Special Report: Joker - Folie à Deux (2024)

whole time. One might say that the story of Joker is the story of Joker being used as a stand in for certain real people of our times. Is that not what this is? Is this not like an episode of the Culture Cast featuring me the host of the Culture Cast, Christachu, Much to the chagrin of two people and Mike white from the projection booth. That's a weird intro, but we're going with it. It sure was.

so distasteful. And I can understand where you're coming from as far as it's a fascinating failure, but it's not one that I care to dig in too much.

And I know that's a big part of the first movie is the character is a mental health struggler big time, and that ends up being Look, I don't know if I needed a movie to relitigate the first movie, to be no pun intended, this movie spends the entire movie relitigating the first movie. But you know what, I love that about this movie, because what happened in the first

movie deserves to be re litigated. If what you're going to do is point out the fact that this guy is a complete and utter waste of time, just like Jeffrey Dahmer, just like Ted Bundy. All these dudes are a waste of time and they're not worth idolizing. And the only people that idolize them are the people that are just as bad as they are, or just as

broken as they are. Look, we have several characters in this film idolizing Joker, from Harley Quinn played by Lady Gaga to another just inmate guy who we get to the end of the movie. We get to it. But yeah, there's a lot going on here, and I'm not trying to sway your opinion by the end of this podcast might or from it, because I don't think that there's any point, not because I don't think I can do that, but because I understand how unbelievably unpalatable this movie is.

Everything about it is pretty unpalatable. But I do think that's the point, and I think that if you can at least observe it that way, it may bear out fruit a little bit more. But I understand in a lot of ways, I want to give a Woking Phoenix mumbling musical anytime of day, because it's a mumbling musical that has Lady Gaga in it, one of the most

objectively talented female musicians period of all time. Period. Yes, on this episode of the Culture Cast and the Projection Booth, we're talking about twenty twenty four's Fully ad Joker, Fully

I Do. It's directed by Todd Phillips, written by Scott Silver and Todd Phillips based on characters quote unquote from DC as I believe, we're intended to believe, And it does continue the story from the previous Joker film that came out back in twenty nineteen, a more pastoral time, when all we were worried about was this movie making people angry, and the film does once against Joaquin Phoenix

as Joker, Lady Gaga plays Harley Quinn. We have Brendan Gleeson in there, Catherine Keener' Zazzi beats, and Steve Coogan stopped by for a literal cup of coffee in the movie. I have no other way of putting it other than glorified cameos, and as I already hinted at, we will

be spoiling the movie. The plot of this movie is to relitigate the first movie and give us a look at what happens now that Joker is in jail, as he slips further into his mental delusions about his own importance in the world and whether or not the person and idea that he created has outgrown who he is, or if he ever even mattered to begin with. Mike, I kick it to you spoilers from here on out. I think there's no point in not addressing the spoilers. Would you say, skip, oh.

them fighting and which one is winning? Is it the Arthur Fleck is a Joker.

he is. The Shadow is the dark reflection of Joker, which is funny because when he gets out of the taxi, he's just walking. He's walking with a little bit of the style that we see at the end of the last movie, but he's not being violent or when it's the other version of him, it's this violent character that's shooting people, becoming violent with the people he's walking through the hallway. And it's the idea that Arthur Fleck feels like Joker is his dark reflection that is out of control,

that he's trying to control. But to what end is what the movie ultimately is asking. The more interesting question I think that the movie is asking is what happens when the thing that you've created by accident not only outlives you and the usefulness that it had to you, but also when it becomes something that is so important to other people that they start to commingle around it and make it their life's purpose and something that they're outside the courthouse, willing to blow it up to get

him out. At what point does that become a thing that's a problem for everyone. I think cartoon gets to that idea. The cartoon is almost a microcosm of a goddamn movie really in a lot of ways.

up coming up the movie. So it is weird that Todd Phillips would be like, Oh, I'm going to demystify this character, this kind of awful, nihilistic meta character that I've created that kind of speaks to the world right now. I would say, yes, it's Todd Phillips kind of killing the monster. But I also think it's Todd Phillips commenting on us as a society, putting on a pedestal these

the awful people. We have seen people obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer, and we have seen people obsessed with John Wayne Gacy and all these people just like she is, just like Harley Quinn is in this movie, and we've seen this in real life. I just think we've never seen a story told like this before. Superhero Villain. I think that this movie would be really good. It had nothing to

do with the Joker. Imagine this movie had nothing to do with comic books or superheroes or anything, and it was just this weird movie about this guy who takes on this persona and does what he does in the first movie, and then the second movie is just talking about how that persona grew out of control and became its own thing to society. Imagine if it was just that without any of the pretense of DC. Might you

like this movie more? And I'm just curious because how much of this cuts to it's a superhero thing as well. It's a weird way to repurpose this story because it doesn't really speak at all to any version of the Joker, which is actually perfectly fine by me. This is its own thing, period, all the way to the end. But I'm just curious, like how much of that factors into this for you.

