Joker: Folie à Deux - In Defense of the Sequel - Quantum Recast: Your Favorite Films, Recast In Different Years

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of Quantum Recast.
I guess this is technically anIn Defense of the Sequel,
basically, yes, I would say so,just kind of a modern version A
live version.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, kind of in real time as it's happening.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm your host, corey.
With me, as always, is Nick,and joining us today is the
return of Ash.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Hey, good to be back, really looking forward to this.
Hello, hello.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
From across the pond.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Because that's how important this is, Corey.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
This is how important ?
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Cinema's on the line, Corey.
We gotta defend it.
We gotta put these DC people intheir place.
We gotta tell the Marvel peopleto pack it up.
We got cats and dogs livingtogether.
Any other infamisms, innuendos?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
At this point I go beyond these.
I think nerds are a problem.
I'm kind of like I'm about tobecome a jock.
I hate nerds.
I think nerds can't consumemedia anymore.
I just think all nerds and allnerd adjacent fandoms are just
trash at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
This is the point of the podcast that the majority of
people listening turn it offbecause they're like I can't
wait to see what these guysthink about Joker.
They're going to bash it.
Then we're like oh, you guyssuck.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, so we're talking about Joker Fully a day.
We're probably going to call itJoker too from here on out,
Just just for time.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Ash lives in Europe, which is about the size of the
mall, so you probably understandfrench and its accents.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
you can pronounce it correctly right, I think you did
a good job.
Yeah, joker folia de, which ismadness of two americans.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
We've called it folia do.
How do you do folia?
Do, yeah, folia do I'm sure alot of people said folia dukes,
more like folia deuce.
Americans, we're idiots, we areum and so uh, but that's what
we're talking about.
We're talking about.
I'm gonna call it joker toofrom here on out.
Okay, um and so uh, because weare the minority, apparently

(02:16):
allegedly we.
We enjoyed it and anybody'sstill listening.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Just immediately smashed, whatever it is
somebody's that's going to holdon.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Let's hear him out.
Um.
So, uh, yeah, this, thispodcast, has become.
How can we upset our viewershipum?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
we trashed all their franchises last episode, and now
we're just gonna, you know,just put the killing blow in.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah which I mean.
I think the only reason we'retalking about this is because
and y'all can answer thisquestion for me um, I cannot
think of a time where a moviewas this divisive.
Last Jedi is the last sort ofthing it is, but I still think
people were like okay, likethey're like he hated it or he
didn't love it.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I feel like it was more 50, 50, if I'm being fair,
like where it was like half thepeople loved it, half the people
really hated it, and this oneis more like if you hate it.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
You're triggered beyond belief that anyone could
even remotely enjoy one second.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
It's more like 70, 30 , 80, 20, of like people who
loved it versus people who hatedit absolutely well.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
I would even go higher than that, to be fair.
The stuff I've seen online andfrom what I've heard like close
to 90 10 at the moment it's justridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
It's an onslaught it's growing, it keeps getting
stronger in its power.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
And I mean do we have any useless critic stats on
this movie?
I don't have them pulled up.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I got some useless critic stats for you.
if you're ready for it, yeah,let's hear what people and
critics think Well just to divein Joker, directed by Todd
Phillips of Road Trip, oldSchool and Hangover fame.
He and co-writer Scott Silverreturned for the sequel who they
both wrote, joker.
Obviously, the cast is JoaquinPhoenix, but it added Lady Gaga,

(03:48):
brendan Gleeson of TroyBanshees, of Insta and 28 Days
Later, and Catherine Keener frombeing John Malkovich,
40-year-old Virgin.
Percy Jackson Budget of $200million roughly.
The box office opening weekendmade $37 million.
Weekend made $37 million.
To many's dismay, domesticcurrently has $51 million with a
worldwide gross of $165 million.
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 33.

(04:11):
Critic a 32.
Audience Metacritic gives it 45to 43.
Audience.
Imdb has a 5.3, so higher thanI thought.
Okay, all right.
Letterboxd currently sits atthe average 2.5 out of 5.3, so
higher than I thought.
Okay alright.
Letterbox currently sits at theaverage 2.5 out of 5.
And then we have our listingshere.
Corey gave it a 4.5 out of 5.

(04:31):
, I myself gave it a 3.5 out of5.
And, ash, I couldn't find yourLetterbox score.
Maybe you haven't scored it outof fear for your life, which is
fair.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Mine's right in between both of yours.
It's four out of five.
I would give it Four.
Okay, All right.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Is that good?
So clearly we enjoyed it fromdiffering levels of.
Enjoyed it to 4.5, which ishigh praise.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
I loved it.
I thought it was great.
I thought it was a perfectlyfitting I don't know
continuation of the first one.
I told you when we first saw itthat like I mean I had to like
I'm not one of those people thatgo like runs to Letterboxd
because I think that's stupid.
Why would you do somethingreactionary, like things should
fester and sit with you?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is definitely not the kind of movie you just
immediately react to.
Yeah, so I was just like allright.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I think when I left the theater and I, me and my
wife were driving home and shewas like I need, I want to see
the second one because I likethe first one, and she's like,
did you like it?

Speaker 2 (05:24):
and I was like I'm not sure cory was very quiet on
the drive back.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yes, no because I was analyzing, because I was like I
like it, I don't like it no.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
I like that because you immediately should expect an
answer.
When you go over a group offriends to the cinema, like, did
you like it and everyone saysan answer yes or no you can't
possibly know until you, likecory said you let it sit with
you for about a day and you'relike, wow, that wasn't like for
me, oppenheimer I.
I couldn't say if it was a goodfilm.
I had to wait about a couple ofdays to realize, wow, that was
a masterpiece.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Because I couldn't really absorb it at the time and
I think cory's right, you needto sit with it, which is why
these reactionary responses tothis movie is just ludicrous at
the moment and I think it's oneof those that's like the fact
that it was, uh, so criticallydestroyed and stuff kind of made
me more interested in it,because I think and we'll get
into this obviously, but I thinkthe expectation of the fans was

(06:11):
one thing but what it ended upbeing was more commentary and a
continuation of the message andthe story that was going on in
the first one.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah Well, let me ask you this Maybe this is the
first, and this is kind of myopinion, but let me ask you guys
, do you?
Maybe this is the first, what,and this is kind of my opinion?
Um, but let me ask you guys, doyou guys think this movie was
dead on arrival?
Do you think it even had a shotat the box office, because it
seemed like the hate was alreadythere?

Speaker 3 (06:33):
it's a good question actually yeah, I think it was
ready to be hated because therewas all this talk ages ago when
they casted lady gaga, that waslike okay, that's interesting,
we're doing a harley quinn movie, which it wasn't.
And then it was like two monthsafter that that they said it
was a musical and a lot ofpeople were like this is really
cool and exciting.
But it's amazing, those samepeople hated the movie because
they wanted it to be different.
And I think this film was readyto be hated, for I don't know

(06:55):
why.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
I think it was just a people were just finding it
convenient to hate it for noreason, even before the movie
came out I think it's acombination, a perfect storm of
a lot of things, but yeah, Ididn't want to interrupt your
final thoughts there, ash, sorryno, no, I just.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I just think it's a dangerous thing we're doing,
which is joining the bandwagonwith this movie, and that
bandwagon has never had so muchroom for people to jump on in
the entire history ofcivilization, and that bandwagon
is social media and that isjust burning like a forest fire.
Someone says something, someoneelse says the same thing and
the really annoying thing aboutthis whole thing people are
saying it's a bad movie and theyhaven't even watched it because
they're just saying the reviewsare so bad that they know it's

(07:31):
bad.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
And that's really annoying and I don't know about
it.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
It's happening all over here like people just
refusing to go.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah no, it's happening here too, on the state
side and see.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
that's what I picked up from a lot of people on
social media is that they wereall on this fence that were that
divided, haven't seen it versus.
I went in expecting to hate it,which is like then the
integrity of your opinions kindof gone Right.
Either you're judging somethingyou haven't seen or you went in
with a bias that's affectedyour ability to watch it Like
there's movies that I've gone towatch where I was like worried

(08:00):
about it.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I was like I don't know if this will be good or not
, but there's very few films Ijust walk into going.
I'm going to hate this movie.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Why would you do it?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Why would you even go ?
At that point I could seepeople going I'm going to wait
and I'll watch it later afterthe hype's died down and I can
have a better opinion about it.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
that isn't so influenced If you went to go
watch a movie that you knew orexpected to hate, then I don't
know what's the matter with you,right?
I don't know the point, unlessyou have a predetermined thing
that, like I, need to go in so Ican collect ammo to be another
talking head on the internet,just for rage bait and
engagement bait.
You know, because I mean like noone's getting paid to be a

