KCxTPB:Joker: Folie à Deux

Weird, Mike. I don't think we're going to talk any more than an hour, and I know you probably don't want to talk any more than about five minutes about this movie. It I feel very unfair. Yeah, it's pretty obvious, like you bury the lead as it were, you fucking hated this You fucking hated this movie before you even saw it. I wanted to give it a shot, you know, I but I will.

So, granted, I don't know if I don't know how true that is. Granted, I didn't like Joker. I have a personal beef with Todd Phillips, and I never really watched the Batman cartoons, so I don't know the quote unquote real story of Harley Quinn and Joker. I mean, I've seen Suicide Squad more times than I wish to recount. This Joker is just about as obnoxious as Jared Leto, I would think.

But yeah, maybe I was ning and wait for this movie and just wanting to rip into it, and luckily it's given me a big opportunity here. Yeah, I feel yeah, I feel like this movie is this movie is gonna make it very easy on people to hate. Uh and boy, time to have an unpopular opinion. I kind of find this movie fascinating because I don't understand what the hell Todd Phillips was doing. I mean, I I do understand, at least I have my own headcin and hear of what Todd Phillips was doing.

And I think that based on the amount of times Todd Phillips's name shows up on this and I'm talking directed by, written by, those are things that really lead me to believe that a certain thing was going on here. And I think a certain thing was going on here this whole time. One might say that the story of Joker is being is the story of Joker not being used as a stand in for like certain real people of our times? Is that not what this is? Is this not like a on an episode of the Culture Cast featuring me the host of the Culture Cast, Christashi, much the chagrin of two people and Mike White from the projection booth.

That's a weird intro, but we're going with it. It sure was, I know, but it's verraz I was just giving you an abruptness that the movie does with the title credits. I want to say, are we going to be talking about a movie that might be a parable for real people on this episode that's a crossover, because I think that's what this is supposed to be, which is fine. I'm looking forward to you unpacking that for me. This is so within two weeks, no three weeks, no two weeks, I have witnessed car crashes on screen.

I have to say that Megalopolis is a much more fascinating car crash and one that I will probably be studying, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's an episode in my future of that. I've actually pre ordered the DVD. I will not be watching this one again, just like I only watched Joker the one time, because I just find it so distasteful and I can understand where you're coming from as far as it's a fascinating failure, but it's not one that I care to dig in too much. I actually don't think it's a failure of a movie. I think it's rather successful.

I just think it's rather successful at doing something not particularly palatable. But I think that that was the point of the first movie, and that's the thing. I went and rewatched the first movie earlier this year, okay about four months ago, say so recently that I know, I cataloged it on letterboxed thanks to our friend Ryan Verrol, who may or may not be listening to this. Thanks Ryan, I use letterbox now for everything. And so I went and rewatched Joker on his suggestion, and I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more this time now, primarily because of my own struggles with mental health.

And I know that that's a big part of the first movie is the character is a mental health like struggler big time, and that ends up being I mean, look, I don't know if I needed a movie to relitigate the first movie to me, you know, no pun intended. This movie spends the entire movie relitigating the first movie. But you know what, I kind of low key love that about this movie because what happened in the first movie deserves to be reltigated. If what you're going to do is point out the fact that this guy is a complete and utter waste of time, just like Jeffrey Dahmer, just like Ted Gate or John Gacy, just like Ted Bundy. All these dudes are a waste of time and they're not worth idolized.

And the only people that idolize them are the people that are just as bad as they are or just as broken as they are. I mean, look, we have several characters in this film idolizing Joker, from Harley Quinn played by Lady Gaga to another just inmate guy who let me get to the end of the movie. We get to it. But yeah, there's a lot going on here. And I'm not trying to sway your opinion by the end of this podcast.

Far from it, because I don't think that there's any uh not, because I don't think I can do that, but because I understand how unbelievably unpalatable this movie is. I really do, like everything about it is pretty unpalatable. But I do think that that's the point, and I think that if you can, I mean, if you can at least observe it that way, I think it maybe bears out fruit a little bit more. But I understand in a lot of ways, like in what God's Name What, I want to give a walking Phoenix mumbling musical anytime of day because it's a mumbling musical that has Lady Gaga in it, one of the most objectively talented female I mean musicians period of all time. Curio, This is a very long intro.

But Yes, on this episode of the Culture Cast and the Projection Booth, we're talking about twenty twenty four's Fully I Do, Joker, Fully I Do. You got a big day today? You better put on her happy face. Arthur Fleck is a monster. I you exactly what he was doing.

His depraved acts of violence led to riot spiers followers. And they are still willing to commit acts of violence in his name. Looking around, look at all these people. Who do you think they see? You can do anything you want.

You're douk grated are. It's directed by Todd Phillips, written by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, based on characters quote unquote from DC as I believe, were intended to believe, And it does continue the story from the previous Joker film that came out back in twenty nineteen, a more pastoral time when all we were worried about was this movie making people angry as opposed to anybody going and seeing it in this movie's case, and the film does once againstar Joaquin Phoenix as Joker, Lady Gaga plays Harley Quinn. We have Brendan Gleeson in there, Catherine Keener's Zazzi beats and Steve Coogan stop by for a literal cup of coffee in the movie, I have no other way of putting it other than glorified cameos.

And yeah, as I already hinted at, we will be spoiling the movie in this movie. The plot of this movie is to relitigate the first movie and give us a look at now what happens that Joker is in jail and as he slips further into his mental delusions about his own importance in the world and whether or not the person and idea that he created has outgrown who he is, or if he ever even mattered to begin with. So, Mike, I kick it to you spoilers from here on out. I think there's no point not in not addressing the spoilers. I know you would probably say don't check the movie out right, I mean skip, would you say skip?

Oh? But I mean, like I said, it's a car crash, so a lot of people are curious about that. So I'm not going to blame you. If you want to see this wreck feel free, that's great. And I'm not just gonna like, man, man, it's bad, it's bad.

It's bad because no, I know that's your Hey, that's not you. That's somebody else less less talented at doing this than you or I are. Yeah, because I want to find meaning in this and I have to. I think there is plenty. I just think it's really it's under a lot of muck intentionally by Todd Phillips.

