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I saw this in the cinema when it was out. Fun movie.
Especially the scene in the bar when Lang pretends to be Moss's girlfriend to get him to open up on how to talk to women !!
That is a very disturbing film. Really well shot and acted. I saw it at the cinema when it came out and found it a riveting and fascinating watch.
Shame about the dumb American remake, amazingly from the same director.
Agreed! And he gave the remake a happy ending!! Awful decision!
Yeah I'm not sure what he was thinking with that ending. I must revisit the original soon.
Directed and Starring Cornel Wilde.
Wilde plays a safari guide, whose group insults a local tribe. Having captured and torturing and killing most of the group, Wildes (simply known as 'Man') character escapes and becomes the hunted. Filmed entirely in Africa, it's an entertaining movie, with only the awkward wildlife footage shoehorned in. Wilde does a good job helming, and there are some great set pieces, particularly the scene where Man uses fire to stop his pursuers! I remember seeing this on television when I was very young, this recent blu ray release was lent to me by my younger brother.
Oh my god I searched for this film for years until I finally found I on IMDb.
I saw it when I was about 7 years old and it disturbed me so much I thought about it for years. It was the guy baked in mud that stayed with me and it's still a disturbing scene.
I just love it so I will check out the Blu-ray.
Excellent film, one of my recent "new" favorites in the action genre, despite it being more of a chase thriller. Cornel Wilde is the man in it; I believe I read that he was battling the flu the entire shoot, which surely added to his dwindling exhaustion in the film and need to survive. I need to rewatch this one ASAP.
Exactly what I thought when I saw Apocalypto @Mathis1
It's been sitting on my shelf for a while now but I've had so much else to get around to that isn't as recent in my mind. Thanks for the reminder, though!
Yes, I'd agree about Apocalypto (which is also fantastic and another one I need to rewatch). I've not seen it since it came out, I don't believe.
You're welcome. Do watch it again! Good movie. And yes, must dig out Apocalypto and watch it again!
One of my recent favorites in the genre. The late night car sequence that segues into the mother's discovery in the morning gives me chills every time.
Man that was intense. Really horrifying stuff. I have to say, through his first two films, Ari Aster has definitely impressed me. I love that there are barely any jumpscares; it’s all about the dread, atmosphere, and characters.
Same here - he quickly grabbed my attention with Hereditary and kept it with Midsommar. I know he doesn't plan to stay in the horror genre forever, but regardless I am looking forward to whatever he comes up with next.
That is one of the most dreadful and disturbing sequences I've ever witnessed.
Very skillful directing and Toni Collette is just incredible.
I'd really like to watch this in full. Frogga dogga, bravo Bill!
(SPOILERS AHEAD!)
I first got interested in this film because the first trailer showed a person who appeared to be so miserable, and who came across as so pathetic, that I could sense the potential for a very powerful, sad drama. So I finally got to watch it yesterday. This is a film that's skillfully made, about someone whose life is so, so tragic, that they get to the point where they start to see the comedy in it, something that is represented by the frequent visual metaphor of a smile that verges on tears (or viceversa), and by the uncontrollable fits of laughter and tears that aspiring stand-up comic Arthur Fleck suffers from because of a mental condition.
The film is set in 1981 (interestingly, it begins with the Warner Bros. logo from back in the day), something that, from doing a little bit of reading on the film, but also from watching the film itself, one can understand is meant to more closely associate Joker with other movies it is a cousin to, such as Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy and Network-- stories about the decay of society and the decay of the individual who lives in it. And Joker does paint a pretty bleak picture of society. The film establishes a constant parallel between the life of Fleck and the life of the city he inhabits, with both appearing to be pressure cookers ready to explode. Fleck is poor; he lives with a mother with apparent mental issues he has to take care of; he himself suffers from several mental and neurological conditions, and has a therapist and pills that do nothing for him; and twice, he suffers from brutal attacks at the hands of strangers. Similarly, the city of Gotham has to deal with a garbage strike; government funding toward several social services is starting to dwindle; and the city's poverty-stricken people, whose businesses are closing, are starting to foster a strong resentment toward the higher socioeconomic classes. (Crucially, Fleck will later accidentally intensify this class conflict, by killing three drunken businessmen after they started attacking him in the subway.)
Another sign of a societal decay comes in the figure of Murray Franklin, who hosts a late-night TV show. At one point, after Fleck flops in his stand-up comedy debut, a filmed tape of the event somehow makes its way into the Franklin show, being broadcast to millions of people, with Franklin mocking Fleck's poor performance on air. There is a valid point there about something we all know about: television can often be a medium which showcases failure, makes a mockery out of people, and dedicates itself to the most shallow, less meaningful of topics.
