Joker (2019) -- Did you see it? Reactions? [Spoilers]

[Trump Is A Maoist]

I saw it. It was definitely well-made. I can imagine it winning plenty of awards

I follow the Oscars and the awards season leading up to it pretty closely. Things change a lot, but right now there seems to be 8 movies identified that are likely to be 8 out of the 8 or 9 or 10 films that get nominated for Best Picture. Of those 8 films, 3 have "snub potential". One is Korean ("Parasite" - GREAT film by the way), one is a nazi themed comedy ("Jojo Rabbit") and one is "Joker". Lots of people are predicting that the Academy will snub Joker due to politics, but not the other two.

For reference, the other five in discussion right now are Marriage Story, The Irishman, Little Women, 1917 and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

There are always films that are over-nominated and over-awarded while othet films get snubbed that are deserving. Last year for example First Man, If Beale Street Could Talk and A Star Is Born were under-nominated and/or under-awarded whereas excessive nominations and/or awards were given to Vice, Never Look Away and Bohemian Rhapsody.

[Landslide Lyndon]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

[Abolish ICE]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

[Progressive Pessimist]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Holy crap! Someone who agrees me about 'Roma.' Actually, that's how I feel about most of Cuaron's films. Bring on the torches and pitchforks! I don't care!

[Abolish ICE]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Holy crap! Someone who agrees me about 'Roma.' Actually, that's how I feel about most of Cuaron's films. Bring on the torches and pitchforks! I don't care!

Yeah, I totally agree re: Cauron.  He’s become one of the more overrated directors over the past decade.  Roma deserved a best cinematography win and no other nominations, much less wins.  Aside from Roma, I’ve only seen three other Cauron movies (really two since I barely remember Prisoner of Azkaban except for something about a guy named Serious Black being framed for helping kill Harry Potter’s parents somehow and Ron’s pet rat secretly being a villain named Peter Pettigrew who I’ve since realized was probably played by the Timothy Spall).  None of what I saw in those movies suggested Cauron is anywhere near as good a director as he’s often made out to be (and he seems to be even more overrated as a screenwriter, I’ve yet to see a movie with an original screenplay written or co-written by him where the plot wasn’t one of the weakest parts of the movie).

Gravity was a perfectly serviceable - albeit mindless  - generic “things go wrong in space” movie.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It also used outstanding special effects to distract from its very weak script/plot.  It certainly deserved to win Best Visual Effects and get nominated in a *few* other technical categories*, but nothing more than that.  The fact that this film got nominated for Best Original Screenplay (LOL), won Best Director, and almost beat 12 Years a Slave for Best Picture continues to baffle me.  

Children of Men was okay, I guess, and probably Cauron’s best film, but it still felt like the first draft of a script badly in need of about 7-8 more drafts of polishing.  And even w/o the plot’s meandering, disjointed nature and the somewhat one-note characters, it still wouldn’t have been a classic by any stretch of the imagination.

*You could maybe also make an argument for a best actress nomination b/c it can’t have been easy to act with only green-screens and a ball on a stick for most of the movie, but despite her valiant efforts, I don’t think Bullock quite pulled it off.

[Progressive Pessimist]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Holy crap! Someone who agrees me about 'Roma.' Actually, that's how I feel about most of Cuaron's films. Bring on the torches and pitchforks! I don't care!

Yeah, I totally agree re: Cauron.  He’s become one of the more overrated directors over the past decade.  Roma deserved a best cinematography win and no other nominations, much less wins.  Aside from Roma, I’ve only seen three other Cauron movies (really two since I barely remember Prisoner of Azkaban except for something about a guy named Serious Black being framed for helping kill Harry Potter’s parents somehow and Ron’s pet rat secretly being a villain named Peter Pettigrew who I’ve since realized was probably played by the Timothy Spall).  None of what I saw in those movies suggested Cauron is anywhere near as good a director as he’s often made out to be (and he seems to be even more overrated as a screenwriter, I’ve yet to see a movie with an original screenplay written or co-written by him where the plot wasn’t one of the weakest parts of the movie).

Gravity was a perfectly serviceable - albeit mindless  - generic “things go wrong in space” movie.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It also used outstanding special effects to distract from its very weak script/plot.  It certainly deserved to win Best Visual Effects and get nominated in a *few* other technical categories*, but nothing more than that.  The fact that this film got nominated for Best Original Screenplay (LOL), won Best Director, and almost beat 12 Years a Slave for Best Picture continues to baffle me.  

Children of Men was okay, I guess, and probably Cauron’s best film, but it still felt like the first draft of a script badly in need of about 7-8 more drafts of polishing.  And even w/o the plot’s meandering, disjointed nature and the somewhat one-note characters, it still wouldn’t have been a classic by any stretch of the imagination.

*You could maybe also make an argument for a best actress nomination b/c it can’t have been easy to act with only green-screens and a ball on a stick for most of the movie, but despite her valiant efforts, I don’t think Bullock quite pulled it off.

