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The Joker (w/ Joaquin Phoenix) (1 Viewer)

Finally checked this out last week. It features a comic book character but is most definitely NOT a comic book movie. Phoenix was great but I agree with some who've said the film was lacking something. Don't even consider letting your kids watch this.

 
My one complaint was at the end when he started doing the rant in the camera. That felt like 100% Joker. They cut that off too quickly. I wish they let that rant go longer. 

 
My one complaint was at the end when he started doing the rant in the camera. That felt like 100% Joker. They cut that off too quickly. I wish they let that rant go longer. 
I watched it last night, and I thought the acting was great. It was a dark story. I wondered sometimes during the last 40 to 30 minutes or so if what was happening was real or just a part of his delusions. The scene where he was sitting on Sophie's couch and she walked in was when I realized some things weren't as they had seemed.

 
I watched it last night, and I thought the acting was great. It was a dark story. I wondered sometimes during the last 40 to 30 minutes or so if what was happening was real or just a part of his delusions. The scene where he was sitting on Sophie's couch and she walked in was when I realized some things weren't as they had seemed.
That is an issue IMO. It doesn't make sense really in terms of what was real or not- I thought I had it figured out until the end which throws the whole thing off. 

 
I guess it is left to our imaginations.
It seemed clear watching it that he imagined lots of things- being on the tv show, having that gf.  However, once we see the end where he kills his doctor and runs around the hospital, I don't know if we can say anything that happens before that is real. I hated that ending, changed the whole movie. 

 
So the girlfriend was obviously fake. We think him killing DeNiro was too?
Maybe most all of it was. At the end when he is laughing and the woman ask him what's so funny, his laugh was different than earlier in the movie. It was like that was the real him sitting there. Then when he starting singing That's Life, his delusions or fantasies of who he wished to be resumed. Maybe he is just a loon. Hell if I know.

 
I watched it last night, and I thought the acting was great. It was a dark story. I wondered sometimes during the last 40 to 30 minutes or so if what was happening was real or just a part of his delusions. The scene where he was sitting on Sophie's couch and she walked in was when I realized some things weren't as they had seemed.
I figured his relationship was a delusion pretty much right away. I think everything else was pretty much real except when he imagined himself as in the crowd of that talk show. But I wouldn't call that a delusion. 

 
I figured his relationship was a delusion pretty much right away. I think everything else was pretty much real except when he imagined himself as in the crowd of that talk show. But I wouldn't call that a delusion. 
How do you explain the ending?

 
What's there to explain? He was arrested and now he's in Arkham Asylum.
Really? I feel like the ending clearly made it seem like the whole movie was him telling the psychiatrist that story and if he’s a dangerous murderer, how is left alone with the doctor with handcuffs or anything?

 
Really? I feel like the ending clearly made it seem like the whole movie was him telling the psychiatrist that story and if he’s a dangerous murderer, how is left alone with the doctor with handcuffs or anything?
Yes it's open to interpretation. That's the point. 

 
Really? I feel like the ending clearly made it seem like the whole movie was him telling the psychiatrist that story and if he’s a dangerous murderer, how is left alone with the doctor with handcuffs or anything?
Also he was handcuffed 

 
The first time I watched this movie, I thought the "imaginary vs. real" angle was a little more clear-cut.  Having watched it a few more times, I think it's extremely ambiguous.  My sense is that the movie just expects viewers to deal with the fact that very little in the film can really be pinned down.  Obviously the girlfriend is a fantasy, for example, but you can make a plausible argument for and against all sorts of other things being fantasies too. 

Personally I'm not a huge fan of that approach, and I say that as somebody who likes this movie a lot.  It's probably best to take it as Phillips saying "don't get too hung up on the particulars of the plot -- focus on the big picture."

 
Again, Taxi Driver is a great point of comparison.  Throughout that film, Travis is getting progressively crazier and more violent, but we see that change objectively as an audience, in our role as detached observers.  The only scene that we see through the prism of Travis's imagination is the very last sequence, and that's so obviously a fantasy that it can't even be argued.  Where Joker is different is that it's hard to pin down definitively what's real -- we have an unreliable narrator from the get-go.