I just wanted to say, I don't think that Joaquin Phoenix plays Joker in this movie. I think he plays Arthur Fleck. And that's part of the problem of it, is that he's barely Joker in this movie, and he really doesn't go back to that, and when he does go back to that, gets the black voice. He does a black scent as Joker, and he's cross ex emmining at least one witness. Oh.

I took that as like a Southern like a Southern drawl thing. Instead, I was hearing Amos and Andy from the Old two radio show. Okay, I was hearing like God the like Kingfisher or somebody who was the one that was defending evolution. Oh, Clarence Darrow. Yeah, like that, That's what I was hearing.

That kind of like southern bousheit, lawyer horseshit. Like that's what I was hearing, but I mean again, I didn't hear the step and fetch it. I can kind of see it. I mean again, Well, fuck boy, we'll get to that, and we'll get to that. Continue though about Joaquin Phoenix playing Arthur Fleck and not Joker.

Yeah, well, well first let's start at the beginning. What do you make of the cartoon intro to this? Because I thought it was an interesting way to start it, and it is. Finally they're telling us what year it is because there's a nineteen eighty three copyright on this Warner Brother cartoon Me and My Shadow starring Joker. Which is really funny because that's the name of a.

Song, right right. Oh yeah, And when he's in the backstage, it looks like he's backstage at the whatever, the Robert de Niro Showy Franklin, Mary Franklin. He's at the Franklin Theater. As he or his shadow are walking out of the Joaquin out of the dressing room, there are all these musical posters on the wall. So yeah, they're really setting up that this is a musical.

It takes a little while for it to become a musical, but I thought that was a clever way of introducing it. But this idea of him and his shadow, I mean that's going to come through so much of this whole thing of him having these two personalities and them fighting and which one is winning? Is it the Arthur Fleck Is it Joker? Yeah? I was love to say.

I think the cartoon at the beginning of the movie is one the key through which you watched the movie, right, because the whole point of the thing going on at the big getting is you know, the like you said, I mean that the Shadow takes over, the Shadow throws him in the in the in the dressing you know, in the arm wir in the dressing room, and you know, the Shadow is pretending to be him, and the Shadow goes out and sings the song on the Murray Franklin Show. I mean, the Shadow is dressed up like he has. The Shadow is the you know, the the dark reflection of Joker, which is funny because when he gets out of the taxi, he's just he's just walking. I mean, he's walking with you know, a little bit of the style that we see at the end of the last movie, but he's not being violent or any And then when it's the other version of him.

It's this violent character that's shooting people, that's you know, becoming you know, violent with the people. That's what he's walking through the hallway, like you mentioned with like and and again like it's the idea. I guess that Arthur Fleck feels like Joker is his dark reflection that is out of control that he's trying to control. But to what end is what the movie ultimately is asking, and how can he? And and also I mean, obviously the more interesting question I think that the movie is asking is what happens when the thing that you've created by accident not only outlives you and the usefulness that it had to you, but also when it becomes something that is so important to other people that they start to like commingle around it and make it their like life's purpose and something that you know, they're outside the courthouse willing to blow it up to get him out.

Like what at what point does that become a thing that's a problem for everyone? And I think that the early that cartoon kind of gets to that idea. I mean, the cartoon is almost a microcosm of the goddamn movie. Really, you know, oh yeah. You got the three cops.

You've got his bare ass, you've got them beating the shit out of him. Yeah, it's definitely, you know, and then him ending with knock knock. I mean it is basically what we're going to see in the rest of this film. Now, all of this stuff that you're saying, is that where you're saying is the metaphor for this movie. It's this Todd Phillips has created a monster and he kind of wants to extricate himself from this.

I feel like that. But that's the thing, like, in a lot of ways, like you could take it the literalism of the first movie, right, and I did anything come of that first movie? Like the first movie came out, It's not like there was like radical violence in the streets because of the movie. The movie came out. It was again, it's a good performance by Joaquin Phoenix.

That's that's not a question in my mind. And even if you don't like the movie, you can appreciate his performance and the depths and lengths that he goes to to portray the character. But nothing ended up coming of the movie. So it is weird that Todd Phillips would be like, oh, I'm going to demystify this like character, this kind of awful, nihilistic, this nihilistic meta character that I've created that kind of speaks to the world right now. I mean I would say, yes, it's Todd Phillips kind of killing the monster, but I also think it's Todd Phillips commenting on us as a society pillarizing and I know, I guess not pillarizing, but putting on a pedestal these really awful people like and really like again, like we have seen people obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer, and we have seen people obsessed with John Wayne Gacy and all these fucking people just like she is, just like Harley Quinn is in this movie, and we've seen this in real life.

I just think we've never seen a story. I mean, we've seen a story told like this before, but we've never seen it told in terms of like a superhero villain. But I think that and look here here's this is the hottest take in my opinion, in terms of this movie. This movie would be really really really really really good for that nothing to do with God Damn the Joker, you know what I mean, Like, imagine this movie had nothing to do with comic books or superheroes or anything, and it was just kind of this weird movie about this guy who takes on this persona and you know, does what he does in the first movie, and then the second movie is just kind of talking about how that persona grew out of control and became its own thing to society.

Imagine if it was just that without any of the pretense of DC, might you like this movie more? Do you think? I mean, I'm just curious, does how much of this cuts to, like, well, it's a superhero thing as well, And I know you don't dislike superhero stuff, but like, it's a weird way to repurpose this story because it doesn't really speak at all to any version of the Joker, which is actually perfectly fine by me. This is its own fucking thing, period, all the way to the end. But I'm just curious, like how much of that factors into this for you?

Of like, this is equally even more fucking strange because it's a superhero thing ostensible. I think that's the only thing interesting about it, playing with those tropes and making this such a different thing than we've seen so many times before. We've seen villain and hero origin stories so many times. But this one actually was a little bit interesting that with the first movie, I just couldn't abide by all of the homage to Scorsese. Hmmm, King of Comedy of it All you.