(08:36):
critic anymore, except for a fewpeople that still are at dying
newspapers and you know peoplethat have got on the know very
beginning of youtube but youknow 90 of reviews.
Um, if you look at rottentomatoes, this movie has 300
actual, like accredited I'm acritic, get paid to do this
reviews versus over like 10 000just talking head because that's
what it is now, and we hearmore from just the guy next to

(08:59):
us on you know threads ortwitter their opinion more than
someone who's paid to analyzeart which is stupid anyways that
we pay anyone to do that.
But like I've just wondered likehow many people didn't see it
or went in ready to hate itversus actually cause?
Like I went and saw fast andfurious Hobbs and Shaw as a
hater of that franchise, but Iwent and saw it cause that movie

(09:21):
looked good.
Okay, did I expect it to begame-changing for cinema?
Not really.
But I don't go see the new onesbecause I'm like they'll just
make me mad.
They're dumb.
But I went and saw the one withthe Rock and Idris Elba and
Jason Statham because thisactually looks kind of fun.
I don't have to look at VinDiesel, but that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Why would you go watch something you hate and
have a bad time with?
Well, I think it's just the waythat things it's we joke about,
like the cinema sins era ofthings, where it's it's easy to
pick things apart, but it's alsolike you you and ash were
already talking about, likecritics had already.
We we've gotten to thismentality where, like your
cinephiles or even just regularfans, will just go to rotten
tomatoes and go well, that has arotten score, so I don't.
I don't want to go watch that,or I, oh, I think it's going to
be bad or you start you know thethe the instant people start

(10:05):
posting stuff online like it'syour spoiler.
Spoiler alerts are just a thingof the past.
Because, like you, basically,yeah, you're gonna watch a movie
or something, yeah, you justhave to turn off.
You just can't check your phone, like sadly that's completely
not something I agree with, butit's something that's just
happened now, like you have toknow it's going to happen but I
mean yeah, go ahead ash, no, no,I was just gonna say you're

(10:26):
absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
I think it's all predetermined, because you got I
know someone who doesn't watcha film if it's not rated higher
than 7.0 on imdb and I'm like,well, you're denying all these
films that you potentially mightlove hidden gems and it's just
films that are rated high by godknows who.
A collection of people thatactually aren't critics, just a
collection of people who havegot an imdb subscription, have
just decided to put theirstatement on there and it's

(10:47):
really toxic and I think thisnew era of people and I don't
know what I want to call it, butpeople probably born over past
20, 2005, let's say, and that'sbeing generous and that is, you
know, a generalization.
So I apologize, but let's justbox it up and say that there is
an era where this art formdoesn't exist, which is to go
into a film and watch it becauseyou want to watch it, not
because someone's told you towatch it, not because someone

(11:07):
says it's rubbish, um, that'sgone now.
You don't go and watch filmsfor the hell of it anymore.
You watch it because someone'stold you to, or you watch it
because there's an actor in it.
There's, there's.
I usually watch a film thatI've never heard of just
randomly on a streaming network,and it should be the easiest
thing in the world now becauseeveryone's got a library of
films accessible to them which,unfortunately, is done down by
an algorithm.
It picks what you want to watch, but you do have that option to

(11:29):
venture out.
But Joker is, take, you know, anabsolute brutality, probably
the last film I think youmentioned this probably
Alexander with Colin Farrell,the Oliver Stone movie that was
hyped up to be the big movie andthat got absolutely destroyed.
But again, you know it made itsmoney back.
Everything they were saying wasfalse, but people would believe
in it and the film, for me,wasn't as horrible as they were

(11:50):
making it out to be.
It was just a huge cast, bigexpectation, which is the
problem.
The expectation is the problembecause you can't meet the
expectation that you build upyourself, because you don't know
what you're in for.
And this movie has gonecompletely the other way and
it's a I think it's amasterpiece.
I think in 10-15 years thisfilm will be considered a
masterpiece by the generalpublic, because right now it is
getting a beating yeah, I thinkI think you you made the.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
You made the point that if your friend that only
watches 7.0 movies like I'm nottrying to, I'm not going to bash
gen z by itself I think I thinkthere's like our age, around
our age and down, you havepeople that are kind of in this
mentality of like I don't wantto waste my time watching movies
if I don't know they're notgood, but you're basing it.
It's all a objective, like it'sjust like it's all based on

(12:33):
someone's opinion.
That's what those scores are.
So like you're you're notallowing yourself, like you said
, to discover movies that thatcreating your own taste, and be
able to go like well, thistrashy b-tier slasher movie or
this, this really ridiculouscomedy over here that probably
would get a low score, like tocritics, but like it's a cult
classic or something that, orlike being able to find
something and share it withsomeone and go like hey, I found

(12:54):
this thing and it's awesome,you should check it out, yes,
and it's just never been heardof before.
I feel like that's the joy oflike getting to watch movies
you've never seen or beingwilling to watch those movies,
but kind of what we've beentalking about generally, I think
that the movie itself likeyou'd said, cory, it did already
kind of have like a lot of oddsstacked against it, because you
know lady gaga's and we're like, okay, she's, she's a decent
actress, we've enjoyed her andstuff, and they're like it's a

(13:16):
musical and that turns off somany people like they can't get
past that idea of a musical.
But you had people still going.
Okay, I'm into that.
It's kind of the first one wasyou had.
It seemed like there was alevel of like trust with todd
philips, of like, okay, thefirst one was great, so you're
doing all this weird stuff.
So I'm kind of into it.
But I feel like as we gotcloser, more information got
dropped of like, well, harleyquinn's not going to be the

(13:37):
harley quinn of the comics orthe tv show or anything, she's
going to be very different, andthat seemed to irk people.
And then him saying he wantedthis to have a definitive end,
he didn't want to be part of auniverse or expansion or
anything, and him saying this isnot the Joker upset people.
And so a couple weeks leadingup to it, it felt like there was
just already this turn kind ofhappening where people were just

(13:57):
kind of getting turned againstit by the internet or by
whatever was being postedbasically, I mean, I don't know
it's.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's just one of those things where, like, we can
go through all the.
The nonsense of and I thinkthat's where I'm at with it is
like I haven't I've read a lotof reviews, cause, honestly, at
this point I'm just fascinatedby the vitriol, like the level
of hatred for this movie, whereit's just like every review
starts out with some very overdramatically worst movie I've
ever seen and I'm like, well,did you just start watching

(14:27):
movies?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
like I mean that's what I'm getting a lot of really
terrible movies out there,watching seven, sevens and up
like well then you're just anasshole, like I mean, you're
just you're.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Then you're purposely going into the world saying I'm
gonna be an asshole, I'm gonnabe a cinephile, I'm gonna be a
dick.
Yeah, I'm gonna be the typicalperson that gets interviewed by
Letterboxd and says Fellini,fellini, kubrick, and it's like
cool, watch a fucking JohnHughes movie man, and just like
chill out for two seconds.
You know, stop being an asshole.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Corey was attacked.
Ash and listeners, in case youdidn't feel the heat off of
Corey right there- I'm gettingthat vibe.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
I'm just with Ash, though.
It's just like at what pointare numbers and like critics and
the internet just destroyingour ability to like, even enjoy
media?
Yeah, you know, in general,yeah, I'm frustrated because I
did enjoy this movie.
I made a comment about enjoyingthis movie on threads and I
mean just the triggering that mehaving an opinion that was
different was insanity.

(15:22):
Like I finally had to disablecomments, start deleting stuff,
because I was like this is.
But my problem is, out of allthe reviews I've kind of read
just wanting to understand ahatred for it, I have not yet
read a genuinely good argumentfor hating it, other than
where's batman?
He didn't become the joker.
Why were there songs?
And it's like, and lady gaga'snot an actress, it's like she's

(15:44):
an oscar nominated actress.
Yeah, you know like.
And she people think she gotsnubbed a second time.
She's perfectly fine actress,sure, and it's just like, by the
way, they announced it as amusical.
Like also todd phillips I'venever seen a man spoil his movie
as hard as this guy did in thefestival circuit.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Like they were trying to like prep people be like,
hey, by the way, you, this isnot going to be what you
expected to be.
He.
We're not going to see him rise, become the Joker Joker, like
become the clown prince of crime.
Basically, we're not going tobe seeing like the Batman.
The closest time you had wasHarvey Dent was the lawyer in
the courtroom case, which waslike, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
You're in a courtroom in Gotham, like, yeah, he's
probably going to show up, youcan do that which is fine and
like it's fan service a littlebit, but like it's cool and it's
just like.
But at the same time I'm likethese people are like the first
one was so good.
I was like really Because thenthat the Joker didn't become the

(16:41):
Joker.
Or did they die?
Well, they might've died, theydied in the climax.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
It was alluded to that the whole the origin of
Batman comes from this.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, type of thing, but still it's like he's
eight, yeah, and if anythinghe's just like pushing 55.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah, Right now he's just being mad at the world
hating everything, do anything.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
By the time bruce wayne grows up, does the league
of shadows and becomes a batmanjoker's in a retirement home.
These guys were never gonnabattle it out, ever.
That's the yeah, that's the uh,the level of intelligence
people have at the moment,though they don't see past all
of that and they're justcreating these things that they
wanted to see.
And you're absolutely right.
Todd phillips warned everyoneabout this and everyone thought,
oh yeah, okay, kind of a cool,pretentious way of selling the
movie.
No, this is a musical, hewasn't just kidding around with
it.
No, lady gaga is in this.
No, the joker isn't the joker.
Or whacking.
Phoenix is trying to end, youknow, trying to get some
redemption in this movie.

