Joker

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I used to think that my life was a tragedy

[00:00:23] But now I've realized it's a podcast Ugh It's a podcast I believe he says in the movie he says a fucking tragedy Or a fucking podcast, right? Doesn't he say fuck? Maybe You guys just saw it I already forgot it

[00:00:40] I used to think that my life was a fucking tragedy But now I realize it's a fucking podcast Ehehehehehe Ugh Ugh Ehehehehehe Hold on, let me just sit like concaved Completely like falling in on myself

[00:01:01] But you know that's the thing that skinny people always sit in the most grotesque ways possible They always sit in a way that looks incredibly uncomfortable Yes, and they become clown murderers Right, and splays their rib cages Shoulder blades ripping out of their flesh But they're very funny

[00:01:18] What? And can I say it? Dare I say it? Mmmmm I don't know A little bit Twisted A little bit A little bit A little bit A little bit Okay, we're done, right? Welcome to the episode That's it, we nailed it Thank you all for listening

[00:01:35] That's all people wanted Thank you, thank you This of course is a blank check with Griffin and Dan It's a podcast about filmographies Directors who are massive success in their careers They give us series of blank checks Make whatever crazy passion products they want Sometimes they laugh

[00:01:47] And sometimes they cry baby And we somehow backed our way into doing A weird or stoss mini-series Or stats mini-series I'm decelerating us out of it though Yeah, you know what the great irony is? We were trying to decelerate already Right? 100% Which is why we skipped

[00:02:05] We didn't do Shazam And now I kind of view that as a regret Yeah, that's a good move It made Well we could do like a I know, we'll do it somewhere sometime I don't know But like it was because of scheduling Because of how long Burton was

[00:02:17] And Dumbo was already going to come out Four weeks after Right, it was de-padding And we were like We're maybe downthrottling the DC thing in general But here's the thing Here are two things I never could have predicted Right

[00:02:30] If you told me on the outside of this year One, you will find more value in Avengers Endgame than Joker Two, you will find more value in Shazam than Joker Right Because you- You will find more value in Aquaman than Joker I guess that's just on the line

[00:02:44] Aquaman, I'm enough of a James Wan thing Okay, okay, fair enough That I believe- You'll find more value in Maleficent Two, Mistress of Evil than Joker Sure But I will say Well she is the Mistress of Evil Yeah I will say, I post Infinity War

[00:02:57] I felt totally burned out on the internet You mentioned it on our Patreon www.patreon.com.com. Please subscribe Please And so I was like Fucking done, don't want to see Endgame Dreading it, right? Yeah And likewise, I was like Shazam looks like Diarrhea

[00:03:11] Don't know what DC is doing Silly, don't love Chuck Right Sure And two of my favorite superhero films in years Those two Yeah And I think interesting films that are actually Sort of moving the subgenre forward a little bit Shazam in particular was very astonished Shazam is great

[00:03:33] By the balance of actual dark shit Not performative dark shit Yeah But also psychologically We talked about on our Patreon episode About the scene with his mother Yeah All that stuff I mean our Patreon episode of Black Panther Right So we were like

[00:03:50] Maybe we're done with the DC movies But I guess we gotta do Joker Cause Joker seems so weird Sure And you and I a year ago After being completely flummoxed When they announced this film Started to come around to like You know what?

[00:04:02] I mean, you know, they cast Daniro And there were those location shots of them On the subway And everyone was like And Marin was in it And we're like I don't know Maybe it's good And we were also like You know what? I like the idea of making

[00:04:15] Like just fucking one movie Sure, right Right Which is actually What DC is basically Warner Brothers is planning With these comic movies going forward Which I think is smart Which is smart and is different from the Marvel thing The thing that you have to give Todd Phillips

[00:04:28] All the credit in the world for All the money in the world Well, please Not a single penny Was that the line? Sure Nothing Nothing Absolutely nothing No money in the world for you Yes That movie is essentially The Mr. Burns joke of like Where he's like

[00:04:46] We don't have any You know, we don't have anything to spare And then all the jewels fall on him And he's like His house is falling apart It should have been called None of the money in the world Because that's what he said

[00:04:55] How much do you want to pay for your grandson? How about none of the money in the world? He holds up an egg Yeah One goose egg But no, yes I think we were kind of In on the The idea of that Oh, no

[00:05:08] That's what I was going to say Todd Phillips to his credit Says now And who knows if this is Retractive pathologizing But this matches with the stories I had heard He was feeling very frustrated By the lack of impact that War dogs made Oh, oh no

[00:05:23] I'm so sorry, Todd We don't make shitty movies I agree and we'll get to that later Okay For the rest of this episode We will get to that But he was like It's fucking all this Superhero shit How do we use

[00:05:37] Like how do I work within this system? Because of course comedy had been canceled It couldn't make comedy movies anymore Oh yeah, Griffin pointed that out At the Before the movie started Well, the film begins With the mass execution of all comedians Comedians get executed

[00:05:49] In the town square And also they take The guillotine's drop They take also the famous The masks of drama and comedy Right, right And they rip them apart And they smash the comedy lines Of the ground Comedy's down and it's only drama Right, and they're holding up

[00:06:02] And they go This is all you can make The Golden Globes, of course They pretend to have the two But then it's a massacre We knew All the comedians are Just let off to slaughter We should have seen it coming I mean this is how

[00:06:15] This is why they gave the award to the Martian Because they're trying to push comedy out And look, I know we've all What if I had been interviewing Todd Phillips When he went on the cancer culture round And I was like, oh, what about the Martian? Jesus, Todd

[00:06:29] Most financially successful comedy He's been with us for five years What are you talking about? Is this a comedy at The Globes? Maybe it is That would be the ultimate joke I mean That would be pretty good No, we love that It's one best comedy at The Globes

[00:06:44] Rikki-T, Rikki-T, Rikki-Rikki-Rikki-T God But comedy is canceled It's probably the reason why Joker got so twisted Because he can't make jokes anymore And the movie calls it out It calls it out And I sighed very loudly I love that moment when

[00:07:01] I love the duality of him being like I should be able to joke about anything But everyone in society has been mean to me Totally It's really cool Right, it's weird It's almost like there's this correlation Between the people who claim that they're being oppressed By society

[00:07:16] Because they can't tell the jokes That they want to make About oppressed people It's almost like there's There's nothing there There's this great scene in Joker A film we're going to discuss today Rikki-T Where he pushes some boundaries Yeah, yeah Here's a great fact Sometimes he misses

[00:07:33] Yeah, sometimes he misses Alright, that's the end of those jokes I have to stop making them They're too easy This is, I mean This is the moment I love in Joker Is when, spoiler He complains about the fact that people are so sensitive

[00:07:42] You can't make jokes about anything And then shoot some hand-point blank in the face And he's right We cancel murderers left and right these days And we're always fucking cancelling Murders of talk show hosts You know, it's uncomfortable We gotta talk about it

[00:07:56] Spoiler alert for this film by the way There's no room for murder and woke culture Because murder is one of the least woke things Serious And that's why Joker's my hero Yeah David, what were you gonna say?

[00:08:10] I thought it was a great scene when Joker did a podcast with his friend And they ranked the races And how funny they are Or how tragic they are, maybe Yeah, the writing I used to think ranking the races was a comedy Alright

[00:08:25] No, I realize it's a podcast Alright Okay, what I was gonna say is Yeah Todd Phillips goes to Warner Brothers And goes, what if DC does the one thing that Marvel can't do? Marvel has built this very airtight interconnected universe And you've been trying to do the same

[00:08:43] And failing Failing miserably So let's take advantage of the fact that we failed Because he's got this overall deal at Warner Brothers He's one of like four filmmakers who has the golden keys at Warner Brothers Right? Clint Yep Nolan Nolan I'd argue Phillips and now maybe Bradley

[00:09:00] Beaky, BC Right Yeah You know Yes But they've talked about, you know, as Warner Brothers has become more and more of a corporate culture That the only three people they give that level control to are Phillips, Nolan and Clint Yeah, sure Those are the three

[00:09:17] So he says, I got an idea What if you make like a black label series of DC movies? Mm-hmm You do one-offs You do things that are completely removed from continuity Where you sign bigger talent on You do it more prestigious You take big genre swings

[00:09:32] Here's my example I'd love to do the Joker like a 70 score-sizing movie And they go, here's your blank check Mm-hmm, pretty much I mean, he, I believe almost literally in the Vanity Fair cover story about walking Phoenix Mm-hmm Says like, you know what? I'll find the quote Please

[00:09:50] Because it's actually worth it But basically, I think the movie costs 60 He says $55 million Which is, you know, a chunk of change It's not a, not Justice League money But you know It is very expensive for drama It's expensive for R-rated drama Inexpensive for a comic book movie

[00:10:07] Which I think was the selling point Right And he says, in pitching the movie to Walking Phoenix Phillips said, think of this as a heist movie Yes And Walkie was like, what are you talking about? There's like no action in this movie Yeah

[00:10:18] And he was like, no, no, no, my friend Made a little joke He said, we're gonna take $55 million from Warner Brothers And do whatever we want And then he was promptly canceled Because jokes are illegal Also podcasts are fading Walkie, of course

[00:10:30] He's a good citizen called the police He did And they came in the guillotine Todd Phillips Citizens arrested And that's why this movie was directed by Todd Phillips, head and a jar Oh, God But, but yes I mean, here's the thing about this movie I don't like it

[00:10:50] I was Not a fan? Not a fan And I gotta say I was a little surprised and frustrated By the ways in which I didn't like Because I was trying not to preload it with expectations But I kind of thought

[00:11:01] I knew how I was gonna feel about this thing Well, so I think that's fair because this film has been Accompanied with a lot of discussion and hype More than pretty much any movie this year, right? Right up there, certainly Arguably more than any movie in years

[00:11:15] And so first let me talk about myself for a sec Because I'm very important And you're trying to cancel me But first I saw the movie first On like the way, on like wave three of hype Retirement

[00:11:26] Whereas I feel like you saw it on like wave six or whatever, right? Right Venice is the premiere The first wave of reviews People, a few of my critic friends saw it Other critics see it The reaction was pretty positive

[00:11:39] But I would say American critics were more mixed And more like This might be a little dangerous Right, right, right Liz's bad for the culture Was sort of a brunette Not are people gonna shoot up a theater dangerous But is this bad for the culture dangerous

[00:11:52] So that all happens That's all resolved Then I'm at the Toronto Film Festival Where Joker will premiere in a couple days I am getting ready to see pain and glory The wonderful Pedro Moteva Retire it And I'm just scrolling through my phone Scrolling away Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling

[00:12:10] Oh, the Venice Awards are being announced And Lucretia Martel, famous comic book Hater One of our finest living filmmakers A great filmmaker She was the jury chair this year And you're sort of like That's one of those things where the winners get invited To the ceremonies

[00:12:25] People are like, well Joker is there So perhaps like Joaquin won an award Sure And it's sort of like The awards start winning It's like, oh no Joker didn't win that one Right Joker didn't win that one And then we got to the scenario

[00:12:36] Where it was only Roman Polanski's movie And Joker were left The exact scenario you want to be in Roman Polanski's movie won the runner up Joker won the Golden Lion Of Venice The first studio movie to win We were looking at it In quite a long time 1990

[00:12:53] I think it was 80 I thought we found one other thing 80, it was Gloria and And Atlantic City Wasn't that the duo? They tied 1998 But I thought we found one other one Oh Michael Collins Thank you 1996 So At that point I'm like A festival that rarely awards American films

[00:13:13] And even more rarely awards studio films Right So I'm like I mean I start to have that Like I know people are kind of creeped out by it And I get them like What if it's really good I want to be very I like 70's Scorsese movies Sure

[00:13:28] I want to be very clear about something right here All three of us would love Nothing more than to love this movie Oh sure We especially Yeah Well no Me especially No come on But I think all three of us For different reasons