Mean, and Taxi Driver, and I just felt like this it all means so heavily on those this one I was like, Okay, well, what's it gonna rip? Buff now, you know? And there's a shot that's directly from umbrellas Cherbourg with all of the multicolored umbrellas as they're moving along. Which who would know that's what that's even referencing other than like that's a fucking well yeah, I know you and I know me, but you know what I mean, Like that is a deep fucking cut period. I mean, the musical nature of it all obviously speaks to that as well, But like, I don't think anyone going to see this for the most part is like oh wow, right right, you get it?

Though I get it, but that's again because I'm your friend and I've heard of that movie because of you. But I can't imagine just someone is going and seeing it and like, well, yeah, Brothers of Scherborg. Wow. Todd Phillips is such a huge fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then there's a little bit of Taxi Driver when Lady Gaga puts the finger gun to her head, but we get a lot.

Of that's in the first heads here. Yeah that's kind of his thing, yes, exactly, Yeah, that was his thing from the first movie. With this one, it feels like they should maybe, I don't know, lean on something because basically this movie, Yeah, there's musical acts in them which could easily have been removed. It's interesting the way that they integrate the music in here. I am absolutely okay with that, even though I have to say that as a singer, Joaquin Phoenix is a really good actor, just can't hold that tune.

Maybe he can. Maybe it's just Arthur Fleck singing rather than Joaquin Phoenix singing, if that makes sense. Well, he's sang and walk the line, and he did a pretty good job as Johnny's cash. I was gonna say, like, yeah, like I think it is I think. This is Arthur.

I think this is intentional. I mean again, like Todd Todd Phillips. I want you to speak to the Todd Phillips of all those because that's the thing that I know you can speak to more than I think pretty much anybody else that we know, right, like as first, what well him as a person, and like I think some of who he is as a director and the choices as he's made, and I think his reputation and him being kind of him his own person, I think would lead me to believe that he did this kind of as a fuck you movie. Oh yeah, he's a total troll totally. This is a troll piece.

This is a troll job. So yeah, that's more. I mean, like, because you've had personal dealings with Todd Phillip. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, he just never impressed me as a human being, just really came off as a prick. And yeah, I feel like he knew how to play the system.

And it feels like, yeah, he made some movies before, but he just had this precipitous jump up in the ranks of directorhood. I mean to go from am that Gigellen documentary. I think he produced that Chicken Hawk documentary about men who love boys, and then he made that fake documentary for HBO, but when they found out that it was faked, they pulled it. I think that was just called Fratthause And then yeah, somewhere after that, he just like went up in the ranks and suddenly he's directing, like, you know, star Skating Hutch and all of these things that are opening in the summer, and road Trip was a big success, and he's just kind of carried down from there, didn't he do like Old School or something too?

That was the first movie of his that I ever saw. I was Old Too. I enjoyed that movie a fair amount, and it's co written by him, like he you know, I don't have the personal anything with Todd Phillips, Like I know nothing about him other than what you've told me. You're kind of like your dealings in the past with him, and I'll tell you. I mean, I enjoy Old School a fair amount, and I enjoy Starsky and Hutch, I think even more.

I think my favorite thing that he's done is Starsky and Hutch, And I think a lot of that also goes to Ben steell Or and Owen Wilson being perfectly cast. Oh yeah, and Snoop Dogg being the best part of that goddamn movie is Huggy Bear. I mean, he hits all the notes perfectly as Huggy and it's it's seamless like that role was made for Snoop Dogg. If you're gonna make like a modernized version of that story, Snoop Dogg was perfect cast. Again, that script, I believe co written by Todd Phillips.

Yep, his name's on it, his names. I mean, his name's on most of the things he's worked on in terms of it being a director, a director, writer, writer, director. I mean again, there are other names on some of these things, but he works on primarily only things he writes, at least as a director. I mean he wrote First Joker. His names on this one.

But yeah, I got I think personally, if if you ask me what what Todd Phillips's job was here was I got a lot of money to make a movie that I just really wanted to make, and it's just all the way down kind of an unpleasant movie to watch and I just horrible to watch. But I but I don't think that there are enough movies like this anyway, do you know what I mean? Like, and I'm talking I'm I'm not talking about overall. I'm talking about as a big budget, two hundred million dollar studio fucking picture, not as a ten million dollar Yoyo's making a movie, you know what I mean, Like Megalopolis and this are kind of outliers. Like movies like this don't get made.

Two hundred million dollars bombs. That is a fucking shock in this day and age. This movie making as little money as it made and getting roasted as hard as it's being roasted is shocking because this is the equivalent of the first movie being amazing in the second movie being railroaded. Is one of the worst movies ever made. Oh wait, no, that's exactly what's happening.

Literally, like outright, this movie's been called like one of the worst movies ever made. It's like, I don't think it's that bad. Where is the two hundred million dollars going? Though? That's fair?

That is a good fucking question. I mean, it's not like this is an outer space epic. I mean there are some special effects. Was it the animeters for that cartoon? Are they raking in all this dough?

Because it just doesn't I don't see the money on screen. I mean I think they paid Lady Gaga like twenty five million dollars. Wow. Gaga was paid twenty and Laquin Phoenix was paid twelve. So so a quarter, almost a quarter of your budget is paid on your tube.

Man, So let's let's rephrase the question where did one hundred and sixty million dollars go? Still have no answer for that? And he was a Brendan Gleason. Did he just absorbed the rest of the budget here? But who doesn't love some Brendan Gleeson.

Man, He's just he's a nasty one in this movie, and he's just he's great. I mean it's actually the rape scene. Hey, let's just jump right there. The rape scene one of the worst rape prison rape scenes that I've seen, probably since Hudsucker Proxy, but probably even worse, because yeah, you get the guy who's like crying the first night, the fish and everything, and you know he's gonna get raped. And here you get that nice long moment after the rape where we're just in that close up of Joaquin Phoenix and just the devastation on his face.

I'm like, oh, okay, Yeah, this so reminds me of like, you know, the Come and See or like some of these wartime dramas where you're just like, what the fuck am I watching right now? What are you doing to me? I thought there was a little bit of one floor over the Cuckoos. Now, oh, very yeah. But I I kind of liked that.

