Joker – A Movie Review

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Joker is a very, very well made movie. It would not have received a standing ovations at the Vienna Film Festival if it was not. Joaquin Phoenix is immediately a Best Actor contender for February’s Academy Awards with his lead performance. Both mesmerizing and repulsive, Phoenix’s Joker is quite a creation and the actor absolutely carries a movie that has far more in common with street-tough fare from the 1970s than it does with today’s comic book films. 

The publicity surrounding the movie as it was awaiting its US release was that it was a glorification of violence and that it romanticized its title character. I did not find either of those concerns founded. Phoenix’s creation might elicit some early sympathy in the film but, as events play out and as Arthur, his character, makes the choices that inevitably lead to him becoming the Joker, those moments are fleeting. The overall impression is that this is an evil, damaged character – one who is aware of what he is doing and is doing these things of his own volition, not because an uncaring society pushed him over the edge. The Joker is cruel and unhinged and those who worry that this movie makes him into some kind of anti-hero for the modern age are missing the point.

Assuming there is a point to be missed. On reflection, I don’t know that there is a broad point here.

I liked this movie and I know it is good. It evokes a gritty time and place and a movie making style years in the past. It borrows from Scorsese and Freidken. It involves the audience in a bleak and dark existence. It leaves nothing to chance as it does so. 

Joker is an accomplishment. 

Director Todd Phillips stated over-and-over that he did not base his movie on any existing comic book material (a statement which seemed to me to belittle the very source material from which he was lifting) and, while I can say there is no direct adaptation of a Joker story line, this movie owes everything it is to the Bob Kane and Bill Finger creation. While Phillips’ movie impresses, he has not impressed so much in dealing with controversy and in trying to somehow suggest his film is somehow better than its origins. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it, too. 

By the end of the movie, Phillips is telling a story the audience has seen before. He is trying to put his own spin on it, yes (because everyone wants to put their own spin on Hamlet), but he finds himself pulled inexorably back to the center of a universe that can support an evil like the Joker.

We all know what is at that center or, rather, who. And, while Joker is impressive and attempts to center itself in a world without a Batman, it cannot quite pull it off. 

Evocative. Exciting. Compelling. Joker  is one of the best films I’ve seen in quite a while, if not the most original.

JOKER receives FOUR HARD BOILED HOMAGES out of a possible FIVE

The Best Sequential Art I Read Last Week: June 10 – 16, 2015

I am a comic book collector and happy to be one. I might say “proud” if I hadn’t, over a year ago, switched to reading digital as opposed to print comics. I feel a bit robbed of the tactile sensations of the hobby – of the turn of the page, the sneaking look to the panel a page over, the bagging and shorting and stacking and filing. Though I read my comics in a different medium than I used to, I still treat each Wednesday (comic book delivery day to specialty shops around the country) as different from the other days of the week. I subscribe and now, rather than go to the comic store to be handed the books pulled for my “Hold Slot,” I click a button on my iPad and watch them download.

Then I read them.

Rare is the week that I don’t read them all between Wednesdays and some weeks I have, well… let’s just say more comic books in my digital downloads than a grown man should. Comic book legend Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit) is one of the most influential men even to put pencil to drawing board in the pursuit of making comics. So influential was he that the industry awards (think the Oscars or the Emmys or the Grammys) are named The Eisner Awards. He called comic books “sequential art,” perhaps because he became embarrassed by his profession when he had to admit what he did for a living. This is my weekly reaction to the comics I read.

I read 5 (it was a light week – and I needed one!) comics last week: Batman #41, Detective Comics #41, Batman/Superman  #21, Chrononauts #4 and Gotham Academy #7.

The best comic I read last week was Batman #41.

Yes, Batman again. Yes, Batman was my favorite book – by far – last week. Yes, I’ve selected Batman as my Pick of the Week more often than I have not when it’s been published.

There’s two reasons. Snyder and Capullo. I love what Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are doing monthly on this book and I cannot think of a more perfect tandem of writer and artist working in comics right now (Mark Waid and Chris Samnee come close, but Snyder and Capullo have been doing it a bit longer). It is clear – and not just from following them both on Twitter – that these two guys love working together. Equally clear is the “together” part. This is a true collaboration, Snyder playing to Capullo’s strengths and Capullo rewarding that effort with terrific work. What they’ve done over 40 issues of Batman is nothing short of remarkable.

