JOKER: THE MOVIE produced by Martin Scorsese (TBD) 1 1

[Jaydogrules]

1 hour ago, Bosco685 said:

Time will tell.

The days of movie critics making or breaking a film are long gone.  

I notice nobody else here has really ventured a guess on this movie's box office, so I'll be the first.  Unfortunately, these critics are confirming my worst impressions of this film from the trailers that it is a pretentious artsy-fartsy bore.

Its R-rating and lack of general audience appeal will be somewhat offset in the first week by the "Joker" name recognition.  $40MM-$50MM domestic opening, topping out at $200MM-$250MM worldwide due to scant international audience interest.  

-J.

[Mr Sneeze]

Just now, Jaydogrules said:

1 hour ago, Bosco685 said:

Time will tell.

The days of movie critics making or breaking a film are long gone.  

I notice nobody else here has really ventured a guess on this movie's box office, so I'll be the first.  Unfortunately, these critics are confirming my worst impressions of this film from the trailers that it is a pretentious artsy-fartsy bore.

Its R-rating and lack of general audience appeal will be somewhat offset in the first week by the "Joker" name recognition.  $40MM-$50MM domestic opening, topping out at $200MM-$250MM worldwide due to scant international audience interest.  

-J.

I'm in! (referring to bolded)

[Bosco685]

24 minutes ago, Jaydogrules said:

The days of movie critics making or breaking a film are long gone.  

I notice nobody else here has really ventured a guess on this movie's box office, so I'll be the first.  Unfortunately, these critics are confirming my worst impressions of this film from the trailers that it is a pretentious artsy-fartsy bore.

Its R-rating and lack of general audience appeal will be somewhat offset in the first week by the "Joker" name recognition.  $40MM-$50MM domestic opening, topping out at $200MM-$250MM worldwide due to scant international audience interest.  

-J.

[Bosco685]

20 minutes ago, Mr Sneeze said:

I'm in! (referring to bolded)

This definitely looks like it is going to be a different experience than the norm lately.

[Mr Sneeze]

Just now, Bosco685 said:

18 minutes ago, Mr Sneeze said:

I'm in! (referring to bolded)

This definitely looks like it is going to be a different experience than the norm lately.

Pretentious artsy-fartsy bore is my wheelhouse!

[Bosco685]

In ‘Joker,’ Joaquin Phoenix Wanted to Create a Character ‘That Wasn’t Identifiable’

Quote

Joaquin Phoenix, whose star turn in “Joker” is already generating awards buzz, said he “wanted the freedom to create something that wasn’t identifiable” and did not let himself be influenced by any previous versions of the character or pin him down as a familiar type.

 

“What was so attractive about this character for me is he’s so hard to define. You don’t really want to define him,” Phoenix said Saturday at the film’s press conference at the Venice Film Festival. “Every day felt like we were discovering new aspects of his character…up until the very last day.”

 

Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a struggling comedian whose professional and personal failures finally push him to become the nihilistic, frightening Joker. To prepare for the role, Phoenix said he read a book on political assassins to get a sense of such killers and their motivations. But ultimately, that was for information only.

 

“I did identify Arthur as a particular personality, a particular type,” Phoenix said. But “I also wanted the freedom to create something that wasn’t identifiable. This is a fictional character. I didn’t want a psychiatrist to be able to identify the kind of person he was….Let’s step away from that, and we want to have the room to create what we want.”

 

[▫️]

1 hour ago, Jaydogrules said:

Unfortunately, these critics are confirming my worst impressions of this film from the trailers that it is a pretentious artsy-fartsy bore.

Sounds like you were never going to give this movie a chance anyway. Don’t worry, there will be some negative reviews hitting as well.

[Bosco685]

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

Sounds like you were never going to give this movie a chance anyway. Don’t worry, there will be some negative reviews hitting as well.

There always will be. Even with Into The Spider-Verse when it was riding at 100% RT, a few had to bring it down a notch or two.