Like about this movie is like that, it kind of wears that on its sleeve a little bit. And I appreciate that because I don't think that I see that enough personally like these I don't know, like I kind of like like a dude's in prison story. I know, I know it's trickery. I get it. I get it, Hey, I get it.

I mean that that I do understand. But it's the musical of it all that makes it fucking weird, right, Like it's the music and the musical numbers. You know what this movie reminds me of In a lot of ways, This movie reminds me of like a like a like a like a like an old timey like singing in the Rain musical. Like there's parts of this movie that are like they don't make movies like this anymore. And I wonder, let's wind our question back even further.

Is the budget just all on the practical shit? It must have been all these sets they were building, because here's the thing, when they cut away to the moments of the delusions of Arthur Fleck, that is the best part of the movie. All those fucking scenes of them too singing together and being bizarre and weird, and him playing Joker, Like, yeah, jaque Voenix's Joker when they give him six minutes in the movie to be Joker. He's great as Joker. He was great as Joker in the first movie.

But this some of this reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises, where it's like, hey, he's like Batman for six minutes in the movie. But that's the point. Like in this movie, I guess he's never really Joker in real life. He's Joker once, like you said with the with the voice. But I kind of like those delusional musical scenes because they're so well shot that such I mean again, like there's a flair for the practicality there.

The singing leaves a lot. To be desired well, and then Lady Gaga is so amazing as a singer. There's one moment when they finally are back on the let's call him the Joker steps towards the end of the movie, and of course there's a there's an image that I think is going to be captured where it's him saying, please stop singing. As she's still singing and he's got his hands on her mouth trying to shut her up. She is just standing there and she starts to sing, and she just gets higher and higher in her range, and I'm just like, and she barely looks like she's putting any effort into it at all.

I don't even see you take a deep breath or anything. She just starts to sing and gets louder and higher and the octaves go up, and I'm just like, holy shit, what a talent. And she just is so talented she can't help herself. But even they when we meet her for the first time, when she's singing with this church group or choir group, I should say, at the mental institution, I can hear her voice over everybody else. Yes, that's probably mixing, but also I think it's just that she has the best voice in that entire room.

Well, she is Lady Gaga. She is. She's amazing. That's and here's the thing I think, ultimately, like if we're talking just the objective issues with this movie, not subjective how we how we feel about it. Objectively, there is no Lady Gaga in this movie.

And I'm talking about like when she is playing Harley Quinn. In the real world. There's plenty of delusional world Harley Quinn, but she's rarely given anything to do in those other than sing. And to be fair, the Joaquin Phoenix is singing as well, so we're we're not really building out their characters through the singing because these aren't original musical pieces, which I think, for me is the biggest missed opportunity in this entire movie, is for these musical pieces to not be original, like what their jukebox musical numbers really come on? Like that, for me is the biggest missed opportunity because when they said this was going to be a musical, you know what, we really haven't gotten a superhero musical movie.

And we still really haven't because this movie isn't that. This is a superhero juke box musical, which means they are not original songs. They're covers of other people songs like Rock of Ages, like Mama Mia. But here's the thing, they chose like the Great American Bandstand Music too, like the Great American Songbook. I'm not bemoaning, However, the audience that is this movie is being made for is not going to really have a fucking clue any of these songs, and that is kind of a shame to me.

And I again, because I'm not saying it should have all been, you know, like the most recent bullshit hip hop R and B pop nonsense. I'm not saying that, but I feel like they really should have just been, like, hey, Lady Gaga or somebody write some original songs for this thing. Like really, if you have Lady Gaga and you're paying her twenty million dollars. Funny everything that you liked I didn't like, and vice versa, because I actually really liked the recontextualization of the older songs and using those especially that's entertainment I thought was good before I forget, before I forget Superhero Musical, Doctor Horrible singalong blog. Come on, Okay, that's but that's my point.

When you write all the songs, I remember all the song When you write all the songs, there are songs in there that stick with me for a lot longer. And I I mean again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't like them using the songs that they used. It's just for me. I feel like the audience for this movie would have been better served with a little bit more recent music, like maybe music from the eighties even or seventies or I mean, like, I know that some of the music is from the seventies obviously, but I just think, oh, it's eitting farther. It goes back all the way to the fifties and even.

Forties, right, I think that in my mind that it should have either been a musical from the original musical and nothing else. We're not doing a jukebox or don't do that at all, because I just I don't know, Like I like jukebox musicals fine enough, but I really love a original musical a lot more because jukebox music jukebox musicals are just covering songs. I don't listen to the Rock of Ages version of any of those songs. I'll go listen to the original ones. And that's just kind of the shame.

I mean, it's kind of like if there was ever a Talking Head's jute box musical, Like I'm probably listening to this song, but I'm not sure that they would be in my rotation, just like I'm not sure Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga's versions of any of their songs are gonna be in my rotation, there might be one or two, like there's I think there's one to love Some to love Somebody is pretty good. That musical number is the great one where he just starts getting mad at her upstaging him, which is really funny, and I think, honestly like that's the thing that with Lady Gaga feels like the missed opportunity. So how much do you know about the ending of the movie as it was originally shot? Nothing at all.

I have not. I knew that the ending of this movie was a discarded idea from the first movie, right, I don't know what the original ending of Joker iiO was. So there is footage and a lot of stuff that came out kind of after the movie came out, and you can see it on Twitter as well that Lady Gaga was supposed to kill Joker on the steps and take his place, And that makes so much more sense because that's literally but the whole movie is building too. It's fully a due it's insanity of two, it's insanity shared by two people, and at the beginning of the movie you see her and him, and it seems like he passes on the insanity through her to her through sex I mean like I mean if you want to take it literally, but other than just her like being near him.

And then by the end of the movie, he takes the makeup off, and in that scene where he's like stop singing, she has the makeup on, and it's like, so she's she's taken on the mantle of him. And then when she says goodbye Arthur, I am convinced that that's the cut right there where it would have been her killing him, because you can see footage of it online off her killing him or at least her getting arrested on the steps, just her, and it's like that was the original ending, and it would have worked so much better. It makes so much more narrative and thematic sense in terms of the story that they're trying to tell, in terms of even the way they're using that's entertainment. She's upstaging him, that's like her job.

