Joker "The Joker" in development with Todd Phillips and Martin Scorsese attached? - Part 2

[jemoen]

about that Rotten BBC 3/5 score.. Here you have your answer.

You keep discussing that review when I already posted this

This just proves that not even critics know how RT works lol
If @Hollis Mason email them that screencap they probably fix it

 

[dhandler01]

I find the clickbait nature of the headline from CBR pretty hilarious. They act like the film dropped into the 50s

 

[jmc]

It bothers more than it should that those numbers don’t add 36.

Even more than I would like to admit...

I don't know how I ****ed that up, lol. What I meant to write was taking the combined scored of those 5 critical elements, and then dividing them by 5 to get the overall film score. So, in the sample I provided Joker would get an 8.6/10 rating.

 

[jmc]

I find the clickbait nature of the headline from CBR pretty hilarious. They act like the film dropped into the 50s

A drop of that magnitude is quite significant. Usually after the first 30-40 reviews the score ends up being within a margin of about 5-6%. This dropped 12% which is highly unusual.

 

[TheSmoothKnight]

Hmmm, 81 reviews and they still haven’t certified it. Unless they changed their policy because of freaking 600 new critics added to the site.

 

[JimThompson]

Honestly maybe the site needs a Rotten Tomatoes thread so we can get back to actually talking about the movie in this one.

 

[FunkMiller]

I’m getting the distinct feeling that a lot of the criticism being sent this movie’s way revolves around the attempt to make The Joker a protagonist. To engender sympathy in a character who is meant to be out and out evil. They’ve positioned him as a victim who snaps, and becomes The Joker... which is fine if the character is the bad guy. But by trying to also make him an anti-hero (bullied into being bad! smashing the unfair system!), it sounds like they’ve chosen an ill judged character arc, and lost a lot of the critics. Colour me surprised.

...it’s almost as if The Joker is a character who should be positioned as an antagonist to an actual protagonist, eh?

Still very keen to see this for Phoenix’s performance, and what is clearly a very interesting narrative, but can’t say I’ll be surprised if the rating slips more due to the way they’ve decided to portray a Batman villain as the central character.

 

[JimThompson]

One of the great things about Joker is he is just as versatile a character as him main protagonist, The Batman. There is no single right way to portray the character.

 

[FunkMiller]

One of the great things about Joker is he is just as versatile a character as him main protagonist, The Batman. There is no single right way to portray the character.

Of course not, but he is an antagonist. It’s incredibly difficult to take a character defined as such, and try to make them the protagonist. Do you either try to justify their evil? Or water it down? Both are very problematic, and hard to pull off. That may be why the film is receiving some criticism.

 

[StarLord]

Just watched the TIFF Tribute Actor Award speech by Joaquin, and presented by Willem Dafoe. Brilliant stuff!

 

[Erik Lensherr]

Just watched the TIFF Tribute Actor Award speech by Joaquin, and presented by Willem Dafoe. Brilliant stuff!

Link?

 

[StarLord]

Link?

Can't post it here due to curse words, but sent it to you.

 

[jmc]

I’m getting the distinct feeling that a lot of the criticism being sent this movie’s way revolves around the attempt to make The Joker a protagonist. To engender sympathy in a character who is meant to be out and out evil. They’ve positioned him as a victim who snaps, and becomes The Joker... which is fine if the character is the bad guy. But by trying to also make him an anti-hero (bullied into being bad! smashing the unfair system!), it sounds like they’ve chosen an ill judged character arc, and lost a lot of the critics. Colour me surprised.

...it’s almost as if The Joker is a character who should be positioned as an antagonist to an actual protagonist, eh?

Still very keen to see this for Phoenix’s performance, and what is clearly a very interesting narrative, but can’t say I’ll be surprised if the rating slips more due to the way they’ve decided to portray a Batman villain as the central character.

