What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Older Films)

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Nolan's movies were pretentious and nihilistic, but he still knew in the end that Batman was the good guy and the Joker was the bad guy, regardless of how Millennial audiences interpreted it. The Tod Philips Universe presents Joker as a tragic man that needs attention and is "forced" to murder people, whereas Bruce Wayne is a spoiled brat who deserves what's coming to him. It's a Love Letter to these idiot Gen Z kids living with their parents that can't adapt to society and demand it adapt to them.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

In the end, Batman discredits Joker, who's exposed as a fraud whose wanky social experiment backfires. Millennials are idiots for thinking this dickhead was the "real hero" or something.

[Edmilson 7,367]

The Dark Knight Rises is so bad it nearly sunked the entire trilogy. There are plot holes galore on that film.

 

And while I like TDK, I can't support what that movie have done with DC for a long time. After TDK, everyone tried to take DC's characters and make would be arthouse prestige flicks with them, like Snyder and Todd Phillips. DC was trying to revert this trend over the past few years (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam), but Joker's huge box office will open the doors to more Oscar movies about them.

 

Jesus, it's a guy who dresses like a clown and fights a man in a bat suit, it was supposed to be fun, not dark and depressing!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

True, Joker wanted everyone to believe the world was inherently evil and that when forced to extremes, civilized people would destroy one another. That's why he had the remote detonator to ensure the ferryboats blew up when the passengers were unwilling to do it. "I came prepared." Fake news! Batman turns it against him with his own fake news.

[A24 4,322]

On 7/5/2020 at 9:12 PM, Edmilson said:

Jesus, it's a guy who dresses like a clown and fights a man in a bat suit, it was supposed to be fun, not dark and depressing!

 

It's good that you weren't in charge of Joker then. Tod Phillips' approach clearly struck a chord with critics and audiences. Perhaps they did pick up and appreciate its gritty social commentary.  

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Arthur just wanted to be admired by Robert DeNiro on his talk show and a beloved stand-up comic.

[A24 4,322]

2 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

Arthur just wanted to be admired by Robert DeNiro on his talk show and a beloved stand-up comic.

 

I think you have King Of Comedy and Joker mixed up. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

5 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

 

It's good that you weren't in charge of Joker then. Tod Phillips' approach clearly struck a chord with critics and audiences. Perhaps they did pick up and appreciated its gritty social commentary.  

 

Those people are all idiots with no taste.

[Chen G. 3,940]

15 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

The Tod Philips Universe presents Joker as a tragic man that needs attention and is "forced" to murder people, whereas Bruce Wayne is a spoiled brat who deserves what's coming to him. It's a Love Letter to these idiot Gen Z kids living with their parents that can't adapt to society and demand it adapt to them.

More and more I get the feeling that people nowadays have lost the ability to consume tragedy; which is what Joker is.

 

It’s far from the finest form of tragedy, but it’s good.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

Many people hate the film due to the fact that the mainstream audience sees it as THE edgy arthouse cinema masterpiece which it absolutely isn't. If you go that way to argue about the film you start headbutting with everyone. The reality, however, is that it's a decent film that thankfully achieved to take a broad audience out of their comfort zone. But it's not the ingenius social commentary everyone is talking about.

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Depressing film for depressed people.

[TSMefford 1,509]

On 7/4/2020 at 4:44 PM, bollemanneke said:

The score is touching, curious and peculiar, but isn’t performed very well. For some reason, most of it is heavily focused on the left channel, which is really odd since the voices were mixed so well.

 

While I can't comment on the panning (it sounds fine to me when I watch it), performance wise that may be a purposeful choice. There's footage from the sessions of Director Spike Jonze asking if a particular performance was too complex, wanting to make things more simple and childlike. Perhaps that is some of what you're hearing.

 

As far as the film itself, I think it's absolutely phenomenal and is one of my favorite films of all time.

[bollemanneke 3,334]

Interesting!

[TSMefford 1,509]

1 hour ago, bollemanneke said:

Interesting!

 

Relevant clip:

 

Personally I think it works marvelously and effectively in the film. Despite my high praise of the film and the love I do have for the simple, but interesting score, it's actually not one of my all time favorites. I do like it though and through it on from time to time. 

