Gladiator

25 years later, could've been longer admittedly knowing this show.

I'm not entirely sure as to why I finally decided to watch this movie, and subsequently the sequel as well, but hey why not? That's basically the motto of this website! So Gladiator holy moly did this have quite a reputation, highly succesful film, won some big Oscar gold back when they had fucking standards, and clearly had a fanbase enough for a sequel, so what did I think of it? It was okay. I'm not gonna bash it too much, I just thought it was good. The story is very akin to the Moses story with some other recognizable elements thrown in, of a commanding general who gets in good with the royalty of Rome before being outcasted, his family slain, and he's sold into slavery to fight at the Colosseum while trying to get even with the new more antagonistic Emperor. It has some very good things going for it, despite the early ass 2000s effects it has a real grand scope and solid cinematography I mean Ridley Scott is a very visual director so I knew I was going to see some nice stuff. Shit oh my God, the sets and costuming are out of this world honestly, they put a lot of effort into the visuals here! The score honest to God is one of the best film scores I have heard in a hot ass minute and works beautifully with the scenes! The performances in particular of Joaquin Phoenix as this very Ben Solo-esque wannabe tyrant Commudus was one of the most engaging and interesting performances. Sir Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius even though he's just in it for a bit just proves what a powerhouse actor he really is and the fact that he's an introspective ruler with higher aspirations for his country is refreshing to see! Another standout performance that I really never hear anyone talk about is Oliver Reed as Proximo who is the trainer of the gladiators and I cannot for the life of me explain why but he was magnetic to me on screen with glimpses of backstory, a bit of wisdom to part, and holds a unique position of power with ulterior motives of his own, like I was thoroughly enjoying his performance! Also have to shoutout Derek Jacobi who I'm just pretending was The Master in roman times with some nefarious goal in mind, he had that certain aura about him at times and I am thrilled everytime I get to see him act in anything really! Now you might be saying, but Dude what about Russell our main character and Connie as well? Huuuuge props to Connie for being a beacon of knowledge on roman times and history to the point where the crew was asking for advice on the production, that's a badass right there and yeah it was easy to care about her character when she's mostly stuck in the same room as her megalomaniacal brother. As for Russell...eh. I have never hated him as an actor but I didn't have much to work with, it's not your typical kill the despot to achieve vengeance for my family like the man just kindaaaa sortaaa does stuff with no end goal in sight, I mean maybe for the sake of killing Commudus but it feels not entirely earned or necessary. I like his ending, that was nice and gratifying at least. But while we're on the subject of negatives I gotta get my big complaint out now. The editing in this movie is slapdash at points, it started off effective in the first battle scene because war is disjointed, chaotic, and hard to keep up with.....but then it just kept fucking happening. Especially if people have a good length of dialogue, the camera just keeps cutting to random shit with no rhyme or reason and it did nothing but detract me from the story. Yet it's not always like that either, it has moments of clarity and focus as well so it's just confusing. I certainly did not walk in here to raze Gladiator to the ground and indeed it's not terrible in the slightest, but I am holding out hope for the sequel to be better. 2.5 stars, 7.5/10 from me.

Joker Folie À Deux

I do apologize for the halt in the Rings series, yesterday was indeed a day and I barely got any work done so accept this movie review as my burnt offering.

Madness For Two? Don't mind if I do! If there ever was a word to concisely sum up this movie it would be, ballsy. I mean a comic book musical movie, that is polarizing enough as is! But me being a bit of a theater kid and fan of musicals, my reaction when that tidbit of information was, far out. This movie is one part court drama, one part romance, with a splash of musical and is that everyone's beverage of choice? Of course not, but I'll recommend it anyway. So we pick up not long after the ending of the last movie with Arthur in Arkham getting ready for his court case when he meets musically inclined Lee and a mad romance blooms, with Arthur almost having an identity crisis during the trial that could lead to his death. How on earth do you make a sequel to Joker? The answer is, you go off the rails and do your own shit unapologetically making an already unique movie all the more a beast of it's own. We kick off the movie with a Looney Tunes style short, which is a splendid gauge cause if you don't like that the musical madness ain't gonna do much for you either. Well while we are on that topic how was the music? I didn't expect original composition per sé but the selection of songs they picked were good ones, and there is indeed many a musical moment, and the vocal performances from Joaquin and Lady Gaga worked well. Even the romance while kind of a switcheroo in the Joker/Harley dynamic I found to be interesting and just fine, not super deep but functional. I felt the movie did a very good job proposing the question of is it Arthur or is it Joker? Is there indeed a split personality or is the man also the legend? It's not super involved or has monologues of flowery dialogue, because Joaquin can do so much with his face and before he even meets Lee he's kind of in a rut very much like comatose Joker in The Dark Knight Returns. How the Joker got his groove back would be a fun subtitle. The pacing is good, it gets artsy from time to time which of course my cinema snob heart sings to see, the direction taking in terms of plot is in short bold, and I am almost waiting with baited breath how this movie will be recieved now or a year from now or even a decade from now. 3 stars from me, 8/10, and we cap off the week with the forging of the Seven.

