Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-2024)

[therewillbeblus]

Only Scorsese moviez allowed

[aox]

A modern The Age of Innocence Joker, please.

[Harvest]

Maybe it's just me but it feels like most of Phoenix's directors recently just don't know how to use him properly. I'm not sure even Lynne Ramsay used him as effectively as she could've. It's like they all want him to do The Master, but just don't really grok what made that performance so good.

It feels like time for he and James Gray to collaborate again. They both could really use it.

[Never Cursed]

Eh, I don't really agree with that - Mills and Van Sant got great stuff out of him, as did Audiard (even if that last movie doesn't amount to much on the whole), and I wouldn't describe his character in any of those films as similar to Freddie Quell other than the basic conceit of them being varying levels of disaffected

[therewillbeblus]

I’ll beat the lone drum for his excellent, subtly-layered, sincerely-directed comic perf that wryly eviscerates the overthinker in Irrational Man, at least until knives opens this thread

[Harvest]

Eh, I don't really agree with that - Mills and Van Sant got great stuff out of him, as did Audiard (even if that last movie doesn't amount to much on the whole), and I wouldn't describe his character in any of those films as similar to Freddie Quell other than the basic conceit of them being varying levels of disaffected

I’ll beat the lone drum for his excellent, subtly-layered, sincerely-directed comic perf that wryly eviscerates the overthinker in Irrational Man, at least until knives opens this thread

Hmm I found him pretty forgettable/miscast in all those, especially in the Audiard and Allen films. He's fine in the Mills film, but his character is ultimately just a framing device and it mostly felt like a calculated decision to play "nice" after Joker. The last few years have seemed mostly a cycle of depressed loners, alcholics, and depressed alcoholic loners.

Even in You Were Never Really Here and Joker, he plays a mentally ill loner who lives in/around Brooklyn (Gothan in Joker but you get the idea) whose only friend is his mother and he already did that in Two Lovers.

I know the popular opinion is that he's greatly improved post-I'm Still Here but I don't know about that anymore. I think it may have boxed him in as an actor and that he was actually doing a wider range of roles before even if the films were mostly forgettable.

I'm actually looking forward to him as Napoleon much more than the Ari Aster film, which again, looks like another "crazy" performance which feels stale now.

[domino harvey]

Lady Gaga confirmed for the sequel

[Orlac]

Could be worse. Could have been Chris Pratt.

[therewillbeblus]

Makes sense, Harley Quinn goes gaga over the Joker

[domino harvey]

More like Lady Haha amirite

[hearthesilence]

Feels like a good match when I think of the aesthetic overkill of her albums and the previous film...which is to say, not my thing.

[therewillbeblus]

You don't like Scorsese?

[hearthesilence]

I like Scorsese, but Joker feels like a shallow, misguided imitation, like her awful Grammy tribute to Bowie.

[therewillbeblus]

Hmmm I guess I see problems with the aesthetic levels as different from the shallowness of the film as you describe them. It's one thing to say that what bothers one about Joker is it being an empty emulation of only the surface level of Scorsese's work, but instead I read a dislike of the "aesthetic overkill" -that simultaneously is being recognized as resembling the surface of Scorsese's work- as a dislike of his aesthetic strategy as well. I can appreciate why people would be miffed at a Scorsese-ripoff without perceived substance, as well as at a film without substance separated from its influences, but to say one dislikes the aesthetic divorced from the comparative reasons causes distaste towards the imitation to be conflated with distaste towards the preferred version. I realize this is very pedantic, but it's difficult for me to see a consistent rationale behind your last two posts pertaining to what about the film didn't work for you aesthetically, and I'm genuinely very interested because I'm still on the fence about this one too -though for (potentially?) different reasons

[hearthesilence]

I don't think Scorsese's best work is overkill. I think a lot of his imitators can be because there isn't much there to prop up their choices and provide the motivation that gives those choices a strong reason to be.

Switching to music, I always found Lady Gaga bombastic, more so when she's derivative - like she's taking something familiar and doing it louder or more bluntly. Even when she goes for something "smaller" in scale like the music in A Star Is Born, she lays it on thick, burying any convincing feeling. But I can think of plenty of densely-produced albums that never seem like overkill to me, because they have a lot to say and it feels like they have a lot going on underneath the surface that supports the density of the records they're making.

[therewillbeblus]

Trailer for the second film

Looks like the best case imaginable at first glance, which shouldn't be mistaken for confidence. Still, cautiously optimistic for the musical components working

[The Curious Sofa]

I'm no fan of the first Joker but was intrigued by claims that the sequel will be inspired by One From the Heart, which I recently wrote about in the Francis Ford Coppola thread after watching the new Blu-ray. The trailer appears to confirm this. The mash-up of two classics, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, didn't do much for me, taking on an underappreciated film as visually rich and eccentric as One From the Heart strikes me as more promising.

[Walter Kurtz]

I love the trailer and I don't even like Gaga. Nice hat-tip to Cherbourg also. I also liked Pennies from Heaven even though it had some problems. But then I'm the kind of guy who breaks out into a stanza from a song whenever I feel like it. A shrink one time said I was a hundred percent Id. Then I said fuck you, you're a moron. He said not an idiot. Id. Freudian Id. I still thought he was a moron but I didn't repeat it.

[colinr0380]

I'm no fan of the first Joker but was intrigued by claims that the sequel will be inspired by One From the Heart, which I recently wrote about in the Francis Ford Coppola thread after watching the new Blu-ray. The trailer appears to confirm this. The mash-up of two classics, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, didn't do much for me, taking on an underappreciated film as visually rich and eccentric as One From the Heart strikes me as more promising.

Or maybe the other grand musical folly of a New Hollywood director from the same period, Scorsese's New York, New York.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'm no fan of the first Joker but was intrigued by claims that the sequel will be inspired by One From the Heart, which I recently wrote about in the Francis Ford Coppola thread after watching the new Blu-ray. The trailer appears to confirm this. The mash-up of two classics, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, didn't do much for me, taking on an underappreciated film as visually rich and eccentric as One From the Heart strikes me as more promising.

Or maybe the other grand musical folly of a New Hollywood director from the same period, Scorsese's New York, New York.

Good call, I love a musical folly when it turns out like either of these. The two films are closely linked for me, the directors' cut of New York, New York got a theatrical release around the time One From the Heat came out and that's when I first saw it. It's one of my favourite Scorsese movies, I love the weird mash up of classic MGM musical and raw, John Cassavetes style marital drama.

[flyonthewall2983]

Thinking about seeing this, i wonder if it would matter at all if I just go in and see it first then entertain the idea of watching the first after.

[therewillbeblus]

Unless the script's been leaked online, I doubt anyone here knows the answer to that yet

[Matt]

My guess is you’ll be fine. The first movie is not that deep or complicated. The Joker is a bad guy and is now in Arkham Asylum. End credits.

[domino harvey]

The sequel will open with

Spoiler

A Looney Tunes-style cartoon starring the Joker, animated by the director of Les Triplettes de Belleville

[Kracker]

Guess that's where all the budget is really going