 
It seemed clear watching it that he imagined lots of things- being on the tv show, having that gf.  However, once we see the end where he kills his doctor and runs around the hospital, I don't know if we can say anything that happens before that is real. I hated that ending, changed the whole movie. 
I would have preferred that the movie end when he's standing on top of the cop car.

 
I don't like the whole thing being on his head as an ending either. However, it could be cool if it all leads to him actually becoming Joker in a sequel because he thinks all that stuff happened for real. And that way nobody knows who the Joker really is. 

 
Really? I feel like the ending clearly made it seem like the whole movie was him telling the psychiatrist that story and if he’s a dangerous murderer, how is left alone with the doctor with handcuffs or anything?
I don't think it clearly showed that. It's definitely a theory though. Just as easily could have been him after being arrested for murder in Arkham.

 
I don't think it clearly showed that. It's definitely a theory though. Just as easily could have been him after being arrested for murder in Arkham.
Perhaps. And I did only see it once so I could be talking out of my ### lol. The whole end scene was lit differently, different color palette and set dressing. It was very jarring and intentionally didn't feel like it was part of the movie we had just seen. Which usually is done to indicate something like an alternate reality, dream sequence, etc. It seemed like it wanted the viewers to call into question the film and unreliability of it all. 

 
Perhaps. And I did only see it once so I could be talking out of my ### lol. The whole end scene was lit differently, different color palette and set dressing. It was very jarring and intentionally didn't feel like it was part of the movie we had just seen. Which usually is done to indicate something like an alternate reality, dream sequence, etc. It seemed like it wanted the viewers to call into question the film and unreliability of it all. 
Well it definitely did do that. It was meant to make you question everything that just happened but I don't think it necessarily negates what happened either. All those changes could be due to how Arthur views life now. He's much more relaxed and open compared to before.

 
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/joaquin-phoenix-comforts-pigs-slaughterhouse

Joaquin Phoenix had a unique way of celebrating his win at Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards.

After taking home the trophy for best actor for his work in "Joker," the 45-year-old actor joined a group of activists and offered water to pigs that were about to meet their deaths at a downtown Los Angeles slaughterhouse.

A video of the interview was shared to Facebook, where Phoenix could be seen wearing the same tuxedo he wore at the awards show.

“Most people don’t really know of the torture and murder in the meat and dairy industry,” Phoenix said to JaneUnChained News founder Jane Velez-Mitchell.  “I’ve seen it for what it is, so I have to be here.”

“We have moral obligations to talk about it and expose it for what it really is," continued the actor.

"We are so indoctrinated with these happy images of animals on farms, on the covers of meat containers, at restaurants and it’s a lie. I think people need to know the truth and we have an obligation to do that. Those of us that have seen it for what it really is, we have an obligation to expose it, so I have to be here.”

Phoenix also addressed the recent rise in activism, of which, his industry friends have “been really receptive.”

“There is a change that is happening and it’s now just becoming undeniable. Slowly but surely we’re getting there," he said. "As heartbreaking as it is when we’re here giving water to the pigs I have a certain optimism in our community and how committed everyone is. People come down here week after week after week so I had to come here tonight and support and it’s a little antidote to what I was just given, so I’m blessed to be here.”

:lmao:   :lmao:   :lmao:

 
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What an excellent movie.  An excellent movie makes me want to go out ant learn more about it.  Read articles about the making of it, interviews, things you may have missed, and things like this thread that provide other's opinions of it.  It also makes you think about what you have just watched and dissect it.  Essentially, the experience doesn't stop when you turn it off.  Joker falls under the category of movies that I loved, but I don't think that I could ever bring myself watch again.  Platoon is at the top of my list for those types of movies.  Brutal, dark, uncomfortable, but amazing for all of this same reasons.

Joaquin Phoenix was outstanding.  He drew you in to the pain that the character felt in just wanting to be accepted and understood.  The system failed him and the general public saw him as a freak and an outcast.  I thought the scene with the woman and child on the bus was poignant.  After a hard day, he found joy in making the child laugh.  Only to have the mother treat him like a threat.  His snap decision to kill the first two men on the subway was out of self defense, but he realized that it gave him a sense of empowerment.  Only killing those who put him down gave him the feeling of control.  That's why he chased the third man down.  The only way he felt that he could show those that beat, berated, and caused him harm was to kill them.  That's why he killed his mother after reading the files.