and seeing it. And yeah, Brothers of shareboor Wow, Todd Phillip is such a huge way.

really good actor, can't hold that too. Maybe he can. Maybe it's just Arthur Fleck singing rather than Woquing Phenix singing, if that makes sense.

pulled it. I think that was just called Fratthause and then yeah, somewhere after that, he just like went up in the ranks and suddenly he is directing star Skiing Hutch and all of these things that are opening in the summer, and road Trip was a big success. Didn't he do like Old School or something too?

it's seamless that role was made for Snoop Dogg. If you're gonna make a modernized version of that story, Snoop Dogg was perfect casting. Again, that script, I believe co written by Todd Phillips. Yep, his name's on it again. There are other names on some of these things, but he works on primarily only things he writes, at least as a director. He wrote the first Joker is named

on this one. But yeah, I think personally, if you ask me what Todd Phillips's job was here was I got a lot of money to make a movie that I just really wanted to make, and it's just all the way down an unpleasant movie to watch.

in this day and age. This movie making as little money as it made and getting roasted as hard as it's being roasted is shocking because this is the equivalent of the first movie being amazing in the second movie being railroaded. Is one of the worst movies ever made. Outright, this movie's being called one of the worst movies ever made. And I don't think it's that bad.

and just the devastation on his face. I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, this so reminds me of the Come and See or like some of these wartime dramas where you're just like, what the fuck am I watching right now? What are you doing to me?

just all on the practical shit. It must have been all these sets they were building. When they cut away to the moments of the delusions of Arthur Fleck. That is the best part of the movie. All those fucking scenes of them two singing together and being bizarre and weird, and him playing Joker, waking Phoenix's Joker when they give him six minutes in the movie, should be Joker. He's great as Joker. He was great as Joker in the

first movie. But some of this reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises, where it's like, hey, he's like Batman for six minutes in the movie. But that's the point. Like in this movie, I guess he's never really Joker in real life. He's Joker once, like you said with the with the voice, but those delusional musical scenes because they're so well shot. That's said again, like there's a flair for the practicality there, though singing leaves a lot to be desired.

she just gets higher and higher in her range. I don't even see it take a deep breath or anything. She just starts to sing and gets louder and higher, and the octaves go up, and she just is so talented she can't help herself. But even when we meet her for the first time, when she's singing with this church group or choir group, I should say at the

mental institution, I can hear her voice over everybody else. Yes, that's probably mixing, but also I think it's just that she has the best voice in that entire room.

is not enough Lady Gaga in this movie. And I'm talking about like when she's playing Harley Quinn in the there's plenty of delusional world Harley Quinn, but she's rarely given anything to do other than sing and to be fair, the Joaquin Phoenix is singing as well, so we're not really building out their characters through the singing because these aren't original musical pieces, which I think, for me is the biggest missed opportunity in this entire is for these

musical pieces to not be original their jukebox musical numbers really come on. That for me is the biggest missed opportunity because when they said this was going to be a musical, you know what, we really haven't gotten a superhero musical movie. And we still really haven't because this movie isn't that. This is a superhero jukebox musical, which means they are not original songs. They're hovers of other people songs like Rock of Ages, like Mama Me. But

here's the thing, they chose the Great American Songbook. I'm not bemoaning. However, the audience that is this movie is being made for is not going to really have a fucking clue any of these songs, and that is a shame to me. And again because I'm not saying it should have all been like the most recent bullshit hip hop R and B pop nonsense. I'm not saying that, but I feel like they really should have just been like, hey,

Lady Gaga or somebody write some original songs for this thing. Really, if you have Lady Gaga and you're paying her twenty million dollars.

to the original ones. If there was ever Talking Heads jutebox musical, I'm probably listening to the songs, but I'm not sure that they would be in my rotation, just like I'm not sure Jaquin, Phoenix and Lady gog has versions of any of their songs are going to be in my rotation. There might be one or two. To

Love Somebody is pretty good. That musical number is the Great Woe where he just starts getting mad at her upstaging him, which is really funny, and I think, honestly like that's the thing that with Lady Gaga feels like the missed opportunity. So how much do you know about the ending of the movie as it was originally shot?

