Promising Young Woman Preview

Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is smart and determined and was working her way through medical school when tragedy rocked her world.  Her best friend Nina was raped by their classmate Al Monroe.  The school and the legal system failed her.  Nina took her own life and Cassie never recovered.  Now, pushing 30, she lives at home with her parents in Ohio and works at a coffee shop to make ends meet.  

Promising Young Woman is Cassie's revenge story.  The preview begins with Cassie speaking with Dean Elizabeth Walker (Connie Britton).  Cassie is there under the pretense of being interested in resuming her medical schooling.  When asked about her previous departure, Cassie reminds her of what Al Monroe did at that school.  Dean Walker dismisses Cassie by saying they get accusations like this all the time.  Walker asks Cassie if the alleged rape was reported and who it was Nina spoke to.  Cassie reminds Walker that it was her that Nina went to for help.

Thus begins a rampage of not only revenge against those Cassie holds responsible for what happened to Nina, but against those who engage in this behavior.  She frequents bars and parties and acts completely inebriated.  She waits for guys to attempt to take advantage of her before revealing her sobriety. 

There is another preview that apparently shows how Cassie's fire for revenge was ignited.  She is working in the coffee shop when a former classmate Ryan (Bo Burnham) enters.  He is sweet and goofy and endearing.  After tripping over his own words, he tells her she can spit in his coffee if she likes.  He'd deserve it.  Without hesitating, she does.  He responds by asking her out.  He also tells her that Al Monroe is getting married.  There's the fire.

Promising Young Woman was Written, Produced and Directed by Emerald Fennell.  Other than a short film in 2018, this would be Fennell's directorial debut.  She is nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.  Carey Mulligan is nominated for Best Leading Actress.  This is Mulligan's second Oscar nomination.  She was previously nominated for her role in An Education in 2009.

This film looks painful, yet witty.  Dark, yet sweet.  Angry, yet heroic.  Carey looks fantastic in the leading role with a dry sense of humor and delivery mixed with a deep and intense need for revenge.  It's not the first movie to deal with revenge.  In Carrie, the 1976 Stephen King thriller, we saw Sissy Spacek exact a bloody revenge against her bullies.  Russell Crowe got his revenge in 2000's Gladiator.  But the preview for Promising Young Woman reminds me a bit of another revenge movie.  Two actually.  Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2 by Quentin Tarantino.  Tarantino is one of the all-time masters of tackling extremely uncomfortable issues (slavery, drug use, sodomy), stringing the storyline together with as much violently bloody and over-the-top graphic scenes as possible, and sprinkling in just enough smart and necessary humor to keep things somewhat balanced.  I'm expecting the same type of reaction to this film.  Uncomfortable, graphic, violent, but also smart and fun.  I am going to give Promising Young Woman a 4 Star Prediction.  It looks like it would be worth the money in a theatre, something I'd want to watch again, and have a good chance of finding a home in my permanent collection.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Judas and the Black Messiah Review

2.5 Stars

Judas and the Black Messiah is the latest film by Director Shaka King.  While this isn't exactly his directorial debut, this is only his second full length feature film and is certainly his most noteworthy.  Other than a spattering of TV episodes and a couple short films over the last 8 years, King's previous work as a Director was Newlyweeds.  He directed 5 episodes of the one-season sci-fi comedy People of Earth which I thought was a clever, witty, dark comedy and was disappointed it didn't get more seasons.  Now, seemingly out of nowhere, he brings us Judas and the Black Messiah that is nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture.

William "Bill" O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) is caught stealing a car and impersonating a Federal Agent.  He is given a choice: several years in prison, or become an FBI informant.  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) sees the Black Panther Party as the biggest threat in America and commands the FBI to take down their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).  With his FBI handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), keeping close tabs on him, O'Neal infiltrates the Illinois Black Panthers to keep tabs on Hampton.  

The film is based on true events.  Which sometimes makes it really tough to criticize.  If you're watching a movie about Malcolm X, for example, you can't really be upset with the movie maker when Malcolm X is murdered.  That actually happened.  In 1989, O'Neal gave an interview to PBS for a documentary called Eyes on the Prize II.  O'Neal died in a traffic accident less than a year later.  It was ruled a suicide.

