Daniel is here who are they at war with right now? Your comment isn’t as ironic or intelligent as you think it is. P.s all countries are supported by patriotism. What does that even mean? Just a vague anti-American comment with no substance. And most American critics attacking this movie are far left and very non-patriotic.
True. Ever since I was a kid I've thought it telling that in the US you can't see an an attractive young woman get a good, healthy fucking - even from her loving partner - but you can see her being graphically disemboweled. That's a pretty big tell that there is something very, very sick at the bottom of this culture.
Sean Harvey you can see that it’s called porn, and the US leads the world in porn production. You can’t show fucking on daytime American TV, and you can’t show disembowellings either. You’re comment is stupid, even if it was factual, which it isn’t.
I enjoyed it. A coherent story, clearly defined character arc, no plotholes, good acting - and that's all I ask for. Low bar set, I know, but look at generally how bad comic book movies have been.
What about the getting inside the fridge though? Like, wasn't that one of those old fridges, with the handles you had to click/press to open? And what about the red painted footprints on the asylum floor in the closing scene?
@@chicofoxo Where did he get the paint? How did he get out of the fridge? I don't expect answers - I don't think there are answers, beyond a desire to provoke and actively thread seeds of doubt and inconsistency in the world building.
Very interesting review. It sounds as though the director is going for social commentary, which is fine, but doesn't seem greatly relevant to the Joker that most people are familiar with. I like how Kermode distinguishes between sympathetic and pitiful.
Sympathetic is the same as pitiful. They're synonymous. Whereas empathy, a word arising from the early 20th century, differentiated itself from the more hierarchical, downward focus of sympathy, towards understanding the emotional state of another person *as an equal*.
@@c.j.griffin Usage is not the same thing as dictionary definition. Kermode was making a distinction between two ways of viewing what is, for some viewers, a problematic main character.
Phillips might have it exactly wrong about woke culture killing comedy. Comedy is a way of discussing the transgressive, and as more things become transgressive, the more things are potentially the fodder of jokes. Chappelle is a case in point - he points out the absurdity of how we are supposed to think and feel about alternative sexualities without actually being cruel to people who practice them. I think the MSM media backlash against this movie is basically frustration at an inability to control mass opinion to the desired degree.
This movie will, unwillingly maybe, draw a line between the major currents of thought of our time. The people who got it and the people who can't get it. Arthur is the personification of the rage and sadness of those treated unjustly in perpetuity. Someone who has been privileged in their lives (usually the same person who likes to assign privilege on others) might miss the point. And the point is, to me at least, that often the worst in our society are products of our own vices. Finally , as much as I enjoy Kermode's reviews , may I suggest that not being able to sympathize with a person who is poor, has mental illness and has been repeatedly mistreated should be a symptom of something that requires treatment Mark. Speak to a professional.
I too find it very odd that the amount of critics I've read or listened to have said he is never a sympathetic character. The film makes a clear statement for the need for quality mental health services. He is a victim of an abusive system that keeps millions down instead of raising them up & simply abandons those with mental health problems. It's no surprise that Bruce will go on to use his tragedy to do good. His life hasn't been one long disaster. Such is Bruce's privilege that he's still obsessing about his parents murder decades later. How many peoples parents or children have been murdered in Gotham. Nobody cares about them. Only the son of a billionaire gets to become as self indulgent as Bruce Wayne. Fleck obviously goes to far but he's after all a product of Gotham. Gotham contributed to him becoming the Joker.
I can understand why the Right does not like this film. It is a warning to devil-take-the- hindmost neo- liberal capitalism about the consequences of grinding people in the dirt. On a more specific note it seems odd that so few of the learned critics make so little of the vicious brutalisation ( especially in childhood) that the main character had suffered.
Mark seemed underwhelmed by Joker which surprised me.Ive been listening to his reviews for over 10 years and 99.9% of the time he’s bang on but he’s wrong here.I watched joker twice in cinema,couple of times on Blu-ray and it’s an astonishing piece of filmmaking on every level.I think Joker touched upon too many risqué topics for the mainstream. Joker is a masterpiece
would not say that he clearly liked the movie said that it is more complex than many people give credit and he also gave a film positive review in his article
I suspect that the politics of this film might go against Mark’s. It has caused some controversy what with its anti woke and commentary on incel culture.