Napoleon

Happy giving of the thanks, now let's talk war.

We truly do not get big budget epic historical dramas like we used to, so when I saw the trailer for Napoleon I was onboard all the way. I am no history buff, but I like to show my support for the genre and thankfully it's not a case of where you have to be extremely familiar with the military career of one Napoleon Bonaparte to understand everything presented. The film begins with the french revolution and the execution of Marie Antoinette and concludes with Napoleon's exile to Saint Helena, covering his marriage, his crowning as emperor, his campaigns against Britain and Prussia, and his days in exile. And from what I saw this was a huge undertaking for Ridley Scott, I mean not to say historical dramas are box office bombs by a stretch but it is a risky venture mainly due to the budget. I have no idea what the budget was but it showed a lot in terms of set production, costumes, and volume of extras which is what is to be expected from a film like this! It's directed well, the movie has moments where you are just in awe, the cast is proper good, and keeps a brisk pace where the film doesn't feel like it's pushing 3 hours. It's a farcry from an all out action film, but man I gotta admit to you I haven't felt that sense of amazement and just plain blown away by the scale of the battles scenes here since shit like, Return Of The King easily. Not necessarily in terms of awesomeness but through sheer scaling. It looks real, they really went to a field and got hundreds of people to take opposite sides and charge in. They use CG but only if it's absolutely needed, and it felt appropriately big. The politics were handled very economically to sum it up, they give you the necessary information in a concise and short manner to understand why historical world events occured. And even as a straight up newbie when it comes to french history, I recognized events and names even without knowing the full context. Joaquin is effective, he has that star power where you lock in on him and he does carry the film throughout, it's not so much a character study on Napoleon and rather a short biographical look on his command. Vanessa Kirby as Josephine is such an interesting character who you don't really know that much about but it makes want to learn about her, because she really is this average woman who gets thrown into being the literal empress of France and her subsequent fall from that grace, you kinda want to delve into that historical text but she does very well and has...maybe intentionally and bizarre chemistry with Joaquin. Odd customs and behaviors and mindsets are to be expected when you travel in the fourth dimension. Bit of an ensemble cast of minor players but all did solid work. I quite liked it, it certainly did not disappoint, and I feel it can hold people's interest if they have any to see it. I do give it a recommendation, and 3 stars, 8/10! One more film before the winter of my discontent begins.

Clay Pigeons

A request that was well worth watching.

This was weird. Not to say at all I didn't like it, I just knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. It's been a hot minute since I've seen a movie cement a tone so solidly and quickly in just the opening scene and it actually is a movie up my alley, weird and funny but dark. So our story goes that an average mechanic named Clay while out with his buddy, doing the most sensible thing imaginable, drinking beers and shooting shit when things go bonkers and his friend offs himself which starts a bad trend as several close people to Clay start dying and in the meantime he meets this delightfully bizzare guy named Lester who he forms an unsual friendship with. Things get so bad the FBI get called in and the stakes rise from there as Clay tries to prove he had nothing to do with the killings and find the real culprit. I probably had the dumbest smile on my face throughout this movie cause it's just such a weird, odd, off center movie but that's genuinely the strong point. Now the actors are pretty solid, Joaquin Phoenix class act as ever, Vince Vaughn who I'm not super keen on might have delivered my favorite performance of his career I mean this guy. Let me tell you about dis guy, he is un-f***ing-believable but he can come off very down to earth and likable. Last but not least we got Janeane Garoffalo, who is undoubtedly the straightfaced normal character but she might have made me laugh the most, she's just so not here to put up with people's bullshit, and shawty I love you for it. In terms of direction, it's not super striking or memorable albeit you get some quite lovely wide shots of the mountain ranges around the town, but neither is it at all bad. The director knows how to make the script leap off the page and delivers a memorable and severely off movie that is fun and very engaging to watch. And of course I gotta bring it up...because it's true, but guys the Hannibal vibes were off the charts here. Like, if you want a cliffnotes version of almost the whole show of Hannibal watch this movie. Possible gay bromance, murder, protagonist gets locked up but soon chases the villain, you got the FBI involved, there's a fair bit of will our hero run off with our villain or apprehend him for the authorities, I mean if Bryan Fuller didn't take some notes off this movie for his show I'll be damned surprised cause that is a coincidence unlike any I've encountered. Tangent over, go watch it. 3.5 stars, 7.5/10!