[00:13:42] Have been holding onto this little hope of Like What if it's great Like what if it's actually Kind of an important work Yeah I mean I love Joaquin And it would be nice to see those elements come together In a way that crystallizes like

[00:13:55] A movie that speaks to our times I'm not saying has some sort of fucking message But even beyond that Yeah Even if it was just an effective thriller Like with sort of You know throwbacky aesthetics Don't have to love it But I kind of liked it Right

[00:14:09] Any number of ways I think Any combination of the three of us Could have been very satisfied with this one I was at the We had a blanky meetup With fans at the Toronto Film Festival And it was like the day before I saw Joker

[00:14:19] And I was very much throwing around Like maybe it's good Concept to people Then I saw Joker at Toronto And I was like Oh that was a slog It's incredibly one note I was really disappointed with it And I was like Oh what the fuck

[00:14:34] Like I was genuinely surprised at myself For sort of getting You know Swept up in the hype Because I was like Oh That's my thing I because Talk about the waves of this thing Since Toronto and since the Venice win It has just become this breathless cycle

[00:14:52] Of debate largely between people Who have not seen this movie No right it's just on and on The worst conversations have been happening Between the people who have not seen the movie And this sort of discourse about Like oh fuck we're going to put Security guards in theaters

[00:15:04] Because there's 100% going to be a shooting Which to me Especially after seeing this movie I think And we are out of the opening weekend Of this film Right No incidents reporting other than You know people vaping in the theater Being kicked out Thank you everyone on Twitter for

[00:15:21] Tagging me in any of those stories Right But there have been zero stories Of anything happening at a Joker screening That would not have happened at an Olympus has fallen screening Right Sure Sure or even a good boys screening Yeah But I Joker bad boy

[00:15:39] In a certain way that is true The original bad boy comedy Just pointing that out In a certain way it feels like That was more dangerous Was the sort of It almost felt like The news media was trying to Will into existence Some sort of large calamity

[00:15:57] Connected to this movie And then you watch it And it feels kind of like Empty half hearted provocation That's how it felt to me 100% Yeah Right so then we see it in Toronto I feel like the buzz in Toronto Was a little more mixed The movie comes out

[00:16:12] The reviews in America are very mixed It's certainly not And then Two boys Griffin Newman and David Ben Hosley Not David Sims If we introduced this podcast We did, we did And Griffin Newman Went to see it One lovely morning Went to see the Joker

[00:16:29] We saw a 1030 AM screening I would like to point out We were sitting next to a young man Drinking two Coors lights Tall boys 1030 in the morning The McViviclers 1030 in the morning We got that Cool cool matinee pricing But we sat there and kind of I truly

[00:16:47] You seen any good trailers? What do we see? We saw The Michael G Borden movie Ben's very excited for Just Mercy I tried to tell him It's very okay Unfortunately You know it's sort of regular Just Mercy is just kind of perfunctory It's like that guy

[00:17:08] Really good guy The movie's like he's good And you're like yes Then you walk out and you're like What a good guy Like I mean that's just fine We saw the R rated red band trailer For Just Mercy No for what? Unrated out of control

[00:17:23] For Zombieland 2 Double Tap Which I found very funny I point out to Ben It has the The Chiron's from the director Of Venom Sure right Right And the writers of Deadpool Because those are the jobs that They went on to After making Zombieland

[00:17:42] It's not like they were hired to revamp They're the Zombieland guys They're the Zombieland guys It should say from the writers And directors of Zombieland Right And instead it's like Everyone involved in Zombieland A movie that is fine Yeah it's fine I saw in theaters it was like

[00:17:57] Okay But everyone involved since then Has had at least one colossal Hit Well it almost It should be like from The director of Zombieland But also Venom Right But also gangster squad Right Like it should be apologizing You know what I'm saying It's like Eisenberg Oscar nomination

[00:18:18] Harold's two Oscar nominations Stone two nominations one win Or three Three Birdman What's the third La La Land What's the third Favorite Oh right of course Great performance Three nominations one win Abigail Breslin I guess is the only person She already had her Oscar Was already Right

[00:18:36] She was coasting in to Zombieland As the Oscar winner of the cast I think she had the AND It was AND Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin Oh right she doesn't have a win She has the No no no Right and it was like

[00:18:48] That was like the spec script That got What's their names Rhett and Wernick The screen writers on the map That was Ruben Fleischer's debut film It was like everyone went on I don't know To set you on this tangent It's a great tangent Had this big career

[00:19:03] And then I loved them I loved Venom and Deadpool Bleh It is a weird time though To be sitting in a theater Seeing a Packed A serious Golden Lion winning Joker movie Joker movie that just opened In nearly 100 million dollars And the trailer beforehand

[00:19:23] Is boasting its connection to Deadpool and Venom Right two other like You can't make a movie out of those characters Sure two other That material doesn't work These are three characters that are Assensibly kind of anti-heroes at best And absolute villains at worst Or psychopaths at worst

[00:19:42] Who are not you know They exist to bounce off of people Totally They all got their own movies Right like three characters where you're like You cannot make a movie in which they are Not standing in juxtaposition The whole point is they're the opposite side

[00:19:55] Especially Joker and Venom they're Especially Deadpool And Deadpool but like He's riffing on the series He's riffing David can I tell you something Ben be just Have your trigger finger read Okay like on SNL and like Jenny Slade is saying Frigalot or whatever and you got a

[00:20:13] Richard Pryor's host there Okay David I'm ready Deadpool knows that he's in a movie I don't know what am I supposed to do Cheer Cheer Yeah great Cheer Oh boy No but it was just one of these things where I was just like

[00:20:36] Yeah I mean you remember how much we were all Clowning on the idea like they're gonna like a fucking Gambit movie with Channing Tatum And now I'm like make literally anything At this point I guess You can make a fucking Marrow movie I don't know

[00:20:47] I guess all of them work Yeah sure pick any one Right I guess any one of them Maggot? Remember Maggot? Make a Maggot movie We could do it We could do it Do you know can I tell you about Maggot

[00:20:58] The most 90s X-Men ever he was in like Eight issues and people were like Get this guy out of here There might be the single weirdest superpower Ever Because there are ones that are sillier Right But they make sense He's a big boy

[00:21:11] He's kind of blue blue skinned He's from South Africa for some reason It's got like white hair White hair He's got a whole look He's got like red goggles White hair He's blue skinned He's all over the place And he's in that post gambit phase where he's like

[00:21:23] Got the long trench coat He's not wearing like a uniform He's wearing like He looks kind of like the crow He doesn't eat food with his mouth He has two metal creatures That look like trilobites That he calls Maggot That can eat anything

[00:21:37] They come out of his tummy They come out of his tum tum They eat whatever they want to eat And then they go back inside his tum tum And like, you know, give him the food You know a straight line A very clean understandable superpower

[00:21:50] And the X-Men should introduce this guy That's not a superpower though Like I mean it's a mutant power And it's sort of like sort of a curse You know, like classic Oh, here he is I guess the idea was The power is like See the maggots? See him?

[00:22:03] If there's a brick wall The maggots could eat through the brick wall That was kind of all he had to offer Right And they introduced him as like Get ready The next X-Men is here MAGGOT Like, you know, they were like Rolling out the red carpet for Maggot

[00:22:18] So let's make a Maggot movie Todd Phillips, get him on the horn Yeah Well, unfortunately, Marvel doesn't have a black label Marvel doesn't have a black label Isn't this also like, um, AMC Presents? Like it's like the AMC fine art The movie is making a gajillion dollars

[00:22:40] Yeah, AMC Artisan is now any movie With a budget under $100 million That's what's crazy Right? It's sensibly Any movie that just is like Not in a cinematic universe It could be a comic book movie But I feel like AMC Artisan was slapped on

[00:22:55] Almost every trailer we saw today It might have been on the fucking Zombie Land 2 trailer It was on everything Phillips apparently Actually was like We should come up with a different name Oh really? Like, we should have like a fucking studio imprint Oh

[00:23:12] And call it like DC Black Label Or DC Vertigo Like Marvel Knights or whatever Like all those Right Um It doesn't have the DC logo I forget It does? No It does have the great 70's Warner logo The red And your big question you had Since you saw

[00:23:29] Oh it doesn't have the Golden Lion imprint It does not have the Golden Lion imprint Fuck that! Fuck that bullshit! Sorry Sorry So mad It's such bullshit Usually whatever film wins The Golden Lion has like A title card before the movie Where it says like Winner, Golden Lion

[00:23:44] And the festival logo We usually see that In independent and foreign films And major prestigious European film awards They want to get pictures of the Joker It's a brag! A huge brag! But it was just the idea of Oh man this is the first studio film

[00:24:01] To win the Golden Lion in 20 years How cool would it be 20 plus years If a movie being released on 3000 screens opening weekend Starts with the Golden Lion brand Whatever I feel like the Shaper Water Probably didn't either Did it? Or Broma Did that win the Golden Lion? Huh

[00:24:18] Yeah I wonder if I guess it probably did either I guess I put Fuck that I feel like unless it's Brag! You won the award Everyone should brag And they shouldn't be Humble about it If this movie ended with Joker getting the Golden Lion

[00:24:31] Maybe it wouldn't kill Robert De Niro One certain way It wasn't the most twisted thing The Joker was getting the Golden Lion Alright Alright We went to see a screening Of a different movie last night Called Gemini Man Which we will be talking about

[00:24:46] Next week on this very podcast Yes, much better And I said to you Better than Joker Do you agree? Yes Okay And you asked me if I'd seen Joker yet And I said no And I am relishing My final hours Of not having an opinion on this movie

[00:25:01] It was this thing where like Honestly, truly Despite being someone who's Something of an omnivore And likes to be part of the conversation Yeah, you were just like I found it so fucking exhausting It's nice to not have to Have an opinion If we were not doing it

[00:25:14] On this podcast I would have waited six months For it to end up on Fucking HBO Max or whatever Cause I just was like You know what? This all just feels like A fucking nightmare And then to see it And feel like There's not much there there

[00:25:28] There isn't much there there And the key to this entire movie Which was my big take That I was going to come in with And then I believe Sam Adams Over at Vox beat me to it No, it's like But yes It's like sorry Was Is that

[00:25:43] The key to understanding This entire movie Is that Todd Phillips' career started Ben's gonna like this Oh, Ben's ready to jump into this He has seen the film itself I never wanted to Seemed awful It's disgusting No thank you What's the title again? It's called Hated A documentary

[00:26:04] Todd Phillips' first feature Todd Phillips has an NYU student Adored Gigi Allen Booked him to perform at NYU Made a documentary And then he got a A documentary And then he got a NYU Made a documentary With his participation That was finished after Gigi Allen died Right

[00:26:22] And so it stood as this Final kind of testament Because there's a quote I want to read It's like a racist punk rock Guy who Was really really on the fringe Of that scene That subculture And definitely is like For example, The Best Show

[00:26:38] Sort of used him as a Comedic foil very often Because his act was so Gratuitous, disgusting He would smash bottles on his head He would poop on and poop He would shit on the stage And throw it at the audience And his idea was

[00:26:52] He was so punk rock And his shows, the pits Were so crazy that you could Die if you went to his show Right It was the ultimate act Of provocation But it also was His music was bad And racist Right But sexist

[00:27:07] It was all just to stir up Anger really Every button he was pushing I'm assuming was just to get people riled And he was An incredibly manic heroin addict Yes You know? He died because he had too much heroin Right Like Which will lead to the quote

[00:27:23] I'm going to read But he was sort of The like Nihilistic Intagonistic Shadow of Someone like Daniel Johnson Right It's like here's this weird Outsider artist Okay But Daniel Johnson is this sort of Like sweet kind of like lovable Energy to him I said the shadow of her