People have mentioned that they can't see this person being able to outsmart or compete with Batman.  I've seen it mentioned before in this thread and I agree that the medications were keeping him subdued.  Once they were taken away, he became more lucid.  His homicidal thoughts and ideas would have thrived without the medications.  He became more sinister and conniving without them.  Which brings me to my thoughts on the end...

People say his laugh was different.  I think that was showing that he was becoming more in control of himself.  He was learning how to become what he was; to balance the insanity.  I think the final scene was real and not.  I think he was caught after that and put in the asylum.  He was actually talking to the therapist.  If you know the Batman canon, though, Joker has been caught and devised ways to get out of Arkham over and over.  I thing that's what was being shown when he walked down the hall.  That was a vision of his future:  Captured, but always dancing free from confinement as he left a bloody trail behind.

 
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Again, Taxi Driver is a great point of comparison.  Throughout that film, Travis is getting progressively crazier and more violent, but we see that change objectively as an audience, in our role as detached observers.  The only scene that we see through the prism of Travis's imagination is the very last sequence, and that's so obviously a fantasy that it can't even be argued.  Where Joker is different is that it's hard to pin down definitively what's real -- we have an unreliable narrator from the get-go.
Yeah I get so tired of hearing directors say things like "we wanted to let the viewer's decide the ending for themselves" or "we wanted to leave it up to the viewer's interpretation".  It's like yo, dude, we're all collectively paying you millions of dollars to tell us a story.  We're not buying the movie ticket to do the ending for you.

 
What an excellent movie.  An excellent movie makes me want to go out ant learn more about it.  Read articles about the making of it, interviews, things you may have missed, and things like this thread that provide other's opinions of it.  It also makes you think about what you have just watched and dissect it.  Essentially, the experience doesn't stop when you turn it off.  Joker falls under the category of movies that I loved, but I don't think that I could ever bring myself watch again.  Platoon is at the top of my list for those types of movies.  Brutal, dark, uncomfortable, but amazing for all of this same reasons.

Joaquin Phoenix was outstanding.  He drew you in to the pain that the character felt in just wanting to be accepted and understood.  The system failed him and the general public saw him as a freak and an outcast.  I thought the scene with the woman and child on the bus was poignant.  After a hard day, he found joy in making the child laugh.  Only to have the mother treat him like a threat.  His snap decision to kill the first two men on the subway was out of self defense, but he realized that it gave him a sense of empowerment.  Only killing those who put him down gave him the feeling of control.  That's why he chased the third man down.  The only way he felt that he could show those that beat, berated, and caused him harm was to kill them.  That's why he killed his mother after reading the files.

People have mentioned that they can't see this person being able to outsmart or compete with Batman.  I've seen it mentioned before in this thread and I agree that the medications were keeping him subdued.  Once they were taken away, he became more lucid.  His homicidal thoughts and ideas would have thrived without the medications.  He became more sinister and conniving without them.  Which brings me to my thoughts on the end...

People say his laugh was different.  I think that was showing that he was becoming more in control of himself.  He was learning how to become what he was; to balance the insanity.  I think the final scene was real and not.  I think he was caught after that and put in the asylum.  He was actually talking to the therapist.  If you know the Batman canon, though, Joker has been caught and devised ways to get out of Arkham over and over.  I thing that's what was being shown when he walked down the hall.  That was a vision of his future:  Captured, but always dancing free from confinement as he left a bloody trail behind.
Username checks out.

 
Perhaps. And I did only see it once so I could be talking out of my ### lol. The whole end scene was lit differently, different color palette and set dressing. It was very jarring and intentionally didn't feel like it was part of the movie we had just seen. Which usually is done to indicate something like an alternate reality, dream sequence, etc. It seemed like it wanted the viewers to call into question the film and unreliability of it all. 
To me the "I was thinking of a joke......you wouldn't get it" part was the thing that really made it seem like it was more likely than not all in his head.  That's kind of just a random line otherwise.

That and that everything in the story just seemed to come a bit too easy for him.  Like 3 guys get killed in the subway in a city that's basically supposed to be Chicago.  Does that even make the news in Chicago?  Much less so prevalently that everyone sees it and starts a movement?  Also noteworthy that I believe from the time he left for Murray's show until the end of the movie every single person that was walking around the city that wasn't one of the characters involved (the two detectives, the Waynes) was wearing a joker mask.  I understand there was stuff going on with that but literally every single extra walking around the city?  Everything ultimately revolved around him a little too easily.

