Joker

So we're going to be reviewing the new releases, Clayface, the Batman villain who gets his own film.

The second one to do that, I guess, after Joker, and I guess third after Harley Quinn, if you think about it, but that was more of an ensemble.

And

Catwoman.

But Clayface also didn't cost a ton.

Which is an interesting choice.

They went the Joker route over at Warner Brothers.

They have a new superhero universe.

So I had a real hard time with its tonal swings.

But again, it's a little bit of what I argued with the Joker, the Joaquin Phoenix Joker when it came out, which I don't think is a great movie, but I think it actually works better if you look at it through the prism of none of it was real.

It's that classic Hollywood trope of it was a dream or it was all in his head.

That...

Joker, I think works much better under that, under that prism.

Does that make it even more cliched and a bit trite? Maybe, but I think psychologically there's more cogency to the film as a result.

If you want to look at whale fall in that way and the, It is much more overt in this than what Joker even was, I would argue, given what takes place in the final act of Whale Fall.

So if you want to look at it from that prism of, oh, it's just a metaphor movie.

no, no, no.

And one of the Arkham games, I can't remember which, uh, but he, he's actually Joker for like most of the game.

Hmm.

Yeah, so he's playing a role.

My vote's Batman and Robin.

Hmm.

Yeah, Joker's terrible.

He's barely in it.

So yeah, just kind of like an okay thing that's a little bit stylish, but not so stylish.

It's not as stylized, I would say, as Joker, You know what I mean? Joker was like, what if it was all style? And they really went ham for style.

This is some style.

No substance, some style.

But I think the CG actually looks quite good for what I think the budget of this movie must have been.

I think everything for the budget that this movie is is quite good.

I think that everything – because there are times where you can see that this movie does not have the budget of a lot of the other – even like Sony villain-verse things or the budget of something like Joker.

Like when I talk about style versus substance, there's shots in the Joker movie where it's like they've closed down an entire city block and converted every building into a 60s-era building and have like – hundred extras in period-appropriate clothing as Joaquin Phoenix runs over a bunch of cabs that have been redressed to be cabs of that time.

anything like that,

your mind goes to Joker.

Are you watching Joker? Joaquin Phoenix? It's awesome.

Without Batman, you've got the TV host played by Robert De Niro in Joker.

This time, I will say this, Rob Brydon is the TV host.

So the comparisons are there.

I mean, look, this movie is doing better stuff than the worst of those Spider-Man, you know, Spider-less movies, Spider-Man-less movies.

It's not as, I guess, like... thematically engaging and, you know, all that from that...

The Orbiton Window, you're used to everything sucking.

The next example I gave in that article was, what was it? The Joker movie.

The first one with Joaquin Phoenix.

Not the second one, not Joker 2.

The first Joker movie.

The first Joker movie was fine.

It was okay.

Was it bad? No, it wasn't a bad movie.

Why are we in the age where we think it's okay to make villain origin stories? Most of these villains don't have enough following for the general audience to give them their own origin story.

Joker, okay.

Joker was a one-off with Joaquin Phoenix, which went on to win awards and it was a good movie.

But then when they came out with part two, what happened? There's conspiracies that it was made trash on purpose to fail and Joaquin didn't want to do it.

He wanted to leave Joker 1 as is.

There were rumors of that.

And then you insert Lady Gaga and it became an epic fail.

But what about as an awards obsessive and pundit, as we all pretend to be, do you have a single proudest moment? Like you predicted something that was a risk and it paid off.

Yes, it was, was it 2019? The year of Joaquin Phoenix winning for the Joker or for Joker.

I saw the film early on.

And, you know, you think Joker, you think DC, you think superhero.

It was everything but that.

And I was like, oh, he's going to win the Oscar.