TOP 10 Best Movies of the Decade

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON JANUARY 05, 2020

The Second Decade of the 21st Century has come to a close and we are left with 10 years of film to sort through.  Here I wish to got through my favorite of the decade of thousands of films, some good, some great, also some bad, some horribly bad.  I'll start with the down side first, the films over the decade that were disappointments.  In some cases there are just bad movies but in others, there are the ones you hoped would fulfill your expectations but sadly fell short or off the cliff entirely.

2010 started off on this new renaissance of 3D movies built off the shoulders of 2009's CGI 3D extravaganza, Avatar.  The resulting effect wasn't the greatest with many films missing the mark big time like the poorly executed The Clash of the Titans.  Sadly, most studios and filmmakers didn't quite understand what James Cameron was achieving.  Most filmmakers were slapping on 3D like a bumper sticker without ever understanding the point of what Cameron was attempting to get at in the first place.  Cameron wanted his audience to enter into the film as best as one could while sitting in their seat in an IMAX theatre.  Aside from Ang Lee's Life of Pi film, filmmakers misused 3D to splash images and worlds onto the audience like a fire hose. 

There are a number of films over the decade that I was really hoping would be great but sadly disappointed.  The Dark Knight Rises was a huge disappointment, not because it's horrible, which it isn't, but because it was such a massive step back from The Dark Knight.  Rises ended up getting so messing and convoluted that it was hard to care after a while.  The one part of the film I didn't think would be any good ended up being my favorite part of it, was Catwoman. 

Sin City: The Dame to Kill was a horrible sequel that limped into theaters this decade.  Jurassic World was a horrible return to the park,  Terminator Genisys was so bad it wasn't even laughable, unlike Independence Day: Resurgence, which was bad but actually laughably bad.  Fantastic Four was of the I'm-not-laughing-because-this-is-so-bad kind of experience along with Inferno, the third of the DaVinci Code movies. 

A Good Day to Die Hard actually had a direct negative effect on my soul while watching it.  Not only did Bruce Willis confirm that he really doesn't give a fuck anymore about his movie career, but the character of Detective John McClane was sadly misrepresented in this absolute wreckage of a piece of shit.  The Predator was also an insult to its heritage.  That botched clutter of cluster-fuck also didn't understand its own source material.  The 'Lady' Ghostbusters movie can join this club along with the monstrosity Star Wars: The Last Jedi.  All these scattered-debris-passing-themselves-off-as-legacy-movies have all missed the point, you expand the world but you don't change the rules of that given world.

More horrible film victims of this same process; Pixels, fun but poorly executed.  Spectre, fun but sad, the bar lowered and that's that, at least we still have the far superior Skyfall.  Star Trek into Darkness backfired hugely on serving up fan-service.  The A-Team, Jonah Hex, Battle: Los Angles, Assassin's Creed, Battleship, a couple of Underworld movies and Alien: Covenant all cover movies I'd hoped would be at least okay, guess what? you guessed it.....

The Hobbit movies............
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The Lord of the Rings films, to this day, stand up.  The only criticism that could be said about them is the length and that's reaching.  They are a piece of film history that will be taught a century from now.  The Hobbit movies are embarrassing, the editing alone ...... I have spoken.  Sorry, wrong franchise....

Inception is one of the greatest movies ever told without soul.  I don't mean in the biblical sense, I mean in the psychological.  Inception is cool and is immensely multidimensional but camouflages the heart of the film within its technology.  At the end of the day, this film is fun and is mind-provoking, not on the level of The Matrix, but stands as one of the great mind-twisters of this decade.  As for mind-twisters, The Favorite, The Lobster, The Cabin in the Woods, Nocturnal Animals and Shutter Island all stand (upside down) as some of the great, what-did-I-just-see, films of the decade.

Only Lovers Left Alive is a film about time.  It's so beautifully constructed because the main characters are without time, immortal, but they are still subject to time.  These vampires have to learn to be within the world, like we all do.  Vampires are usually portrayed as fantasies but now they are real....... These vampires have to learn to live in the world just as we do.  This film philosophically dismantles the romantic vampire mythology and replaces it with poverty and dread.  One of my favorite films of the decade.

