Octopus Overlords

Blackhawk wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 10:56 pm I just got back. I really, really liked this movie. Phoenix was fantastic in it. I also thought the Batman mythos stuff was a good fit (although they might have been better off simply suggesting one particular scene.)

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2024 7:02 pm It looks like Oscar-bait to me.

gilraen wrote: Tue Jul 23, 2024 1:05 pm No, thanks. Never saw the first movie, have zero interest in this one. I greatly dislike the recent trend of turning psycho villains into protagonists, and the whole thing just looks like a depressing mess.

Adam Nayman, The Ringer wrote:The decision to turn the sequel into a musical-slash-courtroom-drama is as perplexing as it sounds—and the results are so bad, they’re actually fascinating...

Joker sequel dares to reimagine the original — but not in a way worth watching

Locked away in the back room of a library at Princeton University in New Jersey, available for entry only to those who apply with two forms of ID and agree to be supervised by a custodian while reading, there is a small book.

In that small book, there's a short story: The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls, a standalone prequel to J.D. Salinger's sole novel, Catcher in the Rye, that explains its protagonist's muddled, often misunderstood motivations. And behind that story — behind the reason it is to remain strictly guarded and unpublished until 50 years after Salinger's death — is a fear.

The fear, expressed both by the famously reclusive author and his son, was that Salinger's fame would overshadow his work — or that it already had. The fear was that his writing had grown so popular it was impossible to judge his stories on their own merits. And that his fans' interpretation of, and obsession with, his writing had somehow robbed him of it.

"When you publish, the world thinks you owe something," Salinger, who died in 2010, said in his last interview. "If you don't publish, they don't know what you're doing. You can keep it for yourself."

It's a fear that Joker: Folie à Deux director Todd Phillips was no doubt guided by. A follow-up to his Oscar-winning Joker released exactly five years ago — which starred Joaquin Phoenix as a sort of real-world interpretation of the chaotic comic book supervillain — this latest movie is less a sequel than an epilogue. Instead of an independent production, it operates as a coda to a film that sparked debate over a romanticization of incel culture (and necessitated bans against Joker-inspired outfits and police crews posted outside screenings), and is almost completely devoid of a plot of its own.

Bouncing between the Joker's trial for killing five people in the first movie, his courting of fellow inmate and crime-groupie Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga) and a pack of rabid fans rallying against some social injustice no one seems quite able to articulate, Folie à Deux doesn't bother with consistent character motivations or even a coherent story. Composed almost entirely of flashbacks, it is far more concerned with addressing its own legacy, as Phillips has no doubt lived the hell that Salinger spent the last half of his life feverishly working to avoid.

Unfortunately, Phillips has made something of a misguided mess. We enter and exit narrative blind alleys at will. Plot points from singing prison guards to romance to courtroom drama are introduced and abandoned with all the direction of a free-association exercise. It is nearly impossible to follow, which makes it wholly impossible to care about what is happening to the characters on screen, because this time around, Phillip does not care about their journey.

This movie is in every respect a meta-commentary on what Joker was supposed to mean — simultaneously a more direct and more confusing artistic statement from Phillips that is as disjointed as something pulled from the journal of a narcissistic psychopath. It's a correcting of the record that exists more for its creator than its audience, an unnecessary skin-tag hanging off the original. And, most importantly, it's boring.

Oh, and it's a musical.

Blackhawk wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2024 2:24 pm Sounds like something to watch after Megalopolis.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2024 4:15 pm I dunno, saying that a movie about a narcissistic psychopath is like something pulled from the journal of a narcissistic psychopath doesn't seem like anything is wrong here. And if those flashbacks represent Joker's memories as filtered through his insanity, why not have musical numbers? He is, after all, a showman at heart.

I'm actually eager to see this! ...once it comes to a streaming service for which I already have a subscription.

Holman wrote: Sat Oct 05, 2024 4:08 pm Big question.

I haven't seen the movie and probably won't, but I read a review that seemed to imply a major (probably THE major) possible spoiler that changes everything about what I thought was what.

Someone who has seen the movie, please just give a Yes or No to my question:

Spoiler:

Is it true that Phoenix's character isn't even the Batman's joker, and that he is simply the inspiration for another character who will become that villain?

Thanks!

coopasonic wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 12:02 pm Coming to Max, the streaming service not the forum member, Dec 13.