On the flipside, the batman scene being basically the same as we've seen it before (murdered in an alley, pearls, etc) makes a lot less sense if the story is inside Arthur's head.  Like why would he dream up the Wayne murder basically exactly the same as it eventually happens?  And why would there be a scene of Bruce standing there lamenting about it where Arthur isn't even around a few scenes later?

 
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I saw this on Friday.  I'd give it a 7/10 on IMDb.  Overall, it was a little too dark for my taste (not a knock on the movie), and I thought the joker's personality was a little too stable at times.  That was under the premise that most of what we were seeing actually occurred.  After reading the theories in this thread, I'd have a bigger appreciation for the movie and JP's performance if much of the last half didn't actually happen and was merely his delusion.  I may watch it again under that premise.  

I wasn't a fan of Deniro and think they could have cast that role better.  

 
I saw this on Friday.  I'd give it a 7/10 on IMDb.  Overall, it was a little too dark for my taste (not a knock on the movie), and I thought the joker's personality was a little too stable at times.  That was under the premise that most of what we were seeing actually occurred.  After reading the theories in this thread, I'd have a bigger appreciation for the movie and JP's performance if much of the last half didn't actually happen and was merely his delusion.  I may watch it again under that premise.  

I wasn't a fan of Deniro and think they could have cast that role better.  
I think Deniro was there because this movie is a mash-up of Joker lore and 2 Deniro movies: Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. KoC is actually about Deniro desperately wanting to get on night talk show as a comedian to the point where he uses criminal means to achieve it. 

 
Finally got to see this. I thought the movie would’ve been better just as a normal movie, and not tried to be a Joker movie. All of it felt shoehorned in. And not well. I always pictured Joker as this brilliant person. 

Also, Phoenix is 45. Bruce was a kid. So Joker is supposed to be a 60 year old man when they battle it out?

Lastly, DeNiro is a great actor, but he was terrible in this role. Why have him in the Johnny Carson character role? All of the other comedians were real comedians. Why chose DeNiro to play a funny guy role? He was so stiff. 

And honestly, the movie was rather boring. Slow moving. And why did we make Wayne a bad guy? Felt like Hollywood pushing a political agenda that billionaires are evil. 

Not sure I get the love for this movie. :shrug:  

 
Forgot to add:

Both me and my wife were saying it ended right at the interesting part. The part where he shot DeNiro should have been at about the 30 minute mark. I thought we were going to learn how he became the mastermind. That would’ve been the interesting part. Not watching his mother die and him have trouble keeping clown jobs. 

 
Sequel greenlit 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/joker-sequel-works-as-todd-phillips-eyes-more-dc-origin-movies-1256255
 

Was obvious once it hit a billion dollars. Also, Phillips to develop more origin stories. 
I really enjoyed the movie - it was an excellent portrayal of a guy with mental issues.  Here was my one quibble with it and why I’m not excited about a sequel.  Joker has always been a mastermind, a criminal savant of sorts.  This Joker is just a crazy dude who came across (to me) as having an average IQ at best.  That person seemed incapable of what I had always come to expect from the Joker.  I just feel they have little room to take this in a direction that doesn’t seem implausible based on the first movie.

 
Finally got to see this.
Redbox? Still haven't seen it. Based on early release talk of how dark it was, wife had zero interest and it wasn't anything I was going to fight to see. But for less than $2, maybe I'll convince her to try it some weekend when we're bored.

 
Redbox? Still haven't seen it. Based on early release talk of how dark it was, wife had zero interest and it wasn't anything I was going to fight to see. But for less than $2, maybe I'll convince her to try it some weekend when we're bored.
People keep talking about how dark it was.  I don't get it.  I mean, it's not like it's groundbreakingly dark.  It's dark like 1000's of other movies.  

It's boring and there's no action.  

 
Finally got to see this. I thought the movie would’ve been better just as a normal movie, and not tried to be a Joker movie. All of it felt shoehorned in. And not well. I always pictured Joker as this brilliant person. 

Also, Phoenix is 45. Bruce was a kid. So Joker is supposed to be a 60 year old man when they battle it out?