The decade was filled with films and crazy lead characters running the show, according to them anyway.  Nightcrawler is a sad, yet beautiful portrayal of a sociopath, slithering his way through late night news, exposing the 'consumers' with all the blood and carnage that they desire.  We learn at the end that more blood and carnage is really what we all want.  Whiplash is about control and the lack of control.  The film uses music to illustrate the power struggle between the young and inexperienced and the old and a victim of experience.  The film is about building a bridge without quite accepting the reason to build it in the first place.. but damn does the music sound amazing.  Drive is quiet for a guy that drives cars for the movie industry.  What's special about Drive is, oddly given the name, is he actually knows how to take its time until the point there is no more time to be taken.  After that...........you watch the film. 

The Planet of the Apes trilogy was of the great action movies of the decade and a huge leap forward for CGI work with motion capture.  The Mission Impossible movies have been all exciting as hell this decade.  The John Wick movies were the best grounded offering for action movies in years, along with the closely connected Atomic Blonde. 

Midnight in Paris is an exercise in what we want and what we have.  The film also points out that we actually don't understand either anyway.  Okay..... so where do we start?  Where do we begin?  The film explores the present day of everyday life, albeit in Paris capitalism.  In the end the past informs the present, the present evaluates the past and creates a fantasy of what the future may be.  The point, you are here and you are now......

There were many laughs to be had at the movie theater this decade with crazy-what-is-happening-fall-off-your-seat comedies.  Look no further then McGruber but then there is This is the End and The World's End for you to shake your head at.  More crazy silliness can be found in Bridesmaids, The Other Guys, 21 Jump Street and Ted.  We're the Millers and Game Night were both funny, actiony comedies this year.  The LEGO Movie and Inside Out were defiantly my favorite animated movies of the decade but I'd have to say that The Nice Guys was my most treasured of everything funny about this decade.  I love them all.

There was a lot of great Sci-fi movies that were wonderfully creative, The Shape of Water is about what and why we love going to the movies.  The colors and the lighting alone are mesmerizing.  This is a romance story that will not be forgotten, it transcends the idea of romance.  The last time that happened to this degree was Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977).  This film examines every false understanding we have about love.  The symbolism that permeated throughout the film laid a liquid of knowledge of what it means to be different and most importantly, what it means to be the same among that simultaneous difference.  Edge of Tomorrow has got to be the best forgotten sci-fi film of the decade.  Gravity has got to the most beautifully shot while Ex Machina the most claustrophobic.  The Hunger Games series was the most big-brothery.  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ended up being the best adventure to a galaxy far, far away where The Martian and A Quiet Place were both the most isolated.  Lucy and Transcendence both failed at capturing the problem of AI, where The Zero Theorem and Annihilation, both inspiring sci-fi outings, failed at getting an audience.  Her ended up being the most heartfelt, philosophical and ultimately the most personal love stories of the decade.    

Avengers: Endgame is without a doubt one of the best and most defining superhero movie of the decade, of film history for that matter..  All roads led to this monumental conclusion starting with Iron Man and forming The Avengers a decade ago.  Captain America: Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and the first part of Endgame, Infinity War were some of the best along the way.  Iron Man 3 was okay in parts but disappointing, X-Men: Apocalypse sucked mutant you-know-what's along with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Venom.  Thankfully before Apocalypse we got, as it turns out, the last great X-Men movie, X-Men: Day of Future Past.  Logan is without a doubt the best film within the X-Men universe, even if it isn't, thankfully, a full on X-Men movie.  Joker was the best DC film of the decade with only Wonder Woman coming close.  Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League and Suicide Squad failed at narrative and storytelling, instead, these movies became about too many characters all saturated in CGI and suffocated in the studio controlled creative process.  They didn't even know how to have fun with their characters.  Deadpool was a comic book movie that knew how to have fun and simultaneously was heartfelt and action-packed.

There were so many great dramas this decade that brought up deep-into-the-snowy-lifeless-woods-with-a-killer-bear, The Reverant or the desert where you can get stuck between a rock and hard place, 127 Hours.  There were many films that dived deep into social and human rights issues that I enjoyed with Hidden Figures, Spotlight, The Help, 12 Years a Slave and The Butler.  Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ended up being off the wall fun and dramatic, along with Inside Llewyn Davis and Silver Linings Playbook.  From the more political side of drama we had great choices in The Post and Vice and social changes in The Social Network, Dallas Buyer's Club, Straight Outta Compton and The Imitation Game.  We had some great, you're-on-your-own films with Deepwater Horizon, Gone Girl, Wild, Blue Jasmine, Fences, The Master, The Witch, Get Out, Hereditary and You Were Never Really Here.

Best Performances of the Decade

BEST ACTRESS Toni Colette - Hereditary

BEST ACTOR Joaquin Phoenix - The Master

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR J.K. Simmons - Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Charlize Theron - Mad Max: Fury Road

My Top 10 of the Decade.