on the mantle of him. And then when she says goodbye Arthur, I am convinced that's the cut right there where it would have been her killing him, because you can see footage of it online of her killing him or at least her getting arrested on the steps, just her, and that was the original ending, and it would have worked so much better. It makes so much more narrative and thematic sense in terms of the story that they're trying to tell, in terms of even the way they're

using that's entertainment. She's upstaging him. That's like her job. Throughout the entire movie, She's making it about herself to the point where she wants to be him and then she kills him to become him. Then you could do a third Joker movie with Lady Gaga in the lead role, and that might actually be an interesting movie, a Harley Quinn jukebox musical featuring the music of Lady Gaga, who

also plays Harley Quinn. Actually, because I know some people said, oh, the ending of this movie redeemed the movie, I think the ending of this movie fucking made this movie a little like. People are like, the ending of this movie's wild enough, you need to check the movie out, and

I'm like, I don't think so. I think if the ending had been the one of the versions of the ending they shot, I think I would agree because having Lady Gag got kill one of the more iconic versions for many people of the Joker at the end of his movie would be a pretty big moment, right, And to rob the movie of that is a shame.

to is the first movie? I don't know that. I thought that would have been Yeah, I thought that would have been kind of clever. Actually a couple of things real quick, just I want to bounce this stuff off of you. First off, when Arthur is getting his med at the very beginning and there's a one of his fellow inmates goes.

one who gets killed. When when jokers getting raped, is that right or what outs after the rape scene? I think it is you can hear somebody getting murdered outside of his cell and I want to say, it's that little guy.

then somebody draws him back. It is the character from the end of the movie that's going for him at the beginning of the movie, in the first two minutes of the movie, that guy is going to grab him and do something to him within two seconds of the movie start. I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

factors into the end of the movie. With the character that you're talking about.

movie that's pushing the boundaries of good taste. If there is any good taste in this movie at all, it's like trying to ramp itself up and be extreme to what end. This is awful. The world is awful. We get it, and I think that's the moment that breaks the Joker. We cut back to that first movie, the scene in the first movie where he's washing the makeup off of his face, and that's the moment where the Joker is gone because he realizes that there is nothing

he can do. It's all a charade, it's all a facade. In reality, he cannot escape and he's fucked.

I thought she was a figment of his imagination. And even when they break out a out of the sanitarium and stuff like, he ends up getting caught, she runs away, I'm just like, yeah, it feels very very Tyler Durdon esque to me, and I thought that that's what we're doing, And until other people. Wasn't really until Catherine Keener said, oh, you know your little friend, she's out giving interviews, and I was like, oh, okay, so she's a real person. Like just the way that they shot this, I did

not think that she actually existed. I mean there's the sex scene and everything, and I'm just like, Oh, he's in a cell just jerking it thinking of Lady Gaga and who doesn't really exist?

at least some terrible things. Thinks he did more terrible things, but again, some of the terrible stuff he did, we know about some of the terrible stuff he thought he did, but he didn't do. Yeah, like he did some of that, but he didn't do all of it. What is going on? Is he a reliable narrator? How reliable is he? How unreliable is he? Where is the line? I feel like that's very in this movie again, because the whole film is shot from his perspective, especially when we go into

these interior in his head scenes. We have that in plenty of old school musicals, where you literally are in the character's mind doing a musical number or they're explaining what happened through a musical number. They don't do this anymore, which I think is the other reason this movie blopped. This movie I think would have benefited from having come out a long time ago, because I think this movie

is better suited for an audience in the seventies. This is a very seventies facing movie, just like Joker was, like in the way that it was facing King of Comedy, right, like it's facing the late eighties or late seventies, early eighties, these kinds of movies. That's what it's trying to be, but doing a very weird kind of mishmash of things. But it's wearing what it's inspired by on its sleeves.

and it's him disappointing her constantly. And when he says like, I'm Arthur Fleck, the joker isn't real, you know, I just put on the makeup kind of thing, and like you're saying, like he takes off the makeup and that post rape scene in his mind, he is betraying her in her mind, and I'm just like, yeah, so her murdering him at the end really would have made a lot more sense.

And speaking of betrayal, Arthur betrayed Gary, you know, because he was the only one who was ever nice to him, and then he lives in constant fear that Arthur or somebody else is going to just shoot the poor guy. And I just felt so bad for him. That scene just tore my fucking heart out. And I think that's another reason why I don't like this movie, is because I felt very manipulated at that point too.