Throughout the entire movie, She's making it about her to the point where she wants to be him, and then she kills him to become him. Then you could do a third Joker movie with Lady Gaga in the lead role, and that might actually be an interesting movie. Actually, I would fucking line up to see that because she's so fucking good in this movie. Who knows what the fuck that would look like. And if it was an actual musical, or heaven forbid they use Lady Gaga's own music, wouldn't that be a wild jukebox musical, a Harley Quinn jukebox musical featuring the music of Lady Gaga, who also plays Harley Quinn.

That's what the end of this movie should have been. Actually, because I know some people said, oh, the ending of this movie redeemed the movie. I think the ending of this movie fucking made this movie a little Like. People are like, the ending of this movie's wild enough, you need to check the movie out, and I'm like, I don't think so. I think if the ending had been the one of the versions of the ending they shot, I think I would agree because having Lady Gaga kill one of the more iconic versions for many people of the Joker at the end of his movie would be a pretty big moment, right Like, And to rob the movie of that is kind of a shame.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Though her character is interesting because this whole thing of that she's this kind of poor little rich girl fangirl of criminals. She had checked herself into the mental institution and had followed his case and lied to him about how much she liked the TV movie, which I keep thinking, like, when they talk about the shitty TV movie, I'm like, is that the first movie? Is that what we're referring to is the first movie? I don't know that.

I wonder, Yeah, I thought that would have been kind of clever. Actually, well maybe it is met textually. Yeah. Yeah. And just so a couple of things real quick, just I want to bounce this stuff off of you.

First off, when Arthur is getting his meds at the very beginning and there's a one of his fellow inmates goes, he bit me. He didn't bite the guy. I don't know what's going on. And then they even say like, oh, yeah, he bit a guy, and I was like, no, he didn't. Watch that multiple multiple times and he never bites that guy.

Is that the guy who ends up killing him at the end of the movie, Because at first I thought it was going to be the little guy. Well he's not little, but he's like kind of young and innocent and dumb. The guy that he kisses in the yard at prison. But then I think that he's the one who gets killed when jokers getting raped. Is that right or what outs after the rape scene?

I think it is. You can hear somebody getting murdered outside of his cell, and I want to say, it's that little guy. It is so that yeah, at the beginning of the movie, that scene, that guy who ends up Okay, so at the end of the movie, at the end of the movie, we'll talk about the end of the movie in a moment, But the character from the end of the movie is trying to grab him right then and there the first five minutes of the movie to do I think to stab him right then and there, like I don't know, like you see him like going for him and then somebody draws him back. It is it is the character from the end of the movie that's going for him at the beginning of the movie, in the first two minutes of the movie, that guy is going to grab him and do something to him within two seconds of the movie starting.

I don't know what that's supposed to me. No, no, I'm not other than just like this has been there this whole time, and he's just been completely like unaware or convincing himself that like everyone in there is on his side and believes in him, and that's not the case. I mean, I love the idea in this movie of watching this guy try to convince himself that the world is on his side, and it's not on his side that they're on. They're on the side of this person that he created. They couldn't give a singular shit about him, and and that, I mean again, like that is kind of what factors into the end of the movie with the character that you're talking about.

Right right, And it's interesting there's that almost parallel scene of Lady Gaga kissing a woman that ended up getting cut out, but I believe that's in the trailer. I think so, right, yeah, and so a. Woman that recognizes her while she's going to the courtroom and it looks like she's gonna attack her, and she ends up kissing her instead. I don't know if that's supposed to be like how subversive they are that they give people of the same sex kisses. It just feels very tone deaf to me.

Well, I so let's before we talk about kind of the ending, and I think the third act of the movie, you mentioned the rape scene the audacity of the film, because it's not that I didn't read it that way. I did read it as a rape scene, I guess. I mean, if it was a female character that was happening too, that's how you would read it, right, Like, and I'm assuming that's what it was. But good lord, movie, Like that's pushing it, right, I mean, it's pushing the boundaries of like good taste, if there is any good taste in this movie at all. It's like trying to ramp itself up and be extreme to what end?

This is awful, The world is awful. We get it, like, and I think that. I mean, that's the moment that breaks the Joker. That's the moment that breaks him. I mean we cut back to that first movie, the scene in the first movie where he's washing the makeup off of his face, and it's like, well, that's the moment where the Joker is gone because he realized is that there is nothing he can do.

It's all a charade, it's all a facade. In reality, he cannot escape and he's fucked. I was gonna say, you see that guy who was going for him again when Arthur's singing for once in my life in the room. I mean, that was one of the things too where I kept wondering to myself, are these musical numbers in his head? Are they really happening?

I'm not exactly sure. I think the movie kind of wants it to be both ways. The other thing I kept thinking through probably the first half of the movie actually, well through the first hour, I kept thinking that Lady Gaga didn't even exist. I thought she was a figment of his imagination. And even when they break out out of the sanitarium and stuff, like he ends up getting caught she runs away, I'm just like, yeah, it feels very very Tyler Durdon esque to me, and I thought that that's what we're doing.

It wasn't until other people. It wasn't really until Catherine Keener said, oh, you know, you're your little friend. She's out giving interviews. I was like, oh, okay, so she's a real person. Like just the way that they shot this, I did not think that she actually existed.

I mean, there's the sex scene and everything, and I'm just like, oh, he's in his cell just jerking at thinking of Lady Gaga and who doesn't really exist? Well, and I guess, given the way that they interact with each other, could she have been a figment of his imagination? I do know, I'm honestly. I mean, we know that there are people that are, like you said, having interviews and all that, but like that, I guess you could say, is that in Arthur's head as well? Right, that's the problem with a unreliable narrator movie, which I'll say what this movie kind of reminded me of as well in terms of, like, we have a deplorable character who did some who did at least some terrible things.