Judas and the Black Messiah starts with O'Neal entering a bar in a trench coat and fedora impersonating an FBI agent.  After he is caught and asked why he didn't just rob the place with a gun like most thieves do, he replied that they aren't scared of guns, but they're scared of the badge and the army of back-up that comes with it.  After stealing a car from one of the men in the bar and barely getting away alive as they chase him down, O'Neal is quickly apprehended by the FBI. 

He is interviewed by Agent Roy Mitchell who lists the charges and jail time he faces, unless he agrees to infiltrate the Illinois Black Panthers and provide the FBI important information to help take down their organization.  Mitchell befriends O'Neal, asking him if he was upset by the recent murders of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.  He tells O'Neal that the Black Panthers are no different than white supremacists who are hell bent on violence and mayhem rather than peace and equality.  Mitchell takes O'Neal out to eat at nice restaurants, pays him for good intelligence.  He invites him over to his house and allows him to meet his family.  

I think we were supposed to see the inner conflict in O'Neal.  As he gets closer to the Panthers, he realizes they are not terrorists.  They are good people trying to do the right thing and stand up against racist oppression.  But O'Neal's life was in danger more than just a couple times as the Panthers challenged his stories and identity.  LaKeith Stanfield, who played O'Neal, really didn't have a good poker face, nor did he have subtle facial expressions.  There was a scene where the Panthers were in the same bar O'Neal robbed.  Afraid of being recognized, he comically attempted to hide in the corner and conceal his identity.  He was just as exaggerated under the same circumstances in the headquarters of a rival gang.  

Later, O'Neal is challenged by other Panthers to hotwire the car they're in to prove his story.  He does so and let's out an exaggerated deep breath and roll of the eyes showing relief that he pulled it off.  And there is yet another scene at a rally welcoming Panther leader Hampton back from prison where Agent Mitchell shows up and blends in with the crowd.  O'Neal sees him and is visibly disturbed by his presence there.  He just seemed to lack any nuance in his performance.

In fact, I found the inner turmoil of Agent Mitchell to be more compelling.  You could see him struggling to convince O'Neal that taking down the Panthers was a good thing.  You could see his faith in his own FBI waver as fellow agents willingly put another informant in harms way and left him out to dry.  You could see his hesitancy to carry out the order to eliminate Hampton before he was to go back to prison.  And you could feel his conflict when he had to threaten O'Neal with prison time when O'Neal called him desperately wanting to stop being an informant.  

Daniel Kaluuya burst onto the scene in 2017 with his outstanding performance in the twisted thriller Get Out.  He is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Black Messiah.  While I thought he was convincing and charismatic and accurately portrayed the Panther Leader, I don't know that I'd consider his performance Oscar-worthy.  LaKeith Stanfield has been around, but this is definitely his most prominent role to date.  He is nominated for Best Actor, and I certainly don't think his performance warranted the nomination. 

I didn't know what exactly to expect from Judas and the Black Messiah.  It was easy to deduce that O'Neal was Judas and Hampton was the Messiah based on clips in the preview.  I assumed it would be an emotionally charged film about the racial tensions in the late 1960's in Chicago, but this film failed to elicit much of an emotional response from me. 

Like I said, films based on historical events are hard to critique.  I would have appreciated more of a back-story on O'Neal so we could see how he ended up in the bar that fateful night.  I would love to have seen more of Mitchell's family life and his conflict between morals and duty.  I cautiously anticipated 3.5 stars for this movie.  I will say that one of the things I love about Oscar season is that I push myself to see movies I normally wouldn't necessarily be inclined to watch on my own.  Trying to see all the Best Film nominees pushing me to explore just the ones I think I would personally find entertaining based on the previews.  

After watching Judas and the Black Messiah, however, I'm going to have to lower my rating to 2.5 stars.  I was hoping it would be powerful, emotional, well-acted and a tough look at our country's ugly recent history.  Overall, I felt it was underwhelming, missed opportunities to have the viewer invest more in the characters, and was almost comically melodramatic at times.  I might have found it worth a matinee or a rental, but it's not one I anticipate seeing again, and it will not be finding a home in my personal collection.  So, what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see . . . 

