tldr: the movie said nothing original, and echoed nothing meaningfully.
Joaqin Phoenix is a great actor; this movie is terrible.
It was so plodding and goofy, and the “message”, as far as there was one, was “look at me, nobody likes me because of my absurdly offensive vague"mental illness”, girls don’t like me because i don’t bathe or practice hygiene, which isnt fair, so I’m going to shoot someone".
the world isn’t bad, he’s living in the world badly, and it’s so lazy of the movie to blame it on a ludicrously contrived stereotype of a “crazy person”.
for 2 hours.
20 minutes? could have been interesting.
2 hours? move it along.
The cloying sympathy for murderous self-pitying incels bothers me, but the terrible writing and limping pace of the movie sure kicked the film while it was down.
And then “oh but maybe literally everything was in his head so we just made you watch this dumb, slow, meaningless story glorifying murder and narcissism and also fuck you, why dont you tell me what it means i dont know.”
Maybe that’s what I loved about the movie. There wasn’t really a message. It’s a tragedy that just Is. Like a child presenting to you a dead cat. It invokes emotion but doesn’t say anything.
I am shocked if did so well. It’s not for everyone. But it’s execution is brilliant and it has its place. I look forward to the sequel.
those five seconds when he looks at deniro and shoots him were good.
but the moment is rendered meaningless and becomes insignificant in the context of why he shot him and the gobs of boredom surrounding that momentary glimpse of excitement.
what do you mean its execution is brilliant? which part?
i an curious what people liked here, because i saw:
the character has no development, is loosely based on offensive, inaccurate “idk crazy i guess”, you’re told twice that the movie is probably bullshit anyway and to ignore what you’re watching.
i don’t see why a child holding a dead cat would evoke emotion.
I can certainly appreciate your viewpoints. I only watched it once and in theaters, so it’s been a while. I saw it as a gritty version of what happens in the comics behind the “Pow!” action bubbles, but I can certainly see the incel justification take. I would say that was more visible to me with Riddler in the latest Batman, but didn’t see it as much in Joker. I went into it on the recommendation of a very accurate depiction of 1980s NYC so that may have drawn my attention away from other themes.
I do agree, I’m not a fan of the incredibly vague suggestion that it might all be fictional - Joker, Shutter Island, Inception. I’ll give it another go and look for the details, but it’s one of the things I refuse to entertain. I could agree there’s intentional inaccurate recounts of details but I always buckle down on “yes it actually happened”
totally get that, I’m glad you were able to enjoy it within a context.
i will now rant, and invite you to feel no obligation to stick with this tirade past your point of interest.
Heath ledger pulled off the “maybe this happened or maybe I’m fucking nuts” beautifully, and it worked in repetitive short bursts of creepy horror within tense, threatening situations.
But the filmmaker of joker shrugging and saying “hey those two hours you had to sit through, uh, who knows, he’s crazy, look at his cuckoo-diary” is so lazy and unnecessary, only subtracting from a story already lacking luster.
i tried to get into it how you suggested, as context for the legacy character, but the plot points and his problems were so unjustified or lazily written that i couldn’t care about the story.
plus, the filmmaker told us the movie doesn’t matter twice, not just at the end: the girlfriend angle, while not critical, could be interesting because there must be some reason she likes-oh no, that was all meaningless time the filmmakers wasted with an empty revelation and no payoff.
the character is unchanged stuff none of that screentime mattered.
the audience is being pushed away like “hey if you don’t like him, you just don’t get it” and then plugging in marilyn mansion earbuds and pushing play passive-aggressively while pissing on ants.
i know crazy people and i know whiny assholes in real life, and the joker in this movie is a whiny asshole who is unrealistically lauded for negatively lashing out about his impotence.
the whole thing plays like a love letter to incel shooters and people who give up on the world before engaging with it, and because they gave up on it they feel worthy to punish it?
watching the joker is like watching a dirtbag kicking a whining dog they are too lazy to feed.
tldr: the movie said nothing original, and echoed nothing meaningfully.
