Good or New Movies Review

[Auspice]

I am one hundred percent here for a movie about Pinkman.

[Arkandel]

It: Chapter 2 was a'ight. Nothing special. The first one was much better - this one had a lot more comic relief that got distracting at times, and I think it over-relied on its physical gory horror effects.

Also the ending was about five minutes too long.

[Ghost]

(Hah, I watched @Arkandel post his while I was typing this up. I suppose he is Siskel and I am Ebert. COUNTERPOINT:)

It: Chapter 2 was fucking amazing, save maybe a couple of things that are just nitpicky, but those would be spoilers.

(SPOILER-FREE)

In fact, I kind of want to jabber about how fucking much of a genius Stephen King is, and how I'm always reminded somehow by his writing or movie adaptations deep down what a genius he is.

Ultimately, "IT" isn't a story about a creepy clown. It's a story about fear, and how children believe in magic; the magic of horror, the magic of friendship, the magic of how their childhood crew can face anything so long as they stay together. It's about how fear is deadlier when you're a child because you believe in the monster under the bed, but fear is deadlier as an adult because you're more aware of your own mortality. It's about how it's easier to overcome fear when you're a child because you believe in things that may not actually, tangibly exist, and about how it's twice as hard to remember and believe when you're an adult. I can think of a time in my life that my childhood CREW probably could have handled a monster, and when I daydream about it, I'd probably want my childhood crew there with me if I had to fight another as an adult.

He doesn't write about clowns. He writes about concepts that almost all of us intimately understand on a human level, and builds stories using those binding concepts as the network of veins pump the blood through it.

[Auspice]

Lupita Nyong'o is on the shortlist for Catwoman in the new Batman and I am ALL ABOUT IT.

edited cause I realized my phrasing was weird

[Please Delete]

This post is deleted!

[Ghost]

@RDC said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Ghost IIRC he's straight-up said that IT is about child abuse and how people ignore it, and how that trauma follows you into adulthood and doesn't just go away. I like Stephen King's writing sometimes (especially when he's writing about the craft of it), but tbh I wouldn't call the book an example of his genius, and given how much you hate child text-porn, I'm surprised you would. Like. There's an all-elementary-school child magical gangbang in a bathroom stall in that book.

Yes, I get this is late. I don't really check MSB often. >.>

NNF! Defiance. Opposition Raar. It's not the Hog Pit though, so I'll leave this one alone.

[insomniac7809]

@RDC I think IT is among his best work. (Even if, yeah, I'll give him some shit for making Will such a self-insert.)

The thing about King is that he's such a... I dunno. His process is always so freeform, coming up with an idea and then just putting in the hours to write it. He doesn't really 'do' outlines, and y'know, it shows sometimes. (Often at the end!) The kid-sex thing... I see what he was trying to do, how he had the idea, and he isn't really the sort to really sit down and think over if it's a good idea. It winds up weird and jarring, and kinda dominating discussion of what's otherwise a great book with like two pages of concentrated WTF? out of 1100.

(King is also, like, the worst PSA on the planet. "It was out of control, the booze, the drugs. I'd lose days, come to from a blackout, lying next to a NYT best-selling manuscript and a film deal.")

[bored]

IT was largely inspired by real life stuff he saw and heard in Bangor (with the gay bashing being inspired by real events, etc). It was basically a deconstruction/criticism of the idealized 50s Americana (the way the new movies shift that to a modern deconstruction of 80s nostalgia).

He was also, by his own admission, on huge freaking amounts of cocaine, which is presumably the tween gangbang seemed like a good idea. Also all the magical god turtle shit that didn't make it in.

[Please Delete]

This post is deleted!

[AeriaNyx]

I am still processing my feelings on Joker. It was really really really intense. It was not the usual point of view/protagonist driven story. It was very specific and very bleak. But it was as good and powerful as it was uncomfortable.

[Jaded]

@AeriaNyx
I will admit the early trailers for it had me wondering how someone could actually capture the turn of a person into the embodiment of chaos for a yet to be encountered hero character, and would just be a disaster.

I was pleasantly surprised by the film. I think the movie eventually will be one of those that will be considered best viewed in a theater.

[WildBaboons]

Well that's weird. Just had me reply to a thread I wasn't in

[Testament]

Joker stoked the inner nihilist in me in a very "Fuck you, fuck me, fuck everyone, nothing fucking matters. Let's watch shit burn down and piss on the ashes. Here's some matches."

