Displaying items by tag: Joker

Surprisingly, Joker leads the nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards. A total of 11 nominations were piled onto the contentious film about the Clown Prince of Crime, which is more than any other movie. I mean, I like the film but … probably not 11 nominations liked. You know? Anyway,  eight other movies were selected to compete for Best Picture including - 1917, Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and Parasite. Three of those films, The Irishman, 1917 and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, received 10 nominations. 

I’ve seen all the Best Picture nominees except for 1917 (but I’ll get to it, eventually) and my personal taste leans towards Little Women, a movie that I think is simply fantastic from beginning to end, but I suspect the night will belong to either Scorsese or Tarantino. Probably, Tarantino. 

As many pointed out there is a surprising (or maybe not) lack of women and people of color in the nominations. The two most glaring omissions are the lack of a Best Director nod for Greta Gerwig’s (Little Women) and the no nomination for Lupita Nyong'o for her devastating turn in Us. But, as I often say - the Academy didn’t bother asking my opinion. 

Last year the Oscar awards went hostless and the entire show was automated. At the time, people freaked out that the show was going to be a disaster. It wasn’t. And so this year the Oscars will once again go hostless. Which is fine. 

I have  yet to see all the major movies for several of the acting categories so I will refrain from offering further opinion. But I’m sure I’ll get around to that eventually.  Until then, the 92nd Academy Awards Ceremony will air on ABC on Sunday, February 9th. 

Here is a list of the complete nominees: 

BEST PICTURE

"Ford v Ferrari"

"The Irishman"

"Jojo Rabbit"

"Joker"

"Little Women"

"Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

"Marriage Story"

"Parasite"

"1917"

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Kathy Bates, "Richard Jewell"

Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"

Scarlett Johansson, "Jojo Rabbit"

Florence Pugh, "Little Women"

Margot Robbie, "Bombshell"

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Tom Hanks, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"

Anthony Hopkins, "The Two Popes"

Al Pacino, "The Irishman"

Joe Pesci, "The Irishman"

Brad Pitt, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

South Korea, "Parasite"

Spain, "Pain and Glory"

France, "Les Misérables"

North Macedonia, "Honeyland"

Poland, "Corpus Christi"

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)

"In the Absence"

"Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)"

"Life Overtakes Me"

"St. Louis Superman"

"Walk Run Cha-Cha"

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

"American Factory"

"The Edge of Democracy"

"Honeyland"

"For Sama"

"The Cave"

ORIGINAL SONG

"I'm Standing With You," "Breakthrough"

"Into the Unknown," "Frozen II"

"Stand Up," "Harriet"

"(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again," "Rocketman"

"I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away," "Toy Story 4"

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

"How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"

"I Lost My Body"

"Klaus"

"Missing Link"

"Toy Story 4"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

"The Irishman"

"Jojo Rabbit"

"Little Women"

"The Two Popes"

"Joker"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

"Marriage Story"

"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

"Parasite"

"Knives Out"

"1917"

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Antonio Banderas, "Pain and Glory"

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

Adam Driver, "Marriage Story"

Joaquin Phoenix, "Joker"

Jonathan Pryce, "The Two Popes"

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Cynthia Erivo, "Harriet"

Scarlett Johansson, "Marriage Story"

Saoirse Ronan, "Little Women"

Renée Zellweger, "Judy"

Charlize Theron, "Bombshell"

DIRECTOR

Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman"

Quentin Tarantino, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

Bong Joon-ho, "Parasite"

Sam Mendes, "1917"

Todd Phillips, "Joker"

PRODUCTION DESIGN

"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

"The Irishman"

"1917"

"Jojo Rabbit"

"Parasite"

CINEMATOGRAPHY

"1917"

"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"

"The Irishman"

"Joker"

"The Lighthouse"

COSTUME DESIGN

"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"

"Little Women"

"The Irishman"

"Jojo Rabbit"

"Joker"

SOUND EDITING

"1917"

"Ford v Ferrari"

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"

"Joker"

SOUND MIXING

"1917"

"Ford v Ferrari"

"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"

"Ad Astra"

"Joker"

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

"Dcera (Daughter)"

"Hair Love"

"Kitbull"

"Memorable"

"Sister"

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

"Brotherhood"

"Nefta Football Club"

"The Neighbors' Window"

"Saria"

"A Sister"

ORIGINAL SCORE

"1917," Thomas Newman

"Joker," Hildur Guðnadóttir

"Little Women," Alexandre Desplat

"Marriage Story," Randy Newman

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," John Williams

VISUAL EFFECTS

"Avengers: Endgame"

"The Lion King"

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

"The Irishman"

"1917"

FILM EDITING

"The Irishman"

"Ford v Ferrari"

"Parasite"

"Joker"

"Jojo Rabbit"

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

"Bombshell"

"Joker"

"Judy"

"Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"

"1917"

I know that everyone is endlessly reporting Impeachment news and we weighed in on it too here at GCN. We have an “impeachment is reasonable” moderate blue take, and an “impeachment is unreasonable” conservative red take. But I’m already sick of reading Ukrainian connected impeachment news and that story has only been around for a few weeks. So, instead - let’s talk about comic book movies! 

