Post by Rob W. Case on Dec 9, 2019 23:57:42 GMT -6
The Story:
The year is 1981, and tough times have fallen on Gotham City. Unemployment is at its highest level in years, crime and corruption is rampant. Thomas Wayne, the founder of Wayne Enterprises is running for Mayor, promising to bring change to the city.
In the midst of everything going on in the city, we meet a disturbed man by the name of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), getting ready to work his gig for the clown-for-hire agency called “Ha Ha’s.” Working for a store that is going out of business, a group of young hoodlums steals the sign that Fleck is holding and runs away. Chasing after them, they trap him in an alley, gang up on him, and mercilessly kick him. When word gets back to the head of the agency that the sign Arthur was carrying is missing, Arthur ends up getting in trouble, and is told that the cost of it will be deducted from his paycheck. Life is not good to Arthur, overall. For one, he has mental health issues, has a condition in which he has random outbursts of laughter, and in that, becomes an easy target for cruel and evil people. Even society itself reacts in a cold and alienating manner which makes Arthur feel consistently feel alienated. Arthur also wants to be a comedian and tries to pursue his ambition.
Arthur does have a few people that he feels a sense of security around. His mother Penny (Frances Conroy), who he lives with in an apartment building, for one. His Social Worker (Sharon Washington), as long as the city continues to provide her services to people like Arthur, Murray Franklin (Robert Di Nero), a respectable late-night TV talk show host who amuses Arthur and makes him feel good, and his co-worker buddy Randall (Glenn Fleshler), who hooks Arthur up with a gun after his incident with the sign, so that he could protect himself against future incidents. The turning point for Arthur, however, comes after he encounters a group of young drunk guys harassing a girl on the subway. He has a laughing episode on the subway, and the attention of the guys turns to him. They then harass Arthur, then beat him up, and kick him while he’s down…… until he begins shooting them with the gun Randall gave him, and now with control of the situation now on his side, he hunts each and every one of them down until they are all dead. Feeling a sense of empowerment and control, he feels more confident than he has ever felt before. It isn’t long before Arthur becomes disillusioned with the very things that he put his sense of security in. With those “enforcements” in his life destabilizing, he descends into madness to such a degree that he makes headlines, and as he reveals himself to the world as “the Joker.” It is at this point, he not only becomes a by-product of the society he is surrounded by, but he also becomes a sort of leader of the worst elements of that society, receiving in that glory a maniacal sense of pleasure that gives him a sense of superiority.
My Take:
The thing I liked most about this movie is that it is more of a “psychological thriller” than anything. That said, the character of Arthur Fleck and his descent into the character of The Joker is in some ways, like witnessing the evolution of a psychotic killer. Although this movie is fiction, it incorporates within it some very real elements, and in that, it has a way of captivating your interest as you see for yourself which spontaneous direction it will go in next as if it were, in fact, a true story. One thing I also thought about this movie was that in comparing and contrasting to every previous Joker adaptation, I would say that this one is closest to Heath Ledger’s Joker in "The Dark Knight" (2008), a Batman movie that I thought was deep, dark, heavy, and was absolutely fantastic. In other words, the jaggedness and spontaneity coupled with the very dark and evil nature that develops within the character of the Joker makes for a very enthralling story that not only holds your interest, but also raises your curiosity in that you wonder what will happen next. As the Joker grows more dangerous and more jagged in his personality, you are left wondering how far he will go next.
Out of 4 stars, I give The Joker, 3.
A Few Interesting Facts:
-Joker is the first R rated film to gross over a billion dollars worldwide.
-It is the first Batman related movie to receive an R rating from the MPAA due to its violent & disturbing content.
-The movie theater in Aurora Colorado where a man dressed up as the Joker executed a mass shooting (during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises") in 2012 refused to show this movie fearing that it could inspire a copycat to reprise a similar incident once again.
Joker is rated R and runs 2 hours and 2 minutes.
To view a trailer for the film, please click on the video below.
Trailer 1:
Final Trailer:
Joker continues to run in theaters. The home video release is scheduled for January 7th, 2020.