(17:31):
All of these things arehappening.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
This isn't a movie you are expecting at all, and I
think that's part of the geniusof it yeah, I, I would say just
to, to, to play devil's advocatefor a moment, or just the
conversation on the other side.
I do think this is theaftermath of a world where we've
set up audiences, viewers,young and old, to expect tie-ins

(17:53):
and the next movie and the nextmovie and a sequel and a little
cameo here.
So when you're finally going no, we're going to show you a
movie where it's about story andwe're going to go off the hook
here, we're going to dosomething a little more
challenging.
It doesn't sit well withaudiences a lot of the time,
especially when you're dealingwith such a big ip as the
superhero branding as batman'smythos and joker, like there

(18:14):
there's probably.
Even if you could sit there andsay, hey, it's going to be
different, it's a musical, it'sa part of it's going to be a
courtroom drama like it's andand it's not really joker still
part of you is going to sitthere and go.
Yeah, sure, yeah, but where'swhere?
Okay, where does it tie in,though?
Like where do we get robertpattinson's batman to pop up?
Like I know, I know you're, Iknow you're pulling, because
we're so used to people havingto lie to us to not spoil movies

(18:34):
like avengers that there'sstill a piece of them that I'm
sure was like, well, surelythey're going to show x, y and z
, but?
But I mean, but to be fair, I'mon y'all's side where it's like
I don't know how else you tryto deliver the message like this
isn't gonna go the way youthink it is absolutely,
absolutely.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
That's the thing.
If you're comforted byformulaic narrative and constant
shallow notes, go watch the mcu.
I mean, they repeat the sametricks again and again.
This film and the film beforedelivered in originality, taking
risks and showing audiencessomething promising for future
filmmaking, that you can takerisks, kind of like.
It reminded me of like the 90sand some of the 80s, like they
were experimenting with films.
Oh, yes, it's a bit of a tributeto 60s cinema and, you know,

(19:10):
70s in the first movie, but atleast people enjoyed it the
first time.
I mean, it was a bit of a ripoff of Taxi Driver, the same.
You know, travis Bickle'scharacter does go through
exactly what the Joker goesthrough, not to go too cinephile
into it, but people enjoyed thefirst movie.
So that means they enjoyed the70s, not not I'm not trying to
say the whole 70s, but maybe thestyle of the 70s.
Now, this one yeah, it's tryingto mimic the 60s, but it was

(19:31):
needed for the story and I thinkit was beautifully done.
But, like you said, this, thisformulaic narrative that people
are depending on, which I thinkis down to, like attention span
of social media, that people arecomforted by knowing what's
going to happen next.
They had no idea where thisfilm was going to go, even
though they were pre-warned byit and they didn't think they
were going to go there, but theydid, and I think it's.
I think the best way someonesaid it to me was that I think I

(19:53):
think who was it was it coppolawho said it.
It says that this film does nothold the viewer's hand, and the
way he said that I was like,yeah, that's probably the
perfect way to describe thisfilm, because it's the audience
are not being baby.
There's nothing sugarcoated forthe audience.
This is a film that isexperimental and is only
focusing on the character ofArthur Fleck, not the audience,
just Arthur, and I thought Ithink it was couple who said
that.

(20:13):
I thought that was a reallyinteresting way of saying it,
sorry.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
No, I think, and you know you said like not to be a
cinephile.
I think enjoying movies young,old and new movies, like doesn't
necessarily make you acinephile, like having knowledge
of eight and a half or a couple, it's just it's when you put it
in such a reverence or levelthat nothing else can live up to
, or like that new, new classicsand stuff or new things can't
be presented and move media thesame way.
I think that's where you getthe danger yourself in a bubble

(20:41):
a bit.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah and like all right, I'll come off the ledge.
Okay, I agree, it's fine if yougenuinely watch Fellini's eight
and a half and you think it'sthis like you genuinely enjoy it
.
The problem is, is that 90% ofthe people I know who love that
movie.
If I ask why they go dead eyed,they're like and I'm like to
like it, that's fine, that'sfine, that's who you are.
Yeah, like you just want to beseen as cultured cinematically.

(21:04):
That's, that's fine, that'swhatever.
But don't come at me for likingthe lost boys, yeah, yeah, the
lost boys, yeah like that's fine.
But my thing is I'm going totell you why I think the lost
boys is a masterpiece.
I'm going to bring a lot at you, yeah for it, you know, and
stuff like that.
So it is just a matter of justlike kind of I, I don't know, I
get annoyed, uh, in in this kindof almost like new letterboxd

(21:28):
world, yeah, where we've kind ofbrought out the internet
cinephile, I think, on somelevel you know, um and uh, I'll.
Here's the next question I wantto ask do y'all think todd
phillips genuinely tanked a film, or do you think this was a
shock to him?

Speaker 2 (21:43):
from what I've read and what what seemed like to be
the reports, it's a little Iwould say mostly no like I feel
like he's.
This is also.
This is the dude who made thehangover series and stuff, and I
was thinking about this earlier, though it's like the further
you get into that trilogy, uh,the more you kind of realize
like the third one's not reallythat funny, and I don't mean it
in the sense that like the jokeyes, the jokes aren't quite

(22:05):
there, but I almost feel likeyou start to think about it.
You're like I feel like ToddPhillips is getting bored of
comedy, like he was like no, Iwant to lean more into the crime
stuff and like make it moreinteresting and stuff.
So I feel like him making Jokermakes more sense when you look
at his filmography from thatsense where he's like OK, I want
to actually make like moviesnow, or aim a little higher
beyond like the comedy genre.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, but, I think uh .

Speaker 2 (22:28):
I'm sorry.
Yeah, what was the mainquestion it?

Speaker 1 (22:29):
was mainly like everyone's like kind of.
Also in this they're asking thequestion is this like almost,
like trying to give ToddPhillips credit for like almost,
as being this like weirdartistic piece where he made a
movie to fail?
Like he like he made a movie tofail, like he like it's almost
like his big thing was he wantedthis movie to tank because it
just kind of furthers themessage of the movie of like.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Well, I think that just by choosing because people
want one thing and you're notthat thing, and you're choosing
by choosing to not follow, like,the expected route and the
thing, especially in the heat oflike such a big billion dollar
movie and going no, I'm choosingto remind people what the whole
point and the thing, especiallyin the heat of like such a big
billion dollar movie and goingno, I'm choosing to remind
people what the whole point ofthe first movie was.
It's, it's.
It's as if scorsese made wolfof wall street 2 and was like,

(23:12):
uh no, this guy's a terribleperson.
They're all terrible people.
Yeah, you forget this.
It's about greed, guys.
It's not.
It's not me wanting to motivateyou to like get into stocks and
get your game up and like havethat millionaire mentality or
whatever like, or it's like, orwall street street that predates
it.
In the 80s, like, people got inhis mind the wrong message from
the movie and you know there'swe could talk about, like how

(23:33):
quote-unquote, incels reallyleaned into it or whatever group
really like leaned into.
It was like, yeah, I can relateto this joker guy, he
represents me, kind of thing butI I feel like anytime you
decide to make that choice youare.
You are kind of like throwingup the the flag and going like,
yeah, it's gonna bomb, but likeI'm gonna keep my artistic
integrity a bit yeah, no, I wasjust curious.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
I like I know that that's one of those things
that's out there like that, this, because I think joaquin
phoenix is like quoted as sayingsomething like he expected or
wanted the movie to failmiserably, or something like
that um, I didn't see that, butthat's interesting I just I just
don't think people were readyfor it and I think that they
were ahead of audienceexpectations and I think they
know that and I think they knewthat they were doing something

