The movie can't have a message coopted by incels if it barely has anything to say.
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JOKER |OT| Viviamo in una società |SPOILERS|
- Thread starter Cpt-GargameL
- Start date
The movie can't have a message coopted by incels if it barely has anything to say.
Naw. Has plenty to say. Even says to you in an very obvious way as to what it is saying.
It has the aesthetics of a movie that has something to say, but I came away wondering what the point of the whole thing was.
The movies this one cribbed from are all vastly better, and treat these themes with more maturity.
I genuinely hadn't heard of her before.
It wasn't malicious on my part.
No I didn't, I am saying the muddled messages about mental health is so shallow that every time the movie reminds you that is what it's about it is utterly embarassing.
Taxi Driver had no more of a message than Joker. Man Goes Crazy in a Crazy World.
Saw it tonight with my ex. Both liked it. Definitely takes a while to get going but it makes sense; needs a solid backstory.
because it doesn't go into mental health care issues as if it's a documentary?
Yes, exactly thank you. Here I was thinking you might be discussing with me in bad faith!
I don't want a deep movie either, I am saying this movie takes a swing a misses badly on the themes of mental health.
A concise and simple Joker origin story could have been great. Don't start telling me the minutes long dance sequences and contrieved Thomas Wayne backstory were intended to be part of a purposefully "shallow" or light movie. This movie was high on it's own supply, and suffered for it.
so i should really argue that your nebulous shallow is somehow legit? you are just saying words without substance.
You know I can at least appreciate someone admitting to this, embracing it, and trying to frame the movie in a way that makes sense for them...even if it doesn't really make it any better.
Taxi Driver isn't a particularly deep movie, but it executes on its single through line well while Joker has like multiple dots scattered throughout the film that barely go anywhere.
Joker is about as deep as Avatar. And there's nothing wrong with liking Avatar like there's nothing wrong with liking Joker. I just wish we can stop pretending this movie's some deep character/social piece while also pretending it's not supposed be about anything. It's style over substance, clearly made by a Scorsese fanboy with a few swipes at our mental health system, income inequality, even gun control and outrage culture to seem relavent and insightful but never amounts to anything or even gels together coherently.
Oh well this movie will be irrelevant in a few years anyway when Matt Reeve's Batman movie comes out.
A few small changes that I think would have really helped this:
1. Make the therapist someone who actually gives a shit so that when Arthur loses therapy and his medication it actually matters. Have Arthur read out some jokes to his therapist. As Jenny points out in the video, the movie is having its cake and eating it too when the therapist does not care during his sessions and then tells Arthur the city does not give a shit about him during the last one. Actually the movie and the director having their cake and eating it too is a recurring problem in general.
2. Don't make everyone Arthur kills an asshole. In the movie, Arthur only murders people who have very clearly done him wrong whether it be the Wayne Wall Street Trio, his coworker who talked shit behind his back, or Murray. At least one of those first two should not be an asshole. All of those killings can be flimsily justified as "they wronged him/were assholes."
3. You can keep all the Thomas Wayne and Arthur learning he was adopted stuff but remove the trip to Wayne Manor. Meeting Bruce felt wildly fanservice-y and unnecessary. The sequence that this should have played out with 1. Arthur read the letter 2. Thomas Wayne meeting the bathroom 3. Arthur goes to Arkham to learn the truth. The meeting of Arthur and Wayne at the bathroom would better if Wayne wasn't aware Arthur was aware of him and maybe he was asking for help for him and his mother who just had a stroke. This way you can make Wayne into an unsympathetic uncaring dick. Wayne had a right in the movie to be apprehensive about Arthur because he came to his house and put his fingers in his son's mouth.
While these changes in my opinion would not have made the film great or ironed out problematic moments but they would at least have better segued into the later half of the film. It would have enforced the themes of class disparity/eroding social safety nets etc and make it feel more cohesive.
1. Make the therapist someone who actually gives a shit so that when Arthur loses therapy and his medication it actually matters. Have Arthur read out some jokes to his therapist. As Jenny points out in the video, the movie is having its cake and eating it too when the therapist does not care during his sessions and then tells Arthur the city does not give a shit about him during the last one. Actually the movie and the director having their cake and eating it too is a recurring problem in general.