BLACK SWAN

This film was a brilliant albeit tragic, portrait of a young woman's struggle to go beyond herself.  Black Swan is about pain and suffering, sacrifice and failure.  The film explores the mental strain of being the best and manifests this sacrifice onto the physical body.  This dancer who, at times behaves like a little girl, is forced into the metamorphosis of a sexual adult woman, that is free of the innocence of a young girl, the white swan.  Nina is sexually repressed, avoiding healthy sexual desires she has.  Her mother forcibly keeps her daughter an innocent child in spite of her growing into a young woman.  Passion over control is what is pressed upon her, and growing up and embracing one's darkness.  Nina becomes consumed by her idealized image in the end, the Black swan, because she never fully matured to handle the pressure of the Jungian Shadow, that true part of us that wants to be free, without judgment, without regret.  

THE TREE OF LIFE

Who are we and where do we come from?  The Tree of Life isn't concerned with religion, it's concerned with influence, biology, heredity, spirituality.  Are we who we are because of our parents and their parents?  Are we echoes of our past experiences?  What defines our present, right here, right now in this moment?  What lead us on this path.... now?  Memories upon memories.  How do we accept this as a trajectory that was never in our hands in the first place.  We were born, born into a family, born into systems, born into a language, born into a religion, born into an idea of who we should become.  What do we own about ourselves that is...truly ours? 

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

One long car chase that lasts pretty well the entire film, this primordial rock concert on wheels, is an absolute balletic symphony of existential destruction.  The best action-packed, high-octane, piece of insanity is Mad Max: Fury Road.  This film's craziness blows all our minds with all the death-defying action sequences and leather strapped world building.

THE IRISHMAN

Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street was all about the bottomless pit of greed and the exhausting endless effort to satisfy the need for greed without ever reaching satisfaction.  Scorsese's The Irishman is about the bottomless pit of seeking power, loyalty and burning bridges to the sad and lonely point at the end when there is nothing left.  The film is about the choices we make and how the consequences of those choices can hang around to our dying days like a gun pressed to the back of our head.  The film is masterfully shot and acted.  It's truly a poetic culmination of Martin Scorsese's long film making career.  

HELL OR HIGH WATER

Two bank robbing brothers being tracked down by a couple of Texas Rangers sounds like a movie we all saw many times over.   This modern western is about changing the social landscape where these outlaws fight for their own justice in a corrupt system.  The banking system in this film is the enemy, but the law and the lawless must still have their showdown.  The film is beautifully written and shot well with its witty dialogue and it's endless dusty landscapes.  It's about generations of poverty subject to a system controlled by the rich bankers.  It's about getting back what never really belonged to these bankers in the first place... our dignity.

UNDER THE SKIN

This film is a hypnotic film born from the same imaginative film stock as 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Under the Skin follows an alien hiding in the human form of a beautiful young woman played marvelously by Scarlett Johansson.  This alien has no emotional connection to the unsuspecting men she brings back to her 'absorption chamber' for processing, death in human terms.  The film is wonderfully shot for realism as this alien roams the streets of Glasgow, Scotland searching for more victims.  Eventually the alien adapts to human emotion and begins to struggle with getting more victims and feeling sorry for the victims she's supposed to trap.     

BLADERUNNER 2049

This film had everything in it that makes me love movies.  At a young age the 1982 Blade Runner blow my mind but it took a couple of years, like wine, for me to really see why my mind was blown.  2049 was simply beautiful in its dankness.  It was dark but was a portrait of film with its color and canvass.   

WIND RIVER

This film was simultaneously cold and warm with the weather and its characters that lived within it.  The film was calm and the vistas throughout the film were beautifully captured.  There is what's right in the law and it's court system and then there is what's right in the nature of people, where sometimes a group of guys that rape a young women in the mountains, get exactly what they deserve. 

BIRDMAN

This magnificent masterful film is a symbolic roller coaster ride through the subconscious mind of a washed-up actor.  Riggan Thomson struggles to find meaning and relevancy in a world where many around him are fighting for the same thing.  Michael Keaton gives a career best performance in a film filled with great performances.  Emma Stone and Edward Norton are among the standout actors in this wonderful, refreshing piece of cinema that will most defiantly become a cult classic and favorite for years to come.

ARRIVAL

"I used to think this was the beginning of our story."