[▫️]

28 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

There always will be. Even with Into The Spider-Verse when it was riding at 100% RT, a few had to bring it down a notch or two.

I still haven't watched that yet despite buying it. 

[Bosco685]

Quote

Get ready to rethink what’s possible in comic book movies. Again. In a little over a month, Warner Bros. releases the latest DC Comics adaptation Joker — an origin story of Batman’s arch nemesis — and if you thought The Dark Knightand Logan pushed the boundaries of adult storytelling and Oscar quality for these types of films, Joker is about to up the ante.

 

First, let’s address the financial outlook. Budgeted at $55 million and with a relatively modest marketing budget, Joker only needs roughly $190+/- million in worldwide receipts to reach black ink. And it won’t have any trouble racing far past that figure.

 

Last year’s Venom (itself a more violent type of superhero movie) holds the record for biggest October bow with $80 million. Halloween (an R-rated slasher film) took $76 million last year for second place on the month’s all-time charts, followed by 2013′s Gravity with $55.7 million and the R-rated The Martian from 2015 with $54 million. Of those, Halloween had the lowest final multiplier, at 2.09x. Venom enjoyed a nice 2.6x final multiplier, while the other two scored massive 4+x final multipliers. (Note: these figures are all for domestic box office.)

 

So a Joker-branded movie reminding audiences and critics of The Dark Knight’s more serious, Oscar-worthy portrayal, with likely good critical reception, and positioned in a calendar spot designed to maximize its opening weekend potential, should deliver a result at the higher end of possible outcomes.

 

[Bosco685]

Quote

Todd Phillips’ “Joker” is unquestionably the boldest reinvention of “superhero” cinema since “The Dark Knight”; a true original that’s sure to be remembered as one of the most transgressive studio blockbusters of the 21st Century. It’s also a toxic rallying cry for self-pitying incels, and a hyper-familiar origin story so indebted to “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy” that Martin Scorsese probably deserves an executive producer credit. It’s possessed by the kind of provocative spirit that’s seldom found in any sort of mainstream entertainment, but also directed by a glorified edgelord who lacks the discipline or nuance to responsibly handle such hazardous material, and who reliably takes the coward’s way out of the narrative’s most critical moments.

 

“Joker” is the human-sized and adult-oriented comic book movie that Marvel critics have been clamoring for — there’s no action, no spandex, no obvious visual effects, and the whole thing is so gritty and serious that DCEU fanboys will feel as if they’ve died and seen the Snyder Cut — but it’s also the worst-case scenario for the rest of the film world, as it points towards a grim future in which the inmates have taken over the asylum, and even the most repulsive of mid-budget character studies can be massive hits (and Oscar contenders) so long as they’re at least tangentially related to some popular intellectual property. The next “Lost in Translation” will be about Black Widow and Howard Stark spending a weekend together at a Sokovia hotel; the next “Carol” will be an achingly beautiful period drama about young Valkyrie falling in love with a blonde woman she meets in an Asgardian department store.

 

But Phillips, stuck between reinventing the superhero movie from the ground up and throwing a cheap disguise on the same dumb origin story we’ve already seen 1,000 times, needs his Joker to be both the light and the dark, the yin and yang, the only sane man in a world gone mad. He needs to have his cake, and to smear it all over his face in a big red smile too. The result is an immaculately crafted piece of mass entertainment that wants to be all things to all people, less a Rorschach test than a cinematic equivalent of Schrödinger’s Cat that leaves us feeling like the movie, and the current state of studio filmmaking itself, might actually be dead and alive at the same time.

 

By the time “The End” comes in its cute, old-timey font, “Joker” is neither a game-changer nor just “another day in Chuckletown.” It’s both. It’s good enough to be dangerous, and bad enough to demand better. It’s going to turn the world upside down and make us all hysterical in the process. For better or worse, it’s exactly the movie the Joker would want.

 

Grade: C+

There's that negative some desire.