Here's the thing. It's clear this is a film attempting to ask the question - 'How does one go from being just some every day person to a violent killer?'. The problem with asking and answering that question is that, by it's very nature, it has to humanise the character. And that's a problem for some people. Some people just want to colour the world in black and white, that all bad guys were always bad guys. But the truth is even the most distasteful of people in the world at some stage in their life had the same type of hopes, dreams and desires as you and I have. And that's very confronting, because it means no matter how much you might despise that person for what he or she has done, there's an underlying human truth there you can't avoid. Giving context to someone's actions is a very hard pill to swallow, because what it really means is that deep down, that same downfall can happen to any one of us.

 

[JimThompson]

Of course not, but he is an antagonist. It’s incredibly difficult to take a character defined as such, and try to make them the protagonist. Do you either try to justify their evil? Or water it down? Both are very problematic, and hard to pull off. That may be why the film is receiving some criticism.

Only if one assumes he is supposed to be the protagonist. That is a leap of logic I am not sure is justified in this case.

 

[Maze]

Twitter’s very very bad day didn’t really end there, though. The Joker won the Golden Lion. Why is Joker on the hot seat? Because, apparently, it will inspire incels to commit acts of violence? The anger seems to stem from two different branches of Film Twitter. One is the anti-white male, anti-comic book movie faction – which believes that fanboys and superhero movies have ruined everything, kept men in a state of immature regression, and in so doing have encouraged their treatment of women as … objects? The whole thing is explained here.

The other arm you see flailing are just your average film snobs who think a comic book movie is unworthy of such an honor, no matter how good it is. Five people or so made that call, so it’s hardly a large consensus. Still, it beat out some big prestige movies headed into awards season. Granted, the Golden Lion isn’t exactly an Oscar friendly win. The Shape of Water in 2017 was one of the rare matches in history. Roma won it last year. Brokeback Mountain won in 2005. Still, that Joker is really the first major studio film to win is a pretty big deal and certainly makes me want to see it more than I already did. I expect it will get pretty badly savaged over here, though, since it has awakened the film twitter hive mind and bad things happen when you awaken the film twitter hive mind.

I have not seen the film so I can’t really comment on content. What I can say is that it’s either really really good — or else Venice is pushing back HARD on the criticisms and grumblings against it this year. But it could also be really really good. Since a plot point of the film appears to riff off of Martin Scorsese’s King of Comedy it’s a good time to remember how much **** Scorsese has gotten over the years for both Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. You can’t make films that tell the truth if you don’t make films that TELL THE TRUTH. In other words, at what point was it the obligation of artists to instruct American culture on how to behave? I’m not sure when that happened.

Film Twitter’s Very Bad Day – Venice Announces Award Wins

 

[The Shape]

Only if one assumes he is supposed to be the protagonist. That is a leap of logic I am not sure is justified in this case.

Thankfully, a protagonist is simply the leading character of a story -- not necessarily the "hero" or "good guy" of the story, despite what some people seem to want to believe. Michael Corleone is the protagonist of The Godfather trilogy. Tony Montana is the protagonist of Scarface.

Telling a story from the perspective of a villain or killer does not equate to trying to justify, support, or condone their actions.

 

[JimThompson]

Thankfully, a protagonist is simply the leading character of a story -- not necessarily the "hero" or "good guy" of the story, despite what some people seem to want to believe. Michael Corleone is the protagonist of The Godfather trilogy. Tony Montana is the protagonist of Scarface.

Telling a story from the perspective of a villain or killer does not equate to trying to justify, support, or condone their actions.

Yes...that is a useful clarification, and thanks for it.

The issue I see twisting some people's noodle is they are going into the movie with the fore-knowledge the character will become a villain. As such, some seem to be having trouble seeing him in any other light at all, seemingly feeling he must have a force to oppose, rather than to be someone forces are acting upon.

One other thing that strikes me as being a little weird is most people seem to generally agree a villain is a stronger character if a reader/audience can relate to him or her in some sense. The best villains have a couple of characteristics, generally speaking, in common:

1. They see themselves as being the hero.
2. Their perspective, while skewed, has a kernel of truth to it.

All of Nolan's villain's, for example, met this criteria to varying degrees...and it made them stronger characters. And that seems to be a large part of what is going to happen with JOKER.