Judas and the Black Messiah Preview

Judas and the Black Messiah is the latest film by Director Shaka King.  While this isn't exactly his directorial debut, this is only his second full length feature film and is certainly his most noteworthy.  Other than a spattering of TV episodes and a couple short films over the last 8 years, King's previous work as a Director was Newlyweeds.  He directed 5 episodes of the one-season sci-fi comedy People of Earth which I thought was a clever, witty, dark comedy and was disappointed it didn't get more seasons.  Now, seemingly out of nowhere, he brings us Judas and the Black Messiah that is nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture.

William "Bill" O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) is caught stealing a car and assaulting a Federal Agent.  He is given a choice: several years in prison, or become an FBI informant.  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen) sees the Black Panther Party as the biggest threat in America and commands the FBI to take down their charismatic leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya).  With his FBI handler, Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), keeping close tabs on him, O'Neal infiltrates the Illinois Black Panthers to keep tabs on Hampton.  

O'Neal is torn.  As he gets closer to the Panthers, he realizes they are not terrorists.  They are good people trying to do the right thing and stand up against racist oppression.  The FBI doesn't see it that way and he is told that Hampton must be taken down by any means necessary.  Things get tense as the Panthers suspect a rat in their midst and O'Neal struggles between his morals and his duty.

Daniel Kaluuya burst onto the scene in 2017 with his outstanding performance in the twisted thriller Get Out.  He is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Black Messiah.  LaKeith Stanfield has been around, but this is definitely his most prominent role to date.  He is nominated for Best Actor. 

I honestly don't know what to expect from Judas and the Black Messiah.  I mean, I can easily deduce that O'Neal is Judas and Hampton is the Messiah from the title.  I can tell this will be an emotionally charged film about the racial tensions in the late 1960's in Chicago.  Malcolm X was shot and killed in 1965, only 100 years after the 13th Amendment officially ended slavery.  Martin Luther King JR. was shot and killed just a few years later in 1968.   I know that films like this are never comfortable to watch.  As a society, we never enjoy being reminded of how horribly we've treated people in our country's history.  Partially because it's such an ugly time in our past, and also because we still have a long way to go.

Like I said, I enjoyed King's recent work on the TV series People of Earth, but Black Messiah is neither sci-fi nor comedy.  I enjoyed Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out, but this is not a thriller.  It's a heavy and relevant topic.  Now, if someone like Quentin Tarantino was directing it, you could be sure it was overly bloody and irreverently and uncomfortably funny.  But it's not Tarantino.  I will say that one of the things I love about Oscar season is that I push myself to see movies I normally wouldn't necessarily be inclined to watch on my own.  Trying to see all the Best Film nominees pushing me to explore just the ones I think I would personally find entertaining based on the previews.  That being said, it does make it a little difficult to predict ratings for these kinds of films, especially with how my personal rating scale works.

So, I am going to cautiously predict 3.5 Stars for Judas and the Black Messiah.  I think it will be powerful, emotional, well-acted and a tough look at our country's ugly recent history.  I have my doubts about whether I'll want to watch it again or add it to my permanent collection, however.  So, am I right?  We shall see . . . 

Soul Review

 

4 Stars

It's been a tough year for the film industry.  There were a total of 329 movies released in 2020 in the United States and Canada.  There were nearly 800 released the year before.  It's amazing that movies were released at all.  Ticket sales for movie theatres plummeted 80% to their lowest numbers in nearly 40 years.  Disney's animated release back then was The Great Mouse Detective.  That's also the year Pixar Animation Studio began, though it would be about ten years before they carved their name in the history books with Toy Story.