(24:13):
new and experimental and I knewthey just knew it was going to
be something that.
I mean, there's a quite a bigtwist at the end and I don't
think people saw that coming.
I don't think that hadeverything to do with it.
But to answer your earlierquestion, corey, I mean Todd
Phillips, yeah, very heavy onhis filmography with you know
Starsky and Hutch, the Hangover,war Dogs, old School I mean
these are great films.
Growing up, you know rom-comsfor men and they were great and

(24:34):
revolutionary and he's a greatdirector.
And you know the Hangover Part3, I actually agree with you.
But I mean we can have thisdiscussion later.
The third one in the trilogy isalways one of the worst ones, in
my opinion.
Yeah, that's true, I would sayso anyway.
There's probably a fewexceptions, but it's hard to
sort of round it off at the endafter you've established two
movies dedicated to thesecharacters.
But yeah, I think Joker joker'sjust a character that people

(24:59):
love and I think they assumedthat it was trendy to carry on
this thing.
After heath and after jacknicholson and after jared lito,
it kind of became this kind ofpunch line to see, okay, who can
better the next person?
Because it was like it's likeplaying batman, who's going to
play batman.
It became this thing.
But this movie wasn't aboutjoker, it was about arthur, and
I don't think people will getthat until watching the second

(25:19):
movie and that's part of thedisappointment of the second
movie as well.
And I don't think todd reallymade this movie to fail at all.
I just think todd is completelyahead of what audiences are
expecting right now and I thinkit's worth the risk to do,
because I think in about five,ten years time will, time will
do its thing and this moviemight even get studied, because
I think the way he's interpretedmusic into this to, you know,

(25:41):
get his point across, is veryclever and I think the
performances are.
It's just a beautiful film towatch.
I don't get how anyone can'tsee that.
I really don't it's.
It's so beautiful the film.
I don't know if you guys agreewith me, but visually, visually,
it's just amazing to watch.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Well, yeah, the first movie alone, like the trailer
popped out.
Remember the trailer popped out.
Remember you're just going likeoh, this is different, like it's
just like the cinematographywas just so much like different
and more uh, I don't even knowwhat the right word is for but
just larger scale.
Like it made it the aestheticof the whole world that they
were building.
But also just like the way inwhich they were shot, like yeah,
you know, wider shots we're not, we're not doing the action cut

(26:17):
piece type stuff in terms ofediting and stuff like that but
it really was all about likegetting the big shots and like
sitting on them and dwelling onthem a lot.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Yeah yeah, and I'm glad.
I'm glad you said that, ash,because I think that's part of,
like, my confusion and, honestly, I don't want to posture myself
as I'm mad, I'm just confused.
I've never been more confusedby the reception of a movie ever
, and we've been doing a moviepodcast for six years.
At this point, yeah, and likeso I'm just at this point where
even longer.
Five years, five years, ohshorter I'm sorry, um, but like

(26:47):
uh, I'm just confused and so I'mglad, like that's my thing.
It is a beautiful movie, yeah,and like it's, it's just uh, and
like so my thing is.
That's why I'm confused bypeople saying this is the worst
film of all time.
It is a dumpster fire of amovie, don't?
I mean like?
I've seen talking head internetpeople saying don't bother with
it, don't see it, don't givethis movie your money, which
it's like it seems like toddphillips owes you money or

(27:09):
something like you're.
You're acting like todd phillips, like went in your house and
slept with your mom.
What's your grudge, you know?
Like it's just let people gowatch a movie and hate it or
love it on their own, but likethat's, my thing is, even if you
went in expecting this to be aswerve and it turns into a
batman franchise, or you went inand you just avoided everything
and you were shocked it was amusical.
It's still like how can youcall thor's movie ever when it's

(27:30):
so pretty?

Speaker 2 (27:31):
yeah, it's still just like a beautifully and the
acting is stupidly good yeah,flawless, honestly, yeah, you
know I I want to touch back onit, but I think this again the
more and this is all just comingto me as we're talking about it
right now but I do feel likethis was just bound to happen.
Yeah, like you have superheromovies.
We've talked about it.
There's some.
Some people have fatigue aboutit, but it it dominates ips in

(27:53):
general, just dominate theatersright now.
It's really hard to get a 30million movie made like a
ghostbusters or something backin the day.
So, like you have to.
There it came to a point whereit's like, hey, we have to
experiment within this world.
Yeah, so like you're making, ifyou just made an arthur fleck
movie, like he didn't, youdidn't call it joker, and
they're like maybe he had theclown pain or something, but you
didn't tie it to warnerbrothers or something.

(28:14):
That's going to be an a24 filmthat's seen by, you know, a lot
of diehard film fans and it'llpop up on streaming and in 10
years we'll talk about it as oneof the top 2020 movies.
But you can't make a FallingDown or a Joker without an IP
attached to it.
It doesn't have the worldwideviewpoint or the stage to stand

(28:34):
on.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Basically, but the thing is, the first movie is
essentially just an A24 movieand it's a $50 million movie For
Warner Brothers.
That's cheap, that isborderline an independent film
for them.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's what they forget is that's where all of
their IPs came from was $30, $25million, $50 million, and it
makes a billion dollars orwhatever, and so like and then I
just don't think this, and it'sjust wild.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
I just don't think this movie goes that far off the
ledge of what the first one was, that people just go.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Well, it's just, it's it's a response to the fan base
.
It's it's, it's Dune.
You know they wrote the remindme who the writer is of Dune,
but he wrote the first.
Dune.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Yeah, frank Herbert Frank.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Herbert.
Yeah, he wrote the first Dune.
Everybody said Paul's awesome,like they thought he was like.
Then dune messiah, he wrotebasically say no, this dude's
bad.
I have to remind you people,this dude's bad.
So I feel like that it wasalmost.
What he was doing was basicallybeing like, okay, well, you
guys clearly didn't get what Iwas trying to go for here.
So let me remind you, this manis, has mental health issues, he

(29:33):
is in an asylum, basically,yeah, and he, everything he's
seeing may or may not be real.
Like, and that's kind of thefun thing they play with in the
second movie especially is likeyou, there we were talking with
our friend chance after themovie and I was like I don't
really know at what point youcan really honestly say like
that was real or that wasn'treal.
Like, obviously a lot of themusical pieces were set up to be
dreamscapes and and, uh,pullaways.

(29:54):
But yeah, at certain pointsit's like the framing of the
movie where it starts with himwatching a Pepe Le Pew thing in
the prison.
It ends with him watching, Ithink, the same Pepe Le Pew
cartoon in the prison, and soyou're just kind of like well,
what was real?

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Maybe this was all in his head.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
So there's some fun that's played there especially,
but it could all be real.
That's the same thing too,Except the dance sequences and
stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
I'm trying to find my thoughts.
I'm still in a world ofconfusion.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
What I want to know not thinking outside of the fan
reaction, the critic reaction,everything outside of the movie
I want to hear from both youguys what you genuinely loved
about the movie and what youliked about it.
You can just start anywhere.
It can be Gaga's performance,it can be song choices.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Actually, before we go here, I figured out what I
wanted to ask.
Okay, I wanted to play devil'sadvocate and defend people who
hated it.
Okay, because, because, becauseI because again I do I want to
understand why people are solike aggro, like to the point
that they'll find me on theinternet and I didn't even
hashtag anything and tell me I'mfull late and uh, and it's like
I don't even like the hangovermovies.

(31:00):
Man, like I'm, I'm not we'renot a todd phillips.
Uh, I don't have his picturelike framed on my wall or
anything like that.
I don't even know he made halfthe movie, so just referenced um
and so, uh, I just liked thefirst one and thought this was a
pretty good follow-up and, uhand I'm mostly a fan of like I
like the idea of playing with ipcharacters outside of their
sandbox that they're normally in.
I thought that was super cool100% but like it seemed like a

(31:25):
lot of what people were justfurious about that didn't like
it is that they thought theirintelligence was insulted.
They thought like it wasoffensive that Todd Phillips
made a movie that was like I'mgoing to make fun of everyone
that liked the first one, whichit's impossible to watch it and
not feel offended because Iliked the first one and I didn't
feel like.
I was being attacked.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
I do feel like you've been able to find a way to
remove yourself a bit from IPsand franchises, so like it's not
as personable of an attack onyou when, like I know, the other
side is arguing like becausethey're big Joker fans, they're
big Batman fans, but mainlyjoker, they found some

(32:03):
connection to it.
Yeah, and so, like by nothaving him have a godfather 2
style like rise to power, yeah,in a court case like tony month,
not tony, but, uh, thegodfather himself, michael
colerian, thank you, same actor,different, different decade,
but having that be the way itgoes out.
I think they were expectinglike a more proper origin story
of that character.
Yeah, but todd phillips isusing it as a way to highlight
mental health and like issuelike and like.

