Quantum Recast: Your Favorite Films, Recast In Different Years
We are a time-traveling film podcast that journeys through time to take classic films, blockbusters and cult favorites, to recast them in different years!
Quantum Recast: Your Favorite Films, Recast In Different Years
Joker: Folie à Deux - In Defense of the Sequel
What if the internet is warping our perception of movies? On this episode of Quantum Recast, Ash Hurry rejoins Cory & Nick to tackle the polarizing reactions to "Joker: Folie à Deux", and attempt to defend this already infamous sequel.
They stand firm in our support of Todd Phillips' ambitious sequel, exploring why it deserves more than the mixed reviews it's received. With insights into the film's production and a spotlight on stellar additions like Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix, they argue for approaching the movie with an open mind, free from the biases amplified by critics and social media platforms like Rotten Tomatoes.
Social media's role in shaping film opinions is more significant than ever, and we explore how instant online reactions can be misleading. Hear how they discuss the dynamics of audience expectations and how films like "Joker 2" and "Terrifier 3" challenge the status quo, and the evolution of film ratings and the potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on scores from sites like IMDb. Encouraging a more personal journey in film discovery, they dive into the importance of shedding preconceived notions and breaking free from the conditioning that big-name franchises have instilled in us.
The Joker character has long been a symbol of chaos and unpredictability, and Phillips' take on the iconic villain pushes boundaries in unexpected ways. The crew delve into the artistic intentions behind the film, the exploration of mental health themes, and the challenges of reimagining such a well-known character. They even touch on the broader implications of audience reactions and the impact of societal expectations on storytelling in today's media landscape. Join us in this exploration of cinematic innovation, and let's rethink what it means to appreciate a film for its artistic value, rather than its adherence to convention.
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Hosts:
Cory Williams (@thelionfire)
Nick Growall (@nickgrowall)
Co-Hosts (Season 5):
Aly Dale (@alydale55)
Ash Hurry (@filmexplorationah)
Cass Elliott (@take5cass)
Terran Sherwood (@terransherwood)
Voice of the Time Machine:
Kristi Rothrock (@letzshake)
Editing by:
Nick Growall
Featured Music:
"Quantum Recast Theme" - Cory Williams
"Charmer" - Coat...
Welcome to another episode of Quantum Recast. I guess this is technically an In Defense of the Sequel, basically, yes, I would say so, just kind of a modern version A live version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of in real time as it's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm your host, corey. With me, as always, is Nick, and joining us today is the return of Ash.
Speaker 3:Hey, good to be back, really looking forward to this. Hello, hello.
Speaker 1:From across the pond.
Speaker 2:Because that's how important this is, Corey.
Speaker 1:This is how important? I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Cinema's on the line, Corey. We gotta defend it. We gotta put these DC people in their place. We gotta tell the Marvel people to pack it up. We got cats and dogs living together. Any other infamisms, innuendos?
Speaker 1:At this point I go beyond these. I think nerds are a problem. I'm kind of like I'm about to become a jock. I hate nerds. I think nerds can't consume media anymore. I just think all nerds and all nerd adjacent fandoms are just trash at this point.
Speaker 2:This is the point of the podcast that the majority of people listening turn it off because they're like I can't wait to see what these guys think about Joker. They're going to bash it. Then we're like oh, you guys suck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're talking about Joker Fully a day. We're probably going to call it Joker too from here on out, Just just for time.
Speaker 2:Now.
Speaker 1:Ash lives in Europe, which is about the size of the mall, so you probably understand french and its accents.
Speaker 3:you can pronounce it correctly right, I think you did a good job. Yeah, joker folia de, which is madness of two americans.
Speaker 1:We've called it folia do. How do you do folia? Do, yeah, folia do I'm sure a lot of people said folia dukes, more like folia deuce. Americans, we're idiots, we are um and so uh, but that's what we're talking about. We're talking about. I'm gonna call it joker too from here on out. Okay, um and so uh, because we are the minority, apparently allegedly we. We enjoyed it and anybody's still listening.
Speaker 2:Just immediately smashed, whatever it is somebody's that's going to hold on.
Speaker 1:Let's hear him out. Um. So, uh, yeah, this, this podcast, has become. How can we upset our viewership um?
Speaker 2:we trashed all their franchises last episode, and now we're just gonna, you know, just put the killing blow in.
Speaker 1:Yeah which I mean. I think the only reason we're talking about this is because and y'all can answer this question for me um, I cannot think of a time where a movie was this divisive. Last Jedi is the last sort of thing it is, but I still think people were like okay, like they're like he hated it or he didn't love it.
Speaker 2:I feel like it was more 50, 50, if I'm being fair, like where it was like half the people loved it, half the people really hated it, and this one is more like if you hate it.
Speaker 1:You're triggered beyond belief that anyone could even remotely enjoy one second.
Speaker 2:It's more like 70, 30, 80, 20, of like people who loved it versus people who hated it absolutely well.
Speaker 3:I would even go higher than that, to be fair. The stuff I've seen online and from what I've heard like close to 90 10 at the moment it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2:It's an onslaught it's growing, it keeps getting stronger in its power.
Speaker 1:And I mean do we have any useless critic stats on this movie? I don't have them pulled up.
Speaker 2:I got some useless critic stats for you.
Speaker 2:if you're ready for it, yeah, let's hear what people and critics think Well just to dive in Joker, directed by Todd Phillips of Road Trip, old School and Hangover fame. He and co-writer Scott Silver returned for the sequel who they both wrote, joker. Obviously, the cast is Joaquin Phoenix, but it added Lady Gaga, brendan Gleeson of Troy Banshees, of Insta and 28 Days Later, and Catherine Keener from being John Malkovich, 40-year-old Virgin. Percy Jackson Budget of $200 million roughly. The box office opening weekend made $37 million. Weekend made $37 million. To many's dismay, domestic currently has $51 million with a worldwide gross of $165 million. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 33. Critic a 32. Audience Metacritic gives it 45 to 43. Audience. Imdb has a 5.3, so higher than I thought. Okay, all right. Letterboxd currently sits at the average 2.5 out of 5.3, so higher than I thought.
Speaker 2:Okay alright. Letterbox currently sits at the average 2.5 out of 5. And then we have our listings here. Corey gave it a 4.5 out of 5., I myself gave it a 3.5 out of 5. And, ash, I couldn't find your Letterbox score. Maybe you haven't scored it out of fear for your life, which is fair.
Speaker 3:Mine's right in between both of yours. It's four out of five. I would give it Four. Okay, All right.
Speaker 2:Is that good? So clearly we enjoyed it from differing levels of. Enjoyed it to 4.5, which is high praise.
Speaker 1:I loved it. I thought it was great. I thought it was a perfectly fitting I don't know continuation of the first one. I told you when we first saw it that like I mean I had to like I'm not one of those people that go like runs to Letterboxd because I think that's stupid. Why would you do something reactionary, like things should fester and sit with you?
Speaker 2:This is definitely not the kind of movie you just immediately react to. Yeah, so I was just like all right.
Speaker 1:I think when I left the theater and I, me and my wife were driving home and she was like I need, I want to see the second one because I like the first one, and she's like, did you like it?
Speaker 2:and I was like I'm not sure cory was very quiet on the drive back.
Speaker 1:Yes, no because I was analyzing, because I was like I like it, I don't like it no.
Speaker 3:I like that because you immediately should expect an answer. When you go over a group of friends to the cinema, like, did you like it and everyone says an answer yes or no you can't possibly know until you, like cory said you let it sit with you for about a day and you're like, wow, that wasn't like for me, oppenheimer I. I couldn't say if it was a good film. I had to wait about a couple of days to realize, wow, that was a masterpiece.
Speaker 2:Because I couldn't really absorb it at the time and I think cory's right, you need to sit with it, which is why these reactionary responses to this movie is just ludicrous at the moment and I think it's one of those that's like the fact that it was, uh, so critically destroyed and stuff kind of made me more interested in it, because I think and we'll get into this obviously, but I think the expectation of the fans was one thing but what it ended up being was more commentary and a continuation of the message and the story that was going on in the first one.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, let me ask you this Maybe this is the first, and this is kind of my opinion, but let me ask you guys, do you? Maybe this is the first, what, and this is kind of my opinion? Um, but let me ask you guys, do you guys think this movie was dead on arrival? Do you think it even had a shot at the box office, because it seemed like the hate was already there?
Speaker 3:it's a good question actually yeah, I think it was ready to be hated because there was all this talk ages ago when they casted lady gaga, that was like okay, that's interesting, we're doing a harley quinn movie, which it wasn't. And then it was like two months after that that they said it was a musical and a lot of people were like this is really cool and exciting. But it's amazing, those same people hated the movie because they wanted it to be different. And I think this film was ready to be hated, for I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I think it was just a people were just finding it convenient to hate it for no reason, even before the movie came out I think it's a combination, a perfect storm of a lot of things, but yeah, I didn't want to interrupt your final thoughts there, ash, sorry no, no, I just.
Speaker 3:I just think it's a dangerous thing we're doing, which is joining the bandwagon with this movie, and that bandwagon has never had so much room for people to jump on in the entire history of civilization, and that bandwagon is social media and that is just burning like a forest fire. Someone says something, someone else says the same thing and the really annoying thing about this whole thing people are saying it's a bad movie and they haven't even watched it because they're just saying the reviews are so bad that they know it's bad.
Speaker 2:And that's really annoying and I don't know about it.
Speaker 3:It's happening all over here like people just refusing to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, it's happening here too, on the state side and see.
Speaker 1:that's what I picked up from a lot of people on social media is that they were all on this fence that were that divided, haven't seen it versus. I went in expecting to hate it, which is like then the integrity of your opinions kind of gone Right. Either you're judging something you haven't seen or you went in with a bias that's affected your ability to watch it Like there's movies that I've gone to watch where I was like worried about it.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't know if this will be good or not, but there's very few films I just walk into going. I'm going to hate this movie.
Speaker 1:Why would you do it?
Speaker 2:Why would you even go? At that point I could see people going I'm going to wait and I'll watch it later after the hype's died down and I can have a better opinion about it.
Speaker 1:that isn't so influenced If you went to go watch a movie that you knew or expected to hate, then I don't know what's the matter with you, right? I don't know the point, unless you have a predetermined thing that, like I, need to go in so I can collect ammo to be another talking head on the internet, just for rage bait and engagement bait.
Speaker 1:You know, because I mean like no one's getting paid to be a critic anymore, except for a few people that still are at dying newspapers and you know people that have got on the know very beginning of youtube but you know 90 of reviews. Um, if you look at rotten tomatoes, this movie has 300 actual, like accredited I'm a critic, get paid to do this reviews versus over like 10 000 just talking head because that's what it is now, and we hear more from just the guy next to us on you know threads or twitter their opinion more than someone who's paid to analyze art which is stupid anyways that we pay anyone to do that.