Joker. Directed by Todd Phillips. Screenplay by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver. Starring Joaquin Phoenix.  

According to some, mainly liberals, Joker is an incel friendly, dangerous film that humanizes the most infamous psychotic lunatic mass murderer in all comic book history. In fact, it’s so dangerous that, again - according to liberals - it will incite incels to armed violence everywhere! (Editor’s note. Incels are men who are “involuntarily celibate,” as in “women won't have sex with them but it’s not their fault that women don’t want to have sex with them - it’s society’s fault. And women’s fault, too. But not theirs at all.”) All over the country, for the realese of Joker, security was beefed up in preparation for the inevitable armed incel rise up!  

An excerpt from Stephanize Zacharek’s Joker review from Time:  

“In America, there’s a mass shooting or attempted act of violence by a guy like Arthur practically every other week … And yet we’re supposed to feel some sympathy for Arthur, the troubled lamb; he just hasn’t had enough love … the movie lionizes and glamorizes Arthur even as it shakes its head, faux-sorrowfully, over his violent behavior.”

Fair enough. I do agree that the character of Joker should not be presented as a heroic figure because … well, he’s not. He’s a lunatic mass murderer. The comics really attempt to clinically explain Joker’s behavior and, to be honest, they shouldn’t. He’s a comic book villain. And that’s one of the reasons I generally feel that some things do not cross over well from comic books to live action film. Being lonely, unloved and mentally ill does not realistically create an unkillable, ever escaping from prison comic book super villain. But in live action film, depending on the tone of your story being a ridiculously over the top super villain does not exactly make a realistic looking lonely, unloved, mentally ill human being. 

I mean, if you added up the comic book deaths caused by Joker it wouldn’t make sense that he would ever escape any kind of prison. After murdering hundreds of people, well, the fourth, or fifth, or sixth time he was captured, Joker would be over medicated into comatose form and locked away in a deep, dark hole - and no one would ever hear from him again! 

But, that’s not exactly drama. And comic books don’t need to live in the real world and they shouldn’t have to. The medium that comic books exist in allow Joker to escape over and over so Batman can heroically triumph or occasionally, tragically fail against the antagonist. That’s drama. 

And so now we have the new film, Joker. Which attempts to give reason to the “why” of the Joker's mass murdering madness. While I find the film compelling and Joaquin Phoenix is quite good in the lead role I keep going back to the “But, Joker isn’t a realistic super villain - he doesn’t need a realistic … ohh, never mind!” 

The tone of Joker is dead serious. Sure, the film perhaps pays a bit too much homage to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy (especially with that DeNiro casting) but, so what? General audiences would probably be shocked to realize how often film directors steal from each other. Paying homage to other film sources is not exactly the cinematic crime that cinephiles are pretending it is. It’s a film that drips with believable pathos and realistic character motivation but I’m not exactly sure I bought the societal folk hero angle as Gothamites embraced the crimes of Joker. I mean, IF something like that happened in a city it could very well be a realistic motivation for a Batman figure to rise up to fight that level of city wide injustice. But, as told in Joker, city folk rise up in riot for Joker I just didn’t find it very plausible. On the other hand, the Joker is a very unreliable narrator and much of the movie, especially the last fifteen minutes or so are wide open to multiple interpretations. My personal interpretation is clearly more accurate than most others, obviously.  =)   

BUT - I don’t really want to go into further detail about it because, spoilers. I guess I’ll just say that Joker is worth seeing; and lots of folks feel that way too as it broke box office records around the world.  It received an eight minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival where it won the top award even though critical opinion is mixed landing currently at 68% on Rottentomatoes.com. Joker is neither as dangerous or as dull as critics are portraying it. And, I guess I didn’t find it to be the masterpiece a few are claiming. 

As for the armed, violent incel revolt? Meh. Probably won’t happen. Don’t get me wrong. Some self absorbed lunatic somewhere might pick up a gun and go on a murder spree but, as we all know, they would have done it without Joker ever getting involved.  

And now, I will leave you with the greatest Batman / Joker knock-knock joke, maybe - ever. 

Joker: Knock knock. 

Batman: Who’s there. 

Joker: Not your parents.