Again, I'm almost completely in line with you on Cuaron's films, right down to considering 'Children of Men' his best film...mostly by default. I could not get past the fact that this entire dystopian future is due to the entire male population of Earth being infertile though. How did that happen? Oh, you're not going to tell us? Then how can I buy into this world? Cuaron apparently dislikes exposition, but there are still clever ways to inform the audience without an expository monologue dump.

As a side note, 'Gravity' had the most unintentionally hilarious trailer I have ever seen in my life, I thought it was a joke. I should have been terrified, but instead I was cracking up. So while watching the movie I just couldn't get past my previous sardonic laughter. Seriously, go back and watch that trailer, the editing made it look like a ridiculous slapstick comedy (AAAGGH! WHOOOAA! WHOOPS!)...that, or I'm a terrible person:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsrgE0BYf0

I have a particular dislike for 'Prisoner of Azkaban' though. But it might not be Cuaron's fault for that one. I hated the book too, back when I was reading all the Harry Potter books, which I almost entirely liked other than that one (I stopped reading them after making halfway through the fifth one though, and decided to just wait for the movies). I felt like barely anything happened in it, other than the reader being introduced to Sirius Black. And then there's Hermione's time travel device...WHICH THEY NEVER USE AGAIN!

[RI]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals. 

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Holy crap! Someone who agrees me about 'Roma.' Actually, that's how I feel about most of Cuaron's films. Bring on the torches and pitchforks! I don't care!

Yeah, I totally agree re: Cauron.  He’s become one of the more overrated directors over the past decade.  Roma deserved a best cinematography win and no other nominations, much less wins.  Aside from Roma, I’ve only seen three other Cauron movies (really two since I barely remember Prisoner of Azkaban except for something about a guy named Serious Black being framed for helping kill Harry Potter’s parents somehow and Ron’s pet rat secretly being a villain named Peter Pettigrew who I’ve since realized was probably played by the Timothy Spall).  None of what I saw in those movies suggested Cauron is anywhere near as good a director as he’s often made out to be (and he seems to be even more overrated as a screenwriter, I’ve yet to see a movie with an original screenplay written or co-written by him where the plot wasn’t one of the weakest parts of the movie).

Gravity was a perfectly serviceable - albeit mindless  - generic “things go wrong in space” movie.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It also used outstanding special effects to distract from its very weak script/plot.  It certainly deserved to win Best Visual Effects and get nominated in a *few* other technical categories*, but nothing more than that.  The fact that this film got nominated for Best Original Screenplay (LOL), won Best Director, and almost beat 12 Years a Slave for Best Picture continues to baffle me. 

Children of Men was okay, I guess, and probably Cauron’s best film, but it still felt like the first draft of a script badly in need of about 7-8 more drafts of polishing.  And even w/o the plot’s meandering, disjointed nature and the somewhat one-note characters, it still wouldn’t have been a classic by any stretch of the imagination.

*You could maybe also make an argument for a best actress nomination b/c it can’t have been easy to act with only green-screens and a ball on a stick for most of the movie, but despite her valiant efforts, I don’t think Bullock quite pulled it off.

Children of Men is a so-so film wrapped around a great premise and a couple fantastic scenes. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that the baby reveal sequence is the most incredible scene I've seen in any film. But much of the rest of the film is lacking.

[The DEI Hire]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Agreed to the bolded bit.
 

Hereditary doesn't get the appreciation it deserves imo

[Trump Is A Maoist]

IMHO, the most excessively nominated and awarded films of last year were "Green Book" and "Black Panther".
If the Academy really wanted to make a statement about racism then they should have given "Black Klansman" much more than a consolation screenplay award. But I guess Lee's film hit a little too close at home for these Hollywood liberals.  

At least Roma didn’t win.  As ridiculous as Green Book winning best picture was (Hereditary [should’ve won], BlackKKlansman, Boy Erased, and Detainment were all better and that’s just off the top of my head), at least it was a well made and enjoyable enough film*.  However, Roma was - wonderful cinematography aside - a boring, pointless mess.  I’d argue Roma and Black Panther had no business being even shortlisted for a nomination outside several technical categories.  Green Book deserved a best picture nomination and probably a best original screenplay win (a well-written script, if nothing else), but that’s it.  Come to think of it, The Favourite was pretty over-awarded too.

*as long as you don’t mistake it for anything more than superficial To Kill a Mockingbird/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? brand feelgoodism for white people,

Agreed to the bolded bit.
 

Hereditary doesn't get the appreciation it deserves imo

Finally found something I agree with you on. Lol.



Let's move this movie talk to a different thread, maybe Awards Season / Oscar thread? Just a suggestion.

[Robert California]

Saw it last night and boy am I riled up at this thing. Overall good, but not really enjoyable (until the third act) film. Completely inappropriate to insert this story into an allegedly coherent Batman universe (by which I mean, even though this relates to no other Batman film, one would still expect that the title villain to be at least somewhat recognizable when compared to literally any other portrayal; he is not). I should say I'm probably still bitter that Harvey Dent/Two-Face has never been done justice in the films despite two different appearances, but this guy has been done well almost every time and gets a rehash every three years now.