At one point, Fleck strikes up a relationship with a neighbor in his apartment building, but the signs are there right from the beginning that something is off about the situation. Eventually, it proves to be a figment of Fleck's desperate imagination, of his need not to be ignored. And that's the essential point of his character, and of the situation with the citizens of Gotham. They both feel ignored and stepped on, and that leads them to desperation.
The parallels I mentioned with other films are not only there in the subject matter and the story of Joker; they are also present in certain little moments that are clearly evocative of the aforementioned films-- for instance, in Fleck's rehearsal for his TV appearance, reminiscent of The King of Comedy, and in the aftermath of Franklin's death, which is similar to the ending of Network. Now that I mention Franklin, I must say I found his death scene --at the hands of Fleck, and as payback for having mocked him on television-- really shocking. The music score in the background adds a very strong layer of tension, and his death happens (and is shot) in such a matter-of-fact way, that it feels frankly gutwrenching. Even if you can sense it coming, it's still very intense. Likewise, I found the scene in which the two cops are beaten up by the angry mob to be anxiety-inducing. It's this feeling that wheels are coming off the bus and there is nothing anyone can do about it, not even mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne.
Speaking of Wayne, there is this other dimension of Fleck's life --the possibility that Wayne was his father-- that is meant to generate some intrigue to propel the film along, and is in some way the weakest part of the film (but I'll address that later). Eventually, we find out it's not true, but it leads to another seemingly devastating development in Fleck's life, when he discovers his own forgotten childhood of abuse, and murders his mother in retribution. The thing is, all these apparently tragic situations in his life become positive, liberating experiences for him. It's tragedy so extreme that it becomes comedy, an aspect that defines his character.
So when Arthur Fleck finally becomes the Joker, we understand the reasons, and the film asks us to identify with him, at least on some level. It's good --even great-- filmmaking for the most part, and Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro are fantastic in their roles. Even if the latter has a relatively small part, his presence seems to permeate the film, as a subtle but omnipresent contrast to Fleck's sad life.
But all I've written is the preamble to the following two points I'd like to address. First, this being a film about the Joker, a character from a comic book.
This film appears to fall back on so few concrete aspects of the comic book it's based on, and is so far removed from anything resembling the common idea, and I imagine the common style of a comic book, that I don't know if it's better for it, or worse. Arguments for it being better: it demonstrates that, even in a medium that can be naively considered to be devoid of all that much complexity, there is a world of narrative potential to be uncovered and developed. Arguments for it being worse: it goes beyond its source material so much, and so well, that it becomes like shackles to him. In the end, is there a necessity to have Thomas Wayne be in the film? Couldn't it just have been any millionaire? And Bruce Wayne? And the Joker? I'm ambivalent about this point, but right now I'm leaning toward the comic book connections being a negative. I mentioned this Thomas Wayne subplot. I do feel it's the weakest aspect of the film, not because it's inherently weak on a conceptual level, but because in its comic book connection, it suggests the possibility that Arthur Fleck and Bruce Wayne are half-brothers, and that distracts from all the other more important stuff the film is trying to address. It's the film shooting itself in the foot.
And the second point I'd like to address. As I said, this is good and even great filmmaking. But at the service of what? In the end, the film asks us to empathize with Fleck, which is fine, but it also seems to embrace and accept his transformation into the Joker. It's presented as justified. In response to a letter from the 2012 Aurora shooting victims voicing concerns, Warner Bros. claimed "it is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero." At this point, I think back to the talk surrounding the film The Wolf of Wall Street, which if I remember correctly, was criticized because it shows all this debauchery and moral decay from the Wall Street people, but it doesn't explicitly condemn it. There are two views one can take on that. One can consider the idea that the filmmakers made this film with a certain audience in mind, an audience they expected to be able to understand the point they were trying to make, by performing the intellectual exercise of taking the film and placing it in the social context of a moral, law-abiding society, that would make it immediately apparent it cannot be condoning the behavior of his characters, even if it never outright states that, thus legitimizing the content of the film. Alternatively, one can consider the possibility the film is morally decadent because it needs to be explicit in its condemnation of the behavior of the Wall Street characters, and fails to be. It's a similar situation with Joker. In my view, the film seems to side with him, despite what Warner Bros. has said. So, is the film acceptable because we have to place it a context, or is it regrettable because it fails to be explicit about its meaning? Joker is an unrelentingly dark picture, seemingly resigned to chaos and madness. In that sense, it can be perhaps considered provocative, but of course, provocative does not equal good.