(32:23):
That's just at one point youwere like, you told me you're
like I think I got secondhandsmoking from this movie because
everyone was smoking.
Like that's how bad the 70swere.
Everybody was smoking and stuffin the city yeah, yeah like it.
Just it's showing like a, aworld in decay, which I think a
lot of people in the first onewere, you know, paralleling with
our current state, withwhatever side of the political
spectrum you're on, whereveryou're at, like you can relate
to yeah, things are bad here,things are not going well.

(32:45):
Or, like you know, our, ourminimum wage is at a certain
point, like this needs to bebetter, like I think people
could relate to that anger thatwas kind of being festering from
the crowd in the first one andthen in the second one they're
like and that took on arthurflex joker as like their avatar,
their their voice of thevoiceless, kind of it's like
they were.
They were looking for someoneto encapsulate them.
Yeah, but like the second movieis being like this isn't your

(33:08):
guy.
Like you, you backed the wronghorse.
Like he's not who you think heis.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
No, no, yeah, but go ahead, ash.
No, I was just gonna say, andthat's a good point as well,
because the the problem I meanthe beauty of the first movie is
that we were loving thischaracter that we've never seen
before, but by name we have andthat's by association.
We've loved him and we just letjoaquin do the rest and see
what interpretation we get fromjoaquin, phoenix and philips.
And we loved it and we, likeyou know the whole dance
sequence on the steps and theseiconic moments with the red suit

(33:35):
we haven't seen before.
But the problem and I mentionedthis as well before it was
people started to like this guyand that was a problem.
That was a real problem because, okay, we've watched gangster
films before, but there's somejustification why they're
gangsters.
There's not justification whywe like someone who goes on a
killing spree and you could usea vague reason like mental
illness, but people, publicpeople in the audience were

(33:56):
rooting for him when he shotRobert De Niro, and that's when
it got bad and that's when itwas wrong and what Todd Phillips
did was correct it in thismovie, and there was a real
problem with glamorizing him atthe end of that movie, in the
first movie and I loved theJoker.
I did up until we shot RobertDe Niro as a cinematic moment.
It was.
It was brilliant, yeah peoplein the audience were cheering.
They were clapping their hands.

(34:16):
I'm like that's problematic.
That's why are we cheering forhim?
He should be.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I think that's the reaction, is like the commentary
, because, because, yeah, inthat moment, like they've built
empathy for arthur, like you'rerooting for arthur in a way but
as you go over the movie, youslowly realize like he murders
people.
He does different things, likehe's clearly has a lot of issues
going on.
So for for it to for it to beseen as, like this, victorious
moment, it should be bittersweet.

(34:41):
You should be sitting there,part of you wants to fist pump,
but part of you going.
I don't know if I should berooting for this guy.
He literally just this, is justa talk show host.
Yeah, he's a dick, but did heneed to be shot?

Speaker 3 (34:53):
Yeah, and so.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I think that's just where that whole thing shifted,
a little bit Like the schism.
I don't even know if it's aschism.
I think that's just howaudiences took it.
They were like, yeah, I want toand it, and you, you kind of
worry about it.
You're like if everybody'srooting because you're like yeah
, he did the thing that I wantto do all along, you're like
exactly, it's so bad, it's sobad.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
But then it.
Then they try, you know they.
You give him some redemption asa character because he's trying
to take it back in this movie.
He's saying look, I'm going totake responsibly for my actions.
People hated that becausethey're like oh, you're not
going to step up and be theprince of darkness, you're not
going to be any of that.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
And that's really where we are and that's really
what harley's character lee inthis movie like.
That's what her and like thepeople in the courtroom that
were rooting for joker kind ofrepresented, was.
Like we wanted you to be this,be this, yeah.
And so I get where you'reasking cory about like do you
think it was designed to to pisson the fans that love the movie
for those reasons that we saidthat more of like they like that

(35:45):
character and I'm not gonna lie, I think I think there's
there's a fair argument to bemade of that.
Where he like it's like yeah,you, you guys are representing
this, the mob you'rerepresenting.
You're represented by harley,where you wanted this joker and
I'm trying to talk about poorarthur and his mental space and
him making the better choice ofgoing like I don't want to be
this guy.
I thought we were going back inthat direction when the bomb
hit and the Joker's picked himup and I was like, okay, I guess

(36:08):
this is it, this is how he,this is him spiraling up to, uh,
falling into victory with thecrime scene and all this stuff.
But no, they.
He was like nope, we're gonna,we're gonna put him back in his
box.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
Basically, exactly absolutely, and and it's all.
And todd phillips thinks abouteverything you know.
In the first scene he'sdescending down because it's the
easy route and the secondmovie's going up because it's
the harder route, because he'saccepting what he's done.
All these little like points oftodd phillips doing it are
genius and I hope, I hope, atsome point people will realize
that this film is a good filmand, like like cory said, I
still haven't heard ajustification for why people

(36:39):
hate it, besides jumping on thebandwagon and because it's
trendy and popular, give me afew good reasons.
I'll listen to you, I'm happyto listen, I'll have a good
conversation with you and I'mhappy for your opinion.
You can have an opinion, but Ihaven't heard one.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
I haven't heard a good one yet it's a lot of like
fan stuff and that's and that'swhat I want to say.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Like I don't, like I, because I'm frustrated that
people are so aggro.
Anyone who likes it, like as ifit's a personal affront to them
.
Yeah, and I don't want it to belike you not liking it's a
personal affront to me.
I'm just like well, tell me whyyou didn't like it and all I
can get is suck a dick and I'mlike all right, that's not a
literally those were the words.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
That's uh, because it's not a really good uh
critique of the film.
We are not saying to suck dicks, unless that's.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
It's like dude, I get like you went and it just seems
like you're frustrated thatbatman didn't show up at the end
or that he didn't fire a gunwith a bang flag out of it,
because I don't know what elseyou like.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
You said, I don't know what else you do.
James guns, creating the dcuagain yeah talking about.
It's been pushed out there,like it's like hey, we're
looking for a new Batman.
We don't know if RobertPattinson's Batman will be part
of it or he'll be separate.
Yeah, exactly.
And then, time and time again,they've gone.
Todd's doing his own thing overhere.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
That's not tied to us .
It's not going to do anythingwith it.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah.
So I don't know what else youcan do to help alleviate that
for fans, but I think it is.
It's just we've been trained tolead to something else, or just
that there will be anothermovie, yeah like the fact that
they kill him at the end, likelike todd philip said, he's like
there's a definitive ending.
We, yeah, we're yeah, but likethe fact that he kills him and

(38:09):
and the way he kills him too, italso speaks.
It's, it's a he's having a metaconversation with the audience,
basically yeah, which is justwhat you expect for this kind of
movie.
That's going against the grainand it's weird because it's like
this seems like the type ofmovie that's built for, like the
people that we call cinephilesand stuff.
It's like hey, we're gonna takeyour precious little cartoon
comic book verse.
We're gonna do somethingmeaningful and interesting about
it you know what I think?

Speaker 1 (38:31):
if I could really like, maybe get to like why this
bothers me so much just thehatred from this.
First of all, I hate that thislimits maybe a studio in the
future ever saying let's make,let's take another ip out of its
sandbox and play with it in adifferent way?
Yeah, you know, because it'slike that sucks.
Luckily penguin's doing well theshow, yeah and so it's like all
right, so like, and thatdoesn't have batman in it, and

(38:52):
so it's, there's still roomwhere we can still do that in a
world.
But like, uh, also, it's justlike as a horror movie fan, it's
kind of one of those thingswhere it's like when something
like Parasite or Silence of theLambs, something where, like all
of a sudden, the rest of theworld has to take notice that
horror movies can be good andcinematic, I would be horrified
if horror fans just rejected themovie outright.

(39:13):
It's like, well, like I hatethis.
I hate that, like we're notgoing to get like an eighth
movie of parasite, or that thisis going to franchise out you
know it's like it's like itsucks, that I think what it is.
it's like I'm like frustratedbecause I like nerdy things and
I like the Batman franchise, andit's like really we're going to

(39:41):
proving the world right that weshouldn't be taken seriously no
, I think audiences.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Whatever climate we're in right now, audiences
have spoken out and they've saidthis is the type of movie we
want.
And that's the lesson thatstudios are learning is play it
safe, play it by the book, don'tdo anything too crazy, but just
keep the machine running.
But that's just ever since.
If you really look at moviehistory, you know it was.
It was built by dudes that werecreatives.
They hire people to help themdo the business.