As for what I absolutely loved, I would say the portrayal of 70s/80s New York City in all its terrible urban decay and wretchedness. In that sense, thank God we're in the 21st century rather than the (admittedly aesthetically superior) mid-late twentieth. I liked that his relationship with Sophie was entirely imaginary, but would have preferred it being left ambiguous but evident. The actor for Alfred reminded me of the Letterkenny hockey coach.

2. The class consciousness was really...poignant? And relevant? And I loved it. The very first thing I thought after the movie ended was "wow, I don't think I like Batman anymore." Like, his entire thing is that he has no powers, but he's rich and can afford fancy tech that he beats people up with? And he's a "tortured soul"? Nah, f--k that guy. I'm not saying I'm glad his parents got murdered in front of him when he was young, but his dad kinda totally deserved it for being a conniving prick towards the poor and the mentally ill.

While I agree that this universe has it well set up for Batman to be a much more sinister figure (the vigilante arm of the billionaire class or somesuch), I think we already knew that he was a rich dude with fancy tech and a personality problem well before this film. But deciding on whether he's a good guy or not (outside of whether nor not you think a billionaire should be allowed to exist in the first place) seems like it's far more in the hands of individual writers than his, eh, inherent nature. And I think it takes a bit more than being a conniving prick to warrant a death sentence.

3. Joaquin Phoenix NAILED the part. He was a perfect prequel Joker. I know this portrayal is independent of Heath Ledger's Joker (and all the other Jokers) but Phoenix's prequel Joker into Ledger's main series Joker is, in my mind, the perfect way to depict that character. And while I don't expect there to be a main series of Batman movies with Phoenix as the Joker, I would totally love that as long as they get someone who isn't a dork to play Batman.

This is actually probably my strongest point against the film. He had a great performance, but I have a hard time seeing him flowing into "the Joker"--even Heath Ledger's portrayal. The "canon" plot of him being a down-and-out comedian who commits a few crimes to feed his family and undergoes a traumatic transformation, while perhaps less realistic, is far more coherent.

While I'm a nineties kid and The Dark Knight came out when I was only thirteen, I'd by then been long-exposed to Cesar Romero's and (especially) Jack Nicholson's portrayals. These guys killed for cash or chaos. Does Arthur Fleck do that? It seems he's primarily revenge or self defense-driven. The break with this we see is maybe his killing of the Arkham psychiatrist at the end. If that indicates a degeneration, then good, since that needs to be more fully-fleshed out to make him as any other Joker believable. The chaos he presides over as Gotham burns seems far too positive and programmatic--in that it's the poor against the rich--than anything Heath Ledger's Joker did. He, after all, had no problem killing a boat full of prisoners or a boat with children in it. He wasn't going to engage in some anarcho-socialist commune in front of city hall. While any portrayal involving "Joker gas" or greedy instrumental crime seems well behind us, I think that type of villain is still an important part of the character's legacy and it's hard to square him with socialist-realist Arthur Fleck.

In terms of eventually feeding into a more recognizable or coherent universe, my buddy texted me today that a sequel had been greenlighted. The only two sequels I can see having any purpose would be, as mentioned above, his transformation into a more Ledger-esque character as killing becomes more routine and meaningless, or the dystopian "billionaire-vigilante-fights-the-destitute-in-the-name-of-'order'" (I would have issues with the realism of crime being portrayed as something that is only undertaken against the bourgeoisie, but it'd at least be interesting).

- 1) Murray Franklin (De Niro’s character) was usually genuinely funny rather than just in-universe funny; I really enjoyed the clips of his show and was laughing right along with the “studio audience,” especially at the bits making fun of Fleck). 

Agreed. And there's part of me that ironically styles him the "conscience" of the movie given his exchange with Fleck at the end.

It would have been much easier to invite the audience to root for Fleck in a “mad as Hell” sort of way and I appreciate that Todd Phillips chose took the harder, but more responsible route. 

This makes it a better movie but a worse fit for the origin story of a by-now well-established comic book villain.

- 3) I also really liked how they depicted Thomas Wayne here, really the whole subplot with the Waynes was great. 

Outside of giving us an excuse to see young Bruce and his family's murder, I found the main character's entire entanglement with the Wayne family--alleged paternity--to be needlessly grating. I can understand how it served the plot--gives our protagonist a reason to encounter Wayne and find out what an ass he is--but I feel the same could have been accomplished without momentarily teasing some "ooh, Batman and the Joker might be brothers!" nonsense.

[MarkD]

Building off what the OP and Cath have said, to me this movie was about an entirely different character who happens to be called the same name and happens to have dyed his hair the same color as the classic Batman villain. I simply don't see any similarity between Phoenix's Arthur Fleck and any other rendition of The Joker from the comic books to TV to movie portrayals. There are just too many differences between THIS Joker and THAT Joker!

And how lax could security be, in the year 1980, at a TV studio for it to allow an almost completely unknown guy to carry a gun in? That was a detail I found totally hard to believe.

[Wazza]

Well the movie's release definitely showed how ridiculously sensationalistic modern Journalism can be. All this panic about the movie provoking some "white nationalist revolt" or "beta uprising" of sorts and the film turned out to have rather profound left wing revolutionary themes with its only real life impact being people posing at a stairway in the Bronx...