[00:27:44] Right I'm saying they're the polar opposites Right Where it's the same kind of thing Where it's like you're going to Watch this bizarre thing And try to engage in this thing And these guys exist in their Own weird universes For sure And Daniel Johnson is All about craft

[00:27:58] Right It's all about like Oh to most people This might sound like childish music But if you actually are listening His songwriting is like Incredibly intelligent Right His compositions are incredibly Intelligent And you're Watching a man Let you into his brain Like a natural genius Right

[00:28:15] And G.G. Allen is like I'm throwing everything at you My music is ostensibly garbage And I'm just spewing hate But what you're watching is Pure unfiltered id In a way In both cases That is fascinating to people And Todd And a lot of other people

[00:28:29] That sort of I guess Supported G.G. Allen As they looked at it as performance art Yes Correct I have no opinion on that I think that's a stupid Sort of a weird line Why would anyone want to Go to a show And potentially get murdered

[00:28:43] And pooped on I don't, I mean The G.G. Allen's of the world I guess were after that I mean isn't it a famous story That like when they premiered The movie he was still alive They like shot more after he died And like at the premiere

[00:28:54] He like threw a bunch of beer bottles Injured a woman Yeah And then ran away Because the cops were called Like he was He was stupid It was annoying But also he was like This is a good movie But this is also where

[00:29:06] The Daniel Johnson comparison comes in I've been thinking about Daniel Johnson a lot Because he passed away recently Sure With an artist I loved But in both cases I feel like those guys Were erroneously Framed as performance art Were they like Were Daniel Johnson's doing so weird

[00:29:23] Because he is a mentally old man And he is not concerned With the same sort of Trappings of presentation That most of us are That people were like I'm not watching him play I'm thinking about the larger context of This quote unquote simple man With his cassette recorder

[00:29:38] Right? When really If you want to take that guy seriously You can take his music seriously There is art there, right? Absolutely And Gigi Allen is like The opposite where it's like Oh all this shit is performance art He's making a point It's like

[00:29:51] No this is a mentally old man Yeah Who is being encouraged Because people think There's some sort of meaning In the fact that he is Like shitting in a way On stage that he is Causing violence That there's some sort of statement here Alright let's move out

[00:30:06] Here's the quote I want to read though Because it's very important Okay? This is from the Sam Adams Slate article And he said hated ends With Allen's funeral After a fatal hair went overdose And rather than express Sorrow at Allen's death Because Todd Phillips is the narrator

[00:30:20] Of hated I know Okay? Phillips I'm not going to watch that movie You never have to Until we do our Todd Phillips Honestly David Seriously don't Okay I won't Because there's stuff I now Have seen that I can never forget Sure Phillips mourns that he went out

[00:30:37] In such a hackneyed rock star manner It's true right here Quote Personally Phillips says I always hoped he would go out In a more glorious fashion On stage suicide Five dead fans Something rock and roll Could never ignore And as Sam Adams says That sentiment drives

[00:30:52] Dangerously with both Joker itself And the people who have used The occasion of its release To threaten public dismay As a violence Right Todd Phillips once thought Murder suicide was a joke Now he's made a movie about A man who laughs at it And it kind of is

[00:31:04] The whole fucking thing Right? Like it's sort of this Perfect bookmark of his Career Can we do a brief amount Of Todd Phillips' career context Since we're in this program Brief Right okay So he makes the Gigi Allen Hated documentary Which gets some attention

[00:31:18] Because Gigi Allen gets attention He has a topic of discussion Correct Probably one of the many reasons He made it Much like the Joker of his time Yes then he made Frat House Right so his follow up Is he makes a documentary About Frat House culture

[00:31:28] Which people loved It premiered at Slamdance Yeah I know it was at Sundance It was at Sundance And I believe it won Some kind of documentary award And then there was a lot of controversy Over the fact that some of the Footage in it was staged Yes

[00:31:42] And so documentarians got mad about it And it wasn't aired on HBO It was supposed to be And like what did I get But also I think that many Of the people The subjects of the film Sort of fought against The release of it I'm sure they did

[00:31:54] I think there was a mix Of both That some of it was staged And some of the people caught doing You know Yeah but there's like these scenes Of hazing that were That Phillips made up And like I mean he paid people To stage them

[00:32:07] And he was like well Michael Moore Does it and everyone was like Okay I mean like not the greatest Defense in the world Right he also started Like an underground New York Film Festival That was him being like The real shit isn't being screened

[00:32:20] And it was a lot of Fucking documentaries on taboo subjects I too yeah Yeah But Frat house leads to him Making road trip Which is a direct result of American Pie And the sort of Resurgence of the porky style 80s sex kind He met Ivan Reitman

[00:32:38] Friend of the show Future guest Yes Who has the director of Animal House And sort of the Pregenerator of that genre He met him at Sundance When he had the Frat House Right Monosito Pictures The Ivan Reitman Company Has a first look deal At Dreamworks

[00:32:51] And I think they sort of go In the wake of American Pie Ivan you should be the guy Make an American Pie Anointed new dude Find a new I think it's also just like Make a movie like that Make a college company Make a college company for us

[00:33:01] At this point Reitman's out of that Reitman's like Dave Six days, seven nights But they're like Find a new guy who's like You Who has the anarchic spirit That you had In the 80s When you were producing Animal House And when you were directing Meatballs

[00:33:15] And all that shit American Pie came out I think July 99 Road trip is like May 2000 So it's like I think just the minute It came out They were like just Direct response Round some people up Have some teens There's sex Who do they like? Tom Green

[00:33:31] Put them in a movie Yeah, whatever And of course American Pie directed by A friend of the podcast Actual friend of the podcast Chris White We've talked about That movie with him Both on and off podcasts And the way he talks about Is very fascinating

[00:33:43] Where he and his brother Had been Working screenwriters For a long time Really wanted to direct something Right And he was like I'm very uncomfortable sexuality I was very uncomfortable The idea of directing love scenes It was not our type of material But it was like the one

[00:33:56] Like we'd been fighting so hard To get the chance to make any movie And that was the thing they offered us And I feel like if you go back And watch the original American Pie It is a lot less raunchy Than people remember it being It has like

[00:34:07] Yeah, it's very much It kind of feels like A lot of those 80s ones Where it's like Kind of not raunchy And then there It'll be like moments Of sort of like Contained raunch Four or five big set pieces Little set pieces Right, yeah

[00:34:19] It's weird how much of that movie Is emotional Yes, it's sort of a Half-sweet movie It's a weird one Right, because it's the guys Who wanted to be making a bout of boy Are trying to put as much Of that into that movie Road trip is about

[00:34:32] Like a douchebag Who cheats on I mean Breckenmere Who's like We enjoy Breckenmere He's a sweet-faced man Sure But like he cheats on his girlfriend But that's a classic example Kind of to catch the video Before it reaches his Girlfriend That is a classic example

[00:34:47] Of that type of comedy casting Where it's like Cast an eminently likable Sweet-faced man To play a character Who is written as A reprehensible douchebag So that the audience kind of roots for them Because they're a Nate charm Overcomes the actual reading of their relationship

[00:35:03] We can't talk too much about this stuff But exactly This is so important And also how much do you want to talk about The Joker Well, we can talk about a little bit But my favorite thing about Road Trip Is that Sean Williams' god is in it

[00:35:12] Is Stifler basically Yes, right Like they don't even They're like Oh, it's my friend Stifler Like it's just the same character And Tom Green had just popped And they were like Can we shoot one week with him? He just does a set basically He just does weird monologues

[00:35:27] He's the guy who doesn't go on the road trip Yeah, he just talks to people He narrates the movie And most of it He's just in a room by himself Who else is in it? DJ Qualls His breakout Of course Became our next great movie star

[00:35:38] What's his name? The guy who played Paul O'Castown So the animorph He is at him And then he was in Joey I don't know what he's been doing He is in Joey's in the postcards His best performance Of course So there was that Outside the cabinet

[00:35:52] I guess it did well It did well It did And that sets him off Old school Which I think is the most Sort of purely functional Todd Phillips movie That is the one where And I've been a little afraid To rewatch old school

[00:36:07] In the last couple of years But I think you got those three guys Just at the moment where They're totally honing in On their movie star personas He's sort of Reclaimed Vaughn From the post-swingers wilderness It's the first real strong Will Ferrell movie role Which then leads into

[00:36:22] Elf later that fall And it's like Luke Wilson Getting to be like his perfect Sort of straight man character Right? Yep And it's got the right level Of like the Todd Phillips Anarchy while also feeling Like the movie has a soul And not a performative soul

[00:36:36] I don't like that movie Old school I was a big fan of it I don't like that I've not seen it I've never liked that I mean I never I didn't hate it I thought Will Ferrell was funny I'll say this I always thought it was

[00:36:49] Like just okay I always really liked it I liked it That was my favorite of that Yeah, yeah, no Like wedding crashers Which I despise I'd always be like Old school's the one That for me actually works There is a scene Where I unquestionably better There's mud wrestling

[00:37:05] And an old man Has a heart attack It dies But they're all like Old blue? Old blue But it's like sort of set up Where it's like well he died With a boner So I don't know if Alright look With that With that Alright so yeah

[00:37:20] Road trip okay Old school okay Starsky and Hutch He makes like sort of a Big star studio comedy America's favorite Studio head Harvey Weinstein Goes Todd Phillips is the new guy Signs him to a three picture deal I believe They do Starsky and Hutch Which does pretty well

[00:37:36] I've seen it I don't remember it that well It's fine It's like totally whatever right? Then he does that He did school for scoundrels Which is his one big flop Yeah Is that Thornton Billy? It's Thornton and Heeter John Heeter Billy about Thornton has talked about

[00:37:52] How like after Bad Santa Like studios are just like Just keep doing this You're gonna play a horn dog Woodcock Woodcock this Bad news bears Like you'll just play like the bad Right He did his run there And this was like the peak of that

[00:38:05] And the peak of everyone going like How do we fucking make John Heeter A movie star? Yeah Luckily finally America Snapped out of that one The bottoms fall out on both of them On this movie And the movie makes like no impression At the box office

[00:38:20] And Phillip seems a little down And out right Right Is Weinstein deal had kind of crashed Like wasn't that supposed to be The next big studio comedy director And he starts going through This crisis He sets up a movie with Jack Black called Man Witch Great

[00:38:36] That is about a grown slacker School of rock Ask Man Who finds out that he is in fact A wizard gets sent to a Hogwarts type school That's what's the Okay So the premise was Imagine Jack Black In a high fantasy school environment Whatever

[00:38:51] Right so it was like A very broad sort of PG-13 Family comedy studio premise And Jack Black pulled out Very late in the game And Todd Phelps is like I don't know what I'm fucking doing anymore I'm waiting around for movie stars

[00:39:05] No one's let me make an R rated comedy Right and he makes the big career decision of his life Which is Vince Vaughn was down Will Ferrell had not been a movie star yet Well I guess he had Supporting roles but that was really his break out

[00:39:21] Oh you mean old school? Yeah that's what I'm saying Right Uh a cast of road trip I discovered a lot of people I have some history of finding people Making some comedy stars I want to do that And I want to make a dirty R rated movie again

[00:39:36] I want to make a movie where there's Not the same level of studio interference I've had from the last couple projects I have made and the ones I've tried And failed to get made Yeah So he finds the script The hangover And he goes this is funny

[00:39:48] And he goes to one of our brothers And he says I want to cast Whoever the fuck I want We've talked about this Legendary cosigns They basically like Thirded his budget In return for You'll make money on it if it works

[00:39:59] And you get to cast who you want I mean You gotta give them credit It has ended up being one of the smartest Career decisions the director has made In modern studio history He said what is the number Where if it is under that budget

[00:40:10] You will let me cast whoever I want And they said 27 million dollars And he went great And he picked Bradley Cooper Who had been the best friend Or the rival boyfriend In a bunch of movies But was not a leading man Right Picks Ed Helms