Thinks he did more terrible things, but again, some of the terrible stuff he did, we know about some of the terrible stuff he thought he did, but he didn't do like stalking his neighbor and like being yeah, like he did some of that, but he didn't do all of it. Like it reminded me a little bit of American Psycho as well, with the is like what is going on? Like is is he a reliable narrator? How reliable is he? How unreliable is he?

Where is the line? And like that's I feel like that's very present in this movie. Again, because the whole film is shot from his perspective, especially when we go into these interior, you know, in his head scenes, which again that's a old school musical thing. I mean, we have that in plenty of old school musicals where you literally are in the character's mind doing a musical number or they're explaining what happened through a musical number, like that's that's in. That's they don't do this anymore, which I think is the other reason this movie kind of flopped.

Is this, Like I said, this movie I think would have benefited from having come out a long time ago, because I think what this movie is is better suited for an audience in the seventies. Like this is a very seventies facing movie, just like Joker was, like in the way that it was facing King of Comedy, right, Like it's kind of facing the late eighties or late seventies, early eighties, these kinds of movies, that's what it's trying to be, but doing a very weird kind of my smash of things. But it's wearing what it's inspired by very obviously on its sleeves. I guess if if he's continuing to rip off Scorsese, this is the New York New York of it all. I have never seen New York, New York.

I think there's a very large club of people that have never seen that movie. Is it worth checking out? No? Is it a musical? Yes, okay, a Martin Scorsese directed musical.

Yes, though it's not you know, it's not the typical musical. Let's put it that way. It's kind of like this. Yeah. Well it's also there it's diegetic because it's, you know, in a club type of thing.

Oh so it's like a performance musical. Yeah, exactly, gotcha. Interesting. Yeah. Oh that was the other thing because when she comes in and they have sex, she's like, oh, yeah, they let me in here, and I'm just like, how did you get in here?

This doesn't make any sense that he's in solitary and they just let her in there. So that was another thing. And then when she says that she's pregnant, I'm just like, yeah, no, you're not pregnant, you know, I just you're not. And you're just trying to manip pulate him. And that's her whole thing, is manipulating him, and it's him disappointing her constantly.

And when he says like I'm Arthur Fleck the Joker as a real you know, I just put on the makeup kind of thing, and like you're saying, like he takes off the makeup in that post rape scene. In his mind, he is betraying her in her mind, and I'm just like, yeah, so her murdering him at the end really would have made a lot more sense. It would have been the perfect ending to the movie. Straight up. Yeah.

I have to tell you, the most harrowing scene for me, even more than the rape scene, is that scene I was mentioning before, when he is dressed up as the Joker and doing the whole courtroom stick when he has Lee Gil as Gary Puddles's on the stand. That's the most harrowing scene for me, you know, with Lee just giving this incredible performance and he's just like, you know, you're the only one who is ever nice to me. And speaking of betrayal, Arthur betrayed Gary, you know, because he was the only one who was ever nice to him, and then he now lives in constant fear that Arthur or somebody else is going to just shoot the poor guy. And I just felt so bad for him. That scene just tore my fucking heart out.

And I think that's another reason why I don't like this movie is because I felt very manipulated at that point too. I again so and this is where I think Todd Phillips is going to the talking about real life people through the metaphor of film, because in the real world there are people who even your association with them can cause you ire in real life or your feelings towards them should they be outed publicly, And there are people out there that will take it upon themselves to go out of their way to make your life miserable just because they don't agree with some binary choice that you've made. And that scene, for me, I think is the best scene in the entire movie outside of the musical stuff. If we're talking about like the musical scenes are their own thing, and I can't address the non musical stuff because I think there's two movies here, the musical thing and then there's a very like fucking horrifying character study of someone who is a deeply mentally unwell person who the system has failed at every turn and to the point of like them having no outlet for anything other than to go and be violent and justify the violence away, and then we get to see this scene which shows like, no, these people are deeply fucked up, and the worst part about this is not what they've done, but the way it affects everybody around them, because we see the legal character being you know, I've you know, I'm terrified of you.

I'm terrified to live. I have PTSD every day. And then we get to see some of the parents of the people that Joker murdered on the train, those like dickhead, like Wall Street guys who are just dickheads. They don't deserve to die, you know, they're just assholes, but he kills them, and you know, you see the parents of these people in the courtroom ready and willing to kill Arthur Fleck as well, to push themselves further than they probably ever would have thought as human beings. And so I think it's interesting, again similarly to something like Zodiac, you get to see how in Zodiac you get to see the by proxy of how terrible people affect the community and world around them, And in this movie you get to see like very much localized within several characters from the last movie I'm Shocked.

We get to see Lee Gill again in this movie. I'm shocked. Zazzi beats shows back up. But those are scenes that like make this movie for me worth watching because those scenes are horrifying. It's it's like taking all of the things that we've seen in real life and distilling it down into like, no, the Joker, if he was a real person, would not be someone anyone would idolize.

The fucking nightmare of a human being. Even when he's not the Joker, he's a nightmare of a human being, let alone when he's the Joker, which is this version of this guy with all of the limitters taken off, all the med limitters and everything else. And that's the thing in the first movie he says like I stop taking my meds and I feel better, And it's like, oh oh no, and we see that in this movie. I hear. Yeah, the Joker is the sternalization of him without his met and mental illness.

Like this movie is the Joker as mental illness made old. It's like fucking kafka esk. It's like anthrop they've anthropomorphized that into a real character, which is this face bank that he puts on. The Joker is mental illness. I mean, it's kind of like and it's it's it's almost a horror movie.

It's it's it verges on it. If they ever make that Grant Morrison Arkham Asylum graphic novel into a movie, that will be probably the furthest that they go in terms of addressing the Joker as a as a thing, as a stand in for things. But this does a pretty good job in making the Joker character the stand in for like the overwhelmingly awful effects of meant of untreated mental health, either by choice or by negligence on the person who it's happening to and the people surrounding that. It's just this movie kind of just treads water unfortunate. And that's even I'm saying that as much as I enjoyed the movie, which I enjoyed this movie a fair amount the third time I finally watched it, it does tread water because I don't think anybody really wanted to watch a movie that just spends the whole time talking about the last movie.

