Joker (Todd Phillips, October 4, 2019) Movie • Page 56

serious cinema for people that post this

 

Plus it's not as if the Wayne/Batman stuff was when it decided to get "Comic Book"-y lol. They tried to play that shit as "serious cinema" too

 

So what does make it “serious cinema” then?

Just curious.

 

You guys know you’re in the minority on these opinions, right?

How was it not?

 

What?

 

So many terrible threads on this site lately.

 

I'm about to go hide in my fridge.

 

What compels people on this site to post things like this? What do you think this adds? How is it not just an attempt at posturing for others?

Edit: I don't mean to come after you specifically, because so many people have made these kinds of posts in the past couple days. Each time it just comes across as silly

 

How were those scenes not serious cinema?

 

I said that they were played as dead serious and dramatic, despite being the only part of the film that was directly lifted from the comic book character. Tim says he wishes it was more "comic book"-y, which I guess is open to interpretation but I take it as meaning fun/silly/campy/etc., but the actual comic book material they covered wasn't that

 

Obviously there’s no real such thing as “serious cinema”, but there is always this thrust to have comic book movies treated “seriously”, which means by the same standards as all other movies, particularly more high-minded, auteur cinema. In which case, okay, let’s treat Joker that way and critique it seriously. Held to that standard, it falls apart. It has no coherent statement to make, it is a lesser retread of better films that have come before (Scorsese’s Taxi Driver/King of Comedy in particular, as has been noted over and over again). The lens of the film is too detached from Arthur to pull the viewer in to the same extent that Taxi Driver and the King of Comedy do, it instead tries to overly punish him over and over again to elicit sympathy when the protagonists of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy are sympathetic because of how well the filmmaking brings us into their minds, rather than because they keep getting beat up/fired/taken advantage of/looked down upon. The movie and it’s title character are hollow.

 

I think Spider-Verse, Logan, the Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, and Black Panther hold up to serious critique very well, for what it’s worth. I’m not anti-superhero movie.

 

The Incredibles is honestly the best superhero movie. Like it's not even close imo

 

Men in Black is a hilarious and super well made comic book movie, too

 

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse really set a new standard for both "superhero movie" & "comic book movie" that'll honestly be super hard for anything else to match for me. Such a brilliant film.

Too bad the most recent Spider-Man film wasn't good (live action Spidey shouldn't be that hard), but hey, at least Joker kept it from being my least favorite comic book movie of 2019?

 

The moment you bring Spider-Verse into the conversation, every other comic book movie is gonna fall flat.

 

I still haven’t seen it but I practically never connect with animated movies or shows, so idk if it’s gonna work for me or not.

 

Josie and the Pussycats is also a great comic book adaptation

 

Also there are plenty of dumb goofy movies that own it and are great

Ghost Rider was terrible but I'd rather at least watch Nicolas Cage and Wes Bentley have fun

 

Imagine being a ride or die for Arthur Clownman

 

If you keep calling him that I’ll become one too. He sounds lovely that way.

 

true, now that you mention it I would lay down my life for Clownman

 

instead of spoonman it’s now clownman

 

sorry if that’s too twisted

 

I definitely was already singing that.