[00:40:23] Who's sort of the you know Fourteenth guy from the office Right And uh Zach Galifnakis Who he knew was one of the funniest people alive And who I think a lot of people Had been like Someday he should be his Whispered about all comedian guys

[00:40:34] And also was a good actor When he would appear in movies He was a good actor But he rarely had large roles And he makes the movie And it explodes And because He asked for no money And demanded that kind of control His director salary was like

[00:40:46] Ten thousand dollars Or a hundred thousand dollars Whatever the fuck it was And he ended up making Like 80 million dollars It was his George Lucas Star Wars deal It was a big deal That's true But I think it's important to say That Todd Phillips has

[00:40:57] Like a hundred million dollars In the bank He's a rich man Okay He's one of the most He's a rich man Financially successful director Yes So of course He does two hangover sequels To diminishing returns Although hangover two Makes Bonkers amounts more Make money Yes Even three

[00:41:16] Across a hundred Right But people are kind of going like They went back too many times Do you guys have those steel books? For the Hangover trilogy Yeah I'm waiting for the 4K re-release Okay You also made due date Which you're a fan of

[00:41:27] I'm a big fan of And I will get to that in a second We're like an hour in We haven't talked about the Joker You said I don't want to talk about it No, come on man Don't talk about the Joker We're gonna talk about this movie

[00:41:37] We're gonna talk about it Okay but I think The Phillips of it all Is the most interesting thing About this movie Yeah For better or worse Yeah, sure Okay Yeah, go on, go on, go on I don't like the Hangover movies No

[00:41:51] I think the first one's really gross And the thing I think is really gross About it Is it's like The worst of both worlds Where It's all about depravity But the whole movie's about like But actually they're nice guys Yeah, that's what I don't like those movies Yeah

[00:42:05] And then the third one tries To be in on the Joker or whatever But like That point out of here Which is the one thing I find kind of interesting about it I like it the most Of the three In a franchise I don't like Yeah

[00:42:15] But the first two It's like Well they didn't really mean it They were drunk, whatever You know? But it's about like Fucking having your cake And eating it too The whole movie's about How can you give everyone A feel of watching CD behavior But saying actually

[00:42:28] But they're good guys And they don't remember doing it And they don't know what they're doing It's also just not that funny It's just not that funny That's my main problem with that movie Just not that funny Don't find it funny I saw in theaters

[00:42:37] I was very excited to see it I didn't laugh Okay Due date is I feel like The only Todd Phillips movie That actually has something To say about the human condition And it is I think a movie kind of about him And that's a movie about how

[00:42:51] Every single person Lives Directly In the damage Or the benefits Of the presence of their father Or lack thereof Sure That everyone is very much defined Especially men, let's say Right? Sure Men in society Are very much defined by Their relationships with Their father And trying to

[00:43:16] Come out from under the shadow Or overcome an abusive father Or a negligent father Or an overly doting father And due date is Two men with two completely Diometric relationships To their fathers Who are both completely damaged By them Stuck on a road trip

[00:43:33] All one guy's trying to get back home In time for his son to be delivered And it's him sort of reckoning with the fact That he had a shitty father And he's a shitty person He's probably going to be a shitty dad It is a dark movie

[00:43:43] But it is one of his only movies If not his only movie That I think is actually trying to say Something about that darkness Rather than just using it as window dressing For fucked up shit Okay? So that's what I kind of like about it

[00:43:56] It's Donnie Jr. giving his only Fucking non-stark performance And I think the most reigned in And the most human they've ever Come up with a Galifianakis movie character In his sort of leading man era Yeah, for sure But he goes from that He does the Hangover sequels

[00:44:13] He does War Dogs Which is like I'm trying to make this stuff to Scorsese People kind of shrug it off And then he takes his big slam Have you seen War Dogs? I've watched the first three minutes Of War Dogs on HBO Go And I fell asleep

[00:44:26] And I never finished it It's not very good It seemed fun It seemed completely whatever It's just the characters are awful people Yeah, it has that issue A little bit of the cake and eat it Which is a classic films issue It's got this Jonah Hill performance

[00:44:40] That's fairly compelling But he's playing a monster He's a great actor Everything, I mean Teller is kind of god-awful in it And his stuff is bad And his whole thing of like I just kind of got sucked into being an arms dealer It's so unbelievable

[00:44:53] And you're just like I don't want to believe you too And I don't care Why am I paying any attention to you? Bradley Cooper shows up near the end Much like in Joy, he's kind of good And suddenly there's a little bit of energy

[00:45:04] You mean Bradley Cooper producer or Joker? That's right PGA? Yeah But it was a shitty movie And right, so he's like Oh god, what am I going to do now I guess I'll make a gigantic blockbuster Joker movie about murder Well, and also you can't make comedies anymore

[00:45:19] Because comedies cancel That's why all the funny guys stop doing comedy Yes, I know There's zero funny guys left I will say this though Dan DeVito locked the gates this week Well, that's where Marin talked about Phillips And kind of laid him out

[00:45:36] He kind of locked his gates Mark Marin's got his one-scene role in this movie It's pretty good Mark Marin hates superhero movies He's shitting on them He made it very clear I want to work with Bobby That was it Right, I got one scene with DeNiro

[00:45:49] He's one of my idols I want to work with him Right? But I don't like superhero movies I'm kind of like depressed that I'm in one Well, this isn't a suit It's a comic book movie That was his other justification It's barely one of these

[00:46:00] I picked it because of DeNiro We're hopefully trying to do something different Whatever I have one scene And the movie comes out And Todd Phillips goes on the defensive As these people always seem to do When they're successful And have been able to do everything they want

[00:46:14] This is the whole thing I'm like, you're doing great, buddy You're doing great Pure blank check status If you want to make a comedy right now You can make it His producing partner His shingled Warner Brothers Is him and Bradley Cooper It's two of the only

[00:46:29] Four guys at Warner Brothers They're doing great Who have carte blanche are united together They can do whatever the fuck they want Especially post-joker But somehow these people always seem to think That everyone's preventing them Because they're saying that They don't like the things they make

[00:46:42] Which is free speech Alright, look Our podcast Enough We're gonna talk about joker now But, Marin Went on this incredible run Explaining You're allowed to say whatever you want And people are allowed to respond however you want And if you feel like you can't be funny

[00:47:00] While thinking about other people's rights Then you're probably just not that funny Then you probably aren't that good at comedy Or you need to work harder Or the only things you find funny Are the expense of other people I have no sympathy for top folks Doesn't matter

[00:47:14] He made the joker Joker Joker Joker When you introduce me Can you call me joker? Yeah Okay, so the movie opens with what? At the meeting with the social worker Oh, it's him with the grease paint He works at a clown store Works at a clown

[00:47:35] He's like a rena clown Clown factor And they're playing one of eight songs They don't vote clowns or smiling Or laughing at the title I know, Todd Because they do send in the clown Typed clown into spot They do smile What are the other ones they do?

[00:47:50] They do everything that's like In any way adjacent to like Make them laugh Probably is in here somewhere You know, whatever But also like in the white room And fucking Gary glitter Rock and roll part one The thing about, okay So there's been, you know

[00:48:07] The main subcontrovers, you know Joker is that it features a Gary glitter song Gary glitter is a confected pedophile One of America, I'm sorry One of the world's most notorious And successful pedophiles And so people like how dare, you know Like literally he's going to make some money

[00:48:20] Out of this Which is true Beyond that It's a terrible use of the song It's completely unnecessary Absolutely right It's the hackiest fucking choice You could make It's literally just him dancing On the steps To like, you know The song part two which is just like

[00:48:38] Basically like clip art guitar riffing Right, you know what I mean It's just like generic guitar riffing When anything When it kicks in I was like Oh my god did someone shake the iPhone Why is this playing now I forgot I even had this on my iTunes

[00:48:52] Oh boy Anyway Weird Weird So yes, I mean Here's what's messy about He's a clown Arthur Fleck I had to look it up I had to check He's a clown But he's also mentally ill Which means he's not to be trusted Well look

[00:49:11] This movie has a lot of nuance Things to say about mental illness Such as if you go off your pills You'll shoot a talk show host Right I mean like again One of the fourteen sub controversies People aren't even getting to it yet They'll get to it

[00:49:24] This movie is horrible about that stuff It's like absolutely off base On anything relating to this I would argue that is the element of the movie That's the most distressing element And it's actually the one that's kind of dangerous Sure I don't think that like Fucking

[00:49:39] Considering that there's like One thing if it's like he's crazy And he goes to the asylum Lots of Hollywood movies have painted with that brush But like the scenes with the social worker Him going off his meds Like you know having it all like

[00:49:52] He didn't go off the meds Society took the meds away from him You know what I mean Society is the real joker But also He is not only a man who suffers from A fucking catacomb of undefined Mental illnesses Right but the laughter is like

[00:50:08] An unnamed mental illness Where he laughs when he's nervous or whatever But he's got eighteen medications And there's a bunch of shit that They never name That they never point a finger on Sure That's just a fucking side effect Right That's a symptom Of whatever his you know

[00:50:22] Neurological issues are On top of that He is also a victim of abuse Right Right And to me that is the area in which this movie feels Wildly irresponsible Where it's like I honestly don't think This film is coherent enough Or tapped into anything enough

[00:50:41] To make some fucking Jordan Peterson fan Be like Fuck I gotta get my gun And run through the streets right now Right I don't think it will rile anyone up to that degree I don't think it is Successful enough Dramatically to be able to do that

[00:50:57] Because that would involve Some sort of coherence of viewpoint It doesn't really have a very coherent It doesn't Political And look even something like The fucking It has sort of Sort of yells things Right It felt to me like Birdman And that is a movie where every scene

[00:51:12] It makes five observations Sure Have you noticed that this is a thing Sometimes this happens This is a problem in society Anyway moving on It's like all set up with no punchline Right And Something like the Matrix Is endlessly fascinating Because it has encouraged

[00:51:30] So many of the worst corners of the internet In a wild misreader Sure That could not be further from what It is very clear Exactly A movie that people complained at the time Was overly didactic In a tiny lister Right Flipping the cover down On a detonator

[00:51:47] And going like We will not let this man define Sure And people were like Ah the movie's sermonizing And laying it on a little thick And yet for ten years People still took all the wrong lessons And were like The point of that movie is the Joker Fox

[00:51:59] I would say That's the reason That I don't really Watching the movie It's not either here or there How people react to it Because you never know how people Are going to react You never fucking know how people Are going to react Okay So I don't think

[00:52:11] The film's coherent enough Okay But what do you think But I do think This movie in the same way That every time there's a mass shooting Our politicians Our elected officials go Well it's not a gun promise Mental illness problem And they use the boogeyman

[00:52:24] Of mental illness as Just a giant undefined umbrella To say There are crazy people out there And you don't want crazy people Doing crazy things But also We have no infrastructure to help people Who suffer from mental illness I mean that stuff is really irritating It's like

[00:52:38] Yeah the sort of social Like portraying the failure Of a social safety net Right As part of a fucking Comic book villain's origin story You know I like Here's the thing If that's actually what that movie Wanted to say Oh well sure But now

[00:52:52] That is a credible movie If you want to do a movie About someone who has actually Failed by society Not someone who feels like They are being shit on by society But the second you're getting into Of the social worker is losing funding

[00:53:05] So he can't afford his medication anymore That's a fucking thing That's an evil in this world That is a tangible thing That people don't tell stories about That's a path you could take Here's another path The haves and have-nots Right The idea of Thomas Wayne Potentially being someone

[00:53:22] Who has bought himself out of Culpa villain responsibility for a child Is something that has a little Meat on the bone potentially Sure You know what does not have any Meat on the bone? His mom was crazy She made up lies Also she beat him over the head