Then of course, one can ask this same question of Joker's inspirations, such as the Scorsese films. Do The King of Comedy or Taxi Driver side with their lead characters? In the case of the former movie, I think it's easy to argue that's not the case. Pupkin is clearly portrayed as a putz, whom we are not meant to side with or justify in any way. He's stubbornly ignorant about his shortcomings, and never takes the hint from the other characters that they don't think he's ready for prime time, or they don't want to see him, or they told him what he wanted to hear to get rid of him. It's a little more complicated, I think, with Taxi Driver, because we don't think of Bickle as a clueless idiot, and we can see his wartime experiences took a toll on him. But in the end, there appears to be a significant difference between Taxi Driver and Joker. Whatever the reasons, from early on, Bickle is shown to be ill-equipped to engage with the world in a normal way, to get into a healthy romantic relationship, etc. A distance is established between us and him. By contrast, in Joker, while we are told Arthur Fleck is mentally ill, apart from his uncontrollable laughing and crying fits, unlike Bickle, he is shown to be a reasonable fellow, and someone to whom bad things happen one after the other. I do think we are intended to side with him, and without an outsider's perspective to provide a legitimate counterpoint to Fleck's own point of view, the film feels limp, not in terms of filmmaking, but in terms of its subject matter. There is no real condemnation of the behavior of the characters in the film from within the film. It has to come from the outside, from the viewer's own analysis. Personally, I prefer this to be explicit in a film, otherwise it feels like a reading a letter containing an incomplete idea.
So, I appreciate how powerful Joker is a film, how it places certain subjects on the table, and how it showcases some good filmmaking, but ultimately I think I don't like it. It's dark, which is reasonable, but it's not life-affirming, and that is regrettable.
On a final note, I'd like to say I noticed a sad parallel between this film and real life in my city, where there have been some violent protests in the subway for the increasing transportation prices. I couldn't help but associate that factual event with the riots and disgruntlement which are portrayed in Joker.
"Not if you tie me up and drag me naked through a field of broken glass"
"Why don't you tie your dick in a knot ?"
"Maybe when my asshole learns to chew gum!"
James Woods is one highly strung,angry cop in this ..some brilliant one-liners throughout the whole film !
Just saw it. Phoenix is a standout. The other?...
Hildur Gudnadottir. Her score for this film is riveting, a definite Oscar contender.
Just watched this on netflix. I think this was Seagal last good movie.
Very clever, but dreary-looking sci-fi thriller.
sigh why was there 3 films in this "trilogy" the jokes are bland.. the cast I guess is ok in their roles its weird to be a guy who doesn't find dirty humor like this funny.. but if you liked the first two mild recommend for those who want to check out the third.
The Dark Knight
I enjoy this film but the older I get I feel that it's just ok.... I prefer Batman Begins....\
I get that people love this movie and I get why but the film had like 4 climaxes and the Two Face stuff really warrented its own film.
Films I saw in 2019
1. Jaws
2. Casino Royale
3. Batman begins
4. Across the Universe
5. The Dark Knight
6. Licence to Kill
7. Batman Gotham knight
8. Batman mask of the phantasm
9. Batman
10. Beverly Hills Cop 2
11. Batman Returns
12. Casino Royale 1954
13. Highlander Endgame
14. Batman Year one
15. Valley Girls
16. Dirty dancing
17. Oliver Stone The Doors
18. Highlander
19. Moonstruck
20. Batman Forever
21. Avengers: Endgame
22. Batman Beyond
23. Rocketman
24. Hitman agent 47
25. Highlander 3 The Final Dimension
26. Batman Triumphant
27. Walk the line
28. Highlander 2
29. Highlander the source
30. Batman & Robin
31. Porky's Revenge
Films from 2019
1. Avengers Endgame
2. Rocketman
Batman series
1. Batman begins
2. The Dark Knight
3. Batman Gotham knight
4. Batman mask of the phantasm
5. Batman
6. Batman Returns
7. Batman year one
8. batman forever
9. Batman Beyond
10. Batman triumphant
11. Batman & Robin
Highlander series
1. Highlander Endgame
2. Highlander
3. Highlander the final Dimension
4. Highlander 2
5. Highlander the source
Bond series
1. Casino Royale
2. Licence to Kill
3. Casino Royale 1954
Jukebox
1. Across the Universe
2. Oliver Stone The Doors
3. Walk the line
4. Rocketman