Soul is Pixar's latest animated feature film released by Disney.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning until the moment he falls asleep at night, music is all Joe (Jamie Foxx) thinks about.  He was born to play jazz and it's his reason for living.  Those are very carefully chosen words for this middle-school music teacher who feels he's missed his calling in life.  Joe gets a call from a former student and offers him a chance to play with the legendary jazz musician Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett).  Joe is so excited at the opportunity, he doesn't see an open manhole in the street in front of him, he plummets and doesn't survive the fall. His "soul" ends up in line with other souls on the great staircase to The Great Beyond.  But Joe isn't ready. He jumps out of line and falls to a place called The Great Before, where new souls get their personalities before they go to earth. There, he meets up with soul number 22 (Tina Fey) and embarks on a journey to return to his life on earth.  

Without giving everything away, Soul is deep and tackles some really intense philosophical, moral, theological and metaphysical topics in this animated film.  Before souls can leave The Great Before and enter their human form on earth, they must get a "spark".  Joe and 22 mistakenly assume the "spark" is your purpose in life.  For Joe, that's his music.  22 is completely happy where she is and has no desire to go to earth.  But she is inspired by Joe and decides to help him return to his human form.  In order to do that, they must enlist the help of free-spirited Moonwind (Graham Norton) in a place called The Zone.

Writer / Director Pete Docter, like every Writer / Director at Pixar, has strung together hit after hit.  He burst onto the scene with Monsters, Inc and followed that triumph with the highly acclaimed Up.  In 2015, Docter wrote and directed Inside Out, an animated film that introduced us to the emotional characters that drive us as individuals.  We met Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust within ourselves.  In Soul, he takes an even deeper look as we meet the Souls who are . . . us to our core.

Soul has been nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Animated Feature Film and Best Sound.  Since the Animated Feature Film category was created in 2001, Pixar studio has won the trophy 6 times.  Many professional and amateur Oscar predictors believe Soul will give them their 7th statue.

It's Pixar and Pete Docter, so of course the animation was amazing and groundbreaking.  It would be a disappointing distraction to watch a Pixar film that didn't constantly advance the art of animation.   For me, in Soul, it was the realism of the musical instruments and they way they were played in the film that really struck me.  The story is original.  There are plenty of movies and stories about what happens in the afterlife: Heaven Can Wait, Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come to name just a few.  This tackles the concept of our souls existing before they take on a human form.  It's a pretty heavy subject matter, especially for kids.  But Pixar has a way of telling these kinds of deeply thoughtful, emotional, imaginative stories in ways that touch and entertain children and adults alike.  Soul takes on so much more than The Great Before.  It touches on who we are as individuals, what our purpose is in life, death, what happens after death.  I said out loud a few times during the film, "This is so deep."  

One of the biggest draws of the movie is the music. Real-life jazz musician Jon Batiste was a key musical consultant for the film.  He composed, arranged and performed many of the songs featured in the movie.  To hear Batiste talk about the music in the film and the story that the music tells was emotional and inspirational, even without the movie.  You could hear the sadness, the joy, the pain, the triumph as Batiste described and played pieces of the songs during the interview.  And the movie did not disappoint.  The music was just as much a character integral in the telling of the story as was Joe or 22 or Moonwind or Dorothea.  

I anticipated a 4 Stars rating from Soul and I'm going to stick with 4 Stars as my final rating for the film.  Although I couldn't watch it in the theatre (which I miss tremendously), it would have been well worth the price of admission, it's certainly worth seeing again, and it has a great chance of making it to my home collection.  It's original, clever, witty, intelligent, thought-provoking, deep and fantastic.  The only thing slightly missing from Soul that has been almost a hallmark of Pixar films is the tear-jerking moment.  The opening sequence for the movie Up, Andy's goodbye in Toy Story 3, Woody saying goodbye to Buzz in Toy Story 4, Sully saying goodbye to Boo in Monster's, Inc. and Bing Bong's Death in Inside Out are some of their quintessential pull-out-the-tissue moments.  Soul didn't really have that.  But it dealt with so many heavy subjects through the entire film and just kept piling them on relentlessly that I don't think my emotions could have handled it if they did.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to see it again.  So, what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see . . . but it's most likely going to be one of the Best Picture nominations.