2. Don't make everyone Arthur kills an asshole. In the movie, Arthur only murders people who have very clearly done him wrong whether it be the Wayne Wall Street Trio, his coworker who talked shit behind his back, or Murray. At least one of those first two should not be an asshole. All of those killings can be flimsily justified as "they wronged him/were assholes."
3. You can keep all the Thomas Wayne and Arthur learning he was adopted stuff but remove the trip to Wayne Manor. Meeting Bruce felt wildly fanservice-y and unnecessary. The sequence that this should have played out with 1. Arthur read the letter 2. Thomas Wayne meeting the bathroom 3. Arthur goes to Arkham to learn the truth. The meeting of Arthur and Wayne at the bathroom would better if Wayne wasn't aware Arthur was aware of him and maybe he was asking for help for him and his mother who just had a stroke. This way you can make Wayne into an unsympathetic uncaring dick. Wayne had a right in the movie to be apprehensive about Arthur because he came to his house and put his fingers in his son's mouth.
While these changes in my opinion would not have made the film great or ironed out problematic moments but they would at least have better segued into the later half of the film. It would have enforced the themes of class disparity/eroding social safety nets etc and make it feel more cohesive.
It yells many things very loudly but without any real conviction.
I don't think it has a message tbh
i think all that stuff is just background noise in Arthur's story. Circumstantial (Meds getting cut being an exception).
also I don't know how anyone could not like the dancing. Phoenix killed it.
i think all that stuff is just background noise in Arthur's story. Circumstantial (Meds getting cut being an exception).
also I don't know how anyone could not like the dancing. Phoenix killed it.
Joker didn't hold up a sign saying "I am bad person y'all, don't be like me" in the movie so some people are a little confused.
Im impressed how many people from my work and personal circle decided to watch the movie on this week, it feels that the curiosity of what all the buzz was about led to some people who werent interested in the movie at the beggining decided to watch it
I have loved Jenny since discovering her a few months ago, and I usually hard agree with her view on things but this is the first time our opinions didn't match up. Makes sense it would be a divisive movie like the Joker, with a hard to pin down main theme and enigmatic character. This was my quickly typed up phone response in the youtube comments on the video :
I knew it was bound to happen eventually that I'd disagree with you on something, and it makes sense for it to be a divisive movie like Joker. I can understand why the movie wouldn't work for someone who needs to find a central theme to latch onto, because it throws a lot in the audiences way and it's up to them to decide. For me the most focused theme it does have, is sadly one you fell victim to yourself : the dangers of media sensationalism and fearmongering. You go to see the movie in a drive-thru because the media tried to make this movie the next scapegoat for mass shootings, and you tried to interpret everything through some weird Todd Phillip's lense as the media threw his interviews into your face trying to make people hate this movie. The media try to give a grander meaning to Arthur's killings but they all have simple, base emotional motivations behind them. Fear/survival on the train, anger/survival on the other clown, prideful anger at Murray for making fun of him. It's a very poignant message for this day and age.
The complaints about Gotham's realism in terms of the bad stuff it throws Arthur's way is weird to me, as you seem to know of the city's lore of being a shithole beyond most any real world one. This is also something to consider when thinking about the social worker, who must be swamped with patients therefore exhausted, and goes into probably several of those meetings knowing of the impending shutdown. She's also beholden to the job when it comes to patients like Arthur who are a potential danger to themselves and others. From what little we see, she's not doing some amazing therapy work with Arthur, which is understandable for a myriad of reasons. Her remark about the world not giving a shit about people like Arthur just is actual real talk between people and not needing to be trying for anything more.
They felt so out of place, and lasted way too long.
Like, I needed him social worker or boss to tell him to stop dancing or something. Have it be part of his repressed persona, or I don't know. There is no catharsis is seeing his gangly ass writhe around after killing those guys. You just get into the bathroom and suddenly you have the first dance scene. You're just sitting there, and what are you suppose to think? It took me out of the movie, I was just sitting there thinking about Joaquin's performance.
"Wow he sure killed those people, look at him dance!"
It was just akwards for me, but that is my take. A lot of people love it, more power to them!
What if Phillips and Phoenix came out in a few months and said, they wanted to make a movie about the Joker where he is having one of his sessions with a shrink, and Joker is just giving them one of the many "you wanna know how I got these scars" stories. Nothing more than that.
