JOKER directed by Todd Phillips (USA, 2019)
Who needs critics anyway? All of us have opinions so we don’t need to be told what to like and why.
The initial official press reaction to Joker was broadly positive but winning The Golden Globe in Venice seems to have provoked a bizarre backlash. How dare a popular movie win such an accolade over the latest worthy but dull art house fodder?
Roger Ebert.com has dismissed the movie as “pernicious garbage” and Time magazine’s hack even have the bare-faced nerve to attack Joaquin Phoenix’s stellar performance as “aggressive terribleness”.
On top of this, and in keeping with its liberal tendency for fence-sitting, the UK’s Guardian newspaper try to have it both ways. They currently have a policy of filling space in their culture pages by printing reviews with wildly opposing points of view. On one hand Xan Brooks praised the movie’s “glorious daring” but then Peter Bradshaw described it as “very shallow”.
Thankfully, ordinary punters have wisely disregarded the negative reviews. At the time of writing, the critic’s average rating at Metacritic is a paltry 59% while users have given it a resounding 9.3. Continue reading
This breathtaking and riveting film is based on a novella of the same name by Jonathan Ames. As the title suggests, it is the story of a man (Joe) deep in the throes of an existential crisis.
I was prematurely dismissive about There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous movie. I only really appreciated its quality and power on second viewing. I strongly suspect that the same will be true of The Master and certainly feel inclined to reserve final judgement until I’ve had chance to see it again.
If ‘Two Lovers’ does turn out to be Joaquin Phoenix’s last ever movie then at least he’s going out on a high note. His performance as the borderline dysfunctional Leonard Kraditor torn between the smartly sensible Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) and the sexily screwed up Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) is both riveting and totally convincing.