Soul Preview

 I'm back.  I apologize for the long hiatus, but, you know, COVID.  It's been a tough year for the film industry.  There were a total of 329 movies released in 2020 in the United States and Canada.  There were nearly 800 released the year before.  It's amazing that movies were released at all.  Ticket sales for movie theatres plummeted 80% to their lowest numbers in nearly 40 years.  Disney's animated release back then was The Great Mouse Detective.  That's also the year Pixar Animation Studio began, though it would be about ten years before they carved their name in the history books with Toy Story.

Soul is Pixar's latest animated feature film released by Disney.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning until the moment he falls asleep at night, music is all Joe (Jamie Foxx) thinks about.  He was born to play jazz and it's his reason for living.  Those are very carefully chosen words for this middle-school music teacher who feels he's missed his calling in life.  We see Joe fall through a manhole and he doesn't survive.  His "soul" ends up in line with other souls on the great staircase to the afterlife.  But Joe isn't ready. He jumps out of line and falls to a place called The Great Before, where new souls get their personalities before they go to earth. There, he meets up with soul number 22 (Tina Fey) and embarks on a journey to return to his life on earth.  

In 2015, Pixar released Inside Out, an animated film that introduced us to the emotional characters that drive us as individuals.  We met Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust within ourselves.  Writer / Director Pete Docter takes a look even deeper as we meet the Souls who are . . . us to our core.  And it makes sense since Docter is the one who brought us Inside Out.  He's also one of the creative geniuses behind Monsters, Inc and Up.  

Soul has been nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Animated Feature Film and Best Sound.  Since the Animated Feature Film category was created in 2001, Pixar studio has won the trophy 6 times.  Many professional and amateur Oscar predictors believe Soul will give them their 7th statue.

It's Pixar and Pete Docter, so of course the animation looks amazing and groundbreaking.  It would be a disappointing distraction to watch a Pixar film that didn't constantly advance the art of animation.  The story is original.  There are plenty of movies and stories about what happens in the afterlife: Heaven Can Wait, Defending Your Life, What Dreams May Come to name just a few.  But this tackles the concept of our souls existing before they take on a human form.  It's a pretty heavy subject matter, especially for kids.  But Pixar has a way of telling these kinds of deeply thoughtful, emotional, imaginative stories in ways that touch and entertain children and adults a like.  Soul looks like it is right on par with their history.

One of the biggest draws of the movie is the music. Real-life jazz musician Jon Batiste was a key musical consultant for the film.  He composed, arranged and performed many of the songs featured in the movie.  To hear Batiste talk about the music in the film and the story that the music tells was emotional and inspirational, even without the movie.  You could hear the sadness, the joy, the pain, the triumph as Batiste described and played pieces of the songs during the interview.  That alone makes me excited to see (and hear) this film.  I'm anticipating a solid 4 Stars from Soul.  Although I won't be watching it in the theatre (which I miss tremendously), I think it would be well worth the price of admission, worth seeing again, and have a great chance of making it to my home collection.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Joker Review

4 Stars

Since Cesar Romero's first on-screen portrayal of the Joker in the Adam West's Batman television series in 1966, every actor who took on the role of the Caped Crusader and everyone who wore the white painted face of his arch nemesis Joker has been debated over who did it best; and, sometimes, who did it worst.  After Adam West, of course, Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne with the iconic Jack Nicholson as the psychotic clown, bringing new life and depth and realism to the comic book characters.

Val Kilmer and George Clooney took the beautiful, dark realistic world of Gotham back to a 1960's level of campy and absurd as they both made strong cases among critics as to who would be the worst Batman.  It's still a pretty close race.

Christopher Nolan re-vitalized the franchise, but not how he originally intended.  He fought to get up-and-coming actor Heath Ledger to put on the pointy-eared Bat Costume, but Ledger passed and Christian Bale took the role.  The disappointment turned to triumph, however, in the second of the Nolan Batman trilogy as Ledger gave a masterful performance as Joker.

Jared Leto took the character in another direction in Suicide Squad and Shameless actor Cameron Monaghan did so in the TV series Gotham.  And, while there are heated debates over which Batman was portrayed best, and also who failed in their attempts, the arguments for best Joker are harder since each was so unique and successful in their own way at their own time.  And I have not heard of many arguments for who was the worst Joker.  