Speaker 1:But like I've just wondered like how many people didn't see it or went in ready to hate it versus actually cause? Like I went and saw fast and furious Hobbs and Shaw as a hater of that franchise, but I went and saw it cause that movie looked good. Okay, did I expect it to be game-changing for cinema? Not really. But I don't go see the new ones because I'm like they'll just make me mad. They're dumb.
Speaker 1:But I went and saw the one with the Rock and Idris Elba and Jason Statham because this actually looks kind of fun. I don't have to look at Vin Diesel, but that's the thing.
Speaker 2:Why would you go watch something you hate and have a bad time with? Well, I think it's just the way that things it's we joke about, like the cinema sins era of things, where it's it's easy to pick things apart, but it's also like you you and ash were already talking about, like critics had already. We we've gotten to this mentality where, like your cinephiles or even just regular fans, will just go to rotten tomatoes and go well, that has a rotten score, so I don't. I don't want to go watch that, or I, oh, I think it's going to be bad or you start you know the the the instant people start posting stuff online like it's your spoiler.
Speaker 2:Spoiler alerts are just a thing of the past. Because, like you, basically, yeah, you're gonna watch a movie or something, yeah, you just have to turn off. You just can't check your phone, like sadly that's completely not something I agree with, but it's something that's just happened now, like you have to know it's going to happen but I mean yeah, go ahead ash, no, no, I was just gonna say you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3:I think it's all predetermined, because you got I know someone who doesn't watch a film if it's not rated higher than 7.0 on imdb and I'm like, well, you're denying all these films that you potentially might love hidden gems and it's just films that are rated high by god knows who.
Speaker 3:A collection of people that actually aren't critics, just a collection of people who have got an imdb subscription, have just decided to put their statement on there and it's really toxic and I think this new era of people and I don't know what I want to call it, but people probably born over past 20, 2005, let's say, and that's being generous and that is, you know, a generalization. So I apologize, but let's just box it up and say that there is an era where this art form doesn't exist, which is to go into a film and watch it because you want to watch it, not because someone's told you to watch it, not because someone says it's rubbish, um, that's gone now. You don't go and watch films for the hell of it anymore. You watch it because someone's told you to, or you watch it because there's an actor in it. There's, there's. I usually watch a film that I've never heard of just randomly on a streaming network, and it should be the easiest thing in the world now because everyone's got a library of films accessible to them which, unfortunately, is done down by an algorithm. It picks what you want to watch, but you do have that option to venture out.
Speaker 3:But Joker is, take, you know, an absolute brutality, probably the last film I think you mentioned this probably Alexander with Colin Farrell, the Oliver Stone movie that was hyped up to be the big movie and that got absolutely destroyed. But again, you know it made its money back. Everything they were saying was false, but people would believe in it and the film, for me, wasn't as horrible as they were making it out to be. It was just a huge cast, big expectation, which is the problem. The expectation is the problem because you can't meet the expectation that you build up yourself, because you don't know what you're in for. And this movie has gone completely the other way and it's a I think it's a masterpiece. I think in 10-15 years this film will be considered a masterpiece by the general public, because right now it is getting a beating yeah, I think I think you you made the.
Speaker 2:You made the point that if your friend that only watches 7.0 movies like I'm not trying to, I'm not going to bash gen z by itself I think I think there's like our age, around our age and down, you have people that are kind of in this mentality of like I don't want to waste my time watching movies if I don't know they're not good, but you're basing it. It's all a objective, like it's just like it's all based on someone's opinion. That's what those scores are. So like you're you're not allowing yourself, like you said, to discover movies that that creating your own taste, and be able to go like well, this trashy b-tier slasher movie or this, this really ridiculous comedy over here that probably would get a low score, like to critics, but like it's a cult classic or something that, or like being able to find something and share it with someone and go like hey, I found this thing and it's awesome, you should check it out, yes, and it's just never been heard of before. I feel like that's the joy of like getting to watch movies you've never seen or being willing to watch those movies, but kind of what we've been talking about generally, I think that the movie itself like you'd said, cory, it did already kind of have like a lot of odds stacked against it, because you know lady gaga's and we're like, okay, she's, she's a decent actress, we've enjoyed her and stuff, and they're like it's a musical and that turns off so many people like they can't get past that idea of a musical.
Speaker 2:But you had people still going. Okay, I'm into that. It's kind of the first one was you had. It seemed like there was a level of like trust with todd philips, of like, okay, the first one was great, so you're doing all this weird stuff. So I'm kind of into it. But I feel like as we got closer, more information got dropped of like, well, harley quinn's not going to be the harley quinn of the comics or the tv show or anything, she's going to be very different, and that seemed to irk people. And then him saying he wanted this to have a definitive end, he didn't want to be part of a universe or expansion or anything, and him saying this is not the Joker upset people. And so a couple weeks leading up to it, it felt like there was just already this turn kind of happening where people were just kind of getting turned against it by the internet or by whatever was being posted basically, I mean, I don't know it's.
Speaker 1:It's just one of those things where, like, we can go through all the. The nonsense of and I think that's where I'm at with it is like I haven't I've read a lot of reviews, cause, honestly, at this point I'm just fascinated by the vitriol, like the level of hatred for this movie, where it's just like every review starts out with some very over dramatically worst movie I've ever seen and I'm like, well, did you just start watching movies?
Speaker 2:like I mean that's what I'm getting a lot of really terrible movies out there, watching seven, sevens and up like well then you're just an asshole, like I mean, you're just you're.
Speaker 1:Then you're purposely going into the world saying I'm gonna be an asshole, I'm gonna be a cinephile, I'm gonna be a dick. Yeah, I'm gonna be the typical person that gets interviewed by Letterboxd and says Fellini, fellini, kubrick, and it's like cool, watch a fucking John Hughes movie man, and just like chill out for two seconds. You know, stop being an asshole.
Speaker 2:Corey was attacked. Ash and listeners, in case you didn't feel the heat off of Corey right there- I'm getting that vibe.
Speaker 1:I'm just with Ash, though. It's just like at what point are numbers and like critics and the internet just destroying our ability to like, even enjoy media? Yeah, you know, in general, yeah, I'm frustrated because I did enjoy this movie. I made a comment about enjoying this movie on threads and I mean just the triggering that me having an opinion that was different was insanity. Like I finally had to disable comments, start deleting stuff, because I was like this is.
Speaker 1:But my problem is, out of all the reviews I've kind of read just wanting to understand a hatred for it, I have not yet read a genuinely good argument for hating it, other than where's batman? He didn't become the joker. Why were there songs? And it's like, and lady gaga's not an actress, it's like she's an oscar nominated actress. Yeah, you know like. And she people think she got snubbed a second time. She's perfectly fine actress, sure, and it's just like, by the way, they announced it as a musical. Like also todd phillips I've never seen a man spoil his movie as hard as this guy did in the festival circuit.
Speaker 2:Like they were trying to like prep people be like, hey, by the way, you, this is not going to be what you expected to be. He. We're not going to see him rise, become the Joker Joker, like become the clown prince of crime. Basically, we're not going to be seeing like the Batman. The closest time you had was Harvey Dent was the lawyer in the courtroom case, which was like, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:You're in a courtroom in Gotham, like, yeah, he's probably going to show up, you can do that which is fine and like it's fan service a little bit, but like it's cool and it's just like. But at the same time I'm like these people are like the first one was so good. I was like really Because then that the Joker didn't become the Joker. Or did they die? Well, they might've died, they died in the climax.
Speaker 2:It was alluded to that the whole the origin of Batman comes from this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, type of thing, but still it's like he's eight, yeah, and if anything he's just like pushing 55.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right now he's just being mad at the world hating everything, do anything.
Speaker 3:By the time bruce wayne grows up, does the league of shadows and becomes a batman joker's in a retirement home. These guys were never gonna battle it out, ever. That's the yeah, that's the uh, the level of intelligence people have at the moment, though they don't see past all of that and they're just creating these things that they wanted to see. And you're absolutely right. Todd phillips warned everyone about this and everyone thought, oh yeah, okay, kind of a cool, pretentious way of selling the movie. No, this is a musical, he wasn't just kidding around with it. No, lady gaga is in this. No, the joker isn't the joker. Or whacking. Phoenix is trying to end, you know, trying to get some redemption in this movie. All of these things are happening.
Speaker 2:This isn't a movie you are expecting at all, and I think that's part of the genius of it yeah, I, I would say just to, to, to play devil's advocate for a moment, or just the conversation on the other side. I do think this is the aftermath of a world where we've set up audiences, viewers, young and old, to expect tie-ins and the next movie and the next movie and a sequel and a little cameo here. So when you're finally going no, we're going to show you a movie where it's about story and we're going to go off the hook here, we're going to do something a little more challenging. It doesn't sit well with audiences a lot of the time, especially when you're dealing with such a big ip as the superhero branding as batman's mythos and joker, like there there's probably. Even if you could sit there and say, hey, it's going to be different, it's a musical, it's a part of it's going to be a courtroom drama like it's and and it's not really joker still part of you is going to sit there and go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, yeah, but where's where? Okay, where does it tie in, though? Like where do we get robert pattinson's batman to pop up? Like I know, I know you're, I know you're pulling, because we're so used to people having to lie to us to not spoil movies like avengers that there's still a piece of them that I'm sure was like, well, surely they're going to show x, y and z, but? But I mean, but to be fair, I'm on y'all's side where it's like I don't know how else you try to deliver the message like this isn't gonna go the way you think it is absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:That's the thing. If you're comforted by formulaic narrative and constant shallow notes, go watch the mcu. I mean, they repeat the same tricks again and again. This film and the film before delivered in originality, taking risks and showing audiences something promising for future filmmaking, that you can take risks, kind of like. It reminded me of like the 90s and some of the 80s, like they were experimenting with films.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, it's a bit of a tribute to 60s cinema and, you know, 70s in the first movie, but at least people enjoyed it the first time. I mean, it was a bit of a rip off of Taxi Driver, the same. You know, travis Bickle's character does go through exactly what the Joker goes through, not to go too cinephile into it, but people enjoyed the first movie. So that means they enjoyed the 70s, not not I'm not trying to say the whole 70s, but maybe the style of the 70s. Now, this one yeah, it's trying to mimic the 60s, but it was needed for the story and I think it was beautifully done.
Speaker 3:But, like you said, this, this formulaic narrative that people are depending on, which I think is down to, like attention span of social media, that people are comforted by knowing what's going to happen next. They had no idea where this film was going to go, even though they were pre-warned by it and they didn't think they were going to go there, but they did, and I think it's. I think the best way someone said it to me was that I think I think who was it was it coppola who said it. It says that this film does not hold the viewer's hand, and the way he said that I was like, yeah, that's probably the perfect way to describe this film, because it's the audience are not being baby. There's nothing sugarcoated for the audience. This is a film that is experimental and is only focusing on the character of Arthur Fleck, not the audience, just Arthur, and I thought I think it was couple who said that. I thought that was a really interesting way of saying it, sorry.
