Joker - Movie Review

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleschler, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham and Marc Maron.

Written by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver.

Directed by Todd Phillips.

★★★½ 

This is unlike any DC “comic book movie” that’s come before. This has taken the skin of the Joker and placed over the aesthetic of a late 1970’s-early 1980’s Martin Scorsese movie. It owes a lot to The King of Comedy, but its main inspiration would be Taxi Driver. It’s fitting that DeNiro shows up here.

The film centers on Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), an obviously disturbed man with mental illness, on seven medications, but facing a cruel 1981 Gotham where the gap between rich and poor has never been more stark. This isn’t an origin story so much as a journey, and the series of unfortunate events that befall him feel like a hindsight explanation of how we’re going to end where we know we’re going to end.

1981 Gotham feels just like the New York we see in Taxi Driver, the New York you could believe would turn into a prison-state when Kurt Russell went to go help someone escape from it, or would have Popeye Doyle beat up suspects.

The cinematography is top-notch, the score is spot-on, and the screenplay takes us down this dark, bleak hole, where we watch a man decide that the only way the world makes sense is if he stops caring about right and wrong.

I can’t praise Joaquin Phoenix’s performance enough. He embodies every inch of the character. He commands the screen the entire time and there’s not one wasted gesture or glance. I would argue in the third act, he becomes the scariest on-screen Joker we’ve ever had.

I can see why this is getting mixed reviews, but some of it is unfair. The “buzz” around it inspiring copycat killers was ridiculous. The political statements it makes are ones that you’d think “woke” critics would agree with. Also, it’s a feel-bad movie. It’s one you respect or admire but it’s not “fun.” Which is why it reminds me of Taxi Driver. It’s unilaterally considered a classic, but it’s not one anyone wants to watch over and over again.

Side note: My wife pointed out some problems with some revelations from Arthur’s childhood, but I can chalk those up to “Gotham in 1950 was really messed up.”

Silence - Movie Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Ciaran Hinds, Issei Ogata, Yosuke Kobuzuka, Yoshi Oida, Shin'ya Tsukamoto and Nana Komatsu.
Written by Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.

★★½

Silence is adapted from a 1966 novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo. Martin Scorsese has been trying to get this film made for over two decades. It's clear he respects his source material. It feels like he respected it too much. There's a sprawling quality to it where the movie suffers from repetitive narrative beats.

The first half is the strongest. In 1640, two Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver) request to go to Japan, where their mentor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) is rumored to have left the faith. As Christianity is illegal in Japan, the priests must be hid by secret members. The Japanese Christians are grateful to finally have priests among them. The last few they had were killed or apostasized.

The second half is mostly filled with people getting tortured and/or killed, Garfield's Father Rodrigues speaking with the torturers, angst, rain, cruelty, and unanswered prayers.

I almost had this Apocalypse Now anticipation for when Ferreira might show up, but he shows up late, and it's pretty anti-climactic. In fact, I didn't like his character. And while I like Garfield - he was excellent in Hacksaw Ridge - he isn't quite up to the task of what he's supposed to be here.

There are many questions of faith wrestled with here. Does it really mean anything if you say you renounce God when you still believe in your heart? The movie does not make cartoon villains of the Japanese torturers either. My mind kept going back to how heretics were getting tortured and killed back home.

The last ten minutes felt like a lengthy denouement a novel would have, but the same beats could have been done in two minutes.

The Wolf of Wall Street - Movie Review

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin, Jon Bernthal, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti, PJ Byrne, Shea Whigham and Ethan Suplee.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.

★★★

The true story of Jordan Belfort, a Wall Street wizard who stole millions of dollars from thousands of people, and he is one of hundreds of others doing the same.  Sure, there are honest people in the financial industry, but there are a lot of dishonest ones too, and those are the ones who make life worse for the 99%.

There's been some criticism of this film that it glorifies Jordan. That's like saying Goodfellas glorifies Henry Hill.  It's a fun ride to watch, but you don't deep down actually want his life. If you do, you're a bad person.

One thing Wolf of Wall Street makes clear - it takes talent to be evil. Jordan may be a raging narcissist, but he's also excellent at selling, and lying, and leading others.  We don't see his victims because he never thinks about them. If he does, it's flippant. At one point he narrates that the way he sees it, it's better that he has the money rather than those middle-class people he's ripping off, because he knows how to spend it. Says the guy who does enough cocaine to power a small city.

It's a three-hour biopic that takes us on the decadent ride of an amoral man and his band of merry swindlers who get rich quick with no conscience. He grew up with one goal - to be rich. Didn't care how, and didn't really have a noble goal of what to do with his wealth either.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives a ferocious performance, maybe a career best for him.  It's his fifth collaboration with Scorsese (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Shutter Island being the other four), and they really seem to have each other's rhythms down.

Did it need to be three hours? I don't think so. The parade of immorality goes on pretty long.  I don't think we really need that many scenes of drugs and hookers, but my understanding is his first cut could have been four hours.  It is darkly funny, like one scene where he's near paralyzed from Quaaludes but tries to drive home anyway.

So yeah, this movie ended and I felt like I'd seen a very well-made ride of a shallow, empty man who had the potential to do some good with his talents, but with no ethics or principles, he just ruined lives to feed his need for greed instead. But I do have that McConaughey chest-thumping song still stuck in my head.

Hugo - Movie Review

★★★½

Starring Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlberg, Frances de la Tour and Richard Griffiths.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.

"I address you as you are: wizards and mermaids, travelers, adventurers; come and dream with me!"

In many ways, this "kids" movie is the one Martin Scorsese was born to direct. Based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, it's about a boy who winds the clocks at a Parisian train station long after his drunkard uncle has disappeared. He must avoid the station inspector, who likes to catch orphans like rats. Which is understandable. After all Hugo shoplifts his meals every day.

Hugo also steals parts here and there from the toy shop of Georges (Ben Kingsley). Hugo has an automoton from his late father, and he hopes when he fixes it, it will have a message for him.

The movie starts out with kid-movie trappings but the deeper into the story, the deeper the emotions run, and it becomes a tribute to the magic of moviemaking.

Hugo win NBR's Best Film

The National Board of Review gave out their awards.

Best Film: Hugo
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50
Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, The Descendants
Best Animated Feature: Rango
Breakthrough Performance: Felicity Jones, Like Crazy
Breakthrough Performance: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Debut Director: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Best Ensemble: The Help
Spotlight Award: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, X-Men: First Class)
NBR Freedom of Expression: Crime After Crime
NBR Freedom of Expression: Pariah
Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Best Documentary: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Special Achievement in Filmmaking: The Harry Potter Franchise – A Distinguished Translation from Book to Film

Top Films
(in alphabetical order)

The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
Tree of Life
War Horse

Top 5 Foreign Language Films
(In Alphabetical Order)

13 Assassins
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Footnote
Le Havre
Point Blank

Top 5 Documentaries
(In Alphabetical Order)

Born to be Wild
Buck
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Project Nim
Senna

Top 10 Independent Films
(In Alphabetical Order)

50/50
Another Earth
Beginners
A Better Life
Cedar Rapids
Margin Call
Shame
Take Shelter
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Win Win


Conspicuous by their absense: Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Iron Lady.

After its mixed reviews, I'm surprised J. Edgar made their top ten.