Arrival is a mindful, intelligent film about an alien invasion, but not really about an alien invasion at all.  Arrival is about us, not them, its about our own internal fears, our fears about the unknown and mostly it asks the question whether or not we can all get along.  At its core, within its heart, the film explores the idea of time, life and memory, it asks us to consider the value of a life even if it is not our own.

"Memory is a strange thing.  It doesn't work like I thought it did.  We are bound by time; by its order." 

Is there true continuity from our past, up to our present and on to our future like a flowing biographical river?  Are we entitled to such an assumption that we are connected narratively along some linear path, supported by a long string of memories?

Can a person at one time be the same person at a later time if that later person has no memory of the person in the past?  Now reverse this; can a person in the present be that same person while simultaneously have memories of their future self?  Are these successive selves, selves of themselves or are they continuous selves.  Are we who we were?  Will we become who we currently are?  I would argue that the current self and the remembering self are part of a story that we tell ourselves and its a story that changes over time.  So this current version of yourself is essentially being dragged around by early versions of your current self. 

Top 10 Films of 2019 for Me, my opinion, only mine, please don't be offended, it's just a list.

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON DECEMBER 31, 2019

2019 has not been the best year in cinema but thankfully through all the discombobulation of political scandals, fake news and the overly sensitive, perpetually offended, online culture, there have been some damn great films that came out this year.  Some........

There were a number of films this year I missed for one reason or another.  There were films that I past on because I was either not interested or it looked dumb and not worth my time and money.  Hobbs and Shaw as an example.  There were a number of films I did get sucked into and was either expecting to be disappointed or hoping I wouldn't be.  Rambo: Last Blood and Pet Sematary are examples of unfortunate disappointments.

We had Terminator: Dark Fate this year and despite my initial apprehension, it actually wasn't too bad, it wasn't great, but it was a major step up from the absolute mess that is Terminator Genisys.  Zombieland: Double Tap was a pretty fun time at the movies and wasn't a bad sequel.  Spider-Man: Far From Home was action-packed but simultaneously bland along with Captain Marvel.  That movie would have been better if its lead had an actual pulse.  See Alita: Battle Angel for a far better action-packed movie where the lead has more heart and soul, being a robot, than Captain Marvel could ever hope to have.

Glass unfortunately was a let down, especially the pointless third act.  Unbreakable and Split both were so innovative, dripping with originality only to finish off in an underwhelming third film.  Another train-wreck was Hellboy, boy did that lifeless attempt at imagination go to hell.  Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a CGI mess that ended up getting covered up in so much dark shadow that, at times, you could barely even see what was happening. 

Brightburn, where do I start?!  This attempt at showing an alternative version of the Superman mythology sounded like it might be an interesting character study.  Sadly, it was gratuitous and meaningless.  I love me a good existential movie or one that explores an inevitable 'wrong-turn' were a character goes into darkness.  Joker is a perfect example of how this can be done effectively.  Brightburn become sadistic, nihilistic and irresponsible as the poor child at its center became cruel and murderous, just flying his mother up high in the sky and dropping her...the end.

Some films I enjoyed this year at the movies, Jumanji: The Next Level, which didn't capture the magic of the first one but was never the less entertaining.  Another sequel this year that didn't capture the same magic as the first one was IT: Chapter Two.  That film lost itself in the second act for a bit but came back around in an entertaining third act.  Crawl was a little gem this year that not too many people saw.  It was a simple survive-from-the-flood, filled with deadly, chomping alligators-kind of movie that had no agenda other then to scare and entertain, and not necessarily in that order.

Dolemite is my Name was absolutely hilarious.  Eddie Murphy was as funny as any of his classic movies and he gave one hell of a performance.  Ready or Not was another gem I'm not sure too many people saw.  That deliciously murderous movie was about a young woman marrying into the wrong highbrow family and having to kill them all to get away.  So good.  US was another crazy horror film this year about surviving the night while psychos, that look just like you, try to kill you.  Cold Pursuit probably had one of the funniest villains since the first John Wick movie.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a great improvement over the on-the-nose, propaganda mess that is The Last Jedi, don't get me started.  The Rise of Skywalker finally put a much needed nail in the Star Wars coffin.  The movie had a lot of entertaining, action-packed, CGI-saturated moments as most of the loose ends were tied off and the subtle and sometimes not so subtle, fuck-you-Last-Jedi back-hands were dealt out. "That is no way to treat a lightsaber." kind of fuck-you that JJ Abrams couldn't help himself but convey.  The result was a bitter end to a once beloved space opera.

Here are a list of my Top 10 films of the year.  As I mentioned above, there were a number of films I didn't see this year so the list below are the top ten that I enjoyed, personally, not universally, not in any concrete way, did I mention that this is 'my' list? 