I thought it was very good in a cimetography sense. Is it a masterwork as a whole? Hard to say. But it was good for what it was.

[AeriaNyx]

After taking time to process, here is my take. I will put in spoiler tags for things that are spoilery.

My opinion is that this is not a movie with a point of view. Well, let me clarify: It is not attempting to persuade the viewer to its point of view. This is not, as some have said, a war cry for the Incels, a touchstone for entitled white guys to feel more justified in committing acts of violence because the world was mean to them. Anyone who walks out of that film feeling that way was already in that mindset when they went in.

I think it did a ridiculously good job at evoking the reality of being mentally ill. There were certain shots, wordless tableaux that so evoked what it feels like to be depressed that it was... both profoundly freeing and just bleakly despairing. As someone who struggles with depression and anxiety I felt seen and understood. Let me be clear, however, at no point in the film was the character of Joker, in my opinion, a sympathetic one. There is an innate desire in most people to root for the underdog. And in this film, Arthur Fleck is the personification of a no-win scenario made flesh. I wanted to empathize with him, but I couldn't. And I think that was purposeful.

Joaquin Phoenix's performance was indescribably good.

click to show

His ability to laugh in a way that is clearly sobbing... I can't even. In the movie, Arthur has a condition as a result of head trauma that makes him laugh uncontrollably at inappropriate times. If he's anxious or angry or sad, he laughs. Joaquin Phoenix makes the emotion behind this demented laughter tangible. You can feel the choking anxiety when he's on stage trying to do stand up -- his grips his chest and throat like he's having an asthma attack. When he's dealing with grief and isolation, his brows furrow and the cadence of the laughter is clearly like sobbing. It is... I felt it.

I didn't feel like a comic book movie. Despite the characters present, the location of Gotham, it felt way more real than a comic book movie. It was 100% more Chronicle and nothing like Man of Steel or Batman v Superman. There were times when I was like 'Well, clearly that wouldn't really happen...' and then I sit and think about the shit that we see on the news and it just hit me that this movie is way more grounded in reality than I am at all comfortable with.

This movie is deeply uncomfortable. It is not fun. It challenges you and makes you think. I strongly caution people looking for a fun night out to consider something else unless you're prepared to really think about some heavy shit afterwards. This could be a stellar date movie, if like... you're both woke as fuck and are down for deeply complicated conversations about uncomfortable shit.

There is so much to unpack and talk about, but I really need to actually get some work done and not spam this board all day. But man. If you've seen this movie and wanna talk, PM me. There is so much going on.

[Thenomain]

MovieBob tears Joker apart, kinda.

The "kinda" is that his review is basically saying, "Eeehhhhhhhhhhhh...."

The first ten seconds put his opinions into context. Worth a watch.

[AeriaNyx]

@Thenomain Ennnnh, I don't really agree with his review, but I am fully aware that it is a totally subjective thing. I think he relies on the viewer having seen Taxi Driver and the King of Comedy, which I haven't, though I do admit, if I had, I might have felt differently. I don't think he really gave any recognition to the depiction of mental illness at all, and without that context a lot of it might seem dull or toothless. I dunno! It's different for everyone. I wouldn't say I LIKED it, but I respect it more than that dude.

[Testament]

@AeriaNyx As someone who has seen Taxi Driver I will agree more with that particular review. It does try a little too hard to emulate Taxi Driver. That said, I don't think the movie is terrible, but I don't think it's the next Citizen Kane like so many were expecting.

It's okay. Maybe trying to be a little too edgy, but had nothing to say.

[Ganymede]

I will still see the movie.

I have some standards to hold the movie against. I saw “The Killing Joke” not that long ago, and while it is not the “definitive” story, it is the one that I remember and consider canon. And in that movie, it was just one bad day that turned everything around.

I really liked “Falling Down,” and if this doesn’t compare, well —

[AeriaNyx]

@Ganymede I have seen both of those and read The Killing Joke as well, and I think... It is difficult, because it doesn't feel like a comic book movie. I think it is a thought piece in which a scenario is posed and it is an effective jumping off point for people to discuss societal issues, the responsibility of government and the tribalism that we, as a species are prone to, and where that takes us.

I don't think the movie intended to have a message -- I think it was trying to get people to come up with their own. Or at least start talking.

[Lotherio]

@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

I saw “The Killing Joke” not that long ago

I bet that was a good concert.

ETA: oh the movie