[00:53:34] And tied to a radio Yes but also what this movie Is doing is It's not letting anything be true Or not true Right You can watch and be like Wow I think that's in his head And that's real So who gives a shit enough to matter

[00:53:46] Or I think Wayne is like Well It sounds like you just tapped into Todd Phillips' viewpoint Which is the whole fucking problem With this movie But beyond that Like it's Like so say there's Split The Shyamalan movie right? Yes Which also sort of plays around

[00:54:01] Very wildly with like Depictions of mental illness And I had those problems with it But it leans in the other way Where it's like This starts out realistic And then by the end It's like this is fantasy Comic book shit Right Whereas this is starting

[00:54:13] With fantasy comic book shit But then being like But really like this is Real and gritty And human and personal Like you know it's like trying to Lean away from the You know He's a comic book character Right now look I mean Alan Moore's Whole fucking thing about

[00:54:28] The killing joke Which he wrote and this is You know someone inspired by It was the first time they gave Joker a sort of detailed I thought through background Origin And made him a failed Comedian Right And it was also the first Time that someone put

[00:54:41] A substantial amount of menace Into the Joker Who had always been sort of A theatrical threat up until that point And it was the first time someone was like Well that's not entirely true I can dispute that But because he's already He's already

[00:54:55] Joker, we didn't talk about that But it was the first It's a very dark book He paralyzes He shoots back girl in the spine I think he'd already killed Robin at that point Yeah He'd already killed Robin Okay, fair enough Joker in Batman

[00:55:07] Was originally a very scary villain And then after a while DC was like Batman's recurring villains Are not allowed to kill Because then that would prove That Batman is inefficient At stopping crime Oh sure And so Joker Only one-off villains were allowed To kill

[00:55:23] And Joker became the sort of More Cesar Romero funny villain Okay And for a long And then he vanished Because DC hated Joker And in the 70s he came back scary 70s when they were We're standing there like No Joker was cool That's like relaunching

[00:55:36] That's like Neil Adams Yeah exactly The Joker's five way revenge Which was a great Joker story And then yeah In the 80s as everything in comic books It escalates And Alan Moore wretches the killing joke Which he paralyzes back Or he shoots her

[00:55:48] He takes naked pictures of her It's terrible Frank Miller does Dark Knight Returns Sure But then Alan Moore later was like I don't like the killing joke I don't think I had anything to say with it Like I feel like I should have been reined in

[00:56:01] It's just kind of negativity and darkness And I feel like comic books Have only leaned more into that Which I don't like And then he's like Joker doesn't represent anything He's a comic character who is Batman's Like you know opposite He doesn't really stand in for anything

[00:56:14] Like that's sort of his fun It's like it's tough to do something allegorical With Joker because he's not a stand He's a comic book character Which I think is what people find so fascinating About him and why we cannot fucking Give him up as a character

[00:56:26] We want to keep doing the Joker Because it's like he kind of Is just this fucking Rorschach test Like he's kind of this reflection Of whatever the fuck we're feeling And how much meaning you want to put on To him or lack of meaning thereof

[00:56:39] The smartest way that anyone has ever dramatized The Joker is just the The Nolan game of his changing backstory I love that Right? Like that's perfect That's the best writing I've ever seen The Joker in any medium Aside from the quality of that performance Right?

[00:56:56] It's just that is like That's it That's what we find fascinating about the Joker Is that any one of these backstories On their own Would make sense for such an Indefinable creature of evil But the fact that they keep on shifting Means it's maybe one of these

[00:57:08] Or none of them Or who fucking knows Or maybe it's all put on And then also What if he put twisted on his head Right, well damaged Damaged sorry Fuck What if he laid In the On the floor around a circle of knots

[00:57:22] He does that in this movie right? Uh yeah That's in this one? In Joker He does that every night before he goes to sleep He lays out his Brooklyn ins And then carefully arranges knife by knife Around his head Does he sleep on the couch

[00:57:33] Or is it like a two bedroom? He sleeps on the couch Right I was trying to get how squalid his apartment is supposed to be Cause initially I was like Wait did both him and his mom have rooms Yeah It's alright

[00:57:45] Also anytime I see squalid New York City apartments I'm like that looks fine Well I mean that is I've lived in apartments that are worse than that That's the story of New York Cause the homes were often good You know they got bad But you know good bones

[00:57:55] Good bones Is the gentrifier's then said Good bones For as Ben Hosley says All the time about bones Uh bones Also Joaquin Phoenix Look at his bones He lost all that weight to get all the boneys Ben was actually making that type of sound He's kinda gross

[00:58:12] It makes me cringe Yeah I know You know it's fast He's done it before right There's another movie he's really skinny The master he's very skinny And there's another one He definitely fluctuates Yes But I'll say this Here's a massive difference between Paul Thomas Anderson

[00:58:24] And Todd Phillips right One of them is They only have two names And that's it And they're the same other ones Other ones Equals Joaquin's crazy skinny in the master And he's doing the same sort of Weird what you call a ham sandwich performance For sure

[00:58:42] It's a lot of mannerism This is that too in my opinion I mean I prefer the master I rewatched the master for the umpteenth time A couple weeks ago I should rewatch it I think it's a phenomenal film Does it have anything to say about the current moment

[00:58:52] We're living in I think so No I was about to say Like doesn't it obvious I feel like it's really relevant right now I think it's one of those noises Kind of actually about everything In the way that the Joker is about nothing You know

[00:59:03] Joker's about how society's the biggest Joker also Yes But But But In that movie He's doing ham sandwich I think he's supported by the film 100% It's a better performance It's just That time I'm not that fond of that type of action And you Yes

[00:59:22] And you tend to like I love him in like James Gray movies I love him in Uh sister's brothers You loved him in He's really good He's actually funny in that Science is great in You like him when he plays normal guy I do

[00:59:35] I mean the James Gray movies I would say are probably my two lovers We have them tonight Those are probably my favorite walkings I feel like there's another walking I really like Two lovers is phenomenal Incredible in two lovers Which is like A sort of quiet ham sandwich

[00:59:47] Yeah Like you know Her he is excellent And I'm not a huge her fan I don't like that movie I don't either Really But I think he is so good Oh well um You know you'll never really hear Well yeah I wasn't sure if you like that performance

[01:00:01] As much as I do Oh I love that performance It was my best actor when I was four-faceted He's also very dialed into that movie Yeah He's tone in the right way I don't know I really love that performance He is someone who

[01:00:10] I had been pretty sick of him And then he gave me those Yeah He is someone who kind of lives or dies Based on the collaborator Sure You know because he is a guy Who by all accounts is so sort of Experimental and throwing shit out there

[01:00:20] That he needs to work with somebody Trusts and guides them the right way And picks the right fucking footage And this just feels like Todd Phillips Was telling him on a day-to-day basis To do weird shit And then just compiling two hours Of the weird shit

[01:00:31] Yeah I mean there's definitely Some stuff like that The dancing Yeah Um is something Phoenix came up with Totally He was supposed to like laugh or whatever And he was like What if I did this dance And Phillips was like Oh that's good

[01:00:45] And those moments in the movie Are something They're something They're not that interesting But they're at least something It's interesting to talk about Like they feel a little different Comedia del Arte kind of reference Maybe Um and it's just sort of like

[01:00:56] Something to hold onto in that movie When most of the scenes in the movie I was kind of just like Can we get this over with like The use of his body Like he is all twisted And skinny in the master right And it's interesting to watch

[01:01:08] All the positions he gets into But it's not fucking Like fetishized like it is in this Where it feels like One day on set Because of the lighting He bent into a position shirtless And Todd Phillips was like Oh you look like a fucking David Kronenberg creature

[01:01:22] Yeah you look like a face So now every other scene Is gonna have you shirtless In some position that no one Why is he sitting on the couch With his back fully arched So that his rib cage is This man is He's a joker But that's the point

[01:01:37] It's all just like Oh that's a good joke That's a good joke when he does that Guys a friggin clown Is there one joke in this movie? I guess De Niro's got some zingers No the sense one is okay What's the sense one? I wish my

[01:01:50] I hope that I hope that my death is worth Something about sense Remember the sense joke De Niro's got some zingers I wish De Niro just down like Five minutes on like Jimmy Carter or whatever That would have been funny The De Niro cast thing in this

[01:02:05] The scene him do cars stuff The obvious thing here is De Niro's cast because of Fucking king of comedy Yeah 100% But it's also funny where it's like What are the two things That Robert De Niro One of our greatest screen actors Of all time Reading cue cards

[01:02:16] I would go even more specific Than this okay Go ahead go ahead Live televised comedy Right And talk show appearances He is famously The least articulate talk show guest But this is like top of the heap for him now Right Yeah Like this is his best late night

[01:02:32] Talk show appearance ever Yeah He at least is a little He's you know He's bringing it It's funny also I saw someone tweeting About how like They heard young people in the theater Being like Robert De Niro's like Not believable as a talk show host And it's like

[01:02:46] Oh cause now talk show hosts are like Yeah Shots Yotsy We're just talking about Fallon But also Corden Yeah sure The party game sort of like I'm just a good guy I like everything thing Where as talk show hosts You specifically be Here is an ornery old man

[01:03:02] Who seems to resent All of their guests He's fucking kids in that disco Man no I'm not allowed to say fuck But who's watching And you see Like Here's another example Of where this movie Almost gets at something But doesn't actually Throws in so many conflicting points

[01:03:16] That doesn't actually Understand any sort of View on anything There's something kind of To the idea Of a talk show host Using the Joker In the way that like David Letterman used Harvey P. Carr Or like Harmony Corrine Where they were like Look at these weirdos

[01:03:34] I'm gonna set them up to do weird shit And act like What a fucking freak Yeah You know There's something there Kind of But it's all really Just to set up Almost The final thing Right And also I refuse to believe For a second That walking Gets up

[01:03:51] One time At a stand-up club The entire movie Yeah it goes viral in 1980 Gotham or whatever They film his set And send it to Get the fuck out of here Why would he put That's not bad enough To make it onto this guy's show Yeah Right? The set

[01:04:06] Especially not a Carson style Show Maybe like a fricking Carson daily show You know what I mean Cause it's more like Every open mic In New York City Every open mic No Pure two points One Every open mic performance Is more embarrassing than that Right Two

[01:04:22] If someone got up on stage In an alt room in Brooklyn And just laugh for three minutes Yeah people would be like Oh who's this guy This rule It might crush My friends I don't mean like I feel like

[01:04:33] If this thing you can't make it through your jokes Would destroy it They get new faces This thing is set in 1980 Yes Or whatever Like cringe comedy Is not even a thing No That's like danger field Is going on Carson And being like Doctor ready boom bots

[01:04:47] Like we're not ready for like Feeling awkward And having that be funny Like that's not happening yet No those kinds of videos Weren't catching on to the mainstream No Carson didn't like that shit In that way But can I tell you about something David? Yeah So yes

[01:05:02] We were talking about the The Marie Anderson thing That whole element of it It is weird denier broadcasting Aside from the fact that You know it's the inversion Of the king of comedy thing Yeah Because he's not very convincing As a loose charisma based Comedian

[01:05:17] He is not very convincing Delivering those jokes He is not very convincing of like The rhythms of the power You know what I agree with that but you know what He is compelling Cause he's Barbara Denier So when he's like hosting a late night show

[01:05:28] I'm like I'd watch He is innately compelling And I will say this I think when you get into that final Sort of show down between him and Joaquin And it's actually just an interview I think he plays that very well Well, good actor He's a good actor

[01:05:43] But I'm saying you could have made him more of like A Morton Downey Jr Made him a more like aggro Sort of conversation based talk show host Or even like um You know who's the guy who used to go after Carson Who was basically Tom Snyder

[01:05:56] Yeah Tom Snyder The idea of making him like A fucking Borsch Belty Like one liner guy But they need it for their stupid You know plots set up where he Is actually like Tosh.0 Right And they need it to be deniero