And that scene, for me, I think is the best scene in the entire movie, outside of the musical stuff. If we're talking about the musical scenes are their own thing, and I can't address the non musical stuff because I think there's two movies here. There's the musical thing, and then there's a very fucking horrifying character study of someone who is a deeply mentally unwell person who the system has failed at every turn to the point of them having no outlet for anything other than to go and

be violent and justify the violence away. And then we get to see this scene which shows, like, no, these people are deeply fucked up, and the worst part about this is not what they've done, but the way it affects everybody around them, because we see the legal character being I'm terrified of you, I'm terrified to live. I have PTSD. Every day, and then we get to see some of the parents of the people that Joker murdered on the train. They don't deserve to die, they're just assholes,

but he kills them. And you see the parents of these people in the courtroom ready and willing to kill Arthur Fleck as well, to push themselves further than they probably ever would have thought as human beings. And so I think it's interesting, similarly to something like Zodiac, you get to see the by proxy of how terrible people affect the community and world around them. And in this movie you get to see very much localized within several characters from the last movie I'm Shocked, we get to

see Lee Gill again in this movie I'm Shocked. Zazzi beats shows back up. But those are scenes that make this movie for me worth watching because those scenes are horrifying. It's like taking all of the things that we've seen in real life and distilling it down into No. The Joker, if he was a real person, would not be someone anyone would I had Liz. He's a fucking nightmare of

a human being. Even when he's not the Joker, he's a nightmare of a human being, let alone when he's the Joker, which is this version of this guy with all of the limitters taken off, all the med limitters and everything else. And that's the thing. In the first movie he says, I stopped taking my meds and I feel better, and it's like, oh no, And we see that in The Joker is the externalization of him without his meds and mental illness. Like this movie is the

Joker as mental illness made old. It's the Kafka esque. It's like anthrop They've anthropomorphized that into a real character, which is this face paint that he puts on. The Joker is mental illness. It's almost a horror. If they ever make that Grant Morrison Arkham Asylum graphic novel into a movie, that will be probably the furthest that they go in terms of addressing the Joker as a thing

as a stand in for things. But this does a pretty good job in making the Joker character the stand in for the overwhelmingly awful effects of meant of untreated mental health, either by choice or by negligence on the person who it's happening to and the people surrounding them.

This movie just treads water, unfortunately, and that's even I'm saying that as much as I enjoyed this movie, which I enjoyed this movie a fair amount the third time I windly watched it, it does tread water because I don't think anybody really wanted to watch a movie that just spends the whole time talking about the last movie. That's a weird thing, right.

It's like, okay, yeah, I guess. You know, those are the little comic bookie things that you know, screen Rant or some of those other a holes on YouTube will just fall all over themselves to try to tie this into the bigger universe and find all the Easter eggs and things. I'm like, I could give a shit, you know. It's just like it's it's bredon circuses for the masses.

the thing, Like I didn't. I initially looked at it as, oh my god, it's the connecting it back to the Dark Knight. Nah, it's not that at all. I think it's more just the idea of every universe that has the Joker. There's Batman, and there's Bruce Wayne, and there's Thomas Wayne, and there's Harvey Dent. But here's the thing, this guy was never the Joker. He was a Joker.

And that's why this movie's not called the Joker. That's why this movie is just called Joker because, like you mentioned to me yesterday, this guy is not your joker. He's not my joker, he's not anybody's joker. He's just a guy, a really mentally unwell human being who uses the auspices of a Joker esque character to make himself feel less downtrodden and small than he inherently does because the system has, by design or by negligence pushed down on him his entire life, and he's been failed by

the system at every turn. That's not the Joker we see again, effectively the Joker throughout this entire movie. Right He's there in the movie in every scene, watching Arthur Fleck, and then he gives a pretty harrowing scene at the end of the movie because it's pretty obvious what's about to happen, but that the actor who's giving the performance at the end of the film and throughout the movie as the unnamed inmate cour Connor's story, is just playing

a joker. I think it's interesting that he's throughout the movie watching everything that he is doing because it speaks to this idea of this guy's so pathetic. All he's doing is worried about his outward persona and the way the world views him and the real Joker wouldn't care. The real Joker is so insane and this is my ultimate read at the end of the movie, right, the real Joker is so insane that he looks at this guy and goes, you're taking something that could be actually

used for evil, and you're just pissing it away. Like why would I let you piss it away? I'll kill you and then I'll be known, and then someone will come save me from prison, because how does the king? What happens to the king? Right, either the king steps down or the king gets slain, and in this movie you have him murdering him, which will undoubtedly get out to the world because look, Arthur gets saved from prison.

Even after he rejects the persona of Joker. He rejects it in front of the court, says he's not the Joker takes responsibility for the murders of everybody, which the Joker would never do, at least not the way he does wistfully and sadly. And the Joker, given the opportunity at the end of the movie, would sit and parrang the jury. He wouldn't just sit there and go I'm sad and pathetic. And so the character at the end of the movie, clearly knows that he sees what happens.

