• Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    27 days ago

    Hot take: Quentin Tarantino is the most overrated living director. His only good movies were Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction. Everything else is a parody of itself (not in a good way) because he just takes scenes from other movies, mashes them together in a nonlinear story, then has everyone die because he doesn’t know how to write an ending to the incoherent plot he’s spliced together from better filmmakers.

    I also suspect he was buddy-buddy with Harvey Weinstein but managed to slip under the radar because he avoids talking about his personal life.

  • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    27 days ago

    I saw the film last night and I enjoyed it. It was a bit long and could have done with better editing. They should have leaned harder into the musical elements. But it wasn’t the train wreck I’d been led to believe it was.

    I recommend people see it and make their own minds up

    • ZoomeristLeninist [they/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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      27 days ago

      i rlly want to see it. i want it to be a proper musical but it sounds like it’s not :(

      is it like the Barbie movie where it’s mostly just scenes that put more importance on the music and only one proper musical scene with singing and choreography?

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        27 days ago

        I’d say there are maybe 8 to 10 musical numbers. They are all very short though and they are often interrupted. The movie is not a musical and anyone who says it is has clearly never seen a musical. About half of the numbers take place in some sort of liminal musical reality whilst the others take place directly where the characters are in the moment. I think they work very well which is why I wanted to see more of them. Sometimes it felt like they were scared to commit.

        The rest of the film was good I thought, and I was never bored. I just wish they’d got the most out of the concept. It’s sad that this will probably be the end of this continuity as I think it could have continued (albeit in a different direction).

        • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          26 days ago

          About half of the numbers take place in some sort of liminal musical reality whilst the others take place directly where the characters are in the moment.

          spoiler

          That’s to show were Arthur begins dissociating and when the Joker instead of Arthur is fronting. Arthur and the Joker are headmates, they’re distinct personalities sharing one body, and the difference between song and dance with a subdued instrumental score in the normal set vs full musical number with change of scenery has a purpose in narrating what is going on with the system that is constituted by these two headmates (and possibly more, although their existence is only hinted at). I have just seen the movie and haven’t yet talked about it with a friend who’s both a massive musical and film nerd and also plural, so i’m gonna withhold judgement on how well they handled this topic, but it’s fairly obvious to anybody who’s spent some time with people with plural experiences that Arthur and the Joker are supposed to be different ego states within a system. It’s also expressly stated in the film even though it uses outdated language like “multiple personality” and Harvey Dent acts purposefully ignorant on what that means and how to recognize it, but it’s very clearly shown as well.

          I also think this shows how ingrained ableism is with the chuds who criticize the movie - you can show the Joker as a “mentally ill loser in a society that doesn’t care” and they clap as long as they can hallucinate him as a fight club tough guy sigma, but when you go all in on what “mentally ill loser in a society that doesn’t care” means, how forensic psychiatry and legal institutions treat a neurodivergent person, when you realistically show what is going on inside their head, when you detail the complex trauma in their past, when you compellingly show their weakness and violation and pain, these hogs cannot handle it.

    • AmericaDeserved711 [any]@hexbear.net
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      26 days ago

      just watched it and still have no idea how to feel about it, but damn that was a bold swing and I gotta respect that. props to Mr. Hangover for making something that strange, experimental and risky for a major studio film. I agree, people should see the movie for themselves before judging it. a lot of people will jump on the hate train just because they see a low rotten tomatoes score and that’s sad

      • Flyberius [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        26 days ago

        I’m honestly not trying to be contrarian, but a lot of movies that catch massive hate online I actually end up liking. I only went to see this one because it was catching so much flak.

  • Thallo [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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    27 days ago

    I notice that this narrative is getting passed around. There’s this idea that the movie was specifically made to piss off the people who liked the first one. I’ve also seen the weird term “Hollywood humiliation ritual” being thrown around again.

    But why would a studio spend millions of dollars to do this? I just don’t get it.

    It really has vibes of (((Hollywood))) attempting to humiliate a certain demographic (white males) by degrading their cultural iconography.