[01:06:09] Because do you get it King of Comedy Now here's the other thing I was thinking about the sort of The Scorsese Robert delusional movies Right and I came up with that the other day Coined it TMTM But the taxi driver King of comedy Sort of like

[01:06:25] Here are these sort of delusional loners Who live in their own kind of weird fantasy worlds With their sense of I'm the hero of my own narrative I'm just sort of barreling Towards this ultimate success And the validation I believe I deserve

[01:06:38] And how many people vainly try to emulate those movies And the other one I think of that was also A Warner Brothers film 10 years ago Is Observed from Report Which was like you know There are other examples before that and after that

[01:06:50] But I remember at the time that one was so big That got so much taxi driver comparison Right And Rogan was saying it in the press And what Jody Hill was saying in the press And everyone was like we're trying to make that kind of

[01:07:01] Morally ambiguous, anti-hero delusional Everyone always talks about those movies Used to be so morally ambiguous We want to make them really ambiguous And every time someone tries to do it You're like they don't have their hand on the dial In the same way Scorsese did

[01:07:16] That was an unfair comparison But it maybe speaks to why this type of movie Which is so difficult to pull off Should only be pulled off by you know One of the greatest filmmakers of all time Yeah I mean Like maybe it's an advanced ropes course

[01:07:29] That everyone can't jump but watching this movie Another thing hit me which is that Scorsese has a pretty deep And innate sense of empathy Yeah And the thing with those movies is They are not glamorizing these guys They are not making them underdog heroes

[01:07:45] But they also aren't just Beating up on these dudes And Jody Hill likes making fun of delusional people And Todd Phillips likes making fun of Shitty behavior And this movie feels like So you're not an observant report fan I like it, okay

[01:08:01] In my mind, we're always talking about shit I think it has stuff in it that I find interesting It has very interesting elements To your point It was also just at the time it was like Seth Rogen was playing mostly sweethearts And it felt very much

[01:08:13] It was exciting to see someone It just felt like him being like You know, I want to make something that's Going to kind of freak you out It was nice to see a movie star trying to push Boundaries and sometimes they mess To your point

[01:08:24] Think of the comedy set in King of Comedy Right That is really good writing It's really subversive comedy He makes a joker He makes a joke about Clifton, New Jersey And then he's like Oh, we got anyone in the house here?

[01:08:38] Like anyone would be from Clifton, New Jersey? Like he's just, wow Yeah, I guess I would say yeah But this was the thing I was thinking Close, yeah kind of close This was the thing I was thinking about watching this movie Which it's like

[01:08:51] It is so deftly handled In King of Comedy The level of skill he has as a comedian Where it's like He will never make it He's not like this Where he's actually like shouldn't even be allowed He has just enough competency

[01:09:07] That you believe that he thinks he's going to make it Which is the very specific line And the movie isn't asking you to constantly be like What a fucking moron For thinking he can do this So this movie begins I mean just because this is like

[01:09:22] He's meeting with his psychiatrist Right, I have a joke book Yesterday I wrote Diary I started writing a joke book His joke book slash diary He talks about how he's going to be a comedian She's like okay, you know She opens up his joke book

[01:09:35] And it's basically just like he's scrawled like murder Murder death death I am a Freudian nightmare Right, like he's just sort of like He's also like cut headless bodies out of porn magazines It's like the most Riddled with misspellings He's like a literate

[01:09:49] It's the most hacky fucking like You know SNL version of like The Diary from 7 or what Right, like it's just like Serial killer diary for me Right, like that's You're messaging three things at the same time You're going A, this is like

[01:10:04] The evidence of a psychopath after he commits his crimes Right, B, these are bad jokes They aren't funny They're badly constructed This guy doesn't get jokes And C, he's a moron Because every time they cut to a sentence in his book It is so wildly misspelled Right

[01:10:19] He uses the wrong word You know always The other thing I want to point out is There's a point where he says have like HAVE Like I have to go do this Or whatever I know So he's like Okay, go on Well Taxi Driver

[01:10:33] Which was written by Paul Schrader A good movie that is well written Sure Yes Was inspired by the diaries of Arthur Brammer Who was this guy who tried to shoot George Wallace Or maybe did successfully shoot Yeah, he shot him And like

[01:10:50] So you've now filtered this like four times Right, it's like That genesis of an idea of like A diary of a madman And like Paul Schrader, right He was like working as a taxi driver And going crazy And like writing this screenplay In the back of a car

[01:11:04] And like that sort of like The energy that's driving that movie notoriously And you got three very academic thinkers De Niro, Scorsese and Traitor And here's another big element That movie has working for Those three guys were all Actually living with palpable frustration About their careers

[01:11:21] And what they felt they were destined for They also lived in the actual 1970s Right, they knew that shit Right But even if they're exaggerating it to like A violent psychotic degree That movie is funneling the energy of Scorsese, De Niro And Traitor each going

[01:11:36] I know I have the goods Why isn't letting Anyone letting me do the thing I can do Especially at that point Traitor very much so And so then this we have this This movie is kind of like a taxi driver prestige In that it's like about to create

[01:11:48] Kind of But it's plot wise It's more Taxi drivers Taxi driver because it's about a guy who Eventually commits this act of violence He's under the boot And like he's kind of Regarded as a hero in a weird way He keeps fucking everything up

[01:12:01] Everyone keeps on fucking him over Right And he's got this diary Which Taxi driver has this diary You know, like this diary concept Where he's talking in his head And all that And this is just such a like Such a like Boulderized version of that

[01:12:17] And it's not very profound It's also that thing When like people say Like why don't they make movies like that anymore Right It falls under Lindsay Ellis Who is a film critic and thinker Is very good on YouTube Posted a video that I think is great

[01:12:35] That's such a good counter to the argument Where people say like You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today Like you'd never get away with it Because of PC wokeness And her old retort to that Blazing Saddles may be my favorite comedy Of all time

[01:12:46] A film that she loves as well She says You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today Because there's no reason to make Blazing Saddles today Blazing Saddles is a product of the time it was made You know It was based out of a righteous feeling

[01:12:57] That was existing underneath the surface of society Its transgressions were interesting Because they had never Those lines had never been crossed before There was no reason to make it today It would be regressive What you could do is make the film That is the equivalent for our times

[01:13:12] As Blazing Saddles was No, no, you have to make Taxi Driver again That's the fucking problem Is that people go I want to make a movie like Taxi Driver again And rather than go Okay, let's like adjust the compass And figure out what Taxi Driver is for 2019

[01:13:24] Well, they did And they decided that it was Joker Because now we make comedy movies So that's what they did That's what he did Right? That's like he's like There's another line in that Vanity Fair profile Where he's like If I can't make comedy

[01:13:39] Is I'm gonna make something like that Where he's like Fuck you There's a lot of fuck you energy It's about the weird fucking energy Of straight white men Online Feeling like they're the person That's what everyone was picking up on it You know, as it Right

[01:13:54] Started to gain steam Not so much that this is a movie about a guy Who's like looks at the camera And is like incels March You know, like But it's just more that It has this It's a very Taxi Driver subplot Yeah

[01:14:06] In which he likes his neighbor down the road Down the hall played by Size Beats Yeah And they have this relationship That I immediately was like This is in his head And then later in the movie It's basically revealed Like yeah, that was in his head Right

[01:14:19] He's talking to nobody You go either this is in his head Or this is the single worst film ever made Right This is an inept piece of characterization Even by the standards of this movie Right But it's not it's in his head

[01:14:32] It's the civil civil shepherd thing again Basically like again A sort of bolderized version of it Right From Taxi Driver What the fuck does any of this mean? I don't know He's the joke He's the clown prince of crime Yeah I don't know

[01:14:46] This guy puts makeup on a fish So it's like You know what I'm saying though Not what does it mean in terms of like How do I read this I mean like what does it mean in terms of like Does any of this matter?

[01:14:56] Is any of this of any consequence in this movie? Oh like the Zazy Beats stuff or whatever There's been this much time on multiple dates With Zazy Beats where I'm like You on a scene by scene basis Are doing nothing to convince me

[01:15:09] That this could actually be happening No that's the problem So I'm watching it going It's the problem You're gonna fucking pull the rug on So these scenes are a waste of time The guy is As you've been pointing out Sort of various ways Like yeah

[01:15:19] The guy is too much of Sort of weirdo Sort of idiot He cannot even do an impression of a normal person He's not a functional human being in any way So it's impossible to imagine I thought I had is it's revealed that

[01:15:29] His mother and her boyfriend would beat him Like he was a kid who was abused Right And then what does he do Kind of right after finding out information He breaks into his girlfriend's apartment And terrifies her and her daughter That doesn't make sense

[01:15:43] In a scene that also they kind of like Leave dangling And you don't quite know what happened after that Like did he kill her Did he just run away It's already a movie where you have Like the fucking weird There's gonna be 50 fucking posts on the internet

[01:15:57] That are like Definitive evidence that he kills her in that scene Right or that she lived And that she kills him But I love stuff like that The rest of the movie is his death dream David don't you love stuff like that

[01:16:06] Like remember when Joker and the Batman Met Met Did you love that What you like about it What's your favorite part I don't know I mean I love the Joker he's great And when he sees a little boy He's Batman, Bruce, type of

[01:16:19] Oh we're talking about this movie Okay okay alright so look Look Cause this is the thing This is the thing I actually have to talk about This is the thing that We all have to talk about There's almost something here Oh I don't know about that

[01:16:30] But it looks I don't think the movie does it at all I'm watching this movie I'm watching this movie Yeah And I know that Thomas Wayne Is it played in it Played by Brett Cullen Which I thought was hilarious He's in the Dark Knight Rises

[01:16:40] This is a different character Yes And like really you can cast a slightly wider net But whatever He's one of the fucking hands He's the fucking congressman That the cat woman kidnaps Right of course Yes I knew he was one of the suits Yeah

[01:16:52] And so he's playing Thomas Wayne And like it turns out Joker's mother was Who worked for the Wayne family Francis Cameron And believed Thomas was Joker's father Maybe she made that up He finds a way Or maybe it's true Who knows The Joker's crazy

[01:17:07] And that's why he's fixated on And there's a scene with little Bruce Wayne Played by some little boy And you're like oh it's Bruce Wayne He does magic tricks And he sticks his fingers in the little boy's mouth That's weird And the security guard's mad at him

[01:17:21] And he's like Joker's like I was just trying to And I'm like is the movie supposed to make me Feel sympathetic for Joker? I thought that guy was supposed to be Alfred Yeah maybe Yeah that was my take Which I thought was kind of

[01:17:31] Well I'll get to this Bad job by Alfred Yes Don't let him near the gates But I understand the entire point of the movie is This guy's fucking weird and twisted But when he put his fingers in the kid's mouth I was like this is bad

[01:17:44] Don't do it No good To put two fingers in And at this point This movie has had this progression Of terrible events happen to the Joker I'm just gonna take us through the pot very briefly That's where it just feels like fucking We need to

[01:18:00] So like there's the early He's beaten up on the street by a bunch of kids Who are not white That's true Because most of the people of color in this film Are either clerks They're either angelic or Service workers Or coolagans who are later referred to as savages

[01:18:15] But then there's I mean then Joker gets a gun and it goes off In one of the better scenes in the movie The hostile Yeah no that's just weird No when he has the gun and he Fires in it goes off

[01:18:29] That's a scene that's loaded with some actual tension That feels like He's watching the musical on TV Yeah and it feels like it's about a person Who would be sort of on their way To committing acts of violence Not the most interesting thing in the world

[01:18:43] But at least like a small scene that has tension I was hoping that he was gonna go Are you laughing at me Are you laughing at me And then he's harassed by Wall Street Bros on the subway One of whom played by the great Ben War