Lastly, DeNiro is a great actor, but he was terrible in this role. Why have him in the Johnny Carson character role? All of the other comedians were real comedians. Why chose DeNiro to play a funny guy role? He was so stiff. 

And honestly, the movie was rather boring. Slow moving. And why did we make Wayne a bad guy? Felt like Hollywood pushing a political agenda that billionaires are evil. 

Not sure I get the love for this movie. :shrug:  
For the Deniro part, see the post above yours. As for making the Wayne family bad, I think that’s the point of the movie. It’s about how we as a society treat the poor, unstable, etc. We just pretend they don’t exist, cut services, etc. I’m sure I would call it liberal either since it’s the white male rage movie and it’s done by Todd Phillips who has made the same argument you’ve made that “liberal cancel culture” has ruined comedies. If it’s told from the POV of the Joker, doesn’t that automatically make Batman and the Wayne’s his rivals and hence the villains of the story?

 
For the Deniro part, see the post above yours. As for making the Wayne family bad, I think that’s the point of the movie. It’s about how we as a society treat the poor, unstable, etc. We just pretend they don’t exist, cut services, etc. I’m sure I would call it liberal either since it’s the white male rage movie and it’s done by Todd Phillips who has made the same argument you’ve made that “liberal cancel culture” has ruined comedies. If it’s told from the POV of the Joker, doesn’t that automatically make Batman and the Wayne’s his rivals and hence the villains of the story?
What?  The Wayne's were huge philanthropists who were all about trying to make Gotham better.  They were the shining beacon in a horrible city.  It's one thing to make Joker's point of view that of hatred because he thought he was slighted, but that's not how he was portrayed.  He was portrayed as a jerk who hated poor people.  

 
TheIronSheik said:
What?  The Wayne's were huge philanthropists who were all about trying to make Gotham better.  They were the shining beacon in a horrible city.  It's one thing to make Joker's point of view that of hatred because he thought he was slighted, but that's not how he was portrayed.  He was portrayed as a jerk who hated poor people.  
I’m not a big fan of the movie so I won’t defend it much but given the whole thing is from the very unreliable POV of the Joker, it made sense to me that he saw the  Wayne’s how he did. Also no surprise that the Batman stories told from Batman’s perspective portrayed the Wayne family as a shining light of goodness. 

 
I’m not a big fan of the movie so I won’t defend it much but given the whole thing is from the very unreliable POV of the Joker, it made sense to me that he saw the  Wayne’s how he did. Also no surprise that the Batman stories told from Batman’s perspective portrayed the Wayne family as a shining light of goodness. 
The Batman story has typically been told by a 3rd party narrator perspective not from a 1st person (Batman) perspective.

 
Maybe most all of it was. At the end when he is laughing and the woman ask him what's so funny, his laugh was different than earlier in the movie. It was like that was the real him sitting there. Then when he starting singing That's Life, his delusions or fantasies of who he wished to be resumed. Maybe he is just a loon. Hell if I know.
You're missing the point entirely. His laugh changed because it was his REAL laugh. Before that, he had been imitating others (other than the laughs that were part of his condition). He most definitely did NOT imagine the rest of the movie. Just small pieces here and there.

 
To me the "I was thinking of a joke......you wouldn't get it" part was the thing that really made it seem like it was more likely than not all in his head.  That's kind of just a random line otherwise.

That and that everything in the story just seemed to come a bit too easy for him.  Like 3 guys get killed in the subway in a city that's basically supposed to be Chicago.  Does that even make the news in Chicago?  Much less so prevalently that everyone sees it and starts a movement?  Also noteworthy that I believe from the time he left for Murray's show until the end of the movie every single person that was walking around the city that wasn't one of the characters involved (the two detectives, the Waynes) was wearing a joker mask.  I understand there was stuff going on with that but literally every single extra walking around the city?  Everything ultimately revolved around him a little too easily.

On the flipside, the batman scene being basically the same as we've seen it before (murdered in an alley, pearls, etc) makes a lot less sense if the story is inside Arthur's head.  Like why would he dream up the Wayne murder basically exactly the same as it eventually happens?  And why would there be a scene of Bruce standing there lamenting about it where Arthur isn't even around a few scenes later?
:no: :doh:

 

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