They’ve introduced a massive new myth to Gotham in the Court of Owls. They featured a character who may or may not be Bruce Wayne’s brother (I am undecided on if I believe Thomas or not – what a cool place to be in as a reader!). They created a definitive Joker story in Death of the Family. They re-told the most sacrosanct origin in all of comics in long form. Then they told THE definitive Joker story.

And now they’ve made Jim Gordon Batman.

Bravo, gentlemen. I wasn’t sure of this turn (another cool place to be as a reader) but I should have had faith. This feels like a logical and natural outgrowth of the stories you’ve been telling. The Batman armor character design is stunning (we need another series of Capullo action figures now, please.) Jim Gordon’s choice to become this particular version of Batman is consistent with how you’ve drawn the character in your arcs. He’s primed to for the role.

Bottom line? In Batman #41, every choice you made as creators worked for me as a reader.

I don’t think Bruce Wayne is dead, but that’s not the story here. Awaiting his return from the dead (sooner than we might have anticipated, it seems) is not the point. The point is what Snyder and Capullo are doing with a 75-year-old concept. They’re making it new.

That’s a pretty damned cool thing to do. I am hanging on every panel.

The Best Sequential Art I Read Last Week – January 21 – January 27, 2015

I am a comic book collector and happy to be one. I might say “proud” if I hadn’t, over a year ago, switched to reading digital as opposed to print comics. I feel a bit robbed of the tactile sensations of the hobby – of the turn of the page, the sneaking look to the panel a page over, the bagging and shorting and stacking and filing. Though I read my comics in a different medium than I used to, I still treat each Wednesday (comic book delivery day to specialty shops around the country) as different from the other days of the week. I subscribe and now, rather than go to the comic store to be handed the books pulled for my “Hold Slot,” I click a button on my iPad and watch them download.

Then I read them.

Rare is the week that I don’t read them all between Wednesdays and some weeks I have, well… let’s just say more comic books in my digital downloads than a grown man should. Comic book legend Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit) is one of the most influential men even to put pencil to drawing board in the pursuit of making comics. So influential was he that the industry awards (think the Oscars or the Emmys or the Grammys) are named The Eisner Awards. He called comic books “sequential art,” perhaps because he became embarrassed by his profession when he had to admit what he did for a living. This is my weekly reaction to the comics I read.

I read 7 comics last week: Batman Eternal #42, Amazing Spider-Man #13, Batman and Robin #38, Batman/Superman #18, Justice League #38, Spider-Verse Team Up #3, and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes #2.

The best comic I read last week was Batman/Superman#18.

 

I love the dynamic in the New 52 between Superman and Batman. Rather than simply grudging allies, these are two characters who really understand each other and who count on each other for friendship. It’s clear from the manner in which Greg Pak writes them that he is having fun with this relationship and is building stories that highlight it well. This arc in which Superman is supposed to come face-to-face with his “Joker” has been really, really good. As people around Superman are murdered in impossible circumstances and Superman is taunted by the culprit, Batman challenges him to think about his life, to discover who would hate him the most, to find his archenemy – his Joker. Knowing that it’s not Lex Luthor for Superman (I think – and, given that Geoff Johns is handling the Lex/Superman conflict pretty solidly in Justice League, I strongly doubt Pak is going to the same well) is a good twist. Discovering the identity of the character that Superman would risk the most to save is a GREAT one.

I have found Pak’s writing on this title a little uneven. Some storylines have grabbed me, others I cannot remember month-to-month. This one has been tremendous and I am eagerly awaiting the next issue. I am sure that I’ll re-read Batman/Superman #18 this month, and that’s something I don’t often do.

Adrian Syaf’s art has something to do with how good the book is. I’ve always liked the artist and he’s at the top of his game here, especially when the “murder weapon” is revealed.

There are a lot of reveals in this book and a lot of things that kept me guessing. I cannot say that about every comic I read. Batman/Superman #18 is to be praised and was very much the best comic I read last week!

This is What Happens… A Collector’s Nightmare…

One of my posts yesterday was about how the internet is killing me as a collector.

Now comes an example of the phenomenon: thinking about that text this morning, I thought to myself, “I don’t have the Funko Pop Heroes Penguin. Why don’t I have a Funko Penguin? Don’t I need a Funko Penguin?”

And I looked over at my display and, sure enough, there’s the Joker and the Riddler and Two Face. And no Penguin. I’ve got 2 Sinestros (1 metallic and 1 non-metallic) and no Penguin.

As it turns out – a quick internet search proved this to me – Penguin is the only Funko Pop Hero I don’t have.

Or, rather, I didn’t have.

Thanks, amazon.

I think…