That's a weird thing, right it is. Yeah, it's definitely an interesting way to approach a sequel, to just tear apart or take apart the first movie, and there's you know, you're talking about the DC of it all and some of those little things that they have, and hear like, oh, after the big explosion, Harvey Dent's face is fucked up. Oh, or you know, after he gets murdered by the other patient, you hear him slice his face open. So is that Heath Ledgers joker? It's like, okay, yeah, I guess you know, those are the little comic bookie things that you know, screen Rant or some of those other a holes on YouTube will just fall all over themselves to try to tie this into the bigger universe and find all the Easter eggs and things.

I'm like, I could give a shit, you know, it's just like it's it's bread and circuses for the masses. Well that and it's funny you mentioned, you know, trying to tie it into things. I I mean again, like like like I alluded to initially, like I think this movie would have been better if you had no idea was a joker movie until he puts the face paint on, even like, oh what is this? This is just a story about this fucking guy who is you know, downtrodden by the world, and then oh my god, it's a joker movie, Like, imagine what that first movie would have been if that had been the kind of the final conceit of the movie as oh, this is a Joker thing, Oh my god. But no, to your point, it's like to have like, oh my god, to connect it at the end or try to connect it.

But I don't even that's the thing, Like I didn't. I initially looked at it as like, oh my god, it's the connecting it back to the Dark Knight, Like, Nah, it's not that at all. I think it's more just the idea of you know, in every universe that has the Joker, there's Batman, and there's Bruce Wayne, and there's Thomas Wayne, and there's Harvey Dent and they're again. But here's the thing. This guy was never the Joker.

He was a joker. He was And that's why I said, I didn't call this movie the Joker. And that's why this movie is not called The Joker. That's why this movie is just called Joker, because, like you mentioned to me yesterday, this guy is not your Joker. He's not my Joker, he's not anybody's joke.

He's just a guy, a really mentally unwell human being who uses the auspices of a Joker esque character to make himself feel less downtrodden and small than he inherently does because the system has, by design or by negligence pushed down on him his entire life, and he's been failed by the system at every turn. That's not the Joker we see again effectively the Joker throughout this entire movie, right, I mean, he's there in the movie in every scene, watching Arthur Fleck, and then he gives I mean again a pretty harrowing scene at the end of the movie because it's it's pretty obvious what's about to happen, but that the actor who's giving the performance at the end of the film and throughout the movie as the again as the unnamed inmate, but core, you know Connor's story, is just playing a joker.

I think it's interesting that he's throughout the movie watching everything that he is doing because it again it speaks to his idea of like, this guy so pathetic, like all he's doing is worried about his like outward persona and the way the world views him, and the real Joker wouldn't care. The real Joker is so insane that that's like this is the thing, right, and this is my reultimate read at the end of the movie, right, the real Joker is so fucking insane that he looks at this guy and goes, you're taking something that could be actually used for evil, and you're just pissing it away, Like why why why would I let you piss it away? I'll kill you and then I'll be known and then and then someone will come save me from prison because I'm because how does you know?

How does the king? What happens to the king? Right, either the king steps down or the king gets slain, and in this movie you have him murdering him, which will undoubtedly get out to the world because look, Arthur Or gets saved from prison even or from the prison or the courthouse. Even after he rejects the persona of Joker, he rejects it in front of the court, says he's not the Joker, takes responsibility for the murders of everybody, which the Joker would never do, at least not the way he does wistfully and sadly. And you know, the Joker, given the opportunity at the end of the movie, would sit and harangue the jury.

He wouldn't just sit there and go I'm sad and pathetic, he would, you know. And so the character at the end of the movie clearly knows that he sees what happened. And I like that because the actual Joker is fucking insane, that's the point. And the actual Joker isn't sad that he's insane, And that's the problem with this guy. He's sad that he's insane.

The real Joker doesn't give a shit. And I guess I don't know Todd Phillips for it was four hundred million dollars worth it to make two trolley ass movies, I wonder because it's a troll job, right, Like the way this movie ends is actually trolly. Yeah, oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. Well, and it's even like one of those when he comes in and says, hey, there's somebody here to see you.

I'm like, is there really or was this just as plan the whole time to get him away? You know? Yeah? But I like that he murders him at the end of the movie, and he gives the monologue of you know, I saw this sad, pathetic clown sitting there, and I'll get you what you fucking deserve. And I like that that line shows up three or four times throughout the movie.

That's another reoccurring theme, the motif of getting what you deserve, because Murray supposedly got what he deserved, and then Joker gets what he deserves. Theoretically he gets the death penalty, and then he gets what he deserves. Anyways, he just gets murdered ahead of time. And he doesn't care, right, I mean, he doesn't care that he's going to die. He says that throughout the movie.

You know, he claims early on, well that was me and I wanted to die, but I don't want to die anymore because I have somebody to live for. And then when it turns out that, just like everything else, lady Ga Gay is just as big as part of the problem as the rest of the system was, he's like, well, I guess I want to die again, and I mean again. Like it's just most people aren't lining up to see a movie like I get it. It's kind of downright all the way down, an unpleasant movie, and it wallows in its unpleasantness. But I think for me, at least, if you can get down with a movie that just wants to sit in the icker for a while and the muck of its own making and kind of splash around in it.

I think you could do a lot better than this movie. But to your point, I don't think you can do as odd as a jutebox musical superhero movie based on ostensibly the most famous villain of all time. I don't know who's more famous other than maybe Thanos in terms of Marvel, but DC's number one villain period is the Joker. There's nobody that even comes close because Batman is the number one DC hero, So who's his number one villain? It's the Joker.

I mean, the Joker is the only character to win an Academy Award twice. Like, I don't think any superhero movie is ever gonna win another Academy Award at this point, let alone the same character two times portrayed differently by two different people with very different takes on the character. So where does this version of Joker line up for this movie's version? Is he below Jared leto for you? Oh god?

Or is this even like a conversation to have because he's technically not the Joker anyways? Yeah? Yeah, I mean that's tough. That's a really tough thing. And the toughest part about Jared Leto's Joker.