10. MARRIAGE STORY

The performances are top notch in this story of a marriage coming to an end.  The film is quite raw and at sometimes hard to watch due to the heartbroken nature of it's subjects.  The film is about a separation followed by the unnecessary side of legal red tape at a great financial cost.  The film explores the technical side of divorce and the added hardships it compounds to those involved.  Their little boy who gets pulled in both directions is the real tragedy in the film.  Marriage Story felt like a Woody Allen film through and through.  Director Noah Baumbach clearly doesn't shy away from this influence.  It's probably his most Woody Allen since Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. 

9. AVENGERS: ENDGAME

Endgame is the second part of one of the most ambitious films ever made.  It does it's best at managing the plot around so many characters.  Marvel was wise to put the film's villain. Thanos at it's center.  The movie is incredibly entertaining and has a couple of heartfelt moments, especially at the end with Tony's snap.  I'm always a fan when time travel is part of a story.  It's fun when characters travel back in time and see themselves from an outside perspective.  This was done beautifully in Back to the Future 2 and it was well done here.

8. DOCTOR SLEEP

I was worried about this film because I'm such a huge fan of The Shining and Stanley Kubrick.  But Doctor Sleep actually did not disappoint.  This film had me thinking about it for days after seeing it in the theater.  Not too many films these days can hold me like that.  It was legitimately creeping and thrilling, it was filled with horror and sadness but ultimately was a story about loss and redemption, as well as sacrifice.  Also you couldn't take your eyes off of Rebecca Ferguson.  

7. FORD V FERRARI

This film was about friendship at 200 mph around a race track.  The performances by Bale and Damon are some of the year's best.  The race scenes are so incredibly thrilling that after the movie I had an appointment for a check up with my doctor, he asked me why my heartbeat was up more then usual.  I told him I just got out of the theater seeing this film.  He immediately understood.

6. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM

The first John Wick movie we got 'gun-fu', the second one we got 'car-fu', in Parabellum we got 'dog-fu'.  This movie solidifies the John Wick movies as one of  the greatest action movie trilogies of all time.  Keanu Reeves absolutely kicks ass in the role of John Wick.  The action sequences in this movie are some of the best of the series, especially the fight scenes with Halle Berry and her two dogs in them.   

5. THE BEACH BUM

This lazy ass movie will not be for everyone. The Dude in The Big Lebowski was tangled up in plot and Duke and his Attorney in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas dragged their asses but got to Vegas to report on the race, even if it was meaningless.  Moondog in The Beach Bum may even be more tragic because he really has no where to go.  That might be okay by him, but for us as a viewer, it isn't okay.  Moondog made himself an outsider because there really isn't much worth fighting for anymore.  The Beach Bum has cosmic implications.  It's the universe looking back at us without any answers, because there weren't any there in the first place.  Moondog lives in the now along with a universe that doesn't care about him, or anyone for that matter.  Everyone around him lives for the future and that breeds hope and hope becomes disappointment, and they have now lost what it means to live in the present. 

4. AD ASTRA

Brad Pitt's calm presents in this beautiful looking film is astounding.  The space journey into darkness where Pitt's character travels to the edge of our Solar System mirrors Willard's trip up the Cambodian river to take out Coronal Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.  Ad Astra is an existential journey to discover the meaninglessness of your life.  It's the pilgrimage that the Buddha took to rid himself of all the answers life claimed to have understood.  Like Dante's spiral into the Inferno, Ad Astra explores acceptance without hope, it explores reality and saves the fantasy from corrupting logic and reason.   
  

3. THE IRISHMAN

"It is what it is."

With three of the greatest performances of the year, The Irishman appearing at all award shows when the season kicks in will be a surprise to no one.  The film is long but you'd never know it due to Scorsese's camera moving around in this gangster world, filled with, maybe not back stabbing, more like sneak up behind gunshot blasts to the face.  It's an unquestionably sorrowful film about a man so loyal, so willing to please his bosses that he's willing to shot a long time friend in the back of the head and alienate his daughter, along with a number of other people that he cares about.  The last shot of the film has to be the saddest of the year, because in the end the one thing we all fear before our death........... is loneliness. 

2. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

"You're Rick... fucking... Dalton!"