Well, now you can add Joaquin Phoenix to the list of memorable, palpable, unique visions for Joker brought to life.  Set in Gotham in the 1970s, we are introduced to failed comedian Arthur Fleck who works odd jobs as a clown to try to make ends meet and support his aging mother.  The film opens with a group of punk kids stealing Fleck's advertisement sign he is being paid to hold.  He chases them down, but when he catches up to him, they give him a severe beating.  The next scene shows Fleck on a public bus sitting behind a young boy and his mother.  Fleck makes a couple funny faces to the child's delight.  The mother quickly chides him for bothering them.  He tries to explain that he wasn't bothering the boy, but the intense feeling of judgment and anger coming from the mother sends Fleck into an uncontrollable fit of awkward laughter.  He hands the mother a card that explains he suffers from a medical condition that forces him to laugh inappropriately and that his external outbursts are not a reflection of his actual feelings.

Fleck dreams of making it big as a comedian like his idol, talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert DeNiro).  We are brought along on his tragic journey into darkness as the attacks on his physical body, his emotional well-being and his very soul are relentless.  Each time we think a glimmer of something good is going to happen for Fleck, it is quickly snatched away from either Fleck or from the audience member.  Whether he is successfully entertaining patients in a hospital, being acknowledged and welcomed by Murray, meeting a nice girl who takes an interest in him, or getting a few laughs during his attempt at stand-up comedy, he either wakes from the daydream or somehow ruins the moment himself.

After one such incident, he is on a train heading home, dejected once again.  Three Wall Street frat boys are harassing a woman on the train.  Of course Fleck can't help but laugh.  The woman gets away, but the boys deliver another beating.  And that's the straw that broke his back.  He pulls out a revolver and kills all three of them in a scene that really messes with the audience's emotions.  You hate the boys for the way they treat the woman.  You sympathize with Fleck who has not done anything wrong.  You hate the boys even more for beating him down and feel even worse for Fleck than you did a moment ago and you hope and pray they don't get away with it.  But when he pulls out the gun and shoots them, it's a shock.  It is the brutal justice you were hoping for, but now are questioning if that's really how you wanted it.

And that begins, the decent into psychosis, but also the praise and adoration for the vigilante clown.  The acclaim of his persona and the justification of his action further propels him into his more confident, take-no-crap, dole-out-justice clown alter-ego, the Joker.  

The film is intense, tragic, deliberate, methodical, sad and horrifying.  Phoenix's portrayal does what no other Joker has done by extensively creating a detailed back-story leading up to his existence.  A story that gains your sympathy and compassion and understanding of who he is and why.  You don't support his gruesome actions, but you can't completely condemn them either.  

Joker is filled with both classic hits from Frank Sinatra, Cream, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante and more from the 1970's.  But the film's score is mostly a lone cello that is haunting, unsettling, disturbing and perfectly appropriate for Fleck.  Peter and the Wolf used very specific instruments for each character in the story.  Films like Star Wars created theme songs for its main characters.  Without even looking, you would know who was on the screen just by hearing their song.  The dull, but intentional cello is the perfect score for Fleck.

My only critique from the previews versus the actual film is that it doesn't really prepare you for the graphic violence at the hands of the insane clown.  Not that I have a problem with it.  Nicholson and Ledger's characters were both violent to the degree they were allowed at the time of their filming.  And not that the violence isn't completely warranted for the character or the story and not just there for the sake of violence.  I just wasn't prepared for that from the previews.  

Joker was emotionally draining, it was tragically sad and disturbingly brutal, both what Fleck endured and what he inflicted.  Phoenix was convincing, captivating and brilliant in his performance that lands him as an early contender for Best Actor once the Oscars are announced.  And, though we're just getting started with Oscar season, it's not hard to see Joker being nominated for several others including Best Picture.  I originally gave Joker a 4 Star Prediction.  Based on one of my criteria for grading, I would be inclined to knock it down a half star for the slightly less-than-honest preview.  But Phoenix's performance would bring that right back up again.  I'm going to stick with my original estimation and give Joker a sold 4 Stars.  It was well worth the money in the theatres, it's one I'm still talking about and will be analyzing for days to come, I'd like to see it again, and it has a strong chance of making it to my home collection.  So, what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Joker Preview

