working today. His portrayal of a mentally ill loser down and out in the slums of Gotham is captivating. The best moments are when Phoenix, the cinematographer, and the score are perfectly in-sync; the scenes capturing his movement in the apartment and bathroom, while unable to support an entire movie, are gorgeous pieces of filmmaking. The problem is and always would be the story. Todd Phillips doesn't have deep thoughts, only basic questions. The Thomas Wayne storyline is total trash. There wasn't even an attempt to write another interesting character so you have great actors like Zazie Beetz and Robert DeNiro with nothing to work with. Bill Camp and Shea Whigham have maybe three lines each.

We were told we would be shocked by the Joker. I left a bit shocked at how vapid it was.
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I appreciate you.
 
Lutter said:
Butting in here... depends on the kid...

I think it all depends on if they're capable yet of separating movies and reality. Otherwise they're going to be quite ... distraught, lol.

I mean... my dad took me to Pulp Fiction when I was 10 in the theater and I'd definitely seen shit like the Terminator franchise and a bunch of Scorsese films with him before that.
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Absolutely true but the three I mentioned have some themes of violent and sexual nature a lot of parents won't want to show their 12 year old. Prostitution in Taxi Driver, masturbation and violence to animals in Equus, and talk of sex reassignment surgery in Dog Day Afternoon come to mind.
 
LurchingBeast said:
Absolutely true but the three I mentioned have some themes of violent and sexual nature a lot of parents won't want to show their 12 year old. Prostitution in Taxi Driver, masturbation and violence to animals in Equus, and talk of sex reassignment surgery in Dog Day Afternoon come to mind.
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Yeah, Taxi Driver is my favorite, but I don't think I could show that stuff to my son. Yesterday he was listening to "Caress Me Down" by Sublime and laughing because he knew it was all about sex. He is pretty sharp, but between the child prostitution, drug references and porn I don't think he is ready.
 
BigFrank said:
Yeah, Taxi Driver is my favorite, but I don't think I could show that stuff to my son. Yesterday he was listening to "Caress Me Down" by Sublime and laughing because he knew it was all about sex. He is pretty sharp, but between the child prostitution, drug references and porn I don't think he is ready.
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And thematically, it's one of those movies like Fight Club where at too young of an age (or other reasons...) you might come out thinking Travis Bickle and Tyler Durden are the cool good guys.

I thought about those two movies a lot after watching Joker. Can you imagine the waves made if the internet was around/what it is today when they came out? Joker doesn't even register on that scale of misinterpreted characters.
 
Lutter said:


I guess Jeff finally needed some money.

Once more to the well!

I do have a perverse attraction to seeing a 'Clerks 3' come to fruition (since I was a fan of Part 2) but it's kinda a shame that Kevin Smith has fallen back onto Askewniverse sequels.... I really really liked what he did with Red State and Tusk to a lesser extent (Yoga Hosers was hot trash though).
Click to expand...


I feel pretty confident that he wouldn't make these movies if he didn't have something he thought he needed to say, and that he needed to say it with these characters. It's been almost 15 years since Clerks 2 came out. His kid is now grown, he's had a heart attack, and experienced a lot of new life and career challenges. His audience has grown as well, and I think he just has a desire to check in with them. He doesn't seem to have trouble getting work as a tv director, doing live gigs, and selling ads on his podcasts. So while making money helps, he's a pretty self-aware guy and (while maybe not above a hypothetical cash-grab) just doesn't seem so motivated by money to do something like that. Jeff may need money though. I don't know wtf that guy does to sustain himself financially outside of residuals from the Clerks franchise.

So, I'll definitely see Clerks 3 opening weekend (or however he releases it; hopefully not with Fathom), and intend to see Jay and Bob in the near future as well.
 
BigFrank said:
I think I scared my wife with how excited I was to see what was on Netflix.

Is 12 too young to watch these movies?
Click to expand...

I'd say that Dog Day Afternoon, if discussed, is actually not a bad one, depending on the 12 year old. It's not that violent at all, and it's a fantastic character study in that the viewer really starts to feel for the characters. It could provide some very good conversation about why desperate people are sometimes driven to do bad things - which is never not applicable. Further, if you can have the discussion about repressed homosexuality, the stigma of the transgender, and especially these things in context of the time and comparing to how far we have (or haven't) come, I think it could be a very valuable viewing experience. Throw in a discussion of what happened at Attica and today's police state, and you have a lot to chew on. Plus, introduce the kid to 70's Lumet early!

It definitely has to do with the kid and the context. Taxi Driver is a tough sell because of the Fight Club misinterpretation, referenced by LurchingBeast .
 
‘Yesterday’ had an interesting premise but, uh, zero logic... and the worst most pointless ending I can remember seeing in a while.

The movie tries in incinuate at one point that smoking was never invented.

I mean. That had zero effects on the other 99.9% of the world that’s unaffected by hundreds of thousands of people not dying every year?

Sigh.

I’m thinking too much about the dumbness.
 
In the Tall Grass - 3.5/10

Netflix's new Stephen King (and Joe Hill) adaptation directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) is a tedious march through a disorienting field of grass. While I understand the disorientation is the point, it becomes repetitive after the first 40 minutes as the movie struggles to reach feature length. How many crane shots of a desolate grass field do you need? Apparently dozens. There is some grim subject matter, kudos to Netflix for not overruling the most shocking scene, but it's too slow to ever be really scary. It looked like Patrick Wilson had the time of his life playing a madman. The rest of the actors were subpar at best.

Skip it.
 
Joker, 7/10

I'm always appreciative of LurchingBeast's reviews, and always a bit pissed that he sees shit before I do. As usual, I agree with much of his take- the tertiary stories in the script are woefully lacking, particularly the Thomas Wayne thread. The "interaction" with the neighbor was completely pointless except to reinforce the obvious deterioration of the "protagonist". Letting DeNiro languish on screen was a poor choice.

All that being said, the film was still, by and large, beautifully shot and scored. It allowed itself to be artistic and visceral, real and surreal, engaging and repulsive. Joaquin Phoenix is a towering talent who benefited greatly from the close and precise camera work that was lent him. He is an absolute pleasure to watch work, even (and perhaps especially) when he is given a broken psyche in which he can move. I was impressed with his physicality and movement. From a distance, he was a stage actor that could engage the mezzanine, and from up close, his subtlety in expression was haunting.

Quite frankly, the film would have been more successful with about 20 minutes off the run-time and 50% off the plot.

Still enjoyable to see.
 
Got around to Between Two Ferns over the weekend. Not a Will Ferrell fan, but I am a huge fan of Christopher Guest’s improvised documentary style, and it’s been a hot minute since I saw something that made me laugh as hard as Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show. I think Galafinakis nailed the genre. I liked it quite a bit.
 
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