Go see Joker

[jpmuscle]

Another data point - 7th decade geezer. Almost wished I hadn’t wasted my money on it.

Don’t see what the the hubbub is all about? Not all that violent. Plenty of mental based issues a la Taxi Driver / No Country for Old Men, etc. Body count nothing like latest Rambo or either Kill Bill movie. Dems/Leftists always need something to worry/complain about - and this is it.

Geezer john

I’ll dispense with age related boomer jokes but the disconnect between senior folks and youth(ish) culture targets what the core framework of this movie is all about.

Joker is about way more than a psychologically compromised individual who goes off his meds.


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[Firefly]

I think the Falling Down and Taxi Driver spiel is incorrect.

Joker starts out as a troubled person who is making every possible attempt to eke out an honest living despite his handicaps.

Taxi Driver caused his own problems. He HAD the girl. Cheryl Ladd. I mean he HAD her. All he had to do was chill and be normal. Had he taken her to see pretty much any film BUT a porno he would have had a happy ending.
Jodie Foster was not as much a victim as portrayed. She knew she was hooking and tried to justify it. I bet as soon as she was repatriated to her parents she stayed maybe a month and went back to hooking.

Falling Down, D-Fens seems initially sympathetic. But then you realize it is chumpbait. He was a creep to his wife and child and didn’t try to help himself in any real way.

But Joker is TRYING EVERYTHING. He is trying to hold a job despite disability, he is seeing a therapist, he is caring for and ailing mother and he isn’t trying to be a creep. He just is a little off with good reason and he is going forward despite it all.

The one line that really I found powerful was when he says “You don’t need to worry about money anymore, mom. Or me”. And it has no sinister overtones.

An older person may not get the message as personally because there are so many people refusing handouts, struggling, and driving on and still getting shat upon because they are no longer “relevant”. Nothing but rejection and indifference. And not in a Liberal socialist way but an all too real societal way.

The Forgotten. You have to be relatively young to appreciate that. Without giving anything away Joker doesn’t hate successful people( he wants to be one insofar as he is able), he hates the way that he cannot even be treated as a person. He even says in a pivotal moment “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to listen to me and give me some answers. Then I will go take my troubles elsewhere”

His backlash is indeed villainous but not at all unrelatable. I dare say his retribution could be almost poetic.

We have become so cynical and cruel as a society that we create our own monsters. An answered phone call, a hug, an open door, and a bit of patience could prevent so much.

He is not heroic, not anti-heroic, and yet not exactly a villain. It’s beyond that.

Its real. Some people just break.

I have seen it. I seen as a young man of nigh 23 summers a girl filet herself like a fish because she just couldn’t handle it. No drugs, no abuse, no rape, no bullying, and not even a Heathers scenario. She just had a legitimate break.

I seen a man who had blown his brains out with his father’s gun because he lost money that was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Would not have lost his nice home, his two cars, his wife, nor his good job over. He just felt over encumbered by his own self manufactured pressure. Like, not to dick wag but I have literally seen enough fresh human brains from suicide, homicide, use of force, and car wrecks to last most people and yet I KNOW there are people who have seen more. And the worst feeling is when you don’t feel it anymore. It’s not shocking. Its not nauseating. Its another day.

That’s not healthy and anyone who says otherwise is either full of shit of never done it.
But, you keep going as best as possible.

It’s basic dignity that we are all lacking.

I guess that is why it resonated with me. It’s not Heath Ledger blowing up buildings. It’s not Jack Nicholson hamming it up for a pudgy Michael Keaton.

It’s a regular enough guy who just says “Eff it”

The violence committed isn’t with RPGs and machine guns. It’s real and happens every day. You don’t always know who you are messing with, what they are going through, and how tenuously they are dealing even if they are doing everything in their power to keep a lid on it.

“But doctor, I am Pagliacci...”

Damn right. We all are.

If you lost everything in a short amount of time and were legitimately down and out with no help, not even from God it seems.....

What would you do?

That’s the hard question the film asks.
And there may not always be a right answer, but untold scores of wrong ones.

If you have lived your life then you wouldn’t get it. But if you are at that weird point.. holy shit.

It’s a Rorschach test. And made by the Hangover guy and a former child actor no less.

[jpmuscle]

I think the Falling Down and Taxi Driver spiel is incorrect.

Joker starts out as a troubled person who is making every possible attempt to eke out an honest living despite his handicaps.

