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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cJoker\u201d\nis a film whose reputation precedes it. It has a good reputation because it won\nthe Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival and Joaquin Phoenix is\ngenerating Oscar buzz for his performance as the title character. But it also\nhas a bad reputation because it\u2019s a dark, violent, adult take on a popular\ncomic book character that seems to celebrate irresponsible social upheaval.\nThis in and of itself might not be so bad, except that the Batman film \u201cThe\nDark Knight Rises\u201d was connected to a mass shooting in 2012, and some believe\nthat the subject matter in this origin film for Batman\u2019s arch nemesis is\ninviting a similar incident. With such strong opinions pulling in opposite\ndirections, I suppose it should come as no surprise that the film is\u2026 middling.\nIt will ultimately be remembered for its controversy more than anything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phoenix\nstars as Arthur Fleck, a man not incapable of niceness, but who lives in a\nworld that gives him little reason to be nice. He\u2019s a social misfit because he\nhas a condition that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times, his\npsychologist won\u2019t up his meds, his mentally ill mother (Frances Conroy) keeps\nwaiting on a check from Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) that\u2019s never going to come,\na garbage strike is making everybody in Gotham City miserable, and people just\ngenerally don\u2019t respect him because of his job as a clown. But he has a few\nsolaces in his life, like comedic talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro),\nand a neighbor (Zazie Beetz) who\u2019s at least willing to smile at him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following\na senseless beating, Arthur obtains a gun, which he handles carelessly, firing\nin his apartment and letting fall out of his pocket in a children\u2019s hospital,\nwhich gets him fired. He does have cause to use it on a trio of Wayne\nEnterprise employees who attack him on a train, but his retaliation escalates\nfrom self-defense to sadism. Thomas Wayne makes some ill-advised comments about\nthe killings that fan the flames of class warfare in Gotham. Arthur\u2019s clown\nvisage becomes the symbol of an inevitable uprising as Arthur himself becomes more\nand more comfortable with violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nto that violence, its role in the film has perhaps been overstated. Yes, this\nmovie deserves an R rating and is not appropriate for kids. But it\u2019s not filled\nwith nonstop savagery that pushes the boundaries of the R rating. It mostly\nconsists of shooting, and not to downplay the horrific consequences of gun\nviolence, but I\u2019ve seen the Joker shoot people before. I\u2019ve also seen him\nelectrocute people into skeletons and impale a guy through the eyeball\n(admittedly just offscreen, but still\u2026). I can\u2019t say that the shootings (and\none even softer method) are as shocking as those. I can confirm, however, that\none scene with a knife is the single most disgusting ever in a Joker or Batman\nmovie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside\nfrom the fact that it involves an iconic character, \u201cJoker\u201d is a pretty\nstandard revenge-on-society flick. It borrows so heavily from Scorsese\u2019s \u201cTaxi\nDriver\u201d and \u201cThe King of Comedy,\u201d not to mention previous Joker movies and\ncomics, that it barely has any ideas of its own. Believe me, I already knew\nthat the Joker thinks that society and the expectation to adhere to its rules\nare \u201ca joke.\u201d The only thing really memorable about the movie is Pheonix\u2019s\nperformance, which he nails. I\u2019m sure there will be many who try to imitate his\nbizarre mixture of laughing and crying, but none of them will be able to convey\ninner torture the way he does. He makes the character interesting, even if the\nmovie surrounding him isn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJoker\u201d is rated R for strong\nbloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images. Its\nrunning time is 122 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver \u201cJoker\u201d is a film whose reputation precedes it. It has a good reputation because it won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":44976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}