In Retrospect: Joker

I'll admit I only know one joke. No one gets it.

It still truly holds up for me, Joker is still the movie that could live in the regular world of movies and comic book movies. There's been tons of talk about the movie, implications, theories, studies, what have you and all from just a comic book movie with a realistic tone. It's really amazing to see this movie do so well and my boy Joaquin just got a Golden Globe for this movie now we take on the Oscars! Is there much more to say about it since last time? Partially, I did discover a crucial puzzle piece that countless individuals have not brought up before when they talk about the aspect of the film regarding the narration. People say Arthur is the unreliable narrator, he imagines things therefor the whole movie could just be in his head while he's banging his head on a door in Arkham. This is wrong. The truth is found in simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius, of each particular thing ask what is in itself? What do we see in these daydreams of Arthur Fleck? We see him happy. He's on Murray's show and goes up on stage to huge approval of the audience and Murray saying he wants a kid like him, we see him go on dates with a nice girl he meets who is there to comfort him in a dark and troubling time. We never see him unhappy, downtrodden, or a failure in these daydreams. Thusly, many aspects of the film's story happened. Meeting Thomas Wayne, finding his mother's file, his various crimes, all happened. We never once see a daydream turn into a nightmare. I always saw it as Arthur was once in Arkham but was released and lived with his adopted mother and the story plays out as it's told. No twists or misdirects. I know that may seem boring and uninteresting but I'm simply not one for fan theories or heavy speculation (which we'll talk about more when Episode 9 hits video). The film is simply there to simultaneously tell a new story and expand upon previous stories about how The Joker came to be and it does it incredibly well. Joaquin Phoenix does usurp the throne that Heath Ledger has ruled for over a decade for me, though of course I'm still in love with his performance in The Dark Knight. It doesn't feel like a comic book movie with it's tropes and peculiar ideas, but simply tells the story of a man who is beaten down by the city he lives in and starts taking action that plunges the city into chaos and makes him something more than just another person on the corner. It's a damn well made movie considering the script was practically being rewritten daily, and the direction by Todd Philips can be very funny at times, and down right heartbreaking and cruel at others. I'm still personally debating on how I feel about there being a good possibility of a sequel, on one hand I'd love to see Joaquin Phoenix broadening the role and see where the story goes next but on the other hand I'm incredibly happy how this film ended. The fact that the film ends on the Joker thinking about Bruce Wayne standing over his dead parents and having a good hard laugh is iconic in it's own right, and then proceeds to end Tom & Jerry style with a 'The End' title card is just about as great an ending as you can get. The film has broke many records and stands as the highest R-rated movie to date, put that in your pipe and overdose on it Deadpool, and has been making too many appearances on best films of 2019 lists to even count. I'm proud DC took a chance on something so different to the comic book movie engine of today but the results are speaking volumes to the public. Something different can be amazing, and maybe we shouldn't always have the same formula that Marvel has been cranking out for an ungodly period of time. In fact that's probably the only reason I liked Doctor Strange and Black Panther is because I'm not familiar with that style of movie, hell I'm pretty sure I could count all the Marvel movies I've seen on one hand (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Doctor Strange, Black Panther) so maybe my opinions will change if I ever intend to eviscerate, uh I mean dissect the Marvel movies. I really hope we see more movies like this one though, taking risks and changing the game a bit if only just to make movies more interesting again. Joker still gets a sterling 4 stars, 9/10 from me, and I'm sure this movie will be watched, talked about, evaluated, and enjoyed for years to come. So I guess I got to tell the joke right? Alright. There were these two guys in an insane asylum, and one night they decide they don't want to be in an asylum any more. They decide they're going to break out. So they bust out and make a run for the roof, and there just across the rooftops is the city. Freedom. The first guy jumps across no problem, but the second guy doesn't dare make the leap. He's afraid of falling. So the first guy says, "Hey I brought a flashlight with me, I'll shine it across the gap and you just walk across the beam of light and join me on the other side.", but the second guy says, "What do you think I am? Crazy?? You don't walk towards the light at the edge of a rooftop!". You didn't laugh.