I have to say I'm surprised at some of that backlash. To me the film was most critical of the callous, wealthy boomer father figures (Wayne and Murray) who not only humiliate him personally but are connected to the political system that cuts funding for healthcare for the poor. Having said that I think the heavy-handed "we live in a society" stuff and ill-fitting music montages are off-putting for a lot of people including me. Not a bad film though - could have been a lot better though with some different creative decisions.
I think they are quite nasty to anyone outside of the frat boy mindset. I disagree with him about being funny though - the first film was very funny. I
"The Big Bang Theory" was never actually clever. it just touched on superficial signifiers of cleverness. "Frasier" was never actually sophisticated. it simply drew on trite signifiers of sophistication. Likewise, "Joker" is not a deep, meaningful nor even well-made movie. It's just cynically designed to remind you of all the movies you thought were deep and meaningful from your formative film-watching days. It's not even subtle about it. Ultimately it's Mark Ronson's "Deathwish" or UB40's "Falling Down." I think Mark Kermode was too kind to the movie but also too unkind to Arthur/Joker. I also regret that Kermode was more intrested in ^reviewing^ the cultural hype surrounding the movie than the movie itself. It's not (or at least shouldn't be) his job to be concerned with what other critics or social commentators or online fandoms say about a movie.
You are comparing an action drama to a sitcom? The hell? Frasier, like freinds and everybody loves raymond, revolves around the comedic concept of creating a social conundrum for the characters and waiting for the characters to react in a nonsensical manner. With films like Joker and Falling Down, the protagonist, over a period of time, emotionally snaps due to external environmental factors and such factors are explored through the characters parochial view/s. Such comparisons of media is faulty and to express your dismay with such media as "it's point is irrelevant" is ignorant
@@dinogoldie9716 I was only dissecting a part of your point, but you are too much of a baby to respond to the other person who literally shat all over your argument
The argument that joker isn't a well made movie is so objectively wrong, even if your weird political agenda doesn't like the movie, you cannot disregard the great script, acting and cinematography and all other factors which make the movie superb. It wasn't "designed to remind you that films are deep", because the characters have development, there is an actual progressing plot, the joker has clear motivations for his actions which are reflected throughout his external environment. If you want to watch a meaningless "deep" movie, just go watch A Serbian Film
Woke culture hasn't killed comedy - Kermode. He might want to actually look at the news of the last few years where comedians have been kicked off the stage at universities, protested at, and cancelled and by the comments from all and sundry in the comedy world; Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chapelle, ect, ect.
The humour of your oblivious point is that all the people you've cited are still huge, public figures with massive platforms and paychecks. Chappelle has netfflix deal after netflix deal even though his work is increasingly becoming a weird mix of therapy and recrimination, Stephen Fry is still the ubiquitous media whore he always has been as he waffles on about his books on Graham Norton to adoring a-list celebrities, Ricky Gervais has After Life in which the show seems to exist to make his character seem like the smartest guy in the room and have everyone who isn't Gervais' character look gormless, and as for Rowan Atkinson who is pretty inactive in the public eye anyway I doubt anyone would say no to him if he wanted to do the next franchise film of Johnny English Gets His Prostate Checked or something like that. Cancelling sounds pretty good to me.
Didn't Chapelle play Madison Square Garden? Atkinson had a Netflix project, so did Gervais, Fry's still working Think all the people you mentioned are doing fine
@@petew5399 They maybe doing fine but how about listening to what they actually say about it and how they are afraid of certain topics, or have to skirt around them and how a whole generation who are coming up aren't, and are being given lists of topics not to discuss. John Cleese has got a new follow-up sequel to 'Fawlty Towers' which he plans to use as a satire on the madness. The Woke are just the New Puritans, pretending to care for minorities. Distorting the language in an Orwellian fashion, with women referred to as "chest-feeders" and the BBC proclaiming that there are 200 human genders on their Children's website, and whilst the Scottish "leader" was willing to put a convicted male rapist into an all female Scottish prison. Nicola Sturgeon lost her job for it and the party is plummeting. All those that you mentioned were comedians that made it big enough before the unveiling of Woke ideology and laws in the last 6 or 7 years. Even then, the mainstream media critics savage the stand up events (Chapelle, Gervais), whilst the public love it - just have a look at the rating sites, such Rotten Tomatoes (same goes for the woke refurbished Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Marvel franchises). There trigger warnings for TV shows, films and books, some like Roald Dahl even being re-written by others - pure Orwell.
jut like our dity potholed streets. this film reflects our frustration with the corrupt immral world we inhabit and porvides kermods easy bbc life. yuck.