Hope I have not muddled this thought too much! Anyway, thanks for the response!

 

[AcidRain]

I just glance to see if the score is really high or really low. Anything in the low 20s is usually hot garbage. Anything in the 90's is usually pretty good. Everything in between is a crapshoot and it's based on if i'm invested in a movie in some way or I catch it on netflix.

This line of thinking is kind of like being sold down the RT river.

 

[TheFuture]

Film Twitter’s Very Bad Day – Venice Announces Award Wins

I find it humorous that the film would provoke such a reaction from a moral standpoint while the US seems too paralysed as a whole to do anything about its current social and political upheaval. It does feel like it could have been any film that could of got caught in such a crossfire.

 

[Travesty]

 

[Gothamsknight]

A classic reaction fit for all of this haha

 

[FunkMiller]

Here's the thing. It's clear this is a film attempting to ask the question - 'How does one go from being just some every day person to a violent killer?'. The problem with asking and answering that question is that, by it's very nature, it has to humanise the character. And that's a problem for some people. Some people just want to colour the world in black and white, that all bad guys were always bad guys. But the truth is even the most distasteful of people in the world at some stage in their life had the same type of hopes, dreams and desires as you and I have. And that's very confronting, because it means no matter how much you might despise that person for what he or she has done, there's an underlying human truth there you can't avoid. Giving context to someone's actions is a very hard pill to swallow, because what it really means is that deep down, that same downfall can happen to any one of us.

That’s not the issue though. Providing context and motive for a character’s descent into madness / evil etc. is absolutely fine, but from the reviews I’m seeing, people are having issues with that descent being contextualised as something almost heroic and justified. Essentially - “Arthur Fleck is downtrodden by society... look how he snaps and fights back!”

It’s one thing to present a character study of a man who is driven to acts of abhorrent violence because of the way the world has treated him... it’s rather another thing to position those acts as somehow correct or justifiable. That appears to be the issue a lot of people are having with Joker.

It’s not about the reasons for his evil, it’s about the framing - and potential glorification - of it.

This was always going to be an issue when attempting to humanise and mythologise the Joker as anything other than the antagonist.

Obviously, I’ve not seen the film to render my own personal opinion of how they handle the character, but I can understand why some folks are criticising the way he is being portrayed.

Only if one assumes he is supposed to be the protagonist. That is a leap of logic I am not sure is justified in this case.

The reviews I’ve been reading - both bad and good - are certainly suggesting that this is the case.

 

[dhandler01]

A drop of that magnitude is quite significant. Usually after the first 30-40 reviews the score ends up being within a margin of about 5-6%. This dropped 12% which is highly unusual.

I am not saying it isnt...just saying they said it that way for a reason. They could have framed it in a different way and said the same thing but they clickbaited it knowing people would assume it means the RT tanked. (other sites did as well)

That is cool, just makes me laugh cause it stinks of desperation

 

[BarryLyndon]

I saw the movie, and in no way it justifies ou glorifies Arthur’s actions.

It is disturbing and awkward, it is a complete psychose of a real person.

When you see it, you’ll understand. He’s not becoming the clown prince of crime, he’s just at the deepest his psychose can go.

His acting is haunting because you understand why he’s there, it really humanize joker.

It is not the psychopath you hope for, it is a real troubled person at his peak.

A tragedy for sure, but that does not glorify his act.

And his craziness is so human it is disturbing. Not at all like anything we’ve ever seen, but at the same time it got the spirit right.

Im still shocked by this movie.

It stays with you in such an inconfortable way.

 

[Maze]

I find it humorous that the film would provoke such a reaction from a moral standpoint while the US seems too paralysed as a whole to do anything about its current social and political upheaval. It does feel like it could have been any film that could of got caught in such a crossfire.

Totally my train of trought