Joker

[Dex]

Dark, disturbing and brilliant. You won't walk away from this one feeling bright and cherry but man was it fuging great. Oscar nomination for Phoenix and he may be the favorite to take it home. Insane performance, I had to remind myself several times throughout the movie that this is just a movie and Phoenix is NOT actually this character.

[TheRumGone]

I’m out in LA and saw it. Standing ovation. It surpassed the hype. It was really fuged up.

[MountaineerChemist10]

I watched it Saturday with my old roommate. Joaquin Phoenix is definitely going to win Best Actor. If Heath Ledger deserved it, so does Phoenix.

[Captroop]

Pretty good. Not as great as I hoped. Not as bad as I feared.

It was barely in the Batman universe. Where it actually succeeded was a being a great homage to 70s movies. Not only was it set very convincingly in the 1970s in dirty/angry New York (Gotham, I know) but very closely evoked the cinema of the time.

Joker was equal parts, and with the casting of Robert DeNiro, very intentionally Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, with Dog Day Afternoon and Death Wish sprinkled in.

 

I also got very strong overtones of You Were Never Really Here  with the creepy relationship with his mother to the point that I wonder if at some point, Joaquin Phoenix is going to get tired of slow dancing with old ladies.

 

Honestly if you haven't seen it, I'd actually suggest that You Were Never Really Here does a better job accomplishing what Joker set out to do. (I know, shocking that Lynne Ramsay is a better filmmaker than the guy who brought you three Hangover movies)

Phoenix did an outstanding job. But I never got an overwhelming feeling of menace from Joker, who should have been a much more terrifying villain. And after building up towards his appearance on the talk show for so long, I really was hoping for him to have a super violent "Joker" plot. Instead, he's just a guy who's butthurt over being mocked.

And it didn't have to be anything as comic booky as gassing the entire audience. But Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler is ten times scarier in a very realistic real-world setting with nothing more than a camera at his disposal.

So overall I liked it, but was very let down by the climax.

[TheRumGone]

28 minutes ago, Captroop said:

Pretty good. Not as great as I hoped. Not as bad as I feared.

It was barely in the Batman universe. Where it actually succeeded was a being a great homage to 70s movies. Not only was it set very convincingly in the 1970s in dirty/angry New York (Gotham, I know) but very closely evoked the cinema of the time.

Joker was equal parts, and with the casting of Robert DeNiro, very intentionally Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, with Dog Day Afternoon and Death Wish sprinkled in.

 

I also got very strong overtones of You Were Never Really Here  with the creepy relationship with his mother to the point that I wonder if at some point, Joaquin Phoenix is going to get tired of slow dancing with old ladies.

 

Honestly if you haven't seen it, I'd actually suggest that You Were Never Really Here does a better job accomplishing what Joker set out to do. (I know, shocking that Lynne Ramsay is a better filmmaker than the guy who brought you three Hangover movies)

Phoenix did an outstanding job. But I never got an overwhelming feeling of menace from Joker, who should have been a much more terrifying villain. And after building up towards his appearance on the talk show for so long, I really was hoping for him to have a super violent "Joker" plot. Instead, he's just a guy who's butthurt over being mocked.

And it didn't have to be anything as comic booky as gassing the entire audience. But Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler is ten times scarier in a very realistic real-world setting with nothing more than a camera at his disposal.

So overall I liked it, but was very let down by the climax.

I saw you were never really here. It was incredible. But Joker was darker to me. These are two entirely different characters dealing with mental illness. And I honestly felt more for Arthur than I did for Joe. There was something really relatable with Joker, being a dreamer, wanting to do right by his old sickly mom, having a passion for something (standup comedian). But how he related to other people and how those dreams were delusional made me deeply uncomfortable. I was squirming in my chair for almost the entire movie.
 

The scene where he’s at the comedy club and he laughs in between the punchlines was extremely unsettling to me. It made me think about how we treat people who go against the grain socially. Obviously this was that on steroids. But it makes you think about outcasts and people who don’t fit in to “normal” society.

I liked what they did here. Ledger did the menacing joker, this was something entirely different. A different take on the character. And I don’t know if you just knew what was going to happen at the end based on comics? But that last scene when he becomes unhinged really affected me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie days after I saw it. Joaquin made it so you were almost rooting for him to do what he did.

[OneBadCat]

54 minutes ago, Captroop said:

Pretty good. Not as great as I hoped. Not as bad as I feared.

It was barely in the Batman universe. Where it actually succeeded was a being a great homage to 70s movies. Not only was it set very convincingly in the 1970s in dirty/angry New York (Gotham, I know) but very closely evoked the cinema of the time.

Joker was equal parts, and with the casting of Robert DeNiro, very intentionally Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, with Dog Day Afternoon and Death Wish sprinkled in.

 

I also got very strong overtones of You Were Never Really Here  with the creepy relationship with his mother to the point that I wonder if at some point, Joaquin Phoenix is going to get tired of slow dancing with old ladies.

 

Honestly if you haven't seen it, I'd actually suggest that You Were Never Really Here does a better job accomplishing what Joker set out to do. (I know, shocking that Lynne Ramsay is a better filmmaker than the guy who brought you three Hangover movies)

Phoenix did an outstanding job. But I never got an overwhelming feeling of menace from Joker, who should have been a much more terrifying villain. And after building up towards his appearance on the talk show for so long, I really was hoping for him to have a super violent "Joker" plot. Instead, he's just a guy who's butthurt over being mocked.

And it didn't have to be anything as comic booky as gassing the entire audience. But Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler is ten times scarier in a very realistic real-world setting with nothing more than a camera at his disposal.

So overall I liked it, but was very let down by the climax.

Overall great points. I was personally expecting him to kill the entire audience in that scene like he does in TDKR. However I saw the film as character study. And to me it was about what would and could realistically drive a man to become such a character. 

For example I think Ledger's joker was a more threatening person. But I find with Phoenix his is more disturbing and you would not know what he is capable of

[OneBadCat]

9 minutes ago, TheRumGone said:

I saw you were never really here. It was incredible. But Joker was darker to me. These are two entirely different characters dealing with mental illness. And I honestly felt more for Arthur than I did for Joe. There was something really relatable with Joker, being a dreamer, wanting to do right by his old sickly mom, having a passion for something (standup comedian). But how he related to other people and how those dreams were delusional made me deeply uncomfortable. I was squirming in my chair for almost the entire movie.
 

The scene where he’s at the comedy club and he laughs in between the punchlines was extremely unsettling to me. It made me think about how we treat people who go against the grain socially. Obviously this was that on steroids. But it makes you think about outcasts and people who don’t fit in to “normal” society.

I liked what they did here. Ledger did the menacing joker, this was something entirely different. A different take on the character. And I don’t know if you just knew what was going to happen at the end based on comics? But that last scene when he becomes unhinged really affected me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie days after I saw it. Joaquin made it so you were almost rooting for him to do what he did.

Absolutely. It reminded me of Requiem for a Dream in those moments.

[CarolinaNCSU]

Saw it opening night and loved it. Good points above that encapsulate a lot of my thoughts, but the movie made me "cheer" for the Joker almost and sympathize with him in a lot of ways which is a "cool" difference from the norm.  A lot of emotions fighting against each other watching it for me. 

Even though some points were meant to be obvious, finding out he laughs a lot of the time because he's sad or hurting or just can't control it (not just a sick twisted laugh), the all too real portrayal of mental health and lack of funding & being cast aside, the role of the media and TV turning the Joker into an almost demigod figure...awesome stuff.  Can agree the climax wasn't a huge thing and overall as a movie it's weaker because of it...but as a character study, social commentary, or whatever else, it was really good for me. 

[stankowalski]

Meh.

[Bama Panther]

Enjoyed the movie. I left feeling a little unsure about it. I texted a friend saying, “I kept waiting for the descent into madness but once it happened, I was a bit disappointed in how they portrayed it.” I don’t really know how to explain it, but I enjoyed the movie overall. 

One thing I was disappointed by was the missed opportunity to tie into the Michael Keeton-Jack Nicholson Batman movie when the Waynes were killed. How do you not have Arthur Fleck kill the Waynes and ask Bruce, “Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” 

[Shocker]

This movie was utterly stupendous.  I was completely enthralled with it especially the last half.  Phoenix was amazing.  Has to be the darkest comic book movie ever and I freakin loved it.  Wow.

[Hotsauce]

Joker 2 has been green lit