Joaqin Phoenix is a great actor; this movie is terrible.
It was so plodding and goofy, and the “message”, as far as there was one, was “look at me, nobody likes me because of my absurdly offensive vague"mental illness”, girls don’t like me because i don’t bathe or practice hygiene, which isnt fair, so I’m going to shoot someone".
the world isn’t bad, he’s living in the world badly, and it’s so lazy of the movie to blame it on a ludicrously contrived stereotype of a “crazy person”.
for 2 hours.
20 minutes? could have been interesting.
2 hours? move it along.
The cloying sympathy for murderous self-pitying incels bothers me, but the terrible writing and limping pace of the movie sure kicked the film while it was down.
And then “oh but maybe literally everything was in his head so we just made you watch this dumb, slow, meaningless story glorifying murder and narcissism and also fuck you, why dont you tell me what it means i dont know.”
Maybe that’s what I loved about the movie. There wasn’t really a message. It’s a tragedy that just Is. Like a child presenting to you a dead cat. It invokes emotion but doesn’t say anything. I am shocked if did so well. It’s not for everyone. But it’s execution is brilliant and it has its place. I look forward to the sequel.
those five seconds when he looks at deniro and shoots him were good.
but the moment is rendered meaningless and becomes insignificant in the context of why he shot him and the gobs of boredom surrounding that momentary glimpse of excitement.
what do you mean its execution is brilliant? which part?
i an curious what people liked here, because i saw:
the character has no development, is loosely based on offensive, inaccurate “idk crazy i guess”, you’re told twice that the movie is probably bullshit anyway and to ignore what you’re watching.
i don’t see why a child holding a dead cat would evoke emotion.
it’s a dead cat.
Wash your hands.
That speaks volumes.
poetically rendering you speechless.
I can certainly appreciate your viewpoints. I only watched it once and in theaters, so it’s been a while. I saw it as a gritty version of what happens in the comics behind the “Pow!” action bubbles, but I can certainly see the incel justification take. I would say that was more visible to me with Riddler in the latest Batman, but didn’t see it as much in Joker. I went into it on the recommendation of a very accurate depiction of 1980s NYC so that may have drawn my attention away from other themes.
I do agree, I’m not a fan of the incredibly vague suggestion that it might all be fictional - Joker, Shutter Island, Inception. I’ll give it another go and look for the details, but it’s one of the things I refuse to entertain. I could agree there’s intentional inaccurate recounts of details but I always buckle down on “yes it actually happened”
totally get that, I’m glad you were able to enjoy it within a context.
i will now rant, and invite you to feel no obligation to stick with this tirade past your point of interest.
Heath ledger pulled off the “maybe this happened or maybe I’m fucking nuts” beautifully, and it worked in repetitive short bursts of creepy horror within tense, threatening situations.
But the filmmaker of joker shrugging and saying “hey those two hours you had to sit through, uh, who knows, he’s crazy, look at his cuckoo-diary” is so lazy and unnecessary, only subtracting from a story already lacking luster.
i tried to get into it how you suggested, as context for the legacy character, but the plot points and his problems were so unjustified or lazily written that i couldn’t care about the story.
plus, the filmmaker told us the movie doesn’t matter twice, not just at the end: the girlfriend angle, while not critical, could be interesting because there must be some reason she likes-oh no, that was all meaningless time the filmmakers wasted with an empty revelation and no payoff.
the character is unchanged stuff none of that screentime mattered.
the audience is being pushed away like “hey if you don’t like him, you just don’t get it” and then plugging in marilyn mansion earbuds and pushing play passive-aggressively while pissing on ants.
i know crazy people and i know whiny assholes in real life, and the joker in this movie is a whiny asshole who is unrealistically lauded for negatively lashing out about his impotence.
the whole thing plays like a love letter to incel shooters and people who give up on the world before engaging with it, and because they gave up on it they feel worthy to punish it?
watching the joker is like watching a dirtbag kicking a whining dog they are too lazy to feed.
and the movie wants you to clap for them too!
that was fun, thank you for letting me rant.