Tag: Frances Conroy

Todd Phillips has directed a handful of movies in the past, including every Hangover movie, Old School, Road Trip, and Due Date. All comedies, not all of them necessarily good, but all comedies nonetheless.

So it makes sense on that level for him to direct a movie called Joker. After all, that title sounds like a comedy.

Oh wait, this is a serious drama piece, about the origins and rise of a super villain? A big acting movie that is probably going to be offered awards? Oh uhh…Todd? Are you sure you are ready for this?

Nothing screams out humor like a clown smoking on some stairs. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is an adult, but why? Being an adult sucks. He has a disorder that causes him to laugh out spontaneously, and annoyingly, at weird times, so much that he has a card to warn people. He used to be in an asylum, but he is doing much better now. He works as a party clown, for kids, or whatever the occasion, even if it means standing on a corner with a sign.

More importantly he cares for his sick mother (Frances Conroy), who used to work for the Wayne family a long time ago. She still hopes they will respond to her letters, because they are good people. She is bed ridden now, and Arthur´s income isn´t a whole lot of money. But Arthur is kind to her and watches their favorite shows together and makes sure she is comfortable, even if he is having a bad time.

Like when he gets beaten up by some kids who steal his sign. Or his job threatens to fire him, or when they do actually fire him. A lot of bad is adding up, and he can´t take it. So when he kills some young rich adults in self defense, it starts a movement in the city. A city who is tired of the wealthy getting away with everything but murder, while the poor suffer.

This whole thing is a big misunderstanding, and a joke. But maybe it is just what Arthur needs to find his purpose in life.

Also starring Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, and Bill Camp.

Phoenix playing someone with mental illnesses? You don´t say! 

Now that it has been out for over a month, most have you had already heard the praises of this movie and its record breaking $1 billion in the box office. It is by far the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time. All these records needed was just to put a superhero tag on the film and they were good to go.

Phoenix does an incredible job, but this type of role is something he has shown again and again in previous movies. It is very much in his wheelhouse, they are just usually more independent films that no one feels like watching (and honestly, a lot of them I have disliked). No other actor is really a standout here, although De Niro is at least interesting in his role.

This film offers a very unique look into the start of a movement, and the start of a supervillain. It does not say the Joker is right in his regards, but pointing out societal problems is good in the long run so that we can collectively all work on making the world a better place. There will always be problems between the classes, when one side suffers over the other. And a movie like Joker takes that to the logical conclusion. Eventually people get tired of being pushed around.

And yet, all of this is still an over simplification of what Joker is all about. The only really way to know, is to experience it and see where it takes us.

4 out of 4.

1350 may be the least significant number in human history that is divisible by 50. Maybe. But it is my number and that’s why I like it.

Because today is my 1350th movie review, meaning it is time for another Milestone Review! I have now switched to the format of “Well known bad/awkward movies” from the past 10-15 years. And hey, maybe they aren’t actually that bad! Maybe they weren’t given a fair shake.

Maybe. And this is double exciting, because it is Yay Women Week, so I am able to showcase something like, Catwoman, and have it fit a theme and be a milestone at the same time. Literally the best.

But also, I am doing this because of regrets. This should have been my last Milestone Review. I ended up reviewing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow last time, on a week full of movies that only had 1 word titles, all beginning with C. Jeez. I dropped the ball on that one.

“If I was a cat, I would never drop a ball ever again…”

The movie begins with our “hero”, Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) dying and drowning. This is alledgedly also the day she finally started to live. You know, one of those movies that spoils some shit.

So instead leads go back to before and man, Patience really really sucks. She is a graphic artist for a make up firm. Really good it, but a beta bitch so she doesn’t try for much. She has a friend, Sally (Alex Borstein), and I am honestly already done talking about her.

She is a Meek little woman. For instance, she will mumble at people across the big ally to turn off their music. Mumble at them to stop and then get all sad when they don’t.

She works for some place called Hedare Beauty (yawn), and they are going to release some new skin cream, Beau-Line (bigger yawn), which can reverse the effects of aging. Allegedly. That’s right. This movie is about fucking skin cream.

AND CATS TOO. Jeez. We will get there guys. Calm down.