[01:18:57] Great hero comedian Who sing Sondheim at him Huge Sondheds And he shoots them They're coming straight from A performance of Meryl who he real world You got that in the subtext right Sondheim It's a little night music I know that a little night music

[01:19:17] Is send the clowns I'm saying they know The whole body of work They just saw passion So It's the Bernie gets It's the most obvious like 80s parallel right Bernie gets Whatever Couldn't take it anymore guy who shot some kids Who were hassling him on the subway

[01:19:39] In a very racialized crime But he became a weird sort of folk hero To It's a part of New York's history That is loaded with all kinds of Attention Todd Phillips sort of takes the basic Imagered Ben puts in Wall Street Bros

[01:19:53] Singing Sondheim kind of robs it of any kind Of meaning whatever that's the Joker's Big crime The whole violence against the rich You know It's sort of 10 years too late Occupy Wall Street shit where it's like But so This is something that can radicalize a city Right

[01:20:13] So vague but then it starts to radicalize a city And there's a mass Joker on the loose And everyone's got that on their lips And there's almost something interesting to the fact That they are Wayne employees If you're dealing with them

[01:20:25] Back to Wayne which is just like the big business He's also running for mayor and he's running in this Bloomberg Chobesque way where it's like I actually know how to help everybody And people are debating whether we need some rich guy coming

[01:20:35] Business man thing but also he's like whatever He's gonna be hard on crime It's sort of also this His version of deplorables was calling people Clowns which got everyone upset I didn't even remember that They say that in the script that he was like

[01:20:49] These clowns on the street And that became the deplorables And he got like You know you got like the scene that he takes the gun out of The Children's Hospital Kind of a good gag What kind of a clown has a gun

[01:21:03] I thought that was kind of a funny line Gets fired from his clown job He's a clown for hire This movie is loaded with comedy seller guys It's like Gary Goldman Is in it Sam Morell is in it I'm forgetting his last name Guru Barnes Other clown employees

[01:21:23] Makes sense if he's pulling from Marin and whatever I even thought the club Looks kind of comedy seller And he does the bad side of the club Gets made fun of by Murray Franklin on TV This is all going on She's a real person Pad here for Zazie

[01:21:41] We've seen this guy as well What a talent This movie is a huge hit so that's good She is a huge talent I mean as you say Where he puts his finger in a child's mouth No no This British man comes out His mom has a stroke

[01:21:59] She's hospitalized The British man comes out And he He goes look I'm Arthur Fleck I'm Thomas Wayne's son He goes oh my god you're Penny Fleck's kid And there's that sort of bone shell And things go cold moments And then he says like you don't know

[01:22:17] He's fucking crazy She made up this delusional lie She was institutionalized Not only that you're adopted He can't be your father And anytime he learns his information Your mom is crazy And your life is bad No person like empathy A moment like this is a stranger

[01:22:37] You're not going to ruin a stranger's life You're twisted, you're damaged They should tattoo it on your forehead He goes to the Arkham Asylum Talks to Brian Tyree Henry Another incredibly wasted Pretty good in the scene His mom had a stroke because of the cops Remember

[01:22:55] Bill Kamp and Tail Wiggum Interrogated her too hard And she had a stroke He goes to Arkham Asylum, he looks at the file And then Brian Tyree Henry sees something That makes his blood run cold And he goes like you can't see this

[01:23:09] Because the file details all this Abuse, he suffers a child And he sees that and not only that He sees the clear adoption paper Now there's almost something In this For me, okay? And I don't think the movie gets anywhere close to it

[01:23:25] But for a second I went oh fuck Is this what they're trying to do Because it is talked about a lot In hacky standup routines That Batman is kind of this weird Republican fantasy That he is an insanely rich man Who uses his wealth for good

[01:23:41] And he's just care of the actual crime Which tend to be a lot of crazy people Right, but I mean like that kind of commentary Which as you say happens all the time Is kind of like You know Batman was not initially developed

[01:23:53] That way because it was like the 40s And costume heroes just meant a different But yes That stuff that comes with a character existing For 80 years, okay? The character is going to end up taking Every possible dimension and possibly could So here's

[01:24:07] But here's what I want to say You know you have a point you want to make as well I want to set them up as dual imprints What do you want to say? The latitude this movie Potentially has by being A Joker movie By being black label DC

[01:24:23] By being out of continuity Is because Batman is not the hero of the film Is barely in it A movie could kind of actually try to grapple with That sliver Of Batman's legacy The weird power fantasy and money fantasy Right? And get your government hands off

[01:24:39] Of this guy can take it Himself And the idea That someone like Thomas Wayne Would have complete impunity To pretty much take advantage of anyone he wants And could probably use the law and money On his side to cover it up in any way he wanted Okay

[01:24:57] Someone like this could Impregnate someone who works for him I know what you're saying, yeah, I know what you're saying Have her institution wise Okay, so now I And I know the movie wants to exist in the grey area But it also feels like that's just

[01:25:11] Kind of like A red herring to set up No actually he is just the most crazy And abused child of the most crazy And abused woman And again as we said It just can't pick a thing And instead wants to do this sort of like

[01:25:27] Look I don't know what's true and what isn't Which like already Joaquin and Todd Have sort of dropped that kind of in a few interviews As well with it like hey maybe Maybe Joker made that up Okay, fine Yeah, but then The Joker, we love him

[01:25:43] Can you just call him Joker in fact When you introduce him call him to see it First he kills a couple guys Or just one guy who visited his apartment There's that scene The bloody murder of the You know the big clown guy The little person stuff

[01:25:59] Is just so I think that's Not only that You saw it at a Screening at a phone festival We saw it at the AMC 25 And their audience lost their fucking Shit at the fact that the little Person could not reach the locks And they literally started yelling out

[01:26:19] Oh my god he can't reach the locks Cause he's a midget Yeah, right, right, right That's what I found just kind of So that was a moment where I wanted to Get into the depths of hell Where the Joker lives So there's that scene which is another

[01:26:35] This movie doesn't have a lot of violence But it has these brief sort of flashes Of violence that are somewhat Effective I guess It's a slick looking movie It has this pretty In my opinion really bad score That is incredibly over the top

[01:26:51] And sort of like doing that whole Like can't you tell this is serious Like sort of thing The costuming, the cinematography And the production designing this movie Are kind of unimpeachable And also just a lot of great location shooting Which I really appreciate just generally

[01:27:07] But especially for this kind of movie The graffiti on the trains like capturing that era of New York Todd Phillips acquired Scorsese's producers Right although Scorsese's actually Not on it Which I think that was probably because he saw where This movie was heading and was like

[01:27:21] I don't want to get tied to a thing that doesn't Actually know what it's saying The official excuse was something along the lines of Like oh he's got too much going on I mean, Scorsese who everyone likes To fucking yell about all the fucking time

[01:27:33] On the fucking internet Produced the souvenir this year Like you know please check out His like world cinema stuff that's on He produced Margaret, Criterion Channel He goes to bat for other filmmakers a lot And he is incredibly generous There's another great movie he produced this year

[01:27:49] Fuck what is it? I gotta find it now Gotta find it! Don't you agree that I have to find it? Because he does that I like a lot Scorcheese! The thing that Marty Scorcheese does That I like a lot is he knows how much Cloud he has

[01:28:03] Oh right so if he is working with a filmmaker Who is taking a step up in budget Or studio or whatever He will often negotiate That he gets final cut Because he knows they will not give the director Final cut And he will just say

[01:28:19] For example, Joey and Ahog give me your cut And I'll tell A24 this is my cut Right And I think he doesn't want to Extend A24 podcast of Johnny Hogg That kindness to films that don't need it Sure maybe that was it

[01:28:33] I don't know, I mean he certainly could have put his money His name on this thing But Todd Phelps did use a bunch of his team And they are the best Especially at working in New York So Joker goes on the talk show He shoots Murray Frankl

[01:28:49] Shoots him in the eye Bang bang with a gun Kind of a striking scene in and of itself Certainly a disturbing and striking scene You're watching two Doesn't really have anything to do with anything in this movie Really

[01:29:03] It just didn't feel like the movie had built to this In the correct way at all But when you're watching it it's tense And I'll say this, it felt like the creepiness Of watching something Like Like what's it name, Bud Dwyer You know But that feeling of watching

[01:29:21] A very creepy grainy video On YouTube of like A TV tape What's the movies about Christine Right, those things Those weird urban legends Those horrible sort of like Violent acts on TV The bases of death During this sequence I went this is actually Bottling something For me

[01:29:47] That I don't think the film has earned up until this point I don't think it knows what to do with After it's done That's the slickness, right? It's like yeah It'll get a rise out of you Watching something very weird about

[01:29:59] Why is this man wearing clown makeup on this talk show Watching it from the vantage point of an audience Who has no context and isn't watching a Joker movie And when they cut out to the grid of TV screens I go

[01:30:09] This is kind of an argument for trying to make a Quote unquote gritty Joker movie How scary would it be if in the real world Some guy came on the fucking David Letterman show And seemed like he was tiny Tim And then got weirdly morose

[01:30:23] And then shot a guy point blank So then what happens after that scene Is like a riot breaks out People wearing Joker masks It sort of gets tied up as you say In this kind of half baked Occupy Wall Street Sort of like the poor are rising up

[01:30:39] Against the rich, yeah right Already become a full hero just as Because he shot a couple suits in his subway And now he's taking credit for it and there's a name And you know Look While this is all going on a couple of rich guys

[01:30:53] And their kids decided to go see Zorro At a fucking theater And then we watch for the millionth time As Thomas And Martha Wayne are going down In front of their son Down to the pearls You beat me to my joke

[01:31:09] What are the fucking pearls? Why? What's your joke? I was gonna say David that's true but they add Something to the equation that hasn't been in any of the Depictions before which is the pearls being pulled off Because it's crazy that

[01:31:19] Everyone feels the need to not only show This fucking scene But get the fucking pearl Insert as well But it happened not in an alleyway in the other movies right Yeah no right in the other movies it happened On an escalator David also massive correction

[01:31:35] They don't get killed walking out of a screening of Zorro They get killed walking out of a screening of Zorro the gay blade The George Hamilton comedy that is What if Zorro was gay Where it's 90 minutes of The kind of very subtle nuanced Thoughtful gay jokes

[01:31:49] That only like 1982 could bring That Todd Phillips ostensibly Got cancelled The cancelled police came for Zorro the gay blade And they drove him out So we see and when that You can't be a gay blade All the best gay blades have given up When that happened

[01:32:09] I had no idea that they were going to do I neither I threw my hands up and I looked up And I went are you fucking kidding me So you were not spoiled You were fear you had told me

[01:32:19] You confessed that you were afraid something had been spoiled for you Someone tweeted something about the Thomas Wayne Joker's mom thing Oh I see no that's not I just could not believe when I was watching this movie That had been so laboriously like

[01:32:31] We're not a comic book movie Where you know this is really a stand alone Then I'm like oh but you had to kill The Wayne family for the 50th time Yeah And then like I guess suggest Like you know because like classically Yeah in any Joker

[01:32:47] Origin in the comics Especially in killing joke Batman is tied to his origin He's robbing a place a chemical plant In both the 50s origin they kind of gave him And then the 80s origin they're more revamped Batman's already a large

[01:33:01] And he's going to snatch him and he dives into the chemical plant Or falls in a way and like turn And so that's why he's always focused on Batman That's sort of like the original And so now I guess it's just like You know they're tied together

[01:33:13] In that way like Batman Either their brothers or Or yeah Let me ask you this It feels like the movie like having This final like how profound And you're just like I don't think that's anything I think if they were actually The legitimate and illegitimate Sana Thomas Wayne

[01:33:35] The movie could make some Kind of statement About nature versus nurture No it's not true It wouldn't do with nuance What else are you going to say? Correct me if I'm wrong I believe walking finks is 49 years old And the boy who plays Batman in this