(40:07):
Then the business people tookover.
Basically, this is very in anutshell.
Too long didn't read.
But now it's being run bybusiness people and they're
going.
What's the demographic, what'sthe gonna get us the most?
Uh, you know, money per capitakind of thing it's, it's.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
It's.
To me it's just like I wonderhow much of this is just like
nerds being gatekeepy, like withtheir thing, like they.
You know, it's like big bangtheory and all this stuff kind
of made nerds cool.
The.
Adam Brody character from the OC, like it.
Just all of a sudden comicbooks became something that you
hid under your mattress, didn'ttell girls you read.
Now all of a sudden it's girlswant to talk about comic books

(40:40):
and all of a sudden cool guysare into comic book movies.
Yeah, and it's like, at whatpoint are we like nerds?
you know, I'm sorry if thatword's offensive, whatever but
just nerd them you know, thecomic con type of people are
just like I don't like that.
Other people like this.
This was our thing.
I remember like other peopleused to like this and and like
is this a reaction that I don'tjoker was a billion dollar movie
and they're like I hate thatcinephiles love this.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
I wouldn't call it gatekeeping.
I think what they're sopassionate about it's kind of
like we've talked aboutstrangely with all these Batman
movies.
We had different iterations ofBatman.
So when we initially had, youknow, batman and Robin and
Batman Forever, when we got toBatman and Robin, everybody's
like they've ruined Batman.
Batman's dead in the water.
But now we have Keaton, we haveClooney, if you like him, we

(41:24):
have Kilmer, we have bail, wehave a bat fleck, we have
Battinson, so like there's a.
There's a big swath of likeoptions for you.
Yeah, and it's the same thingwith Joker.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
So I don only chance we got to interpret this
character but do you think it'slike they took my character and
gave it to everybody andeveryone, like sometimes?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
sometimes it's too much change.
Yeah, like when you because,like it was the first movie, it
was just joker, it was justenough.
They weren't doing any solid.
Like no, he's not the joker.
Like it left a little bit, leftit a little loose for you so
you could fill in the blankswith your mind a little bit yeah
, the second, the second moviewent harlequin, but she's not
quite Harlequin.
Harvey Dent, but his facedoesn't totally get torn off by
acid or anything, and thenArthur Fleck is not going to

(42:04):
become the Joker.
Sorry, when you change lore orthe actual stories of characters
too much, that's when it seemslike fan bases just go wild.
If you look at the Lord of theRings, rings of Power show,
anytime you have to makecreative changes and stuff
because they were limited withwhat they had anyway.
You have to make creativechanges and stuff because they
were limited with what they hadanyway.
But anytime you have that itcreates the fans are so diehard

(42:25):
about.
This is what it actually is.
You're changing it too much.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's where a lot of it comes
from.
That's the thing, nick, though,because you just regurgitate
the same story in different ways, like how many batman we've had
nine people play batman, fourpeople done the voices, and
they're, all you know,completely different.
You got the mtv era in the 90s,the gothic with keaton and the
bat flick blockbuster, and youknow, you got the back to the
grimy gothic way with patson andthe same.
I mean this is you got rememberas well.
This is the first joker moviewhere it focuses solely on joker

(42:50):
, by the way, yeah, which a lotof people were like don't do
that, it won't work yeah,because that's a
lot of attention for a characterthat's actually quite fun in
small doses.
So you've really got to do itwell.
And let's not forget, thisisn't a film about joker, I mean
, otherwise it'd be called thejoker, it's just called joker.
So if you didn't get the hintfrom the first movie, then you
know you've missed the trickthere.
So it's clear that toddphillips knew he was going to
end it that way before evendoing the first movie, because
he knew it was an origin storyand I think he even said that as

(43:12):
well.
So people um, acting surprisedabout this whole thing is
ridiculous.
And this whole, you know,regurgitating the same story and
changing it a bit, even with,like glamorizing villains I mean
venom's out, penguins out aseries called sweet peas out all
these characters the maincharacters are now anti-villains
or bad guys that have got someredemption story.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
We've reached this point.
We want to give them like asympathetic background.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, and that's dangerous because joker in the
first movie, people are actuallyon his side because of this
mental health argument and I'mlike, guys, you need to take a
step back and really realizewhat you're saying here, because
this guy just shot someone,went on a killing spree and
we're rooting for him and I getthe argument, but it's a very
dangerous argument and yes, youcould say that you know the
scorsese era where we glamorizein gangsters, but there's
justification for them.

(43:52):
They realize they're doing badstuff.
This one you're actuallyjustifying it for them as
audience members.
And if we keep doing thesefilms and they're trying to turn
the screw a little bit just tomake an original story, like
Todd Phillips did, yeah, you'regoing to have people who are
going to lash out because youknow they're characters that
have been done to death now andyou know originality is sort of
lost.
The way to do it might beoriginal, but the characters
still exist in some kind of lensof the last 50 years.

(44:14):
So there is attachment therefor some people.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
You know people are still going to want to see a bit
of nicholson, a bit of ledger,a bit of lito but at the end of
the day it's joaquin's job tomake it his, and I think he did
a great job.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
So I agree, we're gonna say I mean I don't know
I'm still just fostering.
I mean, I'll always find thisjust to be fascinating that this
movie bombed as hard as it did,or it just created such
violence in people in terms ofjust their inability to
understand that people likedifferent things.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, I can't remember uh, if it was a
director that said it or justsome, an actor or somebody.
But they said you know, we'retalking about the types of
movies like you know, the 70staxi driver or the gangster
movies of that era.
You can even look at uh,scorsese's goodfellas, you can
look at wolf of wall streetfalling down.
It connects with a certain typeof people like of different
types, like they feed into it,they want it.

(45:05):
Um, but this director wastalking about, uh, war movies
and and particularly anti-warmovies.
He's like you can't it'simpossible to create an anti-war
movie, and his theory on it wasbecause at some point you have
to show them doing war stuff.
Yeah, and that appeals to somepeople.
Like, if you have to, you haveto show the gangsters doing
gangster things, killing peopleor beating somebody up for money

(45:25):
or or talking real smooth, makea deal go down.
You have to show the guygetting the shot, shooting his
boss or whatever, and gettingrevenge and a mental health kind
of like society collapsing typeof story.
Yeah, so you're connecting withsomebody, whether it's like,
hey, guns are cool, or like Iwant to go be a hero overseas or
, you know, maybe selling drugsor like living this very lavish

(45:46):
lifestyle is like superappealing to me.
Like you're always going toconnect with somebody like that
because it's about entertainmentas well, like you can try to,
you're gonna have to make a verya movie that's not going to be
seen by a lot of people Ifyou're trying to make like a
very large commentary on likegreed is bad.
Mental health is a problem.

(46:07):
Our society needs to focus onpeople that need help and need,
uh, support in their, in theirlivelihoods.
So I think that's just the.
The balance that you havebetween creating art and
creating entertainment is thatyou're always going to have
people that misinterpret andtake and take it and run with it
, and when you add a comic ipthat's so well known to it and
build it around that, you'regetting more eyes on the product
, you're getting more peopletuned in and you're going to get
a lot of those people that, inour current climate, are like,
yeah, I feel the way he does,like when he's talking with

(46:30):
Robert De Niro at the end, beinglike I'm sick of being put down
, I'm sick of being pushed tothe side, and people will feel
that, yeah, so I think it's a.
It's a.
It's a, you know.
Applause to the director andthe crew and the team for, like,
getting that emotionalconnection there, because that's
not easy, but at the same timeit's like that's what you get,
that's what that was, that wasthe result you got from that
movie.
So his choice to go against itand go, I'm not going to feed

(46:52):
into that, I'm going to tell mystory that's like you said it.
If you don't, kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
No sure, I mean, I don't know.
Part of me is the other thing.
Like the series, Gotham exists,which is cringy as get out,
it's just a cringe, but DC fans.
I mean, like the nerd I feellike the really nerdy people
loves the CW stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, they like the Flash series and they like the
Arrowverse.
I think you and I.
I think when it first wasannounced it was like it's going
to be about lieutenant or jamesgordon and it's just gonna be
like a cop show, and I think youand I were more appealed to
that.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
But then the second, they were introducing bat
villains before on the firstepisode, you're like five
villains you're like oh okay,I'm out like I thought this was
gonna be a police procedural inyour face.
Yeah, maybe every once in awhile we'll get like a cool
little like easter egg.
But yeah, no, I was, it was notlike that yeah but like my
thing is, there's like that showdid the most originally
outlandish stuff with the joker.