Joker

This is how it happened, this is how the Joker was born.

This movie, was everything I wanted it to be. I was not expecting groundbreaking cinema, but I was expecting a mature, dark, unapologetic, essentially a character study into the best comic book villain ever created. And the movie delivered it with flying colors, I was not even slightly disappointed, I'm just so happy. Most people would severely argue against an origin story for the Joker, saying it would take all the menace and intrigue out of the character but this film proves otherwise as we see Arthur Fleck live his life in Gotham while dealing with mental illness and trying to make something of himself. I am trying desperately not to talk about every scene because you should see the movie, though I'm pretty sure if you haven't seen it today you're no doubt going to see it over the weekend. So I will not divulge too much information, I just want to say this much. This movie takes single strands from The Killing Joke, not a lot, but there is stuff there and not only makes it a good if not great movie but builds upon it more. The story and characters could not have been pulled off better, Joaquin Phoenix's performance is so good I wouldn't be surprised if he snagged several awards. This film shows everything in a brutally and unapologetic way, to where you feel uncomfortable, you feel uneasy, maybe even scared, and that's exactly what you should do! You would not like being in the company of an individual like the Joker, and the movie isn't afraid of going all in. It's actually a DC movie that fully warrants the R rating, but it doesn't throw in an F-word here or some blood there just for the rating, it's all there for a purpose. To show a seedy and more adult movie about a comic book character, I mean Gotham has never looked worst, it's like if the Gotham television series and Taxi Driver combined, and it feels genuine and real. Everybody says The Dark Knight trilogy was more realistic and grounded, but guys even I can see the idea of a guy dressing up as a bat to fight criminals is still pretty hokey even with some swanky hi-tech toys, but this though could feel like it could happen tomorrow. All it takes is one bad day, and we all have had bad days. Bottom line, I loved this movie, like love it to the point I need to see it again and again before it even hits video! It gave me everything I wanted and then some, and I'm just gonna say it. Joaquin Phoenix is the true successor to Heath Ledger, and I don't actually have problems with Jared Leto cause there's been countless iterations of this character so I can roll with it being different, but I may need more time to sit on this but Joaquin took what Heath had and did more with it. Am I slamming Heath? Of course not. But really look at this big picture, 1989 hit and Jack Nicholson made the Joker more popular than ever, best Joker ever. For almost 20 damn years he held that, then Heath Ledger hit the scene and was a big contributing factor for why The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie ever made as well as one of the best films ever made and people lost their fudge over Heath Ledger. He took it to the next level. Those are huge shoes to fill but I think Joaquin pulled it off and gave us not only a Heath Ledger level of performance but went even further. You'd be okay if this was how the Joker was actually made even though the timeline is completely screwed cause he's like late 30s to earlt 40s and Bruce is like...8, but you don't even care. They played their cards right and it came in aces. I really hope this can lead to more standalone comic movies, they don't even have to be for a mature audience, just tell a great story with recognizable characters. I hope this movie garners more critical love as well as a huge fan following, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for finely dressed clowns this Halloween. Joker gets a 9/10.

Her

Oh boy, how do I talk about a movie where a guy dates his computer and convince people it is one of the greatest and strangest love stories ever made?










Yes, Her is a love story between a man played by Joaquin Phoenix and an operating system played by Scarlett Johansson. It is...amazing. I am trying so hard to find words on how to praise this movie. It's not the best love story I have ever seen, but is most definitely in the top three. I can't explain it, it's so bizarre and yet one of the most genuine relationships ever put on film. Why? Because at first, it starts off with them as friends and they continually build their relationship into a romance. And it is a genuine romance, they have good moments, they have bad moments, it's not perfect but it is wonderful and loving. I never once questioned why this guy fell in love with a computer, because she has a personality. This brand new operating system is sentient, it is alive, it is a constantly evolving and learning thing! She learns more than human beings will in several millenniums, and it is all real and genuine and my heart melts every time I watch them together. And it can kind of hit close to home with some people if they have ever had a long-distance relationship, and couldn't ever see the person they love more than anything in this world. It is the most human love story I have ever seen and it makes me think deeply about love and relationships every single time I watch it. I am in love with Her and so should you.