[Bosco685]

Quote

Phoenix is all in and then some, a performance so dazzling risky and original you might as well start engraving his name on the Oscar right now. No joke, this is a movie — premiering today at the Venice Film Festival — unlike any other from the DC universe, and you will find it impossible to shake off. At least I did.

 

In some ways this is a movie that is uncomfortable to watch, and though other films from comic book origins have gone to deep places that reflect the time in which they were made while staying true to their own origins, this one dealing with a very dark and unforgiving Gotham City in the 1980s could have been set in the present as it dives into a world of madness in the character of Arthur Fleck as he eventually morphs into Joker. In cinematic terms, he might be something of a cross between Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin, the roles played by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy.

 

The supporting cast couldn’t be better, and that includes De Niro and Frances Conroy as Arthur’s mother, along with many others along the way. This movie will have you reeling – and thinking. In a country of seemingly weekly mass murders at the hands of someone with a gun, this comic book origin tale of Joker is a must-see.

 

Producers are Phillips, Bradley Cooper and Emma Tillinger Koskoff. Warner Bros releases it October 4. Check out my video review at the link above with scenes from the film.

 

[FlyingDonut]

The Forbes review is kind of glowing:

"Joker is a phenomenal film, destined to be pitted against Ledger's The Dark Knight performance for the title of definitive on-screen portrayal of the character. So fabulous is this version of the Joker, it is hard to imagine the upcoming Batman rebooted franchise offering yet another new version any time soon — which is why I hope Phoenix can be persuaded to reprise the role and somehow cross over into Matt Reeves' Batman movies in the next few years.

If this is indeed the one and only film featuring Phoenix's Joker, though, we should be grateful to have it. Joker is one of the true masterpieces of the superhero cinema, and one of 2019's greatest achievements."

[Bosco685]

Quote

Hailing from his best known work with The Hangover movies, director Todd Phillips shows that he isn't checking in for the laughs -- unless they come from the deranged performance by his lead actor Joaquin Phoenix. Phillips focused more on the central character her, an abandoned and mentally ill Arthur Fleck, than on any larger DC Comics connections which fans of comic book movies have been trained to expect. It's not completely free of ties to a larger world but it has no desire to set any stage for future installments, spinoffs, sequels, or expansions -- which is almost a shame given how great of a launch it is for a compelling character.

 

Joker starts off slowly, meticulously allowing tremendous cinematography and a mesmerizing performance from Phoenix lead the charge. During this slow burn audiences will wonder where the movie could possibly be going but patience will be rewarding. As the movie and its titular character descend into madness simultaneously, the dark, twisted thriller takes off and never looks book. In fact, it's as if Joker takes a look at the darkest paths available and figures out creative ways to incorporate them into the same film. Some of those paths are so dark audiences won't possibly be able to see them coming and will find themselves in an uncomfortable emotional location along the journey.

 

While none of the characters play roles comparable in size to Phoenix's Arthur, familiar faces from around Hollywood pop in including Robert DeNiro, Zazie Beets, Brian Tyree Henry, and Brett Cullen. Some have more screen tine than others but none of the supporting character seem to bear a tremendous burden of individual relevance over the other. Each serve the story in drastically different ways, fueling Arthur's journey, and lending satisfying performances alongside the star.

 

Joker is loaded with mystery on top of its numerous twists. By the time it ends, viewers will be left with several questions about the experience, some of which might be scarily directed at themselves. Phoenix's Arthur laughs his way through terrible scenarios. For this, the actor demands an Oscar nomination it might not be the only nod this DC Comics movie earns. The cinematography, score, and direction create something unlike anything before it - -and it’s terrifying, thrilling, and moving.

 

Whether or not Joker is a social commentary on issues such as poverty or mental illness, a new and mysterious take on the best known DC Comics villain, or just another unforgettable piece of cinema which producer Martin Scorsese is attached to, you’ll need to see to believe it and, even then, you still might not believe it.

 

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]