 

Another little tidbit from the same featurette (or it may have been somewhere else): Carter Burwell was brought in later on in the game to ease Warner Brothers fear about the film. There was a lot of fighting over this film and honestly I'm surprised we got what we did out of it. I think it's such an unconventional tone and execution of something like this. But anyway. Spike wanted Karen O to do all the music. But her and Burwell ended up splitting the music essentially. Studios are so humorous when the start getting cold feet, they start finding anything an everything they can to change it and bring in someone that has had a good track record before. Of all the things about this film I'd think they'd have a problem with I don't think the music would be one, but oh well.

 

Sorry for the topic deviation everyone.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

32 minutes ago, TSMefford said:

Another little tidbit from the same featurette (or it may have been somewhere else): Carter Burwell was brought in later on in the game to ease Warner Brothers fear about the film.

From what I recall, it was Jonze’s decision, not the studio’s. He called Burwell beforehand to let him know he wasn’t going to use traditional score, to maintain the relationship, but ultimately asked him to write a little bit of music for the film. 

[TSMefford 1,509]

50 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

From what I recall, it was Jonze’s decision, not the studio’s. He called Burwell beforehand to let him know he wasn’t going to use traditional score, to maintain the relationship, but ultimately asked him to write a little bit of music for the film. 

 

Yes. That is correct. That's what I meant, but didn't state it well. Burwell wasn't forces on Jonze. He was a composer that he had worked with on several films before, but also an established name that I imagined put WB at ease. Here's some quotes directly from Burwell on the situation:

 

Quote

The first thing I did on "Where The Wild Things Are" was to be fired. I think it was in 2005 that Spike Jonze called to tell me was going to Australia to begin shooting "Where The Wild Things Are," and that he would not be asking me to write music for the film. He said it in the nicest possible way. I had written the music for Spike's previous feature films (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation), but Spike wanted Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's) to write music for the "Wild Things."

 

Quote

Apparently this was an early screening. Warner Brothers was not invited. The film was long, as all rough cuts are, and had no special effects. Karen's songs were in it but so was a lot of other music playing the role of score (what we call "temp music"). The tone of the film was dark, but in a way that was sincerely reminiscent of childhood itself.

 

Afterward we had lunch and discussed the film and the musical situation. Spike knew he would have a battle with Warner Brothers over the tone of the film. He also suspected that the songs might not be able to do everything the film needed musically. These two issues were not unrelated. At the very least Warner Brothers was going to want to clarify the emotional tone of the film, and music is a powerful way to do so.

 

Spike was not asking me to write music for the film - only for my opinions, which I gladly gave him. He still hoped that remixes or rearrangements of Karen's songs (which were fantastic) would suffice to score the film.

 

Quote

After the screening the film went on a crazy ride in which Warner Brothers and Spike fought about the type of film they were making. I was told simply to stop work.

 

The following year I was asked to join officially as composer. After some editing and rewriting the film was in a form that both Spike and Warner Brothers could embrace. Spike and Karen and I "spotted" the film several times - parcelling out who would be responsible for the music in each scene. We'd audition our results for each other and have another meeting where we'd politely, sometimes desperately, trade scenes. Completely by chance we each ended up having written about half of the music in the film.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

6 hours ago, Chen G. said:

More and more I get the feeling that people nowadays have lost the ability to consume tragedy; which is what Joker is.

 

Howzat? The film make a billion space bucks, Gen Z losers devoured it like dessert, and it won elite gongs from Hollyweirdos coronating it as the new hip trend. Joker '19 is the new status quo for industry, critics and general audiences.

[Edmilson 7,367]

Chappie

 

I love stories about artificial intelligences waking up and discovering how shitty their makers are, such as in Blade Runner, I, Robot and the first season of Westworld. But, geez, this flick is pretty bad. It doesn't find the right tone for the story, the characters are unlikable, the plot is thin, etc. Zimmer's electronic score is okay and much like Dunkirk it sounds like one giant cue that lasts for the whole movie. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

4 hours ago, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

Howzat? The film make a billion space bucks, Gen Z losers devoured it like dessert, and it won elite gongs from Hollyweirdos coronating it as the new hip trend. Joker '19 is the new status quo for industry, critics and general audiences.

 

There are those of us who don't go to see comic book movies to "consume tragedy." They can have those elements, but it's such a drag to see a miserable flick inspired by these comic books that has all the fun sucked out of it. Sure, they can also skew too far into the other direction, like seeing Batman fight aliens in Zack Snyder's terrible vision. What a bunch of shit.

 

Joker is reminiscent of the Nolan movies in that it feels embarrassed by its source material. Many agree that it was so disconnected from the source that the various references to Batman lore felt out of place, and they did. We're not going to see a Batman flick for political social commentary or to feel more intellectual.