Batman first appeared in the comic book Detective Comics #27 in 1939.  A year later, he had his own comic book.  And in the very first edition, we were introduced to his arch nemesis, Joker.  Batman and Joker first came to life in the 1960's with Adam West in the role of the Caped Crusader and Cesar Romero as Joker.   They made a movie from the TV series in 1966, but it wasn't until 1989 that the dark, odd, beautiful, genius mind of Tim Burton unleashed a Batman movie that arguably is the reason the character is still popular to this day.  Mega movie star Michael Keaton wore the pointy-eared costume.  Instead of the powder blue that West had donned, his was all black with accents of yellow on his belt and chest bat-emblem.  The Joker was masterfully performed by Jack Nicholson.  The movie resulted in three additional films with Burton directing Batman Returns before the franchise took a nose dive with Val Kilmer and George Clooney taking over the role.  But this isn't about Batman, it's about Joker.  So I digress. 

Batman, the Animated Series was next with Star Wars' Mark Hamill lending his vocal talents to the animated Joker in the 1990's.  In 2005, Christopher Nolan took the movies to an even darker place with Christian Bale as Batman.  He originally wanted Heath Ledger to play the role, but fans were much happier that he signed on the play the white-faced villain in the second movie in the trilogy in 2008.  The TV Series Gotham traced the beginnings of Detective Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne in his teens.  Shameless star Cameron Monaghan played twins Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska that lead to the Joker character.  In 2016, it was Jared Leto's turn in Suicide Squad, which was the first time we saw Joker without Batman chasing him down.

And now, in 2019, it's Joaquin Phoenix's turn to play the tragic, psychopathic clown known as Joker.  As many times as the Joker role has been performed, there have been as many back-stories told about who he is and how he came about to be.  The preview for 2019's Joker portrays him as a failed comedian Arthur Fleck who is publicly mocked, is beaten, is cast out by society and drives him down a spiraling decent into madness.  The result: the Joker.

The preview shows Fleck on a bus making silly faces for a small boy who laughs with delight.  The boy's mother demands he stop bothering them and gives a nasty, glaring, disapproving look that makes him sheepishly apologize.  We see him dressed as a clown, holding an advertisement sign on a sidewalk.  Bullies take his sign and beat him down in an alley.  He is in a hospital and there is a girl in the hospital bed beside him.  It is unclear their relationship, but it is obvious that she is the patient and he is the visitor.  On the television, he lights up with excitement as a popular comedy talk show host mentions his routine.  His excitement turns when he sees the host is only mocking him for having no talent or humor.  And then things turn chaotic, which is really the common theme with every Joker: inciting chaos, disrupting the status quo, making people crazy - like him.  At the end, it appears he is given a chance to appear on the very talk show that had ridiculed him, and he has a request of the host.  He asks to be introduced as Joker.

Phoenix's repertoire is quite extensive and eclectic.  His movies range from popular blockbusters like Hotel Rwanda, The Village, Signs, Walk the Line and Gladiator, to the more obscure and odd ones like Her, I'm Still Here and You Were Never Really Here.  Joker looks like the best of both his worlds.  It looks haunting and scary and yet humanizes the psychotic clown in a way that no other Joker has done before.  

Unlike Batman, it's difficult to decide who was the best Joker since each of them is so unique and brilliantly evil in their own way.  By the same token, there aren't a lot of debates over who was the worst Joker, while it's not hard to come up with a couple names when it comes to Batman's character.  From the preview, it looks like you can already add Phoenix into the mix of yet another wonderfully terrible, maniacally twisted Jokers like his predecessors before him.  I'm excited to see his creation and take on the classic villain.  The movie looks disturbing, but not in a violently gruesome way.  More in a psychologically terrorizing way.  I'm giving Joker a 4.0 Star Prediction.  I think I will enjoy it in the theatre, I'll want to see it again, and it will have a solid chance of making it to my home collection.  Am I right?  We shall see.