turps

Yeah, I think that Mikeyway's super domestic life kinda snuffed my lust for him? Like, I still find him pretty and I'm deffo eager to see him back onstage. Yet, at the same time, I don't feel that swoosh of >:) I used to feel some years ago. Unlike, say, Frank whom I still find hot AF. I dunno.

Okay, the Joker stuff...

So, the movie had its premiere at a film festival late summer and won the grand prize. That's around the time that the pushback against it began in social media. Some ppl were saying that the movie could potentially glorify white angry dudes and give them a bigger platform that agreed with the idea of violence being the best thing ever. I'm over-simplifying but that's the gist of it.

The media took notice of this and amplified that notion of the movie being DANGEROUS and CONTROVERSIAL. And they tied this narrative to the 2012 mass shooting that occurred at a Batman screening in Colorado.

Meanwhile, no one (except for folks who had attended the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival) had seen the movie at this point.

AND THEN THE PRESS TOUR BEGAN. Which turned out to be something of a disaster. At one point, Joaquin walked out of an interview because he was perplexed to be asked about the (potential) correlation between the violence in the movie + its message vs. the online backlash. Per what I remember, Joaquin did v. minimal press afterwards and things got so dire that WB's PR department didn't allow a single interview during the US premiere of the movie in late September. IIRC, photographers were allowed but no one asked Joaquin et al any questions.

MEANWHILE, Todd Phillips (the director of this movie as well as raunchy comedies like the Hangover trilogy) went in to the HARD defensive. He said that he purposely moved away from a genre he loved (comedy) because everyone was being too PC and comedy was dead (which isn't true).

He also said that he had a v. specific idea for what kind of movie he wanted to make (w/r/t the Joker) so he 'fooled' the studio to give him money for a comicbook movie...and then went about stripping all of the comicbook element off that because comicbook movies are trash (paraphrasing but he really did put down the genre).

Among the last things he said was in line of him being an ARTISTE and folks (who hadn't seen the movie) were whiny brats.

So, his attitude seriously put me off. I totes get why he felt like he had to stand up for his movie since some ppl went way off about how the movie was THE WORST (TM)...but the ppl commenting the loudest hadn't seen the movie.

HOWEVUH, there's no reason why he couldn't have just said "listen, give it a chance. Maybe it's your thing, maybe it's not your thing but I hope ppl approach this film with an open mind", etc.

ETA: I think Joaquin will get Best Actor nominations in all the awards, but I really doubt he'll get the Oscar. This year is super packed with really good performances and, as good as his might've been in the Joker, it wasn't the only good one.