Is it Quentin Tarantino's best, no, but it's one hell of a film.  It was overly indulgent, narcissistic and a bit meandering.  There were earlier points where it seemed undecided under all the snappy dialogue but then it started to focus and man, is it worth the wait.  Tarantino made a nostalgia film in his own image, gleefully.  He is a filmmaker that isn't afraid to show us what he thinks is cool, even embarrassingly cool.  The film let's us know it's a film and not a representation of reality.  Sharon Tate gets to live and the Manson family members sent to kill her by Charlie don't get to live because fuck them.  In the end we get the fairy tale the title promises, Once Upon a Time.....

1. JOKER

"I thought my life was a tragedy, now I know... it's a comedy."  

Joker is a polarizing and a deeply divisive film causing so much fuss for such an overly sensitive audience, that there is something actually funny about that fact.  The response to the film in real life confirms what the Joker had a problem with in his fantasy life.  Joaquin Phoenix, yet again, gave everything he had into playing the gloomy man becoming the troubled clown.  This film will echo through the aliases of movie theaters, coffee houses and film study classes for years to come.  Joker has effectively been able to leap out of the screen and into our world, exposing his contempt for our toxic environment as we enter 2020's.

 








  

JOKER and the World we Live in today

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON OCTOBER 16, 2019
There will be some spoilers.

Put on a happy face

Joker was a film that itself was an agent of chaos.  The film and the character in the film were symbiotic, where one couldn't exist without the other.  They needed each other in the most beautiful poetic way, much in the same way as Travis Bickle and Martin Scorsese needed each other.  Joker was a weird film where the film was all about him and simultaneously wasn't about him at all.  The film was micro-sphere driven but had macro-sphere implications. 

A Brief History: Homo sapiens, us, have been around for about 200 thousand years, evolving for millions of years prior to that, give or take.  The agricultural revolution kicks in and us, hunters and gathers have finally found some level of stability.  Civilizations form, we agree to give up our freedom for security but at a cost.  The illusion of freedom isn't free, you have to pay to feel you are free even when you are not.  This becomes the foundation to our society, through wars and the fall of other civilizations, ours is the latest version of human beings that can and cannot get along when money is involved.

Plan and simple, Joker is about a failed system of who has and who is never allowed to have.  It's also about how we can't truly relate to other people.  We all want to believe we can, we call that being positive or optimistic, but in actuality we are in our own heads, viewing the world through our perspective and only imagining what another's life must be like.  In the end we don't know, we are not starving in Africa or a Syrian refugee.  

Arthur Fleck is a product of this failed society and that's what's pissing people off the most, because by accepting that prognosis is accepting that we live in a failed project.  All the decisions we make in our day to day lives whether sit in on corporate merger meetings or defending criminals in court or paying for our groceries at the supermarket or cold calling people trying to convince them into buying a lifelong subscription to some bible club, this structure is all we know, we are bound to it.  Joker holds a mirror up and we don't like what we see because when he is looking in a mirror we don't see him, we see ourselves.

I thought about going into the girlfriend neighbor is real or isn't or is any of this real by the end and then in my end, from what I take from the film, is it real or isn't, is missing the point.  The film is a mirror.

This film is Nietzsche's undoing everything you've been taught, it's Rimbaud's derangement of the senses, it's confronting Jung's shadow, it's Macbeth's rise to power.  Joker is the fallout of The Notes from Underground and Maldoror as well as Charles Baudelaire's Intimate Journals.  Joker is what Kierkegaard warned us about, the fear we have about our own freedom.  

Arthur lost all his support systems and fell into chaos, this isn't about condoning what Arthur/Joker became but it is a lesson to us all to touch the people in our lives.  It's about realizing when Plato said to 'be kind because everyone is fighting a battle', that he meant it.  It's not a cute saying but during his time it was meant to be understood.  That's where empathy comes in and where the system fails.  

The fact is our world has owners.  We never want to be thought of as something that is owned but we are, and are we able to get over how fucked up of a concept that even feels like, then we are able to start to peel back the layers of the onion.  Classism was a major focus in the film, are we equal, who gets to die on the Titanic and who gets away?   In the film there were all these little Joker-bots that claimed to have a cause and they were all full of shit.  Their recourse was destruction without any level of understanding of what they where even doing.

What is the point........

The Joker isn't the 'agent of chaos' he's the product of it.  Sadly he's in us all and that's why we hate him, but more importantly why we love him simultaneously is because he is us.  Our ying and yang battle is on going and within us all, so the film isn't an examination of this tortured man that evolves into this crazed joker killer.  The film is about our own fantasy.  Arthur Fleck was never the villain.  We are.

What is the point.....











The point of the film isn't to understand it.



#joker
#batman