Taxi Driver caused his own problems. He HAD the girl. Cheryl Ladd. I mean he HAD her. All he had to do was chill and be normal. Had he taken her to see pretty much any film BUT a porno he would have had a happy ending.
Jodie Foster was not as much a victim as portrayed. She knew she was hooking and tried to justify it. I bet as soon as she was repatriated to her parents she stayed maybe a month and went back to hooking.

Falling Down, D-Fens seems initially sympathetic. But then you realize it is chumpbait. He was a creep to his wife and child and didn’t try to help himself in any real way.

But Joker is TRYING EVERYTHING. He is trying to hold a job despite disability, he is seeing a therapist, he is caring for and ailing mother and he isn’t trying to be a creep. He just is a little off with good reason and he is going forward despite it all.

The one line that really I found powerful was when he says “You don’t need to worry about money anymore, mom. Or me”. And it has no sinister overtones.

An older person may not get the message as personally because there are so many people refusing handouts, struggling, and driving on and still getting shat upon because they are no longer “relevant”. Nothing but rejection and indifference. And not in a Liberal socialist way but an all too real societal way.

The Forgotten. You have to be relatively young to appreciate that. Without giving anything away Joker doesn’t hate successful people( he wants to be one insofar as he is able), he hates the way that he cannot even be treated as a person. He even says in a pivotal moment “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to listen to me and give me some answers. Then I will go take my troubles elsewhere”

His backlash is indeed villainous but not at all unrelatable. I dare say his retribution could be almost poetic.

We have become so cynical and cruel as a society that we create our own monsters. An answered phone call, a hug, an open door, and a bit of patience could prevent so much.

He is not heroic, not anti-heroic, and yet not exactly a villain. It’s beyond that.

Its real. Some people just break.

I have seen it. I seen as a young man of nigh 23 summers a girl filet herself like a fish because she just couldn’t handle it. No drugs, no abuse, no rape, no bullying, and not even a Heathers scenario. She just had a legitimate break.

I seen a man who had blown his brains out with his father’s gun because he lost money that was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Would not have lost his nice home, his two cars, his wife, nor his good job over. He just felt over encumbered by his own self manufactured pressure. Like, not to dick wag but I have literally seen enough fresh human brains from suicide, homicide, use of force, and car wrecks to last most people and yet I KNOW there are people who have seen more. And the worst feeling is when you don’t feel it anymore. It’s not shocking. Its not nauseating. Its another day.

That’s not healthy and anyone who says otherwise is either full of shit of never done it.
But, you keep going as best as possible.

It’s basic dignity that we are all lacking.

I guess that is why it resonated with me. It’s not Heath Ledger blowing up buildings. It’s not Jack Nicholson hamming it up for a pudgy Michael Keaton.

It’s a regular enough guy who just says “Eff it”

The violence committed isn’t with RPGs and machine guns. It’s real and happens every day. You don’t always know who you are messing with, what they are going through, and how tenuously they are dealing even if they are doing everything in their power to keep a lid on it.

“But doctor, I am Pagliacci...”

Damn right. We all are.

If you lost everything in a short amount of time and were legitimately down and out with no help, not even from God it seems.....

What would you do?

That’s the hard question the film asks.
And there may not always be a right answer, but untold scores of wrong ones.

If you have lived your life then you wouldn’t get it. But if you are at that weird point.. holy shit.

It’s a Rorschach test. And made by the Hangover guy and a former child actor no less.

Word.


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[SteyrAUG]

Taxi Driver caused his own problems. He HAD the girl. Cheryl Ladd. I mean he HAD her. All he had to do was chill and be normal. Had he taken her to see pretty much any film BUT a porno he would have had a happy ending.

Two things.

It was Cybill Shepherd and he didn't have her. He was on a "trial basis" at best and she wasn't really into him. It was only when he went "bad boy" that she realized she was into him and he then had her on his own terms. Travis also was trying to define his environment rather than be defined by his environment, that is an important thing to remember.

We also need to remember the theme of Thomas Wolfe, "God's Lonely Man" and the lonely individual seeking to grasp some meaning in the face of life's impermanence and the inevitability of death. Again, Travis could have easily gone down either path.

But the important thing is one way or another, he was taking back control of his existence on his terms, which is probably the basis for the comparison.

[Firefly]

First,I stand corrected. Cybil Sheppard.

But having seen it a time or two, I cannot relate to Taxi Driver like I could in my mid 20s.
Early 20s are or should be like a Roman orgy.
Late 20s you just don't care about stuff like you used to.
But mid 20s are that weird age where you arent exactly treated like a kid, but you arent always taken seriously either.

The point I take from Taxi Driver is that he was actually pretty damn cool if he could chill a little and let others take it in easy enough.