Did they not succeed in that? Did they not make the perfect Joker origin story? You want to call it an irrelevant movie, you want to call it a bad movie, half baked, etc, etc. So what? It exist now, It has people talking, it's making a lot of money, it may win some prestigious awards. It's ok not to like the chaos, but you have to accept that chaos exist.
Did they not succeed in that? Did they not make the perfect Joker origin story? You want to call it an irrelevant movie, you want to call it a bad movie, half baked, etc, etc. So what? It exist now, It has people talking, it's making a lot of money, it may win some prestigious awards. It's ok not to like the chaos, but you have to accept that chaos exist.
That does not work at all when you introduce the therapist at the end of the movie.
But it was in the movie, at the end, with the shrink. Quit trying to take the movie so literal.
Imagine Joker directed his own movie. This is what this movie is.
Then the movie was a worthless waste of fucking time.
"Lolol he trolled the therapist, none of it happened" totally robs the movie of any kind of meaning and purpose. A character study with social commentary that neither aspires to study its character or comment on society is worthless.
Okay, lets say you're right. It's all bullshit.
Then what was the point of this fucking movie? Especially if you never even see the actual Joker in the film
OP
OP
That's the Jokers message! Your getting it!
God thissss...so the point of the movie was to troll everyone....
"BuT ThAt ToTaLlY mAkEs SeNsE fOr A jOkEr MoViE!!"
Yes I took the time to type that out like that...and no I didn't need to...but it made sense for the point(HINT HINT) I was trying to get across....
Finally saw it tonight. It was... okay. I like some of the ideas they try to inject into into like grounding it in 70s NYC Gotham or having Joker be this figure that comes along at the right place at the right time that makes everything come to a head in the city. But there are things (like the Sophie stuff) that make me think that, if it was in the hands of a better writer/director, it would've been something special.
Bruh lmao
Listen, I love me some troll Joker but troll Joker only works if he's an actual character. For all we know that could've been one of Joker's henchmen at the end of the movie dreaming of being the Joker in his own dumbass way.
I thought it was pretty dumb tbh, felt weird for the sake of being weird
Like the multiple scenes of him shirtless and contorting his body
Yes Todd, he's skinny. WE FUCKING GET IT.
That's like saying Total Recall is pointless because one interpretation of the film is that the whole thing was in Quaid's mind. The movie is open to interpretation. That is good.
It's a character study and that's it imo
not every film needs to have some message to take home
Movies being open to interpretation is good, never saw Total Recall but it works damn well in King of Comedy. It wasn't done well here though, some of us can't pretend that Joker never existed outside of this movie and that he doesn't already have a long extensive history as a character.
The only problem with the dancing and the shirtless scenes is there wasn't more of them. Or at least more similar scenes showing who he was, his wretched existence... definitely wouldn't be cutting them out. Those kinds of scenes needed to be expanded upon. He's much more of a character and the world feels much more real with that sort of shit.
I saw the film last night and thought it was pretty good, but not amazing.
What annoyed me was that they made the age difference between Joker and Bruce Wayne so big. Especially when the only reason for this seems to be that they wanted to have Joker's influence to get Bruce's parents killed. We really don't need to see the demise of his parents again. It has been used so damn many times it has lost any effect.
What annoyed me was that they made the age difference between Joker and Bruce Wayne so big. Especially when the only reason for this seems to be that they wanted to have Joker's influence to get Bruce's parents killed. We really don't need to see the demise of his parents again. It has been used so damn many times it has lost any effect.
I saw it last night and thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed it more than the last few MCU movies. I'd love to see this Joker go one on one with the great one (Batman) at some point. If this next Batman movie ends up being good, I really hope these two have a showdown after that.
One scene that always gets me (have seen the movie 3 times already) is when he gets pulled out of the police car by "his gang" and wakes up, he starts this little dance , he spends the whole movie dancing but that little dance is different, is like a death snore of some sorts, like Arhur´s personality finally dying but refusing to, it's so sad.
I listened to that episode yesterday, and they made a great point to focus on Todd Phillip's filmography, to give the movie context. He reminds of Zack Synder, constantly focusing on unpleasant protagonists with nothing substantial to say on the human condition.