    It just seems like a really chud way to frame the narrative. Wouldn’t they actually try to make money by producing the same slop for the same audience?

    • kleeon [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      27 days ago

      Wouldn’t they actually try to make money by producing the same slop for the same audience?

      There wasn’t really a “they” apparently. The studio basically gave the director free rein to do whatever he wants with the movie, given how successful the first one was

    • AmericaDeserved711 [any]@hexbear.net
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      26 days ago

      this idea that the movie was specifically made to piss off the people who liked the first one

      yeah I don’t really buy this either. in fact the whole idea that Joker (2019) has some horrible fanbase is entirely socially constructed and not based in reality. the narrative that the movie was for “incels” was created before the film even came out and persists to this day, even though Arthur Fleck never actually did become a symbol that incels rallied around. the fact is that all sorts of people liked the movie for all sorts of reasons (and plenty of people disliked it too)

      there’s no way Todd Phillips hates everyone who liked Joker. he probably likes it himself, having directed the film. he made Joker 2 for the people who enjoyed the first film as a character study of a broken man let down by the system and how alienation can lead to senseless violence. he very explicitly did not make it for the people who wanted Joker 2: Joker vs Batman, which is what Quentin is getting at here.

  • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    27 days ago

    I hate this guy so much. Made a few admittedly pretty good movies in the '90s, but the rest of his films are terrible, and he’s been lauded as some sort of Film God ever since. I mean, I’ll always watch a new Tarantino movie because I know it’ll be decently fun to watch (and be mad at) and all his films are technically very well made and typically are full of good actors giving entertaining performances (of weak material). So I guess credits due where credits due.

    But his post-'90s work all feels so self-indulgent, so masturbatory. Clearly Quentin Tarantino also believes himself to be a genius, with very important ideas on film. Any time I hear this guy say anything he comes off as so smug and self-congratulatory and you can feel that attitude throughout every moment of his work. Add on the racism and zionism and he’s just a vile man who I wish would go away.

    But I can see where he’d get this read about Joker 2. It’s certainly the way chuds took it. Don’t think I agree, though. I feel like if anything this movie was like “all you dumbasses intentionally misconstrued the first movie as some sort of ode to toxic masculinity, so I’ll make the same point as last time but more clearly.”

    This is neither here nor there, but I somehow listened to this review podcast thing of Joker 2, I think it ended up on my twitter feed or something, and it was just three libs who didn’t like the movie, but I got the feeling they didn’t like it because the character of Joker was seized by chuds as an icon and they couldn’t articulate that. Anyway, one of their only cogent reasons for hating the movie was “Lady Gaga’s Harley gets used and tossed aside by a narcissist.” And I just wanted to ask them if they saw the same movie I did. How did they want it to end? With Arthur taking up Harley’s offer to full personify the Joker and live out the rest of his life as some kind of blood-crazed monster?

    They also complained that the musical numbers didn’t blow them away. Which I guess is fair, but I also feel like that’s not totally engaging with the movie on its terms. The musical numbers are the hallucinations of a deranged spree murderer who can only sometimes tell fantasy from reality. Complaining that they aren’t incredible is a bit like complaining that Arthur’s stand-up in Joker wasn’t funny. But, I don’t know, maybe I’m giving the movie too much credit there.

    • koberulz@lemmy.ml
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      26 days ago

      “It should have been a fun movie where Joker goes on a rampage through Gotham and causes chaos” is a take I’ve seen far too much of. It’s “Gandhi should have finished with him gunning down his opponents” levels of missing the point.

      FWIW, I can’t really agree with the “it’s a genius depiction of mental illness and will be reappraised in time” takes, either. I just thought it was…fine? Not great, not terrible, just there.

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    27 days ago

    They’re used to being angry, you can’t beat them by making a bad movie

    It’s a waste of effort

    Just make good shit that doesn’t have anything to do with their crime clown

    • koberulz@lemmy.ml
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      26 days ago

      I only just discovered recently that TPJ had a Blu-ray release. Deeply annoyed; I could’ve added it to an order I made a while back.