[01:33:53] Looks about I don't know 10 He's 44 years old The boy is 10 So you're saying like Thomas Wayne would have had to be like 20? Batman never becomes Batman Bruce Wayne ever comes Batman canonically Younger than like early 20s He's going to be chasing around an old Joker

[01:34:17] At his absolute youngest The first time he puts on the cowl Joker's 60 Here's something Joaquin Phoenix said I'm sorry to report it I know but I do want to actually just tell you That he said this where he's like what if This movie is like

[01:34:31] The Joker of the comics Sees this And it's his like So it's like this is not about Like the comic book Joker It's about like a guy in clown makeup Who does this thing and becomes like a notorious Figure and the other

[01:34:47] Joker's like drafting off of that or something I don't know he said this in an interview The final scene is him talking to Grace right? Who I love And he's in the Arkham or whatever Because the movie ends with The fucking cops Have him in the back

[01:35:07] Johnny C. and Tempo Johnny C. and Tempo one of the best Stunt coordinators In the business Worked on the tick but also worked on The Fast and Furious movies and is my source For all the Vin Diesel stories I will never tell on Mike

[01:35:21] Plays the cop who's driving the car And is like Where'd he get off? But then some clown in an ambulance Crashes into the police car and they pull His body out and they raise him to the rafters And he gets a standing ovation

[01:35:35] And I went okay you know what fine That's what you want for this movie He takes his bow he finally gets his recognition And then the movie tax on this extra scene That is just Here he is institutionalized That I've seen a couple of people suggest

[01:35:49] What if that's the only real scene And everything else was in his head Man Okay then great I don't know The movie means less than it already means Yeah I don't know maybe He says You wouldn't get the joke

[01:36:07] He's laughing and he says you wouldn't get the joke And then you see him running away and he's leaving bloody footprints Before he says you wouldn't get the joke It cuts to Bruce in the alley with his dead parents Implying that the thing he is laughing at Is

[01:36:19] The orphaning of a young child And then he's got bloody footprints suggesting He killed April Grace as well I guess And he's dancing and then they chase him I liked it when there was the old Warner Brothers logo That was the high point of the movie Joker

[01:36:35] You want to do the box office game? I was trying to think of a more interesting thing To do, we're recording this Very soon after I mean we could try guessing I just feel like it's going to be boring You want to know where I often struggle more

[01:36:49] With things that came out in the last couple of months Than older releases It's because so much of my box office memory Is tied to the time and place when a movie came out And when that is indistinguishable from when we're recording Sure But give me the five

[01:37:03] Joker did 96 More than Justice League Number two Would be whatever was number one Last weekend Was it number one only for that one weekend? Correct And it was, we're talking about October It dethroned hustlers It was something of It actually dethroned Downton Which is number three

[01:37:27] Downton, Sioux Plexus It's been a robust October It has, it's been quite a robust October Number five is the very high grossing In September film It chapter two Did you see it chapter two? I did Here's the thing I decided this year

[01:37:45] And I'm trying not to be a grump But it's just the thing I decided I am not forcing myself Out of obligation to go see the big movies That I know I'm not going to like So I liked it chapter one just fine

[01:37:57] And I heard such roundly negative things About it chapter two that I went I'm going to prioritize seeing smaller things That I think I might like and I will I'll watch it at home sometime

[01:38:07] They don't need my money, I don't need to vote with my dollar for that I don't think I enjoy seeing it that much But what is number two? Number two, defeated Downton This is weird because it's like I've seen marketing for it And I'm like, huh?

[01:38:21] This exists? Yeah, it exists I made little impression In two weeks it's made $37 million And I already forget That it exists Downton Abbey beat Rambo And Ad Astra Ad Astra is seventh and Rambo is eighth And this was number one Ad Astra unsurprisingly has a

[01:38:41] fairly comfortable worldwide total because of Brad Pitt's stardom This weirdly might unlock it for me Can you tell me what this film did in its first weekend It's number one weekend I believe it made around $20 million That's great, 20.6 20 on the Nug 20 on the Nug

[01:39:01] Seems like that didn't help No it didn't, I thought it would It's a generic number one Alright I'll tell you that it's a children's film Of course And I'll tell you that it Seems to be Oh, abominable Geared towards an international audience Abominable Yes He's the snowman

[01:39:27] He is Wait, he's that serial killer? Yes, he's the snowman He gave him all the clues If only Joker had given us some clues Good boys is still hanging out In the top ten 82 But 100 worldwide 107 Lion King Did quite well But ended up basically New

[01:39:55] Give it some time Yeah, it's going to need To hang around, Hobbs and Shaw We've done it about 1737 58 worldwide We disagree about this, it did very well But it is a big drop from the main line Fast and Furious centuries What did Fate make? Fate was humongous

[01:40:15] Fate I believe made 1.2 billion Yeah it did, yeah But I think given that You know if they're trying to launch A second franchise I guess they're all happy about it It's not like they cut That's a terrible movie I'm going to judge it a ton

[01:40:31] I want to talk about it A movie I have not seen That made 18 million dollars That's more than The Goldfinch Right? It's more than The Farewell Are you talking about the highest grossing in the pen and film of the year? The peanut butter falcon

[01:40:49] A weird box office phenomenon Sort of like I guess Feelgood movie That was at Sundance but made no impression So our shyly buff in Dakota Johnson Bruce Dern That's right About a boy who likes wrestling I believe, who runs away He runs away from his assistant living home

[01:41:09] Or something like that And he's sort of got a rural river guide Yeah and they have an inspirational story I've only seen the trailer once I have not seen the film I saw the trailer and I went Well I will never think about this movie again

[01:41:23] And it's done pretty well The 88% on Rotten Tomatoes The highest grossing independent film Of the year Has outgrossed many studio releases That's all Do you know a single person who has seen the peanut butter falcon? No, here's my thing I must know a critic who saw it

[01:41:41] I don't know At some point I guess Peanut Butter Falcons get nominated for best picture this year But Best peanut butter But it premieres in South by People are like A charming light film Roadside picks it up That film is going to make $4,000 It's not like Shia LaBeouf

[01:42:03] Is box office gold But weirdly, Roadside Attractions Has Kind of cornered a market On selling indie To the Heartlands And I think they wisely recognize This is another mud Mud a much better film I presume Love? But that kind of surprise

[01:42:23] Out-of-the-box success where that was a movie that played at 8 festivals, no one bought it Wasn't seen as commercial and then did 20 million plus And Roadside has also Had more success selling Faith based films than most studios And studio arms So I think

[01:42:39] Peanut Butter Falcon is just not targeted to us I think we're the coastal elites We're the Thomas Waynes and our Ivory Towers So the jokers of the world are Love to peanut butter falcon I don't mean to slam there The peanut butter falcon

[01:42:53] We all know that the joker's favorite movie is Joker That is the only movie he would like I'm sure Murray Franklin did a road to Movie or whatever right Like he did a sort of Bob Hope movie at some point in his career What if Tanero is like

[01:43:09] Out-of-the-success of Joker Out-of-the-success of Miami Nomination for playing Robert Mulder In SNL I will join the cast of SNL football We're going to use the de-aging technology from The Irishman to make the young adventures of Murray Franklin Is it Murray Anderson? Whatever Final thoughts Don't like it

[01:43:31] No I was like I was watching and I was like I think this is a four for me I think there are enough individual elements That I can respect Taken on their own That I can't completely throw the movie out

[01:43:45] I don't think the movie in and of itself Has any real Weight or thought or value I was kind of astonished By how little there was And as I was saying to you right before we recorded I was like last night In my bathroom being like

[01:44:01] I think I know what my final summation on this movie is going to be Having not seen it And I watched the film and all of that was thrown out Because I thought I was going to watch a film That was well made

[01:44:11] And was dangerous in sort of its intent I saw a movie that kind of is just Shitting on the stage and throwing shit at the audience And going like if you don't get this you're a fucking square And then just basically poking at all

[01:44:21] Like truly scary people out there And also saying this is art You have to take this seriously Right So we were talking to producer Rachel And she was like how is it Do I have to see it and we were like no

[01:44:35] And she's like is it what I think it is And we're like it's a movie that yells at you That it is what you think it is And we were very convincing argument You know what's a better story that's like this Read Franz Kafka's metamorphosis Yes Metamorphosis

[01:44:52] Watch Taxi Driver You know what's a great work We were talking about Stephen Sondheim's Assassins The favorite musical of those three bros That Joker killed on that subway train Is a musical about Presidential assassins And it is It was controversial at the time

[01:45:12] People thought they were glamorizing unsavory people But it is a work that actually tries to grapple With the psychosis of people on the fringes of society Love assassins That is a master artist Actually putting a lot of thought Into what they're saying

[01:45:26] And the weight of what they are making Because that's the whole thing When Todd Phillips goes oh it's a heist movie We're using the Joker as a shield To be able to get a 60 million Dollar drama made within the studio system

[01:45:38] The thing he is not thinking about is The vehicle you are using to that end Is a huge fucking franchise It is a character that has A lot of cultural weight And a lot of cultural messiness A lot of cultural weight As one would say

[01:45:54] With great power comes great responsibility And if you're gonna fucking use the Joker To make your big movie, you kind of gotta think about what you're saying No, Todd Phillips does not care about that He does it right? That's what I'm saying You saying that to Todd Phillips

[01:46:08] I can just imagine the extent to which he would jerk off Invisible penis So rigorously Viciously No, I'm not saying it to his face I'm saying one should think about that Yeah And he doesn't I don't know, that's the Joker We're done with that

[01:46:28] I don't know, do we ever cover a DC film again? No I love that idea I love the way which looks At least like something Off the schedule I'm done talking about these movies I guess, well the real question is

[01:46:44] That's the question, it's like Aquaman 2 and Wonder Woman 2 Aquaman 2 and Wonder Woman 2 are sort of And the similar And we like James Gunn Alright so fine We like James Gunn's tweets We don't have to set hard in fast rules for sales

[01:46:58] But like Birds of Prey is one of those things where I'm like That looks like A pretty fun or somewhat Comforting movie It's sort of that thing where I'm like I don't know if I'm automatically like That there's gonna be, it's gonna be so bananas

[01:47:12] That we need to talk about And what we found interesting was the shambling mass Of DC trying to make a pokey sub thing And that is gone For the better probably If anything good comes out of the Joker I hope it is that they green light

[01:47:26] Like some fucking else worlds movies That they let someone make like Superman red song Or President Luther What about joke errs? There's many I mean you joke but My point is What I don't wanna see is like I don't wanna see like Abel Ferrars freeze You know

[01:47:46] With Walk and Maybe? That sounds good I don't wanna see the twisted version But there are great standalone DC Stories That could make good $30 million More high end dramatic films And it would be nice if the success of this movie Encourages them to do that

[01:48:06] I worry it will just be more Empty provocation Yeah Let's never speak of Joker again I love that idea Great, wrap it up Wait a second are you telling me Yeah you're kidding We're raising it to the rafters Oh my god It's up there Ricky T So long

[01:48:33] Sayonara Sucker Thank you for listening Please remember to rate or subscribe Thanks to Intriguda for social media And Mike Irving for our theme song Yeah it rannles and Joe Bowen for our artwork Next week Gemini Man A very, very different movie Lovely movie compared to this

[01:48:53] Very optimistic and some shiny movie We got A Man on the Wasp Coming up on the old Patreon feed I think we have Whisper of the Heart first Oh we got Whisper of the Heart with the old pheromone A legendary member That just posted

[01:49:09] A trivia team walking penis Look at all ties together And then A Man on the Wasp coming at the end of the month No yeah we just posted that Next week Gemini Man goodbye Never want to speak of Joker Did you guys think Joker's kinda like Trump?

[01:49:25] No no no seriously it's retired But can I just say to end our episode as we should Formally And as always I'm still around What? Remember me Richard T. Bain