Needless to say, there is something weird with this skin cream. Apparently if someone stops using it, they will start to eventually develop huge rashes on their face. Clearly the solution is to never ever stop using this skin cream. Problem solved. Dr. Ivan Slavicky (Peter Wingfield) wants to pull the plug on it, BUT NO. THE HIGHER UPS NEED IT TO HAPPEN.

Somehow, Patience gets lost trying to turn in a presentation update and finds herself in the factory with the scientist and overhears the negative effects of it. Great, now they have to kill her. Not really seeing her, they rush to kill her anyways. She escapes down some big tubes, which they “flush” out. And of course this involves filling them completely with water and going over a cliff HUNDREDS of feet into the air into the ocean. If anything, this company should be brought to justice for their clear inability to not pollute the ocean at extreme levels.

Either way, she washes up onto the shore and the cats start surrounding her and meowing at her with extreme prejudice. And you know. she comes back to life.

Extreme. Prejudice.

You may be wondering why the cats did this. Well, it turns out they tested her earlier on in the movie, and it took twenty minutes to get to this scene. But I wanted to hurry and get there. The cat in the picture, went to her apartment and went on a dangerous part of railing. For whatever reason, Patience went out to try and save her. In reality, it looked like she just wanted to jump. Which is how she met the cop, Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), who a character I won’t talk about anymore calls a “Man Sandwich”. saves her instead. Aw, true love maybe.

But also, we all should realize there is no way that man should be considered the most attractive man ever.

Either way, back to the cats. They gave her cat powers. You know, a love of milk and fish. Jewels and shiny thigns. Apparently the ability to climb really well and some dexterity. Magical cat shit.

She even follows one and finds out they belong to our resident crazy cat lady (Frances Conroy). They thought she was worthy of their cat powers, and have been doing it for thousands of years. So hey, she can be the next Catwoman. Or something.

The cats also convince her to cut her hair and be more daring!

Either way, Patience loses her job for reasons, so starts doing whatever she wants. That is apparently stealing jewels and stealing hearts. You know, she goes into a jewelry store to steal stuff, all cat like in her new leather outfit, and OTHER CRIMINALS ARE ALREADY STEALING. She is all “What a PURRRRRFect idea!” because she hates the viewers of this movie.

She also wants to get her dating on. You know, with the cop. So they do fun date things, like volunteering at youth areas. And the kids might demand things of them, like watching them play one on one.

ONE ON ONE BASKETBALL. LET’S ALL WATCH.

Did you watch? You better have. Only two minutes. It is probably the worst scene of the movie, which is full of these. They basically have awkward feel up moments on there. And the scene is full of bad music and quick cuts, but the music only gets worse and the cuts get even quicker the rest of the movie.

Hell, now she has confidence to break up the party across her ally! And she is wearing leather, well, even LESS leather than before. And motorcycles!

Sickest basketball moves I have ever seen.

Now that Patience has found out that less is more with her outfit, she goes night clubbing to find the first guy who tried to kill her in the factory to get some revenge. And she discovers a whip, and she is good at using the whip to beat his butt! Hooray!

But let’s get back to romance. They go to the carnival. And hey, the ferris wheel starts to break while they are on it. Good thing hunky cop can climb down to try and stop things, and Patience can sneak down and save a kid with her cat-abilities.

Their romance works out fantastically. So that is good news.

But hey back to the other plot. Evil corporation owner George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his wife, Laurel (Sharon Stone) are having marriage problems. She used to be the face of the line but she is getting old, so there are new younger girls. And he is probably cheating. Catwoman thinks she can trust Laurel because she is mad and has helped her get details on the bad people. Turns out, Laurel was just framing Catwoman. How so? Well, Laurel decided to kill her husband because she wants to own the company, wants to get rich and get back at him and also, fuck Catwoman. Amirite?

Oh yeah, not only does the framing pretty much work for putting a bad spin on Catwoman, but her cop man figures out the connections so Patience totally goes to jail.

I am sure at some point she is breaking some public indecency laws tto.

Needless to say, everything is about to hit the fan. She is jailed, the company is about to release bad skin cream, and she is in jail. Somehow she is able to convince the cops to let her go and investigate the company. Well, that is good news.

So Catwoman goes back to the factory, wanting to find evidence to shut it down before silly women everywhere get rashes on their face, or worse. You know, they actually get the benefits of the product and Laurel gets filthy rich on them. Before I talk about the ending, let’s look at another Catwoman pose.