Speaker 2:No, I think, and you know you said like not to be a cinephile. I think enjoying movies young, old and new movies, like doesn't necessarily make you a cinephile, like having knowledge of eight and a half or a couple, it's just it's when you put it in such a reverence or level that nothing else can live up to, or like that new, new classics and stuff or new things can't be presented and move media the same way. I think that's where you get the danger yourself in a bubble a bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah and like all right, I'll come off the ledge. Okay, I agree, it's fine if you genuinely watch Fellini's eight and a half and you think it's this like you genuinely enjoy it. The problem is, is that 90% of the people I know who love that movie. If I ask why they go dead eyed, they're like and I'm like to like it, that's fine, that's fine, that's who you are. Yeah, like you just want to be seen as cultured cinematically. That's, that's fine, that's whatever. But don't come at me for liking the lost boys, yeah, yeah, the lost boys, yeah like that's fine.
Speaker 1:But my thing is I'm going to tell you why I think the lost boys is a masterpiece. I'm going to bring a lot at you, yeah for it, you know, and stuff like that. So it is just a matter of just like kind of I, I don't know, I get annoyed, uh, in in this kind of almost like new letterboxd world, yeah, where we've kind of brought out the internet cinephile, I think, on some level you know, um and uh, I'll.
Speaker 1:Here's the next question I want to ask do y'all think todd phillips genuinely tanked a film, or do you think this was a shock to him?
Speaker 2:from what I've read and what what seemed like to be the reports, it's a little I would say mostly no like I feel like he's. This is also. This is the dude who made the hangover series and stuff, and I was thinking about this earlier, though it's like the further you get into that trilogy, uh, the more you kind of realize like the third one's not really that funny, and I don't mean it in the sense that like the joke yes, the jokes aren't quite there, but I almost feel like you start to think about it. You're like I feel like Todd Phillips is getting bored of comedy, like he was like no, I want to lean more into the crime stuff and like make it more interesting and stuff. So I feel like him making Joker makes more sense when you look at his filmography from that sense where he's like OK, I want to actually make like movies now, or aim a little higher beyond like the comedy genre.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but, I think uh.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. Yeah, what was the main question it?
Speaker 1:was mainly like everyone's like kind of. Also in this they're asking the question is this like almost, like trying to give Todd Phillips credit for like almost, as being this like weird artistic piece where he made a movie to fail? Like he like he made a movie to fail, like he like it's almost like his big thing was he wanted this movie to tank because it just kind of furthers the message of the movie of like.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that just by choosing because people want one thing and you're not that thing, and you're choosing by choosing to not follow, like, the expected route and the thing, especially in the heat of like such a big billion dollar movie and going no, I'm choosing to remind people what the whole point and the thing, especially in the heat of like such a big billion dollar movie and going no, I'm choosing to remind people what the whole point of the first movie was. It's, it's. It's as if scorsese made wolf of wall street 2 and was like, uh no, this guy's a terrible person. They're all terrible people. Yeah, you forget this.
Speaker 2:It's about greed, guys. It's not. It's not me wanting to motivate you to like get into stocks and get your game up and like have that millionaire mentality or whatever like, or it's like, or wall street street that predates it. In the 80s, like, people got in his mind the wrong message from the movie and you know there's we could talk about, like how quote-unquote, incels really leaned into it or whatever group really like leaned into. It was like, yeah, I can relate to this joker guy, he represents me, kind of thing but I I feel like anytime you decide to make that choice you are. You are kind of like throwing up the the flag and going like, yeah, it's gonna bomb, but like I'm gonna keep my artistic integrity a bit yeah, no, I was just curious.
Speaker 3:I like I know that that's one of those things that's out there like that, this, because I think joaquin phoenix is like quoted as saying something like he expected or wanted the movie to fail miserably, or something like that um, I didn't see that, but that's interesting I just I just don't think people were ready for it and I think that they were ahead of audience expectations and I think they know that and I think they knew that they were doing something new and experimental and I knew they just knew it was going to be something that. I mean, there's a quite a big twist at the end and I don't think people saw that coming. I don't think that had everything to do with it. But to answer your earlier question, corey, I mean Todd Phillips, yeah, very heavy on his filmography with you know Starsky and Hutch, the Hangover, war Dogs, old School I mean these are great films. Growing up, you know rom-coms for men and they were great and revolutionary and he's a great director. And you know the Hangover Part 3, I actually agree with you. But I mean we can have this discussion later.
Speaker 3:The third one in the trilogy is always one of the worst ones, in my opinion. Yeah, that's true, I would say so anyway. There's probably a few exceptions, but it's hard to sort of round it off at the end after you've established two movies dedicated to these characters. But yeah, I think Joker joker's just a character that people love and I think they assumed that it was trendy to carry on this thing. After heath and after jack nicholson and after jared lito, it kind of became this kind of punch line to see, okay, who can better the next person? Because it was like it's like playing batman, who's going to play batman. It became this thing. But this movie wasn't about joker, it was about arthur, and I don't think people will get that until watching the second movie and that's part of the disappointment of the second movie as well.
Speaker 3:And I don't think todd really made this movie to fail at all. I just think todd is completely ahead of what audiences are expecting right now and I think it's worth the risk to do, because I think in about five, ten years time will, time will do its thing and this movie might even get studied, because I think the way he's interpreted music into this to, you know, get his point across, is very clever and I think the performances are. It's just a beautiful film to watch. I don't get how anyone can't see that. I really don't it's. It's so beautiful the film. I don't know if you guys agree with me, but visually, visually, it's just amazing to watch.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, the first movie alone, like the trailer popped out. Remember the trailer popped out.
Speaker 2:Remember you're just going like oh, this is different, like it's just like the cinematography was just so much like different and more uh, I don't even know what the right word is for but just larger scale. Like it made it the aesthetic of the whole world that they were building. But also just like the way in which they were shot, like yeah, you know, wider shots we're not, we're not doing the action cut piece type stuff in terms of editing and stuff like that but it really was all about like getting the big shots and like sitting on them and dwelling on them a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and I'm glad. I'm glad you said that, ash, because I think that's part of, like, my confusion and, honestly, I don't want to posture myself as I'm mad, I'm just confused. I've never been more confused by the reception of a movie ever, and we've been doing a movie podcast for six years. At this point, yeah, and like so I'm just at this point where even longer.
Speaker 1:Five years, five years, oh shorter I'm sorry, um, but like uh, I'm just confused and so I'm glad, like that's my thing. It is a beautiful movie, yeah, and like it's, it's just uh, and like so my thing is. That's why I'm confused by people saying this is the worst film of all time. It is a dumpster fire of a movie, don't? I mean like? I've seen talking head internet people saying don't bother with it, don't see it, don't give this movie your money, which it's like it seems like todd phillips owes you money or something like you're.
Speaker 1:You're acting like todd phillips, like went in your house and slept with your mom. What's your grudge, you know? Like it's just let people go watch a movie and hate it or love it on their own, but like that's, my thing is, even if you went in expecting this to be a swerve and it turns into a batman franchise, or you went in and you just avoided everything and you were shocked it was a musical. It's still like how can you call thor's movie ever when it's so pretty?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's still just like a beautifully and the acting is stupidly good yeah, flawless, honestly, yeah, you know I I want to touch back on it, but I think this again the more and this is all just coming to me as we're talking about it right now but I do feel like this was just bound to happen. Yeah, like you have superhero movies. We've talked about it. There's some. Some people have fatigue about it, but it it dominates ips in general, just dominate theaters right now.
Speaker 2:It's really hard to get a 30 million movie made like a ghostbusters or something back in the day. So, like you have to. There it came to a point where it's like, hey, we have to experiment within this world. Yeah, so like you're making, if you just made an arthur fleck movie, like he didn't, you didn't call it joker, and they're like maybe he had the clown pain or something, but you didn't tie it to warner brothers or something. That's going to be an a24 film that's seen by, you know, a lot of diehard film fans and it'll pop up on streaming and in 10 years we'll talk about it as one of the top 2020 movies. But you can't make a Falling Down or a Joker without an IP attached to it. It doesn't have the worldwide viewpoint or the stage to stand on.
Speaker 1:Basically, but the thing is, the first movie is essentially just an A24 movie and it's a $50 million movie For Warner Brothers. That's cheap, that is borderline an independent film for them.
Speaker 2:That's what they forget is that's where all of their IPs came from was $30, $25 million, $50 million, and it makes a billion dollars or whatever, and so like and then I just don't think this, and it's just wild.
Speaker 1:I just don't think this movie goes that far off the ledge of what the first one was, that people just go.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just, it's it's a response to the fan base. It's it's, it's Dune. You know they wrote the remind me who the writer is of Dune, but he wrote the first. Dune.
Speaker 1:Yeah, frank Herbert Frank.
Speaker 2:Herbert. Yeah, he wrote the first Dune. Everybody said Paul's awesome, like they thought he was like. Then dune messiah, he wrote basically say no, this dude's bad. I have to remind you people, this dude's bad.
Speaker 2:So I feel like that it was almost. What he was doing was basically being like, okay, well, you guys clearly didn't get what I was trying to go for here. So let me remind you, this man is, has mental health issues, he is in an asylum, basically, yeah, and he, everything he's seeing may or may not be real. Like, and that's kind of the fun thing they play with in the second movie especially is like you, there we were talking with our friend chance after the movie and I was like I don't really know at what point you can really honestly say like that was real or that wasn't real. Like, obviously a lot of the musical pieces were set up to be dreamscapes and and, uh, pullaways. But yeah, at certain points it's like the framing of the movie where it starts with him watching a Pepe Le Pew thing in the prison. It ends with him watching, I think, the same Pepe Le Pew cartoon in the prison, and so you're just kind of like well, what was real?
Speaker 1:Maybe this was all in his head.
Speaker 2:So there's some fun that's played there especially, but it could all be real. That's the same thing too, Except the dance sequences and stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to find my thoughts. I'm still in a world of confusion.
Speaker 2:What I want to know not thinking outside of the fan reaction, the critic reaction, everything outside of the movie I want to hear from both you guys what you genuinely loved about the movie and what you liked about it. You can just start anywhere. It can be Gaga's performance, it can be song choices.
Speaker 1:Actually, before we go here, I figured out what I wanted to ask. Okay, I wanted to play devil's advocate and defend people who hated it. Okay, because, because, because I because again I do I want to understand why people are so like aggro, like to the point that they'll find me on the internet and I didn't even hashtag anything and tell me I'm full late and uh, and it's like I don't even like the hangover movies. Man, like I'm, I'm not we're not a todd phillips.