(47:45):
There's like five differentjokers yeah they're like it's
and it's all about this it'slike and it's like, and it's
constantly it's like man andy'all were all for that and that
, like crapped on all lore, alleverything but that's the thing,
is that you, you.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
So we've talked about joker before in the past.
With Ledger's Joker, it'sbetter left untold or kept to a
mystery.
His origin?
No, I think that's.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
I think he's one of the most like beautiful things
about the fictional charactersthat, aside from like the
killing joke being the mostrevered, he doesn't have an
established origin.
Yeah, it changes constantly,which is why I think Nolan doing
the multiple, you know likemonologues you know monologues
about how he got the scars isfun because it's like is he just
having fun with you or does henot genuinely know who he is?
Yeah, type of thing.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
But even then you're talking.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
he Ledger's Joker is now like considered the
cinematic peak of it and it'slike well, his skin's not dyed
white.
He didn't get dropped in a vatof chemicals like it went
against the most establishedletter is technically more comic
book.
Yeah, and we hated it, know, oryou know, the majority of

(48:47):
people hated it.
So it's just weird to me that,like we have honed in on this
and it just seems the primaryhatred we have for it is that
he's not a psychopath.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
It went against their expectations.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, like it just, it just absolutely just did not
become a batman movie you know,and it's just like yeah and it's
just.
It's just weird to me, but likeit's like which is fine, like
if that's genuinely the reasonyou hate it.
That's fair, but pretty clearthat you should have accepted
that when you saw Bruce Wayne asa child in the first one.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Exactly.
I think it would have been veryinteresting to have someone on
here who hated it and have avery adult conversation with
them, because every person who'sand Corey said it as well Every
person I've tried to have aconversation with, why do you
hate this movie?
I can't get these bsconversations where they're
trying to turn it on me.
It's like, well, why do youlike it so much?
What's so great about it?
I'm like no, no, honestly, whydon't you like the film?
Like honestly I'm listening toyou, what is bad about the film?

(49:29):
Because I liked it and I justwould like to hear your opinion.
I have not got one straightanswer, an answer that even
makes any logical sense.
Besides, like a kind ofvendetta against me for liking
it, and it's and cory said itearlier it's just like I feel
like I'm being attacked forliking it and I don't get why.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
And it's everyone's- so defensive about you know why
they don't like it, sorry.
Yeah, let me again play devil'sadvocate.
I'm gonna ask you guys, whatdid you like?

Speaker 1 (49:52):
yeah, let's, let's.
Now I move into why we like it,since we're the uh, we're the
rare breed here, because we cansay or talk about why people
hated it or figure it out.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
You guys are free to go in our comments and just give
us a nice long, lengthydescription of why you hated it,
as long as it's civil.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Don't tell me to suck a dick.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
That's not an argument, please don't insult us
while you're telling us why youhated it.
But Corey Ash, why did you loveor just like them Ash?

Speaker 3 (50:17):
you want to go first?
Yeah, sure, I mean for me.
I'm not going to go on abouthow beautiful it is, because
there's a lot of films out therethat are beautiful.
If you've got the rightdirector.
A film can look beautiful andnot even be a good film, but
this film managed to hold itsown.
I'll tell you why.
I really liked it because it'sa sequel and for it to be a good
movie it has to be a goodsequel and it's part of two.

(50:37):
Right now, madness of two isvery it's very, um,
counterintuitive.
Because a lot of people thoughtthis was a movie about joker and
harley quinn.
It wasn't this.
This movie thought this was amovie about joker.
It wasn't.
This is a movie about arthurfleck and him trying not to be
the joker.
I think every part of thismovie was meticulously like,
thought out every time.
You know the courtroom scene,him putting on an accent, him
fighting against himself.

(50:58):
Every little moment in thismovie was thought about and it
was correct in that mistake theydid at the first, at the end of
the first movie, which wasglamorizing a villain.
This movie there is redemption,and I think that is so clever
for a director to takeresponsibility for something he
might portray to audiences assomething that might be
dangerous and saying, wait asecond, no, this guy isn't the
joker.
I didn't say he was a joker atany point because it's called

(51:20):
Joker.
It's not called the Joker, it'scalled Joker.
And this guy is Arthur Fleckand he has taken responsibility
for his actions.
And the whole madness of two isthat in a battle between him,
his reality and people wantinghim to become the Joker, and
you've got the temptation side,like Harley Quinn and the people
, and that's where the musiccomes in.
It's this fantasy world wherehe's battling or entertaining
the idea.

(51:40):
The movie could have gone in 50different directions with it.
They chose music, they chose toarticulate that in a very dingy
because it's all, it's all inreally one place.
We're only following Arthur inprison and then the courtroom
scene.
It doesn't really happenanywhere else.
So for a film to be, you know,restricted to that and to tell
this character justice, not tomention, like I said, the film
is beautiful, the acting isflawless I mean, you could say

(52:02):
that by a lot of films.
But what is really key aboutwhy this film is so good is it
is dignified to the first moviea hundred percent.
It's so easy for a sequel tofail and not follow up.
The only way this film couldbetter the first movie wasn't
financially.
It's in time this film will beknown as a classic.
A hundred percent because thefirst movie is, at the same time
, entertaining the geeks, thepeople that the gatekeepers, the

(52:23):
people that like batman becausethere are easter eggs for them.
There is little moments forthose guys, but this movie is
completely a story about arthurand I don't think people enjoyed
that.
But I think the film isbeautifully done.
I think the ending was great.
I think it was dignified in avery easy way and you don't need
to go further with it as well.
And the best stories, the bestfilms always end when you can
say that at the end of a filmthere's a new story about to

(52:44):
start.
Those are the best films andthat one is definitely another
case.
But there's so much I could sayabout this film in terms of
being, I don't know, a cinephile, or the acting, or how it was
shot or the.
You know the tone, it it gaveall the music.
There's so much to it, but it's.
I just don't get why peoplehate it.
I mean, I understand why,compared to the first movie.
But that's.
You know, this is a separatemovie.
You're watching a separatemovie.

(53:05):
You're watching a new moviehere.
Yes, you've got the attachmentof a new character, but if you
can sort of just take a stepback and watch the movie as just
it and you know, understandwhere the characters go, I think
it's a great film what I thinkis interesting if you look at
the two together.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
the first movie is very much typical kind of origin
story, Like he's you see a mandown in his luck and slowly,
like the pieces come together,he's, he puts on the suit, he
puts on the makeup, he kind ofembraces that Joker personality
or that side of himself.
And then the second one is himhaving to slowly pull away from
it and like be revealed back towho he is Basically, having to
make those choices.

(53:38):
To go no, I want to be.
I want to be arthur.
I don't want to give in to thisside of myself.
That's more about the chaos andthe anger and frustration and
stuff.
But it's just, it's aninteresting movie the way it's
made, using his uh, unreliablenarrator, basically from his
perspective as the storyteller.
But I think it's.
You know, this is my questiongoing in was was there ever a

(54:02):
convo in the first movie as muchin the second one about Arthur
having two personalities?
Or was it just built aroundlike hey, this is just this guy
who was a clown and he's justreally leaned into that part of
it?

Speaker 1 (54:13):
I think it's just in the second one, because it's
made as his defense For hiscourt trial.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
They're saying oh, oh , you're clearly two different
people and I think some peopleare are the counter argument to
us.
I think there's probablyfrustration on the end because
they're like well, it was neverabout him having a split
personality, or like no, he isjoker, kind of thing, and I
think that's even the argumentthat is made by the court.
On the other side of him islike no, you don't have two
personalities, you're justleaning into the darker parts of
yourself, like this is who youare, kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yeah, um, okay, yeah, no, I get.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yeah, it's good what do you think?
What did you like?

Speaker 1 (54:48):
what I like about it.
I mean, like I, I like it it's.
It's very interesting.
There's a 90s movie withrichard geard called primal fear
, which is almost the exact samemovie as joker 2, without songs
it's literally a guy arrestedfor a murder and he puts on a.
I have two personalities.
The fence and the whole movieis.
Is he telling the truth or ishe just really good at acting?
you know type of thing and it'sgot a.

(55:09):
Obviously I'm not going tospoil it because it's a great
movie.
It's edward norton's firstmovie and he got nominated for
an oscar playing the, uh, the orthe accused.
Okay, um, he's the guy playingthe two parts and so, um, which
is weird, because that's arevered movie and this one's
being trashed and it's allbecause it's an ip.
You know, uh, but like for me,it's uh.

(55:29):
I liked the first one becauseto me and again, I think we've
talked about this especially thelast, I really do separate ips
from things.
I'm a story person.
If a story is good, I'm all forit.
I care less about precious loreand things like that.
It's just like whatever, um andso like.
For me, I like.
I like the first one because Ithought it was just very simply
telling a story about societystigmatizing mental health.

