Joker (2019 Movie) (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

I'm going to guess that that pic is either Photoshopped or it was not put up by anyone associated with the theater.

 

[Bryan^H]

Superhero movies do big business, but Hollywood did fine before they became the toppermost of the poppermost, and Hollywood will do fine if/when audiences shy away from them...

Really? I don't know about that.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think what we think of as Hollywood - companies that create content to be enjoyed by the masses - will be fine. I think the delivery system of the future is up for grabs. But I don’t think the possible death of movie theaters is the end of scripted, prerecorded programming.

But here’s the thing: when a big studio like Warner gets bought out by AT&T, it’s not because AT&T cares one whit about movie theaters. It’s because they want content for their subscription services, which for them could mean their cellular and internet business, their satellite business, or their upcoming subscription service. And those businesses are a priority now because the paying members of the general public are already voting with their dollars and saying that leaving the house, arranging transportation to somewhere else, and then watching something on someone else’s schedule with no ability to pause/rewind/rewatch/eat their own food is no longer their preferred way to enjoy prerecorded entertainment. Movie studios like Warner had value to companies like AT&T precisely because people like watching stuff - it’s just that people are starting to prefer the delivery methods AT&T provides more than the ones that AMC and Regal provide.

 

[benbess]

One of my favorite reviewers, Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, doesn't care for the film, but makes some interesting observations.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/07/todd-phillips-joker-is-no-laughing-matter

"....I happen to dislike the film as heartily as anything I’ve seen in the past decade, but I realize, equally, that to vent any inordinate wrath toward it is to fall straight into its trap, for outrage merely proves that our attention has been snagged.....“Joker” has its own political poise. Lest it be accused of right-wing inflammation, allowance is made for issues more congenial to the left. Cuts to welfare, we are told, will soon block Arthur’s access to therapy and medication, and the movie’s plea for the downtrodden to be given their rightful say harks back to Frank Capra and Chaplin. In one bizarre scene, the nabobs of Gotham, in tuxedos and gowns, are even treated to a special screening of “Modern Times.” Why should Phillips nod to a film of 1936, if not to stake his claim as a legatee? No less brazen are the references to Scorsese, and to his probing of urban paranoia—in “Taxi Driver” (1976) and again in “The King of Comedy” (1982), where De Niro played a reckless proto-Arthur, fixated on a talk-show host.

....We’re not far from the flaming climax of “White Heat” (1949)—another Warner Bros. shocker, with James Cagney as, yes, a mother-stricken murderer named Arthur, beset by psychiatric problems and laughing his way to perdition. Back then, the Times was dismayed: “Let us soberly warn that ‘White Heat’ is also a cruelly vicious film and that its impact upon the emotions of the unstable or impressionable is incalculable.” No such worries for Phillips’s movie; its impact is solemnly calculated to the final inch. I was expecting something called “Joker” to be fun. More fool me."

 

[Colin Jacobson]

One of my favorite reviewers, Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, doesn't care for the film, but makes some interesting observations.

" In one bizarre scene, the nabobs of Gotham, in tuxedos and gowns, are even treated to a special screening of “Modern Times.” Why should Phillips nod to a film of 1936, if not to stake his claim as a legatee?

Or maybe they have the "nabobs" at "Modern Times" to set up the notion that the Gotham elite attends ritzy screenings of old movies.

Given that an old Zorro movie plays a massive role in the mythology and becomes a factor later in the film, this makes sense to me. Not that I think Phillips picked "Modern Times" at random, but I think the use of an older movie is mainly a way to have audiences less perplexed at the Zorro screening later in the film...

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Really? I don't know about that.

So even though Hollywood was around for many decades before comic book flicks became king, you think the entire system will collapse when/if they lose favor with audiences?

You don't think Hollywood can find other stories to entertain audiences - y'know, like they did for decades?

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Probably more like, if you’re waiting in line talking to yourself and smell slightly funny, maybe you should go home.

I had a very unnerving experience at an unrelated film early this year where the theater let in a clearly disturbed patron, and during the course of the film he kept escalating his verbal threats of violence towards me. The theater declined to remove that patron. (Apparently AMC Theaters has a policy of “sure, go ahead and threaten to kill the guy next to you, just as long as you bought a $10 popcorn, it’s fine”.) So I’m glad to see that theaters aren’t being so dumb, even if they’re making stupid jokes to express their precaution attempts.

Sorry to hear about your experience.

Getting back to the sign, if it is legit, then I still don't see how it works in reality. Maybe it's just a cute way of saying "if you act like a weirdo, you're not gonna be admitted", but it reads as "if we don't think you're attractive, you can't see the movie"...

 

[Tino]

.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

.