And I like that because the actual Joker is fucking insane, that's the point. And the actual Joker isn't sad that he's insane, And that's the problem with this guy. He's sad that he's insane. The real Joker doesn't give a shit. And I guess I don't know Todd Phillips for it was four hundred million dollars worth it to make two trolley ass movies. I wonder because it's a troll job, right. The way this movie ends is actually trolly.

murdered ahead of time. And he doesn't care, right, I mean, he doesn't care that he's going to die. He says that throughout the movie. You know, he claims early on that was me and I wanted to die, but I don't want to die anymore because I have somebody to live for. And then when it turns out that, just like everything else, Lady Ga Gay is just as big as part of the problem as the rest of the system was, I guess I want to die again again. It's just most people aren't lining up to see a

movie like this. I get it. It's downright all the way down in unpleasant movie, and it wallows in its unpleasantness. But I think, for me least, if you can get down with a movie that just wants to sit on the muck of its own making and splash around in it, I think you could do a lot better than this movie. But to your point, I don't think you can do as odd as a jutebox musical superhero movie based on. Ostensibly the most famous villain of all time. DC's number

one villain period is the Joker. There's nobody that even comes close because Batman is the number one DC hero, So who's his number one villain? It's the Joker. The Joker is the only character to win an Academy Award twice, and I don't think any superhero movie is ever gonna win another Academy Award at this point, let alone the same character two times portrayed differently by two different people with very different takes on the character. So where does

this version of Joker line up for you? Or is this even a conversation to have because he's technically not the Joker anyways.

You can never take a helicopter in the Suicide Squad World because it will always blow up or get shot out of the sky.

with Joker and Batman in their respective spots. As it's great, but yeah, that's who he's talking to, right, That's who he's conversing with, is that character? I'm with you I'm more interested in that version of Joker period, but also Barry Keohen's an amazing actor. Joaquin Phoenix is an amazing actor. I may not vibe with all the stuff that he does. He makes some interesting choices, that's for sure. I said I wouldn't say that, but I know some people might.

I just think that Joaquin Phoenix's choices sometimes are not ones that a lot of people really like. I think that sometimes he just makes interesting choices, and sometimes those roles don't work. I'm still here as one of those things where's just like, maybe not don't do that, but then you get something like this in the first movie was so well regarded. He's building that positive cred with random people who have never probably even seen a Joaquin

Phoenix movie before. Frankly, because a lot of the stuff that he does is not necessarily mainstream either.

end up. And I think again, ultimately your mileage with this movie is going to vary, especially this one, because if you like that first movie, this movie does feel like a fuck you to you if you like the first movie. But if you can understand that the first movie's job was not to elevate this guy and make him a hero. It was more to just show there are people like this in the world and the system

has failed them. This movie continues that conversation if you're interested in having, which I understand why plenty of people are not and don't care, because this is the sad, cold reality of what this is like when these things happen. If we watched a James Bond movie and then we had to watch James Bond confront all the families of the guards he killed, Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see Joker confronted by someone who he traumatized

because he murdered someone in front of them. No, that's not a scene in a movie that anybody was asking for, but yet here it is, and it's so well done and well acted. At the standout scene in this movie. Yeah, this is a strange movie that seemed almost at odds with its audience and what it thinks its audience wants, if it even cares. I think Todd Phillips just making movies that he wants to make, whatever the fuck that means. Final thoughts on Joker, Mike.

of these meanings. You know, there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on in this movie, and I didn't enjoy it, but other people may What about you, Chris.

and everybody's time collectively. I know that my opinion is the hot take here or the minority, And I wonder if in the long run, if there will be a different version or deleted scenes or whatever will come out that'll help pad the movie out, make it make more sense, or make certain thematic choices make more sense. But like you said, there is a lot going on. This movie has a lot of things that it's trying to do,

things that it's trying to say. And I look forward to where this movie goes with its audience, because right now I don't think it's founded, but I think ultimately it will find an audience. It will find people that like it more, people will find it that were turned off by the idea of it initially but end up watching it and enjoying it. And who knows where the

life of this movie goes. Because this movie quote is an unmitigated disaster according to one WB exaction, which boy, did you watch Suicide Squad because at least this is a movie. At least this has a plug and no blue lasers in the sky. God, But yeah, it's a DC thing. It sure is. On that note, Mike, where can people find you and the things that you work on when we're not doing some of these crossover episodes on new movies.

as much as iTunes. So Mike, thank you so much for inviting me to do this. I don't know if I would have seen the movie.