The pose makes it so she can pounce, bite, and bat at yarn.

Guess what, it turns out Laurel has been using the project almost forever. Well, longer than any test subject. So her skin has actually kept the youth but also is as hard as marble. Yeah. Bet you didn’t see that one coming. Now Laurel and Catwoman can fight without it just being an awkward gun fest. No, the cop can handle the gun fest. Instead we get our Catwoman scratching and clawing Laurel and not really leaving a mark. Because you know, Marble.

Seriously. The main villain gets to just be a rich woman who has hard skin and is kind of mean.

Guess who dies during the fight? Yeah, of course, Laurel. She gets a bit scratched up, and almost falls to her death, but Catwoman tries to grab her hand and save her. Too bad Laurel sees the scratch marks in a reflection, is so disgusted by her outer looks, that she shrieks and falls to death. Not a normal fall, but into a neon light thing, allowing her to fry up after the fall as well.

So Catwoman gets cleared of all charges and decides to become a good guy super hero! Just kidding, fuck the cops, she just wants to do what she wants to do. So yah. End of movie. Catwoman will now no longer roam the streets until she appears in The Dark Knight Rises, completely unconnected to this movie.

In case you missed it, the film ends with a cat fight.

This review gave this film way more courtesy to the plot than the actual screen writers must have done. It took only four minutes or so into the movie before I had already hated it, and I still had 100 minutes to go. Things were not looking great.

I couldn’t even get through the basketball scene without pausing and taking a nice break. Even if it is the worse scene, the other scenes were not much better. The last time I have seen that many quick and headache annoying cuts, it was thanks to the film Getaway (which honestly might have been worse in that department, but I don’t want to throw up again just to find out if it is true). The puns weren’t even enjoyable puns.

The ending was atrocious (Word of the day, sorry), and of course the CGI was bad. The movie came out in 2004. Almost nothing good came out in 2004 in terms of CGI. Outside of Harry Potter 3. Spider-Man 2. The Incredibles. Oh okay, no, it was just bad shit thanks to whoever made this movie.

This film single-handedly ruined Halle Berry’s future. She had the occasional spark after it, but nothing that would get her into any award territory. Let that be a lesson for everyone. Catwoman is terrible, and can kill your job.

0 out of 4.

Its amazing how non observant I am in the real world. I recognized all the names on the movie Stone, but I must have gotten lazy after the first two and wandered off each time. Had I known this was a movie with Edward Norton, I would have watched this much sooner.

Doesn’t mean it is good. Just means I like his acting.

And his hair style choices. I have always wanted corn rows. Edward Norton is now saying I should try it out.

The story is actually about Jack (Robert De Niro), a parole officer who is a few weeks from retirement (of course). His next and last case involves the prisoner who wants to be called Stone (Norton), and has been in Prison for about five years in a nine year sentence. He claims to be on a new path, spiritually, and got put in prison for arson. He also describes his wife, Lucy (Milla Jovovich), as an Alien from another planet due to how hot she is. She is depicted as someone super active, sexually, and a elementary school teacher. Wooo.

Eventually, through some prodding, Lucy finally convinces Jack to meet up with him to talk about releasing her husband. And she seduces them and sex happens. Jack, who has never broken a law in his life, and never cheated before, but isn’t necessarily a good guy, just good at seeing through bull shit. He has been married for 40 years (to Frances Conroy), but the marriage is loveless and stale, mostly his fault, and she feels trapped in the house.

Eventually Stone gets out of jail, per Jack’s permission. BUT WILL I MEAN DIRE CONSEQUENCES?

Also, Milla is a lot more naked in this movie than you’d have guessed.

So, what starts off as a movie in the thriller suspense genre, at some point turns into straight drama, sort of spiritual based, sort of fate based. Sort of something else. I was definitely interested in the beginning of the film, but found myself bored and not liking the way it was going.

The acting in it, don’t get me wrong, it was good. Even Milla. But the story? That felt weak. Not only that, but unfinished to me, and then at the end, pointless.

I like there to be a point to my time watching movies, and I feel like I wasted 2 hours. Good acting is not the only important thing to a good movie.

1 out of 4.