Speaker 1:Uh, I don't have his picture like framed on my wall or anything like that. I don't even know he made half the movie, so just referenced um and so, uh, I just liked the first one and thought this was a pretty good follow-up and, uh and I'm mostly a fan of like I like the idea of playing with ip characters outside of their sandbox that they're normally in.
Speaker 1:I thought that was super cool 100% but like it seemed like a lot of what people were just furious about that didn't like it is that they thought their intelligence was insulted. They thought like it was offensive that Todd Phillips made a movie that was like I'm going to make fun of everyone that liked the first one, which it's impossible to watch it and not feel offended because I liked the first one and I didn't feel like. I was being attacked.
Speaker 2:I do feel like you've been able to find a way to remove yourself a bit from IPs and franchises, so like it's not as personable of an attack on you when, like I know, the other side is arguing like because they're big Joker fans, they're big Batman fans, but mainly joker, they found some connection to it. Yeah, and so, like by not having him have a godfather 2 style like rise to power, yeah, in a court case like tony month, not tony, but, uh, the godfather himself, michael colerian, thank you, same actor, different, different decade, but having that be the way it goes out. I think they were expecting like a more proper origin story of that character. Yeah, but todd phillips is using it as a way to highlight mental health and like issue like and like. That's just at one point you were like, you told me you're like I think I got secondhand smoking from this movie because everyone was smoking. Like that's how bad the 70s were. Everybody was smoking and stuff in the city yeah, yeah like it.
Speaker 2:Just it's showing like a, a world in decay, which I think a lot of people in the first one were, you know, paralleling with our current state, with whatever side of the political spectrum you're on, wherever you're at, like you can relate to yeah, things are bad here, things are not going well. Or, like you know, our, our minimum wage is at a certain point, like this needs to be better, like I think people could relate to that anger that was kind of being festering from the crowd in the first one and then in the second one they're like and that took on arthur flex joker as like their avatar, their their voice of the voiceless, kind of it's like they were. They were looking for someone to encapsulate them. Yeah, but like the second movie is being like this isn't your guy. Like you, you backed the wrong horse. Like he's not who you think he is.
Speaker 3:No, no, yeah, but go ahead, ash. No, I was just gonna say, and that's a good point as well, because the the problem I mean the beauty of the first movie is that we were loving this character that we've never seen before, but by name we have and that's by association. We've loved him and we just let joaquin do the rest and see what interpretation we get from joaquin, phoenix and philips. And we loved it and we, like you know the whole dance sequence on the steps and these iconic moments with the red suit we haven't seen before.
Speaker 3:But the problem and I mentioned this as well before it was people started to like this guy and that was a problem. That was a real problem because, okay, we've watched gangster films before, but there's some justification why they're gangsters. There's not justification why we like someone who goes on a killing spree and you could use a vague reason like mental illness, but people, public people in the audience were rooting for him when he shot Robert De Niro, and that's when it got bad and that's when it was wrong and what Todd Phillips did was correct it in this movie, and there was a real problem with glamorizing him at the end of that movie, in the first movie and I loved the Joker. I did up until we shot Robert De Niro as a cinematic moment. It was. It was brilliant, yeah people in the audience were cheering.
Speaker 3:They were clapping their hands. I'm like that's problematic. That's why are we cheering for him? He should be.
Speaker 2:I think that's the reaction, is like the commentary, because, because, yeah, in that moment, like they've built empathy for arthur, like you're rooting for arthur in a way but as you go over the movie, you slowly realize like he murders people.
Speaker 2:He does different things, like he's clearly has a lot of issues going on. So for for it to for it to be seen as, like this, victorious moment, it should be bittersweet. You should be sitting there, part of you wants to fist pump, but part of you going. I don't know if I should be rooting for this guy. He literally just this, is just a talk show host. Yeah, he's a dick, but did he need to be shot?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2:I think that's just where that whole thing shifted, a little bit Like the schism. I don't even know if it's a schism. I think that's just how audiences took it. They were like, yeah, I want to and it, and you, you kind of worry about it. You're like if everybody's rooting because you're like yeah, he did the thing that I want to do all along, you're like exactly, it's so bad, it's so bad.
Speaker 3:But then it. Then they try, you know they. You give him some redemption as a character because he's trying to take it back in this movie. He's saying look, I'm going to take responsibly for my actions. People hated that because they're like oh, you're not going to step up and be the prince of darkness, you're not going to be any of that.
Speaker 2:And that's really where we are and that's really what harley's character lee in this movie like. That's what her and like the people in the courtroom that were rooting for joker kind of represented, was. Like we wanted you to be this, be this, yeah. And so I get where you're asking cory about like do you think it was designed to to piss on the fans that love the movie for those reasons that we said that more of like they like that character and I'm not gonna lie, I think I think there's there's a fair argument to be made of that.
Speaker 2:Where he like it's like yeah, you, you guys are representing this, the mob you're representing. You're represented by harley, where you wanted this joker and I'm trying to talk about poor arthur and his mental space and him making the better choice of going like I don't want to be this guy. I thought we were going back in that direction when the bomb hit and the Joker's picked him up and I was like, okay, I guess this is it, this is how he, this is him spiraling up to, uh, falling into victory with the crime scene and all this stuff. But no, they. He was like nope, we're gonna, we're gonna put him back in his box.
Speaker 3:Basically, exactly absolutely, and and it's all. And todd phillips thinks about everything you know. In the first scene he's descending down because it's the easy route and the second movie's going up because it's the harder route, because he's accepting what he's done. All these little like points of todd phillips doing it are genius and I hope, I hope, at some point people will realize that this film is a good film and, like like cory said, I still haven't heard a justification for why people hate it, besides jumping on the bandwagon and because it's trendy and popular, give me a few good reasons. I'll listen to you, I'm happy to listen, I'll have a good conversation with you and I'm happy for your opinion. You can have an opinion, but I haven't heard one.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard a good one yet it's a lot of like fan stuff and that's and that's what I want to say.
Speaker 1:Like I don't, like I, because I'm frustrated that people are so aggro. Anyone who likes it, like as if it's a personal affront to them. Yeah, and I don't want it to be like you not liking it's a personal affront to me. I'm just like well, tell me why you didn't like it and all I can get is suck a dick and I'm like all right, that's not a literally those were the words.
Speaker 2:That's uh, because it's not a really good uh critique of the film. We are not saying to suck dicks, unless that's.
Speaker 1:It's like dude, I get like you went and it just seems like you're frustrated that batman didn't show up at the end or that he didn't fire a gun with a bang flag out of it, because I don't know what else you like.
Speaker 2:You said, I don't know what else you do. James guns, creating the dcu again yeah talking about. It's been pushed out there, like it's like hey, we're looking for a new Batman. We don't know if Robert Pattinson's Batman will be part of it or he'll be separate. Yeah, exactly. And then, time and time again, they've gone. Todd's doing his own thing over here.
Speaker 3:That's not tied to us. It's not going to do anything with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I don't know what else you can do to help alleviate that for fans, but I think it is. It's just we've been trained to lead to something else, or just that there will be another movie, yeah like the fact that they kill him at the end, like like todd philip said, he's like there's a definitive ending. We, yeah, we're yeah, but like the fact that he kills him and and the way he kills him too, it also speaks. It's, it's a he's having a meta conversation with the audience, basically yeah, which is just what you expect for this kind of movie.
Speaker 2:That's going against the grain and it's weird because it's like this seems like the type of movie that's built for, like the people that we call cinephiles and stuff. It's like hey, we're gonna take your precious little cartoon comic book verse. We're gonna do something meaningful and interesting about it you know what I think?
Speaker 1:if I could really like, maybe get to like why this bothers me so much just the hatred from this. First of all, I hate that this limits maybe a studio in the future ever saying let's make, let's take another ip out of its sandbox and play with it in a different way? Yeah, you know, because it's like that sucks.
Speaker 1:Luckily penguin's doing well the show, yeah and so it's like all right, so like, and that doesn't have batman in it, and so it's, there's still room where we can still do that in a world. But like, uh, also, it's just like as a horror movie fan, it's kind of one of those things where it's like when something like Parasite or Silence of the Lambs, something where, like all of a sudden, the rest of the world has to take notice that horror movies can be good and cinematic, I would be horrified if horror fans just rejected the movie outright. It's like, well, like I hate this. I hate that, like we're not going to get like an eighth movie of parasite, or that this is going to franchise out you know it's like it's like it sucks, that I think what it is.
Speaker 1:it's like I'm like frustrated because I like nerdy things and I like the Batman franchise, and it's like really we're going to proving the world right that we shouldn't be taken seriously no, I think audiences.
Speaker 2:Whatever climate we're in right now, audiences have spoken out and they've said this is the type of movie we want. And that's the lesson that studios are learning is play it safe, play it by the book, don't do anything too crazy, but just keep the machine running. But that's just ever since. If you really look at movie history, you know it was. It was built by dudes that were creatives. They hire people to help them do the business. Then the business people took over. Basically, this is very in a nutshell. Too long didn't read. But now it's being run by business people and they're going. What's the demographic, what's the gonna get us the most? Uh, you know, money per capita kind of thing it's, it's.
Speaker 1:It's. To me it's just like I wonder how much of this is just like nerds being gatekeepy, like with their thing, like they. You know, it's like big bang theory and all this stuff kind of made nerds cool. The.
Speaker 1:Adam Brody character from the OC, like it. Just all of a sudden comic books became something that you hid under your mattress, didn't tell girls you read. Now all of a sudden it's girls want to talk about comic books and all of a sudden cool guys are into comic book movies. Yeah, and it's like, at what point are we like nerds?
Speaker 1:you know, I'm sorry if that word's offensive, whatever but just nerd them you know, the comic con type of people are just like I don't like that. Other people like this. This was our thing. I remember like other people used to like this and and like is this a reaction that I don't joker was a billion dollar movie and they're like I hate that cinephiles love this.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't call it gatekeeping. I think what they're so passionate about it's kind of like we've talked about strangely with all these Batman movies.
Speaker 2:We had different iterations of Batman. So when we initially had, you know, batman and Robin and Batman Forever, when we got to Batman and Robin, everybody's like they've ruined Batman. Batman's dead in the water. But now we have Keaton, we have Clooney, if you like him, we have Kilmer, we have bail, we have a bat fleck, we have Battinson, so like there's a. There's a big swath of like options for you. Yeah, and it's the same thing with Joker.
Speaker 1:So I don only chance we got to interpret this character but do you think it's like they took my character and gave it to everybody and everyone, like sometimes?
Speaker 2:sometimes it's too much change. Yeah, like when you because, like it was the first movie, it was just joker, it was just enough. They weren't doing any solid. Like no, he's not the joker. Like it left a little bit, left it a little loose for you so you could fill in the blanks with your mind a little bit yeah, the second, the second movie went harlequin, but she's not quite Harlequin.