He didnt have the patience and that made him lame. Like, adjusted for inflation....,what he spent on guns could've gone to better things that would have made him happier. For a loner type, gunhoarding gives you a sense of security but at day's end; it's just more crap that doesnt make you feel any better. For a cab driver, he made good money. Take a trip.

And here's the sick irony:

Had he killed the Senator... He just would have made him a martyr and ended up messing it up for everyone else

By killing the pimps and johns, he changed nothing. Maybe it felt good but not really.

And seriously, who takes a girl to a porno?

Joker hits a different nerve. Because he's not wanting all these things. He initially just wants to live his life and pursue his comedy.
He really isnt self pitying

[jpmuscle]

I disagree on the timing. With everything going on currently in this country I think it’s a story that needed to be told.


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[MountainRaven]

And seriously, who takes a girl to a porno?

I think that was, for me, the biggest thing that made Taxi Driver about a creepy creeper rather than an everyman who simply snaps.

And given that the movie was made so you could literally endlessly loop it, it suggests DeNiro's character could easily go back and kill the Senator the next day. (It also emphasizes the character's psychosis.)

Of course, Taxi Driver isn't about the titular taxi driver, it's (in part) about how society is happy to reward an amoral sociopath because they killed some of society's dregs, rather than the créme of society, even though they could have just as easily - not just physically, but psychically (or mentally, if you prefer) - killed said créme of society.

[Firefly]

Agreed.

If you’ve not seen it, check out God Bless America. Way better thematically about society than Taxi Driver.

Like...Taxi Driver is just a creep. GBA had (villain) protagonists I didn’t get squicked at.

Plus it had Alice Cooper and the Kinks on the soundtrack

[SteyrAUG]

First,I stand corrected. Cybil Sheppard.

But having seen it a time or two, I cannot relate to Taxi Driver like I could in my mid 20s.
Early 20s are or should be like a Roman orgy.
Late 20s you just don't care about stuff like you used to.
But mid 20s are that weird age where you arent exactly treated like a kid, but you arent always taken seriously either.

The point I take from Taxi Driver is that he was actually pretty damn cool if he could chill a little and let others take it in easy enough.

He didnt have the patience and that made him lame. Like, adjusted for inflation....,what he spent on guns could've gone to better things that would have made him happier. For a loner type, gunhoarding gives you a sense of security but at day's end; it's just more crap that doesnt make you feel any better. For a cab driver, he made good money. Take a trip.

And here's the sick irony:

Had he killed the Senator... He just would have made him a martyr and ended up messing it up for everyone else

By killing the pimps and johns, he changed nothing. Maybe it felt good but not really.

And seriously, who takes a girl to a porno?

You, I and Travis were never the same person. He wasn't there to chill, in some ways he was Confucius's "superior man" in thought and deed. He ritually purified himself before engaging on his mission.

And yes, had he killed the Senator he would have destroyed everything and become a monster, that is meant to be the frightening part of the movie, that both options were equally viable to him in his mind.

But I disagree that he changed nothing when his killed pimps and minor mafia functionaries. Combine that with the "rescued the little lost family girl" narrative of the media and it may have been one of those catalysts that eventually cleaned up times square and 42nd.

Also you don't seem to be aware of the porno chic era of the time. Celebrities were going to see Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door, they were bringing dates.

[maximus83]

Interesting to see Medved's review. He's no flaming leftist, but he clearly didn't like Joker.

Medved: 2 of 4 stars

"The thing you'll notice about Joker--aside from the terrifying performance of Joachin Phoenix--is how terrible it will make you feel. This is a supremely indulgent exercise in painfully pointless depression. Only occasionally interrupted by spasms of gruesome and sadistic violence."

[...]

"Parts of the film are well done, but the real question is why was it done it all, and why should anyone endure it?"


His reaction to this movie didn't seem motivated by politics, nor have I seen him critique movie violence just because it was violence, provided that it makes sense in the context of the story. He thinks this movie is basically just wallowing in darkness and nihilism, not particularly compelling, thought-provoking, or even entertaining. And at first glance, from trailers and other people's comments, I do kind of get that same impression. It does not seem like a particularly noteworthy insight that people who become sociopathic BG's often had a rough life, which can include bullying, abuse, and mental illness as key 'ingredients' in the making of a bad guy.

I will probably see it just because the Left hates it and that alone makes it interesting to me. And Medved is not always right, he's downgraded some movies I thought were excellent. But probably won't bother with seeing Joker in-theater, I save that for maybe 1 movie a year and this won't be it.