Jokers

Went to see the movie today. Have to admit that I wasn't too excited about going. In fact, I probably would have Redboxed it if not for Joe, whose goal in life is to see every super-hero movie within four days of its release. 

For one thing, I'm not a big fan of Joaquin Phoenix. He was great as Johnny Cash, but the other movies I've seen him in--Gladiator, Quills, Signs, 1/2 of The Village, Hotel Rwanda, and Inherent Vice--were not my idea of good. And I'm Still Here was one of the most pathetic excuses for a movie I've ever seen.

For another thing, I'm just kind of tired of the whole Joker thing, you know? I mean...I just read an article about the 20+ actors who have portrayed this character. 20+ ? That's a whole lot of extra, you know? 

But Joe wanted to see it, so I complied.

The first several minutes were painful for me. In part because of the cruelty displayed, but also because I just didn't believe it. I was just settling in for a long, painful ride when I started noticing something: the cinematography (a word I seldom used, as it seems to come with a spare room packed full of pretension) by Lawrence Sher was quite striking. In fact...it was riveting. It made me forget some of the bare spots in the story carpet. (I just looked up Lawrence Sher's previous credits. It looks like he has gone out of his way to only work on really shitty movies. I wonder what's up with that?) In fact, there were times when I thought, "You know, this might actually turn out to be an almost great movie." But it was just the cinematography talking. Well, okay...Joaquin had some impressive moments, too. 

As for the much touted violence...well, it was more than I wanted, for sure. Some gun violence, including a shot through the head or two. And a murder by scissors scene ending with the inevitable into the eye move which I could have done without. And some beat downs which were disturbing. But R? I don't really think so. Let's put it this way: Joker is the Deadpool as mustard is to Jalapeño peppers.

There is a point...maybe 3/4ths of the way through the movie or so...maybe a little further on...where everything tipped for me, though, and it just became a shit show. I find this to be the case with the majority of superhero (-ish) movies; the writers / directors just don't seem to know how far they can push these things. I don't do spoilers, so no story details, but let's just say that if someone did that on live tv, the Off The Air icon would have appeared a whole lot sooner than it did...and if they'd just done that in the movie it would have been a lot more believable. But for some reason they felt that they needed to go the whole hog, I suppose.

Also, I love Robert de Niro. I've seen many of his movies...about two dozen...and go back 45 years with him. But he was not right for the part of the Variety Show Host here. There was not a single minute of film wherein I believed he was anyone but Robert de Niro doing a bit in a movie. 

So...this movie would have been a lot better if all of the dialogue had been removed and we could just watch it and listen to the soundtrack. It wasn't terrible...but I can't call it good.

Despite that, when I saw that ComiXology was having a Joker Sale, of course I had to take a look. And I found a little something for me there.

Back in the day...the day being in 1975...DC made the rather daring move of giving The Joker his own comic book. I don't think it was the first time a villain headlined a book...but it was definitely early on for such a thing. I remember buying issue #1 and thinking how cool that was. (Wish I still had that comic book....) It ran for nine issues. And Comixology has them on sale RIGHT NOW for 99¢ apiece...or $4.99 for all nine of them. Pretty sweet, and sure not to last for long. (Regular price for the collection is $12.99, and I suspect that the single issues will go to $1.99 each once the sale is over.) But wait, that's not all. The super cool news is that DC is also offering The Joker #10 for a mere $1.99. Yep. This issue, completed back in the day but never released, was previously available in the massive Joker omnibus (list price $100) released a couple of weeks ago. As a matter of fact, I was thinking pretty hard about buying that omnibus...and I have to admit that the biggest reason was because I wanted to have a look at that previously unpublished issue #10. So DC and ComiXology just saved me $98. Thanks, DC. Thanks, ComiXology.

These ComiXology sales never last long, so if you need a piece of that, better do it do it do it do it  nooooow.