This is the most intelligent post you've ever made!

 

[benbess]

Intense debate about this movie (with spoilers) by Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge of Variety....

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/joker-critic-debate-joaquin-phoenix-todd-phillips-1203359213/

 

[titch]

I saw the film yesterday and I believe Joker is the film I have disliked the most during the past three decades. A miserable, depressing, dour two hours. I have strongly recommended my friends to avoid it. I seek out controversial and challenging films and wanted to see Joker because the reviews were so polarizing. I found it ugly and boring.

 

[Tino]

This is the most intelligent post you've ever made!

Well...coming from you.........

 

[Bryan^H]

So even though Hollywood was around for many decades before comic book flicks became king, you think the entire system will collapse when/if they lose favor with audiences?

You don't think Hollywood can find other stories to entertain audiences - y'know, like they did for decades?

I never said Hollywood would collapse. There will always be movies in theaters.

 

[Wayne_j]

I just got back from seeing Joker in an actual arthouse theater. I enjoyed it very much, it was exactly what I was expecting from a Scorsese inspired comic book movie. I would give it an A-.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I never said Hollywood would collapse. There will always be movies in theaters.

You said it'd be a "scary time" and when I opined Hollywood would do fine, you said "I don't know about that", which I inferred you figured Hollywood would be in deep doo-doo without comic book movies.

Sounds like you expect Hollywood to collapse to me!

 

[Josh Dial]

Joker is easily the best DC film, surpassing even the first Nolan Batman movie.

Tons of ink (pixels?) have already been spent on Phoenix's performance, and rightly so. However, director Todd Phillips, cinematographer Lawrence Sher, and editor Jeff Groth deserve equal accolades. Joker is expertly crafted and shot.

In particular, I loved how the framing of many scenes closing shots were echoed in the initial framing of the next scene's opening shot. The best example was Joker at the sink in the theatre bathroom, which almost dissolves into him at the sink in his apartment. There are others. Near the start of the movie we see Fleck walking up a hilly alleyway, imposing walls at the frame's edges. Cut to Fleck walking up steep stairs with more walls closing in, different but the same. Then we see Fleck's apartment entrance with two archways in the centre of the frame. The next shot is inside his apartment, again with two archways in the centre.

Joker deals with ugly subject matter, but it's a beautiful movie.

 

[Bryan^H]

You said it'd be a "scary time" and when I opined Hollywood would do fine, you said "I don't know about that", which I inferred you figured Hollywood would be in deep doo-doo without comic book movies.

Sounds like you expect Hollywood to collapse to me!

No, just for the studios to figure out the next big thing in terms of the billion dollar money makers. Tent poles are the bread and butter for studios. They can survive without them, but it certainly won’t be business as usual without comic book films.

 

[Jake Lipson]

It's very late here as I write this, so I don't have time to go back through the thread right now before I fall asleep, but I will try to do that tomorrow and respond in more detail to the ongoing discussion then.

In brief for the time being, I'll say that I thought it was very good, and I liked it way more than I expected to as a gritty, disturbing character piece. Where I felt it came up short were in the connections to the Batman universe, because those clearly weren't necessary to the story it was telling and felt forced and shoehorned in. It seems like the filmmakers knew they wouldn't be able to get a major studio to fund this if it were just a drama about a guy with mental health issues, so they set the story inside the Batman universe in order to make it financially viable for a studio to make this at a $55 million budget. The story was much stronger in the parts of it where they were blazing their own trail and leaving the Batman stuff to the side instead of when it was shoving characters in front of us whose names we know from other properties like carrots being dangled in front of a horse to get them to come.

In addition to the discussion happening around the film's content, there is another discussion that should be prompted by this movie because it demonstrates that there is no space for this kind of mid-budget character piece to be made within the studio system today if it's not connected to a branded IP. That's the reality of how the audience at large is behaving, so I don't blame WB for shaking the Batman moneymaker over this. However, I think it's sad, and I hope something can be done to find a model to meaningfully address that issue.

Good night all. More later.

 

[Keith Cobby]

Apparently a song by Paul Gadd is used, which is a terrible error by the studio.

 

[Jason_V]

Joker is easily the best DC film, surpassing even the first Nolan Batman movie.

That's not exactly a high bar, considering at least half (maybe even 2/3) of DC Comic films are laughable.

That being said, I was riveted through the entire movie and very much appreciate Phoenix's performance, the way the story unfolds little by little and doesn't give you exactly what you want until the end. Sure, one of the major reveals didn't shock me...and the subsequent "see what we did there???" kinda made me hit my head. Otherwise, not sure I need to see Joker again, but I'm glad I saw it once, in a theater, with an audience.