(55:52):
Yeah, it sets it in a day andage where, in the seventies,
yeah, you would have just lookedaway or you would have just
thrown them, thrown them in acage, lock away like that
person's not fit for society andmove on.
You know, and it's ArthurFleck's already living in a
fantasy world.
He's already like playing.
He's putting on a mask, he'splaying a clown, he wants to be

(56:12):
an entertainer.
He's been convinced that he'sgood at it.
He thinks that Thomas Wayne'shis father.
You know, he's already livingin a world that's not real.
You know nothing about his lifeis real.
And then I like the secondexploring the idea okay, society
gave him a better part to play,which is this thing called
joker, and he embraces it.
So I'm not butthurt at the endwhen he says, well, that's not
me and that, and that's becauseI started therapy in my 30s and

(56:35):
it's because I got married.
And all of a sudden it justbecame kind of a weird identity
crisis where I was like, oh crap, I've spent my whole life
usually mimicking people aroundme.
If I'm in a large crowd, it's alot of mimicry, it's a lot of
just like just trying to survive.
And then, you know, it's like Igot into music and that was
mainly because I got put on me.
I kind of grew up to hate itand so, like, when I got married
and I'm having to live withthis person, I'm like I have no

(56:57):
idea who I actually am as aperson.
I have to be normal in a housewith this other person, and so I
go to therapy and I'm having tounpack so much of that.
And so to me it's like I canwatch the Joker movies and like,
really like it's.
It's like not sympathize withthe character, cause it is the
Joker and he becomes a homicidalmaniac, but I can sympathize
with what the message is, whichis like it's hard to navigate

(57:20):
the world If you have like justyou know if you're nerd aversion
or all this stuff, or just likeyou have anxiety, things that
are obviously a lot less severethan, uh, whatever you know,
anti-social personality disorderor whatever that the character
of arthur supposedly has.
Yeah, but like I don't know how,you don't watch either movie.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
It's just a tragedy it's not meant to be glorified,
it's a tragic figure it's.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
It's like you should be watching the first joker
movie and not glorifying, goinglike I'm glad he shot robert de
niro and that the world's onfire.
You should be like this is thetragedy of not talking about
mental health.
This is the tragedy of justtossing it aside or vilifying
people who go to therapy, orvilifying people who take meds.
You know and like, becausewhatever we live in the Bible

(58:01):
Belt and the most crap I've evergotten for therapy is from
people who are like religiousand they go.
Why don't you just pray aboutit?
You're like this is notanything, yeah, like and I I
respect that, but like I needtherapy, like it's fine yeah, I
mean I think he just to kind oftalk on what you were talking
about.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I do think he is a sympathetic figure.
It's a tragedy what's going onand like and even in the second
movie like they're bringing backcharacters from the first movie
just to remind you like thisguy has mental health issues.
Like zaza beats comes back andshe's like I've never had a
relationship with this guy.
He showed up in my room with ormy house, my apartment, with my
child there and then just leftand then you have poor puddles
that comes back.
Who's all?

Speaker 1 (58:38):
his co-workers were just murdered best scene in the
movie is literally, cory, you'rejust gonna say the same thing.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
The best scene in the whole movie was that he's so
good that actually plays puddleskilled it.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Yeah, it's a pivotal scene in the movie because you,
you've had him being and that'sthe other thing too is like him
being joker.
Playing the role of joker is himlike adapting to society.
This is the role that societyaccepts him in.
When he's just trying to be aclown, a stand-up comedian or
just a son, like he's rejectedall the way across the board.
But when he leans into thisdarker nature, everybody's like
that's who we want and that'swho harley wants, that's who the

(59:11):
bob outside wants.
And so when he has to put onhis foghorn leghorn cord accent
which is ridiculous and funny,um, but when puddles shows up
and like pretty much just makeshim confront himself and goes
like this, this isn't you, youwere the only guy that was nice
to me, and like that's when herealizes like I don't want to
play this role anymore, like Idon't like hurting people that I

(59:31):
genuinely care about yeah, Igenuinely think that's one of
the best scenes in the movie,because I think and again, it's
where I don't understand how itloses people that, like this
isn't a it's, it's joker.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
And, yes, maybe nick's right, maybe it's just
this massive thing where it'sjust like don't throw things in
an ip, maybe this.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
Both movies are just absolutely heralded as
masterpieces if they're notsomehow adjacent to batman but
they don't get the appeal andthey don't get the icon icon,
icon, iconograph how do I sayiconography?

Speaker 1 (59:57):
thank you that that you get with with movies and ips
like this and it's true, and itwould just be, and it'd
probably come off weird if wewere just dealing with a clown
and like it's not.
Somehow you're thinking jokerin the back of your mind.
It's like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
It's like it's like ashid, like you take out joker
and you say and just call itlike clown, some, some clown
thing.
And he's just a guy who,because his makeup isn't exactly
like the joker, he never putson the green suit, yeah, or
purple suit.
Excuse me, it's not the real wenever questioned it.
Yeah, and we never questioned,and like it feels like a 90s
never dies his hair green.
It's like what if this guy likeyou could pitch it in the 90s.
Go, okay, it's the richard gearcourt case movie, but and

(01:00:29):
falling down.
But instead of him just being aregular guy, he puts on a clown
suit.
Yeah, and you're like okay goon but I think now you go, it's
the joker from the batman world.
It's like great butts in seats,but now you're also going.
Well, uh, it's not followingexactly along with the storyline
yeah, yeah, he's carrying toomuch weight.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah and again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
I'm talking about people I'm not talking about.
Oh well, he's not wearing theright suit or anything that's
nitpicky like that.
There was somebody that was madand was trying to ask the
question how did he get the suitand the makeup to be in the
courtroom scene?
And I'm like those are the typeof things.
Don't think about that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Well, well.
There's literally a scene wherethe judge says you actually
have the legal right to wear,yeah, what you want, but they're
.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
What they're asking is like, how does he, being in a
prison, slash asylum, get it?
I'm like we've alreadyestablished well, if you think
about it, harley has money.
She comes from money in thestoryline.
She can get him whatever heneeds.
Clearly, she has access nightand day, apparently, to this,
unless she's not real, but Ithink half the time she is real,
um, but I think there's it'sjust being too nitpicky about
little things like that thatdon't really impact.

(01:01:31):
It's.
It's it's a thing that'shelping the story.
Like, yeah, he's gonna have themakeup on.
Like I don't need a scene withharley going here's your suit,
here's your makeup, let me helpyou out, like we literally had
the scene, the scene where theywere having sex in the cell
allegedly, where she helps puton the paint.
If you think that's real, we'vealready established she can get
in the makeup.
If it's not real, at some pointin there we've established
she's rich, she's got money, shecan get what she needs from it

(01:01:53):
but like, and my thing is thislike I don't know, I'm with ash.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
I think, like five years from now, everyone will
see this movie as the, thecinematic version of joker,
pulled the gun and the bang flagcame out.
You all expected batman.
It wasn't it.
You know it's.
It's all one giant.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I don't think it's I.
I really don't think it wasbatman they were expecting I
think they were just expectinghim well, I'm just saying batman
figuratively, that he's goingto become the villain, got it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
that would eventually be the clown prince of crime,
and it's just, it's not.
And so I'm just trying to saveyou a lot of vitriol on the
internet, whatever.
I've muted comments oneverything, um and so, but like
I I'm with Ash there, but kindof just kind of going back to
what you were saying, Like Ijust think that the second movie

(01:02:37):
I liked the Harley Quinncharacter.
Everyone seems to also bedeflecting to Lady Gaga ruin the
character of Harley Quinn andblah, blah, blah, and it's like
again they were very upfrontthat she wasn't going to be
chewing gum.
She wasn't going to be chewinggum, she wasn't going to have
the thick accent and she wasgoing to be this other
reimagining, you know, and soit's just kind of like I don't
know why you went in expectingMargot Robbie's Harley Quinn.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Well, I think it's.
I think the loss on that isbecause they really did set it
up to be somewhat of a lovestory, going on at least from
trailers, and it was.
It was hyped as gaga andphoenix, not walkie phoenix, and
oh, by the way, she's in thismovie like it was very much
their movie together.
But, as ash points out, it'snot about harley.
She is a tool as a character todrive arthur and his and his uh

(01:03:19):
need for connection, so he'swilling to like keep being the
joker for a longer absolutely goahead.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
No, no, I was just gonna say I think it's good that
our expectations are diminishedbecause you can watch a trailer
.
People complain about watchingtrailers and they give too much
away and you know the story fromjust watching two minutes of
the credit sequence.
I'm glad I had no idea how thisfilm was going to turn out.
I don't know why I'm theminority about that.
I want to be surprised when Igo see it.
This movie didn't know.
I had no idea I was expectingthis movie at all.

(01:03:47):
Nothing hinted at it.
Like cory said and you said, Ithought it was a love story.
I thought this was going to be aharley quinn movