Joker

[StevieG]

I'm really keen to see this. Will hopefully get to the cinema.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I respect HLT's position - it appears that he simply didn't like the film, stand alone or otherwise. But as Wayfriend points out above the Muse must be allowed to go where she will and to try to hammer the square peg of this film into the round hole of the Caped Crusader story is to invite disappointment.

I was open to anything. It was just... meh, to me anyway.
Apparently people like it.

By the way the last Batman movie I really liked was the one that came out in '66.
My signature is from that one's Joker actually.


The Nolan Batman's were the worst!

[peter]

I finally got around to seeing this and thought it was great! Let's face it - Phoenix was never going to let an opportunity like this go by without doing something special with the character and to me he delivered in spades. I agree with HLT on one point, there was no stand out scene - but for me that was because every scene was a cumulative process leading to a crescendo in the very final scene of the film. It was the making of The Joker, a disection of his psyche that left one both repelled and exhaulted at the same time. I loved the way that the character morphed into the Ledger manifestation as the nihilism of his nature gradually won over the tragic joke of his mental instability and his atrocious surrounding. For me this was the best background that the character could ever have been given and I'll always have it in back of my mind whenever he manifests anywhere else on celluloid in the future. And finally.........


Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?

[Cagliostro]

In the last couple of weeks there were people warning of things such as "there will be violence at screenings of the movie" or "it glorifies the character and what he does". There were even many who were claiming that the movie itself would be "bad" for people to see since the protagonist is a marginalized white male who turns to violence.

I just saw it and now see what the hubbub is about. And what you said, Hashi, I can kinda see, in that he has a moment where at least I felt a little sympathetic and even a bit empathetic to him but then that dramatically changed in the next moment. For a minute it felt like the end of V For Vendetta, where I felt like, hmmm....is going dark the way, but was slapped back to reality. The fact that it did that showed the success of the piece to me personally.
Nah, overall, I felt like it was as appealing to commit acts of violence like he does as the movie Requiem For A Dream made me want to do drugs. Which was not at all at the end of the movie. It was something of the opposite of what they have done with the Joker previously. The Joker is always the Clown Prince of Crime, and always has the best lines. Whenever the Joker is around, it's a party, with maybe the exception of Cesar Romero, who toed the line pretty well between entertaining and annoying. But Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and hell, even Mark Hamill made him so much fun to watch that you welcomed his next dastardly plan. The only time Batman was more interesting than the villains were the original 60s TV show and in Batman Beyond, for the most part.
This tears down that appeal. At no point during this movie did I really ever want to be the Joker, because he was decidedly not having fun like in the previous incarnations. It looks like there may be a second one, and I'm curious to see what they will do with it after this. I suspect it will not have the same impact, but I could be wrong. But overall, I thought it was so much more powerful than I had guessed, and Joaquin, who always unnerves me these days, did his job well. Is it Oscar worthy? Maybe. I wouldn't be upset to see him win for this, as creepy as his Golden Globes acceptance speech was. Leo DiCaprio shocked me with a career best performance in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, so we'll see.