[Edmilson 7,367]

Exactly. It's just a man that dresses like a bat and knows martial arts. It is SUPPOSED to be funny and entertaining.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be silly, since the Schumacher's Batman movies are terrible. That's why I believe Batman Begins is the perfect Batman movie (so far): it respects the material, the characters and their origins. It's neither too silly like the Schumacher movies, neither too "artistic" and "crime epic" like TDK and TDKR. It's a great super-hero movie that is sober, but not depressing, fun, but not idiotic.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

His villains include a plant girl, a guy in a spacesuit with a freeze ray, a fat gangster with a monocle called The Penguin, a lady in a catsuit and a guy who had acid splashed on half his face who wears bi-colored suits and flips a coin. Just because you can make this all tragic and "realistic" doesn't mean you should.

 

You meet somewhere halfway and it tends to work.

[gkgyver 1,645]

On 7/5/2020 at 9:35 PM, Alexcremers said:

 

It's good that you weren't in charge of Joker then. Tod Phillips' approach clearly struck a chord with critics and audiences. Perhaps they did pick up and appreciated its gritty social commentary.  

 

Yes, it struck a wrong chord with critics because it associated blaming rich white people for your own miserable existence with the lunacy that it is. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Schumacher's Batman movies are terrible. 

 

 

[Chen G. 3,940]

4 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

There are those of us who don't go to see comic book movies to "consume tragedy." They can have those elements, but it's such a drag to see a miserable flick inspired by these comic books that has all the fun sucked out of it. Sure, they can also skew too far into the other direction, like seeing Batman fight aliens in Zack Snyder's terrible vision. What a bunch of shit.

 

Joker is reminiscent of the Nolan movies in that it feels embarrassed by its source material.

I do agree that it’s embarrassed of its roots, but less so in tone (because we have a precedent for serious and grim comic-book movies) and more so in the absence of spectacle.

 

But otherwise, I think it’s a well-made film. Not some amazing masterwork, but good.

[A24 4,322]

 

 

7 hours ago, gkgyver said:

 

Yes, it struck a wrong chord with critics because it associated blaming rich white people blaming rich white people for your own miserable existence with the lunacy that it is. 

•  

 

Are you saying that certain movie critics openly punished Joker because it rejected things like social inequality? If that's true, then why did they not attack Parasite? 

 

 

8 hours ago, Edmilson said:

It is SUPPOSED to be funny .... That's why I believe Batman Begins is the perfect Batman movie (so far)

 

I thought Batman Begins wasn't really attempting to be a funny movie. In fact, I don't think Nolan is interested in making funny movies at all. If anything, Batman Begins was serious in its approach and wanted to bring the characters into the realm of realism. But yes, the other two of the trilogy takes things way further.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,488]

Nolan's films are funny, alright, but not in a good way.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

2 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

If anything, Batman Begins was serious in its approach and wanted to bring the characters into the realm of realistic and relatable.

 

Fixed.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Boredom Begins

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It's more apparent how boring Batman Begins is when you watch it right after Batman & Robin.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

He trains with a sword for 30 minutes and Batman doesn't even use a sword.

[Sweeping Strings 2,342]

The Untouchables - seemed appropriate to watch something scored by Morricone last night. Directed by De Palma, written by David Mamet, 'suited' by Armani, Costner as the unwavering Eliot Ness, De Niro as Capone, Connery on Oscar-winning form ... and of course the score.

A belter.

[Jay 37,249]

On 7/4/2020 at 11:16 PM, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

Joker

 

What the fuck? Terrible movie masquerading as an arthouse flick to make geeks feel smart, acknowledged and validated. Not one fun moment whatsoever, just a bleak, oppressive trek into realistic and relatable and dark and disturbing. How the hell did this turd make so much money?!

 

I agree with Drax.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Terminator: Dark Fate

 

Zzzzz. Better than Salvation, but Genisys was more fun.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

On 7/8/2020 at 2:01 PM, Jay said:

 

I agree with Drax.

 

So do I.

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

I haven't seen it and I'm not planning to.

[A24 4,322]

Jay should check out The Bold & The Beautiful. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Great show!

[Sweeping Strings 2,342]

The Frighteners - this sort-of Ghostbusters/Beetlejuice hybrid (but a bit darker and ickier) Peter Jackson horror-comedy is good fun.

With Michael J. Fox, Jake Busey, Dee Wallace Stone and Jeffrey Combs.

[Jay 37,249]

6 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

Jay should check out The Bold & The Beautiful. 