The year is 1981, and tough times have fallen on Gotham City. Unemployment is at its highest level in years, crime and corruption is rampant. Thomas Wayne, the founder of Wayne Enterprises is running for Mayor, promising to bring change to the city.
In the midst of everything going on in the city, we meet a disturbed man by the name of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), getting ready to work his gig for the clown-for-hire agency called “Ha Ha’s.” Working for a store that is going out of business, a group of young hoodlums steals the sign that Fleck is holding and runs away. Chasing after them, they trap him in an alley, gang up on him, and mercilessly kick him. When word gets back to the head of the agency that the sign Arthur was carrying is missing, Arthur ends up getting in trouble, and is told that the cost of it will be deducted from his paycheck. Life is not good to Arthur, overall. For one, he has mental health issues, has a condition in which he has random outbursts of laughter, and in that, becomes an easy target for cruel and evil people. Even society itself reacts in a cold and alienating manner which makes Arthur feel consistently feel alienated. Arthur also wants to be a comedian and tries to pursue his ambition.
Arthur does have a few people that he feels a sense of security around. His mother Penny (Frances Conroy), who he lives with in an apartment building, for one. His Social Worker (Sharon Washington), as long as the city continues to provide her services to people like Arthur, Murray Franklin (Robert Di Nero), a respectable late-night TV talk show host who amuses Arthur and makes him feel good, and his co-worker buddy Randall (Glenn Fleshler), who hooks Arthur up with a gun after his incident with the sign, so that he could protect himself against future incidents. The turning point for Arthur, however, comes after he encounters a group of young drunk guys harassing a girl on the subway. He has a laughing episode on the subway, and the attention of the guys turns to him. They then harass Arthur, then beat him up, and kick him while he’s down…… until he begins shooting them with the gun Randall gave him, and now with control of the situation now on his side, he hunts each and every one of them down until they are all dead. Feeling a sense of empowerment and control, he feels more confident than he has ever felt before. It isn’t long before Arthur becomes disillusioned with the very things that he put his sense of security in. With those “enforcements” in his life destabilizing, he descends into madness to such a degree that he makes headlines, and as he reveals himself to the world as “the Joker.” It is at this point, he not only becomes a by-product of the society he is surrounded by, but he also becomes a sort of leader of the worst elements of that society, receiving in that glory a maniacal sense of pleasure that gives him a sense of superiority.
My Take:
The thing I liked most about this movie is that it is more of a “psychological thriller” than anything. That said, the character of Arthur Fleck and his descent into the character of The Joker is in some ways, like witnessing the evolution of a psychotic killer. Although this movie is fiction, it incorporates within it some very real elements, and in that, it has a way of captivating your interest as you see for yourself which spontaneous direction it will go in next as if it were, in fact, a true story. One thing I also thought about this movie was that in comparing and contrasting to every previous Joker adaptation, I would say that this one is closest to Heath Ledger’s Joker in "The Dark Knight" (2008), a Batman movie that I thought was deep, dark, heavy, and was absolutely fantastic. In other words, the jaggedness and spontaneity coupled with the very dark and evil nature that develops within the character of the Joker makes for a very enthralling story that not only holds your interest, but also raises your curiosity in that you wonder what will happen next. As the Joker grows more dangerous and more jagged in his personality, you are left wondering how far he will go next.
Out of 4 stars, I give The Joker, 3.
A Few Interesting Facts:
-Joker is the first R rated film to gross over a billion dollars worldwide.
-It is the first Batman related movie to receive an R rating from the MPAA due to its violent & disturbing content.
-The movie theater in Aurora Colorado where a man dressed up as the Joker executed a mass shooting (during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises") in 2012 refused to show this movie fearing that it could inspire a copycat to reprise a similar incident once again.
Joker is rated R and runs 2 hours and 2 minutes.
To view a trailer for the film, please click on the video below.
Trailer 1:
Final Trailer:
Joker continues to run in theaters. The home video release is scheduled for January 7th, 2020.