Date: Fri Jan 24 14:03:38 PST 2020
Title: Joker, the underdog of 2019
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SPOILER-FREE TL;DR: I fucking love this film and you should watch
it. Buy the DVD. Torrent it. Watch it at a friend's house.
What ever. Just see it.
=== OKAY I'M GOING TO SPOIL THE FILM NOW YOU'VE BEEN WARNED ===
This film is probably the best thing I've seen in 2019. I went
into this movie expecting it to be the “incel” movie, but I'm glad
to say that there's a lot more going on in this film than that.
I've been thinking of what I should say about it since I saw it,
and only now do I feel comfortable enough to write at least some
of my thoughts on the film.
Joker depicts the spiraling series of events that turned Arthur
Fleck into the iconic Batman arch-nemesis. It offers a fresh take
that other Joker origin stories didn't do; with Arthur being pushed
by his mother, his failing carrer, and that one night on the train
home. All of these events pushed Arthur past his breaking point
and allowed him to release his rage in the clown make-up and
violence that we've all memed about online.
One thing I wasn't looking forward to in the film was the fact that
this was an origin story. The previous good depiction of the Joker
was Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Night. Apart from
Ledger's iconic portrayal, his character was menacing _because_ of
a lack of origin. He even got to play with this in the scenes where
he told the story of where he got his scars, truly driving the point
home where this man was a true force of evil. I thought going in
that this terrifying aspect wouldn't be there because we could see
how this character came to be, thus being able to sympathise better.
It also doesn't help that other origin stories depict the Joker
falling into a vat of acid that not only bleaches his face, but makes
him go craaAAAAzzZZYYyy!!!¡¡¡!!¡¡¡
But what made me love this origin story was how _real_ it felt.
There weren't any cheesy moments like you would get in a typical
comic book/cartoons. Even Nolan's previously mentioned depiction was
grand in a way that only comic book movies could be. This new Joker
was far more believalbe. The major turning point in the movie, the
subway scene, the point where Arthur Fleck became the Joker, involved
nothing more than his uncontrolable laughter, some punks that started
harrassing him for it, and a gun....
Up until that moment, Fleck felt like he had no control over his life.
He told his therapist that he didn't know if he was in a dream or not.
But after those seven shots, Fleck knew of a way to gain back control
in his life. And that gives me chills.
I titled the article “Joker, the underdog of 2019” for a reason which
I'll go into now. This film was not an expensive film to make. The
budget on the film was $55M. This was _all_ that WB would be giving
the film because they were very hesitant to move forward with this.
The theater in Aurora, Colorado refused to play it at the request of
three families of the victims of the shooting that occured there in
2012. There was also a big scare put on by The Media™ that this
movie would inspire another mass shooter. Almost as though they
didn't want the movie to succeed.
But it didn't go the way they planned.
One billion dollars at the box office and eleven Academy Award
nominations later, Joker turned out to be one of the most profitable
films made. It is currently the 32nd highest grossing film of all
time, surpassing Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode 1, and even The
Lion King.
This film suceeded despite many people trying to shut it down. Hell,
even I didn't expect much from it due to the media coverage. But
this film rose to the occasion and became a historic film. I feel
that we're going to be talking about this film for years to come.