Speaker 2:Harvey Dent, but his face doesn't totally get torn off by acid or anything, and then Arthur Fleck is not going to become the Joker. Sorry, when you change lore or the actual stories of characters too much, that's when it seems like fan bases just go wild. If you look at the Lord of the Rings, rings of Power show, anytime you have to make creative changes and stuff because they were limited with what they had anyway. You have to make creative changes and stuff because they were limited with what they had anyway. But anytime you have that it creates the fans are so diehard about. This is what it actually is. You're changing it too much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think that's where a lot of it comes from. That's the thing, nick, though, because you just regurgitate the same story in different ways, like how many batman we've had nine people play batman, four people done the voices, and they're, all you know, completely different. You got the mtv era in the 90s, the gothic with keaton and the bat flick blockbuster, and you know, you got the back to the grimy gothic way with patson and the same. I mean this is you got remember as well. This is the first joker movie where it focuses solely on joker, by the way, yeah, which a lot of people were like don't do that, it won't work yeah, because that's a
Speaker 3:lot of attention for a character that's actually quite fun in small doses. So you've really got to do it well. And let's not forget, this isn't a film about joker, I mean, otherwise it'd be called the joker, it's just called joker. So if you didn't get the hint from the first movie, then you know you've missed the trick there. So it's clear that todd phillips knew he was going to end it that way before even doing the first movie, because he knew it was an origin story and I think he even said that as well. So people um, acting surprised about this whole thing is ridiculous. And this whole, you know, regurgitating the same story and changing it a bit, even with, like glamorizing villains I mean venom's out, penguins out a series called sweet peas out all these characters the main characters are now anti-villains or bad guys that have got some redemption story.
Speaker 2:We've reached this point. We want to give them like a sympathetic background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's dangerous because joker in the first movie, people are actually on his side because of this mental health argument and I'm like, guys, you need to take a step back and really realize what you're saying here, because this guy just shot someone, went on a killing spree and we're rooting for him and I get the argument, but it's a very dangerous argument and yes, you could say that you know the scorsese era where we glamorize in gangsters, but there's justification for them. They realize they're doing bad stuff. This one you're actually justifying it for them as audience members. And if we keep doing these films and they're trying to turn the screw a little bit just to make an original story, like Todd Phillips did, yeah, you're going to have people who are going to lash out because you know they're characters that have been done to death now and you know originality is sort of lost. The way to do it might be original, but the characters still exist in some kind of lens of the last 50 years. So there is attachment there for some people.
Speaker 2:You know people are still going to want to see a bit of nicholson, a bit of ledger, a bit of lito but at the end of the day it's joaquin's job to make it his, and I think he did a great job.
Speaker 1:So I agree, we're gonna say I mean I don't know I'm still just fostering. I mean, I'll always find this just to be fascinating that this movie bombed as hard as it did, or it just created such violence in people in terms of just their inability to understand that people like different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't remember uh, if it was a director that said it or just some, an actor or somebody. But they said you know, we're talking about the types of movies like you know, the 70s taxi driver or the gangster movies of that era. You can even look at uh, scorsese's goodfellas, you can look at wolf of wall street falling down. It connects with a certain type of people like of different types, like they feed into it, they want it. Um, but this director was talking about, uh, war movies and and particularly anti-war movies. He's like you can't it's impossible to create an anti-war movie, and his theory on it was because at some point you have to show them doing war stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that appeals to some people. Like, if you have to, you have to show the gangsters doing gangster things, killing people or beating somebody up for money or or talking real smooth, make a deal go down. You have to show the guy getting the shot, shooting his boss or whatever, and getting revenge and a mental health kind of like society collapsing type of story. Yeah, so you're connecting with somebody, whether it's like, hey, guns are cool, or like I want to go be a hero overseas or, you know, maybe selling drugs or like living this very lavish lifestyle is like super appealing to me.
Speaker 2:Like you're always going to connect with somebody like that because it's about entertainment as well, like you can try to, you're gonna have to make a very a movie that's not going to be seen by a lot of people If you're trying to make like a very large commentary on like greed is bad. Mental health is a problem. Our society needs to focus on people that need help and need, uh, support in their, in their livelihoods. So I think that's just the. The balance that you have between creating art and creating entertainment is that you're always going to have people that misinterpret and take and take it and run with it, and when you add a comic ip that's so well known to it and build it around that, you're getting more eyes on the product, you're getting more people tuned in and you're going to get a lot of those people that, in our current climate, are like, yeah, I feel the way he does, like when he's talking with Robert De Niro at the end, being like I'm sick of being put down, I'm sick of being pushed to the side, and people will feel that, yeah, so I think it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a, you know. Applause to the director and the crew and the team for, like, getting that emotional connection there, because that's not easy, but at the same time it's like that's what you get, that's what that was, that was the result you got from that movie. So his choice to go against it and go, I'm not going to feed into that, I'm going to tell my story that's like you said it. If you don't, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:No sure, I mean, I don't know. Part of me is the other thing. Like the series, Gotham exists, which is cringy as get out, it's just a cringe, but DC fans. I mean, like the nerd I feel like the really nerdy people loves the CW stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they like the Flash series and they like the Arrowverse. I think you and I. I think when it first was announced it was like it's going to be about lieutenant or james gordon and it's just gonna be like a cop show, and I think you and I were more appealed to that.
Speaker 1:But then the second, they were introducing bat villains before on the first episode, you're like five villains you're like oh okay, I'm out like I thought this was gonna be a police procedural in your face. Yeah, maybe every once in a while we'll get like a cool little like easter egg. But yeah, no, I was, it was not like that yeah but like my thing is, there's like that show did the most originally outlandish stuff with the joker.
Speaker 1:There's like five different jokers yeah they're like it's and it's all about this it's like and it's like, and it's constantly it's like man and y'all were all for that and that, like crapped on all lore, all everything but that's the thing, is that you, you.
Speaker 2:So we've talked about joker before in the past. With Ledger's Joker, it's better left untold or kept to a mystery. His origin? No, I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think he's one of the most like beautiful things about the fictional characters that, aside from like the killing joke being the most revered, he doesn't have an established origin. Yeah, it changes constantly, which is why I think Nolan doing the multiple, you know like monologues you know monologues about how he got the scars is fun because it's like is he just having fun with you or does he not genuinely know who he is? Yeah, type of thing.
Speaker 3:But even then you're talking.
Speaker 1:he Ledger's Joker is now like considered the cinematic peak of it and it's like well, his skin's not dyed white. He didn't get dropped in a vat of chemicals like it went against the most established letter is technically more comic book. Yeah, and we hated it, know, or you know, the majority of people hated it. So it's just weird to me that, like we have honed in on this and it just seems the primary hatred we have for it is that he's not a psychopath.
Speaker 2:It went against their expectations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it just, it just absolutely just did not become a batman movie you know, and it's just like yeah and it's just. It's just weird to me, but like it's like which is fine, like if that's genuinely the reason you hate it. That's fair, but pretty clear that you should have accepted that when you saw Bruce Wayne as a child in the first one.
Speaker 3:Exactly. I think it would have been very interesting to have someone on here who hated it and have a very adult conversation with them, because every person who's and Corey said it as well Every person I've tried to have a conversation with, why do you hate this movie? I can't get these bs conversations where they're trying to turn it on me. It's like, well, why do you like it so much? What's so great about it? I'm like no, no, honestly, why don't you like the film? Like honestly I'm listening to you, what is bad about the film? Because I liked it and I just would like to hear your opinion. I have not got one straight answer, an answer that even makes any logical sense. Besides, like a kind of vendetta against me for liking it, and it's and cory said it earlier it's just like I feel like I'm being attacked for liking it and I don't get why.
Speaker 2:And it's everyone's- so defensive about you know why they don't like it, sorry. Yeah, let me again play devil's advocate. I'm gonna ask you guys, what did you like?
Speaker 1:yeah, let's, let's. Now I move into why we like it, since we're the uh, we're the rare breed here, because we can say or talk about why people hated it or figure it out.
Speaker 2:You guys are free to go in our comments and just give us a nice long, lengthy description of why you hated it, as long as it's civil.
Speaker 1:Don't tell me to suck a dick.
Speaker 2:That's not an argument, please don't insult us while you're telling us why you hated it. But Corey Ash, why did you love or just like them Ash?
Speaker 3:you want to go first? Yeah, sure, I mean for me. I'm not going to go on about how beautiful it is, because there's a lot of films out there that are beautiful. If you've got the right director. A film can look beautiful and not even be a good film, but this film managed to hold its own. I'll tell you why. I really liked it because it's a sequel and for it to be a good movie it has to be a good sequel and it's part of two. Right now, madness of two is very it's very, um, counterintuitive.
Speaker 3:Because a lot of people thought this was a movie about joker and harley quinn. It wasn't this. This movie thought this was a movie about joker. It wasn't. This is a movie about arthur fleck and him trying not to be the joker. I think every part of this movie was meticulously like, thought out every time. You know the courtroom scene, him putting on an accent, him fighting against himself. Every little moment in this movie was thought about and it was correct in that mistake they did at the first, at the end of the first movie, which was glamorizing a villain.
Speaker 3:This movie there is redemption, and I think that is so clever for a director to take responsibility for something he might portray to audiences as something that might be dangerous and saying, wait a second, no, this guy isn't the joker. I didn't say he was a joker at any point because it's called Joker. It's not called the Joker, it's called Joker. And this guy is Arthur Fleck and he has taken responsibility for his actions. And the whole madness of two is that in a battle between him, his reality and people wanting him to become the Joker, and you've got the temptation side, like Harley Quinn and the people, and that's where the music comes in. It's this fantasy world where he's battling or entertaining the idea. The movie could have gone in 50 different directions with it. They chose music, they chose to articulate that in a very dingy because it's all, it's all in really one place. We're only following Arthur in prison and then the courtroom scene. It doesn't really happen anywhere else.
Speaker 3:So for a film to be, you know, restricted to that and to tell this character justice, not to mention, like I said, the film is beautiful, the acting is flawless I mean, you could say that by a lot of films. But what is really key about why this film is so good is it is dignified to the first movie a hundred percent. It's so easy for a sequel to fail and not follow up. The only way this film could better the first movie wasn't financially. It's in time this film will be known as a classic.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent because the first movie is, at the same time, entertaining the geeks, the people that the gatekeepers, the people that like batman because there are easter eggs for them. There is little moments for those guys, but this movie is completely a story about arthur and I don't think people enjoyed that. But I think the film is beautifully done. I think the ending was great. I think it was dignified in a very easy way and you don't need to go further with it as well. And the best stories, the best films always end when you can say that at the end of a film there's a new story about to start. Those are the best films and that one is definitely another case.