 

I should watch a soap opera because I thought Joker was a bad movie?  WTF are you talking about Alex?

[crocodile 7,973]

On 7/5/2020 at 7:31 PM, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

The Killing Joke is pure shit.

Its author Alan Moore agrees with you:

 

Quote

I’ve never really liked my story in The Killing Joke. I think it put far too much melodramatic weight upon a character that was never designed to carry it. It was too nasty, it was too physically violent. There were some good things about it, but in terms of my writing, it’s not one of me favorite pieces. If, as I said, god forbid, I was ever writing a character like Batman again, I’d probably be setting it squarely in the kind of “smiley uncle period where Dick Sprang was drawing it, and where you had Ace the Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite, and the zebra Batman—when it was sillier. Because then, it was brimming with imagination and playful ideas. I don’t think that the world needs that many brooding psychopathic avengers. I don’t know that we need any. It was a disappointment to me, how Watchmen was absorbed into the mainstream. It had originally been meant as an indication of what people could do that was new. I’d originally thought that with works like Watchmen and Marvelman, I’d be able to say, “Look, this is what you can do with these stale old concepts. You can turn them on their heads. You can really wake them up. Don’t be so limited in your thinking. Use your imagination.” And, I was naively hoping that there’d be a rush of fresh and original work by people coming up with their own. But, as I said, it was meant to be something that would liberate comics. Instead, it became this massive stumbling block that comics can’t even really seem to get around to this day. They’ve lost a lot of their original innocence, and they can’t get that back. And, they’re stuck, it seems, in this kind of depressive ghetto of grimness and psychosis. I’m not too proud of being the author of that regrettable trend.

Karol

[Edmilson 7,367]

And I agree with him. As good as they are individually, but The Killing Joke, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns did more harm than good to the comic industry.

[rough cut 1,714]

How so?

[Edmilson 7,367]

Alan Moore explained on the post above. Suddenly after the release of Watchmen and TDKR, super-hero comics became more violent, angry, adult, etc. But, despite all that edginess, most of them failed to have the depth and the quality of these two comics. They were violent just for the sake of it. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen#Legacy

[Romão 2,274]

Grant Morrison did bring back a lot of that silliness and whimsy to mainstream comics, taking a lot of creative risks and doing mostly fantastic work. Also, his interpretation of the ending of The Killing Joke really made me look into that comic with new eyes. I agree with Moore that the melodrama and tragedy is laid a little too think, but that last page really elevates it, IMHO.

 

Also, although The Dark Knight Returns is my all time favorite comic book, I would not group it with Watchmen and The Killing Joke in terms of grimness and seriousness. In fact, it's probably one of the funniest comic book stories I have ever read. It absolutely embraces the silliness of it all. And it's something that was completely disregarded by Zack Snyder in his loose adaptation of that story, to his own harm

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The Killing Joke was the one with naked Commissioner Gordon being yanked around on a leash by midgets? Terrible. 

[KK 3,307]

 

The Last Emperor

 

The first hour is its best, where Bertolucci has a field day with the ancient looming walls of the Forbidden City and the lavish parades/customs that it was once home to. I mean it's gobsmacking gorgeous, maybe even gratuitously so. But it's also where the irony and contradictions of the emperor's predicament is made most interesting. After that, it sort of becomes an empty biopic that reduces complex political history to barely characterized archetypes without saying much about any of it. Once you pass the intrigue of its first act, much of which is cultivated by the fortress setting, the whole thing is a pretty hollow affair.

 

Sakamoto's main theme is stunning though. It's a shame it's not featured more in the film.

 

 

[Romão 2,274]

100% agreed on all counts, KK.

[bruce marshall 1,314]

On 7/4/2020 at 8:16 PM, PuhgreÞiviÞm said:

Joker

 

What the fuck? Terrible movie masquerading as an arthouse flick to make geeks feel smart, acknowledged and validated. Not one fun moment whatsoever, just a bleak, oppressive trek into realistic and relatable and dark and disturbing. How the hell did this turd make so much money?!

 

On 7/8/2020 at 2:01 PM, Jay said:

 

I agree with Drax.

Hugo Drax?!😳

All the JOKER haters voted for Bloomberg for President.

[gkgyver 1,645]

Politics in movies is the worst thing to happen to movies in the history of movies. 

 

[Sweeping Strings 2,342]

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World - this joyful, 'fizzing' and inventive graphic novel adaptation may not be anything terribly substantial but by God it's tremendous 'geek cool' fun.