It feels like most of his performance was on the cutting room floor. So I don't know if we'll ever get that different cut of David Ayer's Suicide Squad. But I really can't judge that performance because I just feel like there's not enough there. I know that movie had a real vendetta against helicopters. You can never take a helicopter or in the Suicide Squad world because it will always blow up or get shot out of the sky.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm not big on ranking things, but yeah, just as far as the unpleasantness of these characters, they're both they're pretty low. I mean, you made good Caesar Romero or Jack Nicholson or of course the King Keith Ledger. I'm curious where they're gonna go with the Batman and that version of Joker, because it sounds like that's who Riddler was talking to you at the very end of that movie.

Well, did you see the Did you see the clip from that movie with Barry Keowen as Joker? No, oh my lord, it makes sense. Holy fuck, It's like it's like someone watched and by someone we know, our dear friend, Richard Adam's friend, or I guess Matt Reeves is college friend Richard HadAM, our dear friend. Uh yeah, that scene is what it would look like if Matt Reeves directed Silence of the Lambs, because it's pretty much the Anthony Hopkins Clarice scene, but with Joker and Batman in the in their respective spots. As it's very hannibal lectery.

Yeah, oh yeah, it's it's great. But yeah, that's who he's talking to, right, I mean, that's who he's conversing with. Is that character. I'm with you. I'm more interested in that version of Joker period.

But also Barry Keohen's an amazing actor. I mean, Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor. I may not vibe with all the stuff that he does. He makes some interesting choices, that's for sure. His kind of whole shtick is I don't know.

I wouldn't quote Dewey Cox and saying the wrong kid died, but oh wow, I said I wouldn't say that, but I know some people might. You know, I don't think that that's fair. I just think that Joaquin Phoenix's choices sometimes are not ones that a lot of people really like. I think that sometimes he just makes interesting choices, you know, and sometimes those roles don't work. I'm still here is one of those things we're just like, maybe not, don't do that.

But then you get something like this, and the first movie was so well regarded, it's like, well, he's he's building that positive you know, cred with random people who have never probably even seen a Joaquin Phoenix movie before. Frankly, because a lot of the stuff that he does is not necessarily mainstream either, right. Yeah, No, I think he takes a lot of good chances, and I'm very glad that he does what he does. I don't necessarily enjoy it all the time, but yeah, more power to him for doing that. I think he's an actor with a capital A in a lot of ways, like I think you would hold himself to that.

I think he's probably in the same and I wouldn't say he's in the same tier as Daniel day Lewis, but I think he's kind of in that conversation of like those kinds of like method actors who probably are kind of a lot to be around. But I think it wills out in what they do on screen, and you know, I do you know, I do like Joaking Phoenix's Joker, but I get where you're coming from in terms of these versions and where his is gonna end up. And I think again, ultimately, your mileage with this movie is going to vary, especially this one, because if you like that first movie, this movie does kind of feel like a fuck you to you if you like the first movie. But if you can understand that the first movie's job was not to elevate this guy and make him a hero.

It was more to just show there are people like this in the world and the system has failed them. This movie continues that conversation if you're interested in having it, which I understand why plenty of people are not and don't care, because this is the sad, cold reality of what this is like when these things happen. You know, this is you know, it's like if we watched a James Bond movie and then we had to watch James Bond confront all the families of the guards he killed, Like, nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see Joker confronted by someone who he traumatized because he murdered someone in front of them, like, no, that's not a scene in a movie that anybody was asking for, but yet here it is, and it's so well done and well acted.

It's a standout scene in this movie. So it's Yeah, this is a strange movie that seems almost at odds with its audience and what it thinks its audience wants, if it even cares. So troll job, whatever you want to call it. I think Todd Phillips just making movies that he wants to make, or whatever the fuck that means. So final thoughts on Joker Mike, I wish I.

Had liked it more. Like I said, I was kind of lying and wait for this one, and I don't feel that I was bashing this too much. I'm it is going to be interesting to read more about this as we move forward, and I'm curious what kind of takes people are going to have about it, because and I don't mean like hot takes, but I mean like actual like dissection of this and what are some of these meanings. You know, there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on in this movie, and I didn't enjoy it, but other people may. What about you, Chris, No, I can completely understand where you're coming from.

And I think that your opinion is the one that right now is the one that more people than not are feeling, is that this movie is kind of weird and doesn't work necessarily, and it's just kind of all over the place, and you know, and it kind of spins its wheels and waste its time and our time and everybody's time collectively. And I know that my opinion is the hot take here or the minority. And I wonder if in the long run, if there will be a different version or deleted scenes or whatever will come out that'll help, you know, pad the movie out, make it make more sense, or make certain thematic choices make more sense. But like you said, there is a lot going on. This movie has a lot of things that it's trying to do, things that it's trying to say.

And I look forward to where this movie kind of goes with its audience, because right now I don't think it's found it, But I think ultimately it will find an audience. It will find people that like it. More people will find it that were turned off by the idea of it initially but end up watching it and enjoying it. And who knows where the life of this movie goes because this movie, quote is an unmitigated disaster. According to one WB executive, which boy, did you watch Suicide Squad because at least this is a movie.

At least this has a plot and no blue lasers in the sky. So God, but yeah, it's a DC thing, it sure is. So. On that note, Mike, where can people find you and the things that you work on when we're not doing some of these crossover episodes on new movies? Everything that I do is available at weirdominmedia dot com, including in the Projection Booth and all of the other fun things that we will work on.

How about you, Chris, You can find everything I work on over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, Patreon dot com, slash Culturecast or Projection Boo gets you access to ten dollars or more a month ranking on Bond where we talk about James Bond with our friend Richard Adam of Richard Adams for a normal bookshelf. So that's where you can go to help financially. Otherwise, like rate and review either the Projection Booth or the Culture Cast on iTunes. That's where it helps us the most. Nowhere else helps as much as iTunes.

So Mike, thank you so much for inviting me to do this. I mean, I don't know if I would have seen the movie otherwise, so that I don't. Think I would have this kind of forced me to do it. Yeah, and as always, I guess we'll catch on the next episode of I have the culture cast of the projection booth