Speaker 3:But there's so much I could say about this film in terms of being, I don't know, a cinephile, or the acting, or how it was shot or the. You know the tone, it it gave all the music. There's so much to it, but it's. I just don't get why people hate it. I mean, I understand why, compared to the first movie. But that's. You know, this is a separate movie. You're watching a separate movie. You're watching a new movie here. Yes, you've got the attachment of a new character, but if you can sort of just take a step back and watch the movie as just it and you know, understand where the characters go, I think it's a great film what I think is interesting if you look at the two together.
Speaker 2:the first movie is very much typical kind of origin story, Like he's you see a man down in his luck and slowly, like the pieces come together, he's, he puts on the suit, he puts on the makeup, he kind of embraces that Joker personality or that side of himself. And then the second one is him having to slowly pull away from it and like be revealed back to who he is Basically, having to make those choices. To go no, I want to be. I want to be arthur. I don't want to give in to this side of myself. That's more about the chaos and the anger and frustration and stuff. But it's just, it's an interesting movie the way it's made, using his uh, unreliable narrator, basically from his perspective as the storyteller. But I think it's. You know, this is my question going in was was there ever a convo in the first movie as much in the second one about Arthur having two personalities? Or was it just built around like hey, this is just this guy who was a clown and he's just really leaned into that part of it?
Speaker 1:I think it's just in the second one, because it's made as his defense For his court trial.
Speaker 2:They're saying oh, oh, you're clearly two different people and I think some people are are the counter argument to us. I think there's probably frustration on the end because they're like well, it was never about him having a split personality, or like no, he is joker, kind of thing, and I think that's even the argument that is made by the court. On the other side of him is like no, you don't have two personalities, you're just leaning into the darker parts of yourself, like this is who you are, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, okay, yeah, no, I get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good what do you think? What did you like?
Speaker 1:what I like about it. I mean, like I, I like it it's. It's very interesting. There's a 90s movie with richard geard called primal fear, which is almost the exact same movie as joker 2, without songs it's literally a guy arrested for a murder and he puts on a. I have two personalities. The fence and the whole movie is. Is he telling the truth or is he just really good at acting?
Speaker 1:you know type of thing and it's got a. Obviously I'm not going to spoil it because it's a great movie. It's edward norton's first movie and he got nominated for an oscar playing the, uh, the or the accused. Okay, um, he's the guy playing the two parts and so, um, which is weird, because that's a revered movie and this one's being trashed and it's all because it's an ip. You know, uh, but like for me, it's uh. I liked the first one because to me and again, I think we've talked about this especially the last, I really do separate ips from things. I'm a story person. If a story is good, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:I care less about precious lore and things like that. It's just like whatever, um and so like. For me, I like. I like the first one because I thought it was just very simply telling a story about society stigmatizing mental health. Yeah, it sets it in a day and age where, in the seventies, yeah, you would have just looked away or you would have just thrown them, thrown them in a cage, lock away like that person's not fit for society and move on.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's Arthur Fleck's already living in a fantasy world. He's already like playing. He's putting on a mask, he's playing a clown, he wants to be an entertainer. He's been convinced that he's good at it. He thinks that Thomas Wayne's his father. You know, he's already living in a world that's not real. You know nothing about his life is real. And then I like the second exploring the idea okay, society gave him a better part to play, which is this thing called joker, and he embraces it.
Speaker 1:So I'm not butthurt at the end when he says, well, that's not me and that, and that's because I started therapy in my 30s and it's because I got married.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden it just became kind of a weird identity crisis where I was like, oh crap, I've spent my whole life usually mimicking people around me.
Speaker 1:If I'm in a large crowd, it's a lot of mimicry, it's a lot of just like just trying to survive.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, it's like I got into music and that was mainly because I got put on me. I kind of grew up to hate it and so, like, when I got married and I'm having to live with this person, I'm like I have no idea who I actually am as a person. I have to be normal in a house with this other person, and so I go to therapy and I'm having to unpack so much of that. And so to me it's like I can watch the Joker movies and like, really like it's. It's like not sympathize with the character, cause it is the Joker and he becomes a homicidal maniac, but I can sympathize with what the message is, which is like it's hard to navigate the world If you have like just you know if you're nerd aversion or all this stuff, or just like you have anxiety, things that are obviously a lot less severe than, uh, whatever you know, anti-social personality disorder or whatever that the character of arthur supposedly has.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but like I don't know how, you don't watch either movie.
Speaker 3:It's just a tragedy it's not meant to be glorified, it's a tragic figure it's.
Speaker 1:It's like you should be watching the first joker movie and not glorifying, going like I'm glad he shot robert de niro and that the world's on fire. You should be like this is the tragedy of not talking about mental health. This is the tragedy of just tossing it aside or vilifying people who go to therapy, or vilifying people who take meds. You know and like, because whatever we live in the Bible Belt and the most crap I've ever gotten for therapy is from people who are like religious and they go. Why don't you just pray about it? You're like this is not anything, yeah, like and I I respect that, but like I need therapy, like it's fine yeah, I mean I think he just to kind of talk on what you were talking about.
Speaker 2:I do think he is a sympathetic figure. It's a tragedy what's going on and like and even in the second movie like they're bringing back characters from the first movie just to remind you like this guy has mental health issues. Like zaza beats comes back and she's like I've never had a relationship with this guy. He showed up in my room with or my house, my apartment, with my child there and then just left and then you have poor puddles that comes back. Who's all?
Speaker 1:his co-workers were just murdered best scene in the movie is literally, cory, you're just gonna say the same thing.
Speaker 3:The best scene in the whole movie was that he's so good that actually plays puddles killed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a pivotal scene in the movie because you, you've had him being and that's the other thing too is like him being joker.
Speaker 2:Playing the role of joker is him like adapting to society. This is the role that society accepts him in. When he's just trying to be a clown, a stand-up comedian or just a son, like he's rejected all the way across the board. But when he leans into this darker nature, everybody's like that's who we want and that's who harley wants, that's who the bob outside wants. And so when he has to put on his foghorn leghorn cord accent which is ridiculous and funny, um, but when puddles shows up and like pretty much just makes him confront himself and goes like this, this isn't you, you were the only guy that was nice to me, and like that's when he realizes like I don't want to play this role anymore, like I don't like hurting people that I genuinely care about yeah, I genuinely think that's one of the best scenes in the movie, because I think and again, it's where I don't understand how it loses people that, like this isn't a it's, it's joker.
Speaker 1:And, yes, maybe nick's right, maybe it's just this massive thing where it's just like don't throw things in an ip, maybe this.
Speaker 2:Both movies are just absolutely heralded as masterpieces if they're not somehow adjacent to batman but they don't get the appeal and they don't get the icon icon, icon, iconograph how do I say iconography?
Speaker 1:thank you that that you get with with movies and ips like this and it's true, and it would just be, and it'd probably come off weird if we were just dealing with a clown and like it's not. Somehow you're thinking joker in the back of your mind. It's like.
Speaker 2:It's like it's like ashid, like you take out joker and you say and just call it like clown, some, some clown thing. And he's just a guy who, because his makeup isn't exactly like the joker, he never puts on the green suit, yeah, or purple suit. Excuse me, it's not the real we never questioned it. Yeah, and we never questioned, and like it feels like a 90s never dies his hair green.
Speaker 2:It's like what if this guy like you could pitch it in the 90s. Go, okay, it's the richard gear court case movie, but and falling down. But instead of him just being a regular guy, he puts on a clown suit. Yeah, and you're like okay go on but I think now you go, it's the joker from the batman world. It's like great butts in seats, but now you're also going. Well, uh, it's not following exactly along with the storyline yeah, yeah, he's carrying too much weight.
Speaker 3:Yeah and again.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about people I'm not talking about. Oh well, he's not wearing the right suit or anything that's nitpicky like that. There was somebody that was mad and was trying to ask the question how did he get the suit and the makeup to be in the courtroom scene? And I'm like those are the type of things. Don't think about that.
Speaker 1:Well, well. There's literally a scene where the judge says you actually have the legal right to wear, yeah, what you want, but they're.
Speaker 2:What they're asking is like, how does he, being in a prison, slash asylum, get it? I'm like we've already established well, if you think about it, harley has money. She comes from money in the storyline. She can get him whatever he needs. Clearly, she has access night and day, apparently, to this, unless she's not real, but I think half the time she is real, um, but I think there's it's just being too nitpicky about little things like that that don't really impact. It's. It's it's a thing that's helping the story. Like, yeah, he's gonna have the makeup on. Like I don't need a scene with harley going here's your suit, here's your makeup, let me help you out, like we literally had the scene, the scene where they were having sex in the cell allegedly, where she helps put on the paint.
Speaker 2:If you think that's real, we've already established she can get in the makeup. If it's not real, at some point in there we've established she's rich, she's got money, she can get what she needs from it but like, and my thing is this like I don't know, I'm with ash.
Speaker 1:I think, like five years from now, everyone will see this movie as the, the cinematic version of joker, pulled the gun and the bang flag came out. You all expected batman. It wasn't it. You know it's. It's all one giant.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's I. I really don't think it was batman they were expecting I think they were just expecting him well, I'm just saying batman figuratively, that he's going to become the villain, got it?
Speaker 1:that would eventually be the clown prince of crime, and it's just, it's not.
Speaker 1:And so I'm just trying to save you a lot of vitriol on the internet, whatever. I've muted comments on everything, um and so, but like I I'm with Ash there, but kind of just kind of going back to what you were saying, Like I just think that the second movie I liked the Harley Quinn character. Everyone seems to also be deflecting to Lady Gaga ruin the character of Harley Quinn and blah, blah, blah, and it's like again they were very upfront that she wasn't going to be chewing gum. She wasn't going to be chewing gum, she wasn't going to have the thick accent and she was going to be this other reimagining, you know, and so it's just kind of like I don't know why you went in expecting Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's. I think the loss on that is because they really did set it up to be somewhat of a love story, going on at least from trailers, and it was. It was hyped as gaga and phoenix, not walkie phoenix, and oh, by the way, she's in this movie like it was very much their movie together. But, as ash points out, it's not about harley. She is a tool as a character to drive arthur and his and his uh need for connection, so he's willing to like keep being the joker for a longer absolutely go ahead.
Speaker 3:No, no, I was just gonna say I think it's good that our expectations are diminished because you can watch a trailer. People complain about watching trailers and they give too much away and you know the story from just watching two minutes of the credit sequence. I'm glad I had no idea how this film was going to turn out. I don't know why I'm the minority about that. I want to be surprised when I go see it. This movie didn't know. I had no idea I was expecting this movie at all. Nothing hinted at it. Like cory said and you said, I thought it was a love story.
Speaker 3:I thought this was going to be a harley quinn movie. I thought jacob was going to break into the city and cause chaos. I thought I might have seen bruce wayne. I am so glad I was wrong and I'm so glad they didn't hint at any of that in the trailers, because it you know that that's what you should do. You should exceed audience expectations and I think that's the strong word here expectation. Everyone expected a completely different movie and they were just disappointed. I wasn't, and I don't think we were. To be fair, I think we were.
Speaker 1:I mean we weren't, and it's just like I don't know. I like I love the second one in the sense that I like the way Harley's used, which again I will sympathize that. I think some people again felt that they were being insulted by with the character as she's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:Oh, she represents the audience that glorified the Joker and so if you're that person, like you're wrong and like that's, I mean, and if you felt that way, like that's, I think that's a generate, like that's a genuine critique. You didn't like it because you felt like I like the first one and I thought the Joker was cool punished for like you're being punished like yeah, like dude, that's an actual critique. Bring that to me and I will absolutely look at you and go. That's fair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's fine, you know.
Speaker 1:I also like the first movie, but I didn't feel like I was getting like yelled at because I watched the movie and saw it as a tragedy Like this is what happens when you just toss mentally ill people to the side and don't like and help's not available or whatever. But, like I also think this movie is very much an overcorrection correction. Like it's talking about the overcorrection of mental health and like society where now people kind of seek it out and they want to actually wear the identity of oh, I'm neurodivergent as like a badge of honor. You know which.
Speaker 1:It's like I walk through that my wife has to tell me all the time like hey, don't use adhd or whatever as a crutch. Don't, don't use your anxiety as a crutch. Don't like, own it, don't let it define you. And I'm like and she's right, right, right and that happens. But at the same time I do these classes where people going through counseling and trying to get certified do mock therapy sessions in front of the class and I do this as part of Southeastern. You just go in there and you do it and you're allowed to lie and fake stuff. I'm usually just real with them and I've literally had people kind of go. I like how eccentric and weird you are and I'm like that sucks. Don't say that to a patient ever.
Speaker 3:Don't ever say that. You just define me as you think it's interesting.
Speaker 1:I was like because, trust me, walking into a crowded room sucks for me. You don't want this, you know, and stuff like that. But at the same time, I maintain a constant mindset of like I can get better, I can always get better. I can get better. Like I can always get better. I can do crowded rooms and I can. I can improve and I and I've done it through therapy, I've got a lot better at social interactions and blah, blah, blah and so like I. But I think this movie's kind of poking fun at a culture of like you know the hashtag actually autistic type of thing where it's like people are now gatekeeping with mental illness and that, like you have like almost a glamorization of mental illness by people and hardly represents that and and I was like I, just like that the movies talk a lot about mental illness and it's interesting to me.
Speaker 2:I think, honestly, I think what I'm getting out of our conversation today is I'm seeing the difference between like, and I don't think it's necessarily either side is wrong, but it's about what you were expecting and hoping for coming out of the movie. I think a lot of us, a lot of us, we we were story focused. We were like this is interesting, it's different. Like you're, like you're diving into a lot of story moments that aren't tied to comic lore and iconic characters and stuff, and we're talking more about like that kind of experimentation or just like deep dive and somewhat metacritic kind of stuff, kind of going in, um. But I think the other side walked in, going I want to see these characters do what these characters do. So it was like this weird emergence of a from a from a much more creative art house not even art house, but just like more story based wanting to do something different versus like people that wanted their superhero uh stuff to eat up you know, yeah, that I think that's another bad thing that we're getting into with this era.
Speaker 3:I think the audience are actually having a say on what they want to watch and what to expect. I mean, it used to always be the director's job the performers on stage, the audience, don't tick, they don't dictate anything. You're there to enjoy the show that they give you. Now it seems that the audience has to have an opinion on how they do it the next time, and that is dangerous because that is the end of storytelling, because it means everything is formulaic, everything is expected. You're feeding into the audience expectations. It is a very dangerous trail we are going along in, like the 2020 era at the moment, and you know a24 are doing a great job with like these stories that are coming out.
Speaker 3:I'm not just going about horror genres as well, but a24 is a studio. The stories that they're coming up with are amazing. I'm not just saying that because I love horror films, but if you are going to follow a studio, that's the one to follow, because everything at the moment is being corrupted by not necessarily Todd Phillips's studio with Joker. But they took a risk and it paid off the first time and not the second time. But you know, I do think in time this film will be looked at. But OK, yeah, I think we got this one wrong. We have to remember this film came out three weeks ago. We haven't, we haven't given it time to digest it. There is still a hype on this movie where I think it hasn't really settled with people yet. I think people like there's a few people on social media who are saying this film is actually amazing.
Speaker 1:So no, there's, it has its lovers, we're just not as loud. Yeah, exactly, I mean it's being drowned at the moment.
Speaker 3:That's why we have a podcast exactly, but I think we've done this at the right time. But it yeah, like you said at the start, nick the, the attack this film's gone is like no other. Like it's ridiculous, it's relentless and it's so constant and it's everywhere, um, but I just hope people can just get out of themselves and try and ignore it, because unfortunately, we have to read everything we're going to watch and audiences do have a bigger say than they did before, which is really dangerous, I think and uh, like Ash, I don't want to exclude you from this next conversation, but I don't know if this will pertain to you as much.
Speaker 1:But another thing I feel like I got a really gross feeling about how much hatred went towards this movie, in terms of people who hated it are just being really crass and insulting anyone that loves it. It's like this feels like American politics right now. No one's actually bringing a real argument. It's just how much. How like?
Speaker 2:how high can you raise your middle finger to the other person and you're like I'm open to a discussion, like please you know, in this, in the same thread you had, you kept being like agree to disagree, but I'd be more happy to talk about it and constantly we're just basically giving the middle finger yeah, it was just like.
Speaker 1:No one was like. No one wants to like. Actually say why. They just say like f you, it's all it's like and my thing is it's like. I think it freaked me out too. It's like man, are we just? Are we just learning how to like? Are we forgetting how to have a conversation?
Speaker 2:we are, which is like are we collectively just forgetting and that's on both sides of the of any political yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm not attacking one side or the other.
Speaker 2:We're just we're forgetting how to just like converse. There's. There's a sense of tribalism about it on in some aspects, there's a sense of like putting a lot of moral labeling onto everything, or like just it's. It's the way that things have been, whether it's the media, whether it's you know anything, it's all been very painted as like black and white. They don't want to allow the room for great and which is which is kind of weird with considering this movie, where it's like, yeah, this guy's uh has mental health issues. He's being pulled one way to lean into those, but he's it's like they're you're not getting. I I don't want to say they're not getting like the subtext or like the the gray in between this and stuff you can't sure.
Speaker 1:If you ask, I'm kind of with ash. I'm at the the point where all my conversations have come out of it. I want to defend that. You probably hate hearing people saying you didn't get it. But I start to think you didn't get it and this is the really interesting thing.
Speaker 3:I've been watching a lot of American politics. I mean, the votes are very important, a couple of four or five weeks coming up as well. I watched an interview with Dennis Quaid and he was on Piers Morgan and and it was interesting because he's of a certain age, he's like pushing 80 at the moment. He still looks very well. And Piers Morgan just asked him straight who are you going to vote for in this election? And he literally straight out said Donald Trump is like look, I'm at a time when you could vote for whoever you want and have a discussion of why you're going to vote for them, and you'd be OK with it. It wouldn't be an attack. Now I know a lot of people, a lot of celebrities, a lot of actors, and they won't answer the question because they don't want to be attacked.
Speaker 3:And Dennis Quaid was like well, I'm from a time when you could say something. People would disagree with you and then you'd have a beer afterwards and that would be that. And I feel like the same thing's happening even with our politics and your politics. And now this movie, because it doesn't matter what your answer is, it's just an attack, it's a fight. There's no discussion, it's not like okay, I respect it. It's just an attack.
Speaker 3:If you're voting donald trump or come up or harris, it's like no, you're wrong and that's that. Because, like you said, it's a tribal attack and we've lost that right to have a discussion. We've lost that right to just be like okay, you're voting for trump? Fine, I don't disagree. I I disagree with you, but you know, okay, cool, you want to grab a beer? Fine, it's like you're over one side or another and that's also very. It's always happening here in Europe as well. It's ridiculous, it's so bad, and I've seen the stuff that's going on with the debates with Trump and Harris as well. I mean, it's just like there's no, there's no prisoners over there. It's just like you were with us or against us, and I don't know how you guys think that's true in terms of having a conversation with respecting someone who's going to vote the other way.
Speaker 2:It's the simple answer is that we don't have conversations. It's rare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at this point you're just like, if you're not in the mood for a fight, you just avoid it and like I have friends that are on like the opposite, I guess side political spectrum of myself that I can have conversations with and yeah, but and I sit there and go like, yeah, I can't get on board with that like this. This is my like. You get to a point like this is my line. This is where I just don't agree, and I'm it's. I think you want to try to blanket and go like this side's evil, or this side's evil, this side's corrupt, this side's great.
Speaker 1:They're both saying the same things about each other yeah and when you start to notice that you kind of stop getting pulled into the arguments yeah, I mean like, and I think another reason why I consider and say I'm really confused at like. I mean again, I have never, ever said I like a movie and had people just be incredibly like verbally violent with me. Um, and I like grease too. People, if you're gonna tell me to suck a dick for liking a sequel to any movie, it's joker too. It's not grease too. Grease two's good, corey, grease two's great. But like like the fact that people can just go like okay, that's fair, you know all right, where's that right now?
Speaker 2:just give me that what I'm asking for you to say, like with the 70s and 80s, all right you know, like like a choker too, and I just want to.
Speaker 1:All right, that's fair I can see why you might like it. I didn't like that.
Speaker 2:That's all I want I think all we just yeah, it's like, it's like it's. You get to the I love it or I hate it and you don't go. Well, I liked this about because I can see her say I think the movie is a little long, I don't like how the ending I didn't love the ending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like, I like I'm okay that spoilers Arthur Flex killed. Yeah, I just hate that they make the Joker give himself scars. That just opened it up to a dumb debate about the Nolan verse, or just like, just any verse, yeah let's not do that. I don't like that I don't like that.
Speaker 2:He gave himself scars and it was stupid, but uh it's like todd philip I don't know if you it's movies are hard. It's a business, it's a fully functioning thousands of people involved, a lot of high up idiots and it's probably them going. We need the scars at the end. Or it's like I'm sure someone like something like that, because it's like okay, todd, if you're gonna double down on the, this is not tied to anything. I'm not giving you any easter eggs or anything like. Why'd you let that in?
Speaker 3:exactly. But then that's what it does. It creates that debate. I mean someone. I watched it with someone. They didn't even notice that scene at the end because they were like too busy with arthur dying, oh well they were already on letterboxd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're already on their phone.
Speaker 3:I hate this movie and it's like you know if you're going to give him an easter egg. Like that it's good. It creates a discussion. I mean the other discussion was like was she actually pregnant? I mean that was a good discussion to have as well.
Speaker 3:Like was it you know, and there's a lot of like unanswered thing which is open for a discussion, but at the moment it is just a attack after attack. Like me and my friends, we also liked it as well. The abuse we got in person. I mean, it was, it was okay, but I was, it was just. You just asked him a simple question.
Speaker 3:I got some stupid responses on my mate. What are you talking about? Like, how is that even a reason, like if you give me a genuine reason and I'm not here to dictate what a reason is but to say that it was shit without giving me any like form of why or shit is just rubbish. Um, and and you're right, it gets to the point where you're like I am just not in the mood to get into a fight right now because I'm just, I'm just telling you I like the film. I'm asking why you don't, I can tell you why I like it, and you know we can on. But then it becomes so personal, for whatever reason, and then it gets escalated and it's like you, I guess I don't know, and it's just everything.
Speaker 2:I think it's just especially with movies because, like Hollywood movies, it's a two way street, like it is personal. You grow up that memory of Star Wars or Batman or something is very personal to you. No-transcript, same time going well. But we want to have creative integrity like we've had in the past and and not be dictated by what people want because, like a lot of artists and stuff will tell you is like if you try to write to what the trends are, you're gonna fail.
Speaker 1:Like you have to always be trying to push the new thing out or just be your authentic self all the time yeah now, and I mean again, I'm, I'm in a marriage where my wife is politically different than I am and we're cool. So like I think it's weird when, like, I enter the wild and people are just really so aggressively mad towards anyone, because again my wife will vote differently than I do.
Speaker 1:Our house kind of cancel each other out, but we're both going to vote and she's going to vote one way, I'm going to vote the other way and we're going to high five at the end of the day and still be married and so that's how it should be.
Speaker 1:That's how I'm kind of with you. I'm just like it just seems like where are the days where you just be like okay, agree, disagree, and everybody's still cool and happy, and it's just like we've fallen away from that and it's just we treat every election like, like it's the end of the world, like if you don't vote our way or or this way, everything it's going to be societal collapse hey, here's a question does this movie do better if it doesn't happen?
Speaker 1:in election year, everybody's just good and triggered. I mean maybe last year. I wonder if people are just like now now joker one came out in 2019.
Speaker 2:So that was before COVID, during the former 2016 Donald Trump at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're just in the middle. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wonder. So here I'll wrap it up, because I have to ask now. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Terrifier 3 has really benefited from Joker failing because their whole media thing now is like we're the number one box office clown and to me I'm just like. That makes me want to vomit where I'm like. Alright, this is where we are as movie watchers. I mean, I'm still gonna watch Terrifier 3 hopefully. Joker 2 has flopped and like I mean Terrifier 3 being number one, it only made like it did. It made it didn't make a lot of money. It's an independent film, but, like, because it's an independent film, it makes just a little bit of money it's huge, you know yeah, but it's like I am.
Speaker 1:I am like my algorithm on threads is really messed up. I'm trying to correct it and I'm trying to input words. I don't want to see you know things like that and like, know, I'm trying to figure all that out and like, but it's wild, because people like Joker 2. It's the worst movie I've ever seen and it made no sense. Why were they singing none of this? And then like the same person like Terrifier 3 is great. I'm like the Terrifier movies don't have a plot, but they just genuinely don't have a plot.
Speaker 3:They're entertaining.
Speaker 1:I'll. It's fun and like. My thing is, horror movies need pretty minimal plot. You really just need an origin story to your bad guy and in a lot of ways you kind of root for the bad guy a couple teenagers to kill it's all good, but like you, root for the bad guy, but you don't want to become the bad guy. That's the difference.
Speaker 1:No one wanted to be freddy krueger but like um, but like it's, it's wild to me because it's just like maybe that's where we are, maybe people, yep, because everything's a zeitgeist. So I'm also wondering if we're just 2018 was this perfect storm for Joker? And then 2024 is just this perfect storm against Joker.
Speaker 1:I think that's fair, because a lot of people are also just retroactively taking back that they liked the first one too. Now they're like you know what, looking back at it, it was stupid, it's just like all right, but like I'm like, okay, it's interesting because I'm like maybe the people just wanted a psychopathic homicidal clown. That's just all it was. That's where we screwed up.
Speaker 2:That's where choker 2 screwed up they didn't, they didn't give us anyone damn it in the clowns, cory.
Speaker 1:You know art. The clown doesn't even need a backstory. You just throw some people at a room with them and just let them be as viscerally gross as possible and murdering them and people are like this is good cinema. Yeah, absolutely terrifier 3 has got like an 80 rotten tomato score that this is where we listen.
Speaker 2:The stocks on clown violence is up, cory. We need more.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying it's worth noting that, like you, just almost have to go, because that's what we do on Quantum Recast. We look at the year and we're like what's in? And it's like all right clowns are in, but only if they're just recklessly violently murdering people without reason To add to your point.
Speaker 2:Wasn't it 2020, not long after that that we had the actual clowns murdering people or being spotted everywhere randomly? Oh, probably, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Stop talking about it, oh gosh, did you guys have that there as well? Yeah, yeah, we had that.
Speaker 1:I don't know if we had it. I think it was happening in England. It was happening in America. Oh, okay, I remember keeping up with it in.
Speaker 3:England. No, something was happening here because someone watched Hell House, which I watched recently. I thought was actually quite good Hell.
Speaker 1:House is great. Hell House. Well, the first one was ones.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I absolutely loved it. I actually want to go to that. Anyway, someone watched it apparently in England and decided to just go in clown outfits and just walk around the green grass and it was just like an epidemic for like two weeks where people weren't allowed to go outside or have any face masks on.
Speaker 1:I remember that.
Speaker 3:Such a weird thing. But yeah, I think when Joker came out was it Hell House 2 that came out.
Speaker 1:Or 3? I thought the clown things were happening around the time of it. The it remakes that's 2016. Yeah, it was like 2016, maybe it was 20.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of weird years in there, guys. We went through a lot of weird years. Yeah, it was really fast now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a fun circle eight years ago that was, was it?
Speaker 1:oh my gosh yeah, it was a minute ago but I remember that happening. But I'm just so, I'm just wondering, like I think it's also fun to just go, like it's interesting that one clown movie bombed and this other clown movie is just like absolutely being raved about and it's just a throwaway slasher film 2016 clown sightings.
Speaker 2:So it was 2016. Another election year. Okay, yeah, all right, clowns in election years, not the best Clowns outside election years, even a year out Great. Even a year out, great, great success.
Speaker 1:highly recommend man I love life, but closing, closing all that out. And I'm not saying, by the way, I'm not trashing the terrifier movies, they're perfectly fun slasher films, if you're just I, I don't like torture, gore porn, but you know they're fun if you like them. Yeah, I just I just I laugh because people are like on thread saying what's the plot of these and why is everyone talking about this movie and celebrating it? And it is because they're marketing it.
Speaker 1:well, they're saying we're the number one clown now and it's fun, and I would do the same thing if I were them.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:But literally the actor I've seen the actor that plays them going on people's threads. They're like these don't even have a plot and they're like, no, no, there's a plot. The cat lady in the second one tells you that he's just a clown that enjoys killing people. I'm like that's not a plot, that's just a character.
Speaker 3:It's just you're a thing, yeah, um, all right. 7.1 on imdb terrify free.
Speaker 1:7.1 but, like to me, I think it just proves that, like this is all fake, it's all made up. You should go see movies. You should go watch joker 2 and you should go see Terrifier 3, just because you want to see a movie. That's it. And if neither of those appeal to you. Don't go see them. But like don't go see things to hate it. Don't go see things because someone told you to see it, or not see something because people told you not to see it.
Speaker 2:Just go see stuff. We're just trying to fight against this toxic culture, Corey. I.
Speaker 1:I'm with Ash. Ash said it so brilliantly Maybe it's his accent. I just want to go back to a time where you can just talk about things with people, oh yeah, and not everything be so locked and loaded all the time. Maybe one day, corey, maybe not, who knows?
Speaker 2:Time will tell.
Speaker 1:I hope so, Ash. I don't know if you know this, but just closing out, we had a vice presidential debate on TV here.
Speaker 1:We're the two vice presidents. The only thing people came out of it with is that they were civil to each other. People were like we're, we're so screwed up here politically in this country that like two people in different parties shaking hands and everyone watching while saying yeah, I agree, was shocking. That was shocking. Yeah, that's shot. That's all the news talked about. They're like wow, they didn't really fight with each other at all. Where's?
Speaker 3:the blood, act in blood and fight, oh my god kind of like joker too what's the world we've done?
Speaker 1:kind of but like, whereas I saw it as hopeful you know I was quite frankly, if jd vanson uh, uh, what's his name? Wall tim waltz had like gone rogue and said, actually we're the right as president, vice president, I'd be like I'll take it, oh God, uh.
Speaker 3:I think you can figure this out.
Speaker 1:So old man and young guy just think it's time to wrap this thing up. I enjoyed it. I'm just saying All right, um, but yeah be sure to subscribe.
Speaker 2:Make sure to follow us at quantum recasts on all the social medias. We're also on on all the social medias. We're also on. You know. Obviously you listen to us on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts or something. Make sure to hit that like leave a review, do whatever the options are on your favorite streaming service of choice. And if you want to support us, give us a dollar on our Patreon. It's just to support the show. We might need new things, like new headphones or something.
Speaker 1:No-transcript um, but that's the thing, though. We're not telling you what to think. Go see things, go see movies. Yeah, if you review something you're, the last sentence of yours should be like but that's my opinion, you should go see it that should literally be the ending of every review.
Speaker 1:That's true, that was my opinion, but you should go see it Also, followed by why'd you waste time reading this? This was just me writing. I'm just a regular guy, just a regular dude who downloaded an app, just like you. But yeah, subscribe. We hope you listen. We hope you missed Ash's sultry voice. I did, I did, I missed it.
Speaker 3:So good to be back guys.
Speaker 2:I miss it. I'm glad we were able to get scheduled. It's a little time jump here.
Speaker 1:We're glad you could join us. Topped on.
Speaker 2:It's only 10 o'clock yet.
Speaker 1:By all means find us on social media and give us an actual reason why you didn't like Joker 2. That's not just telling me to do something horrible.
Speaker 2:Slip into the DMs Comment on the post.
Speaker 1:I genuinely think it's fine if you hated this movie. I just want to know actual critical reasons why you didn't like it that aren't insulting me and telling me to kill myself.
Speaker 3:Be careful what you wish for, alright.
Speaker 1:But I hope you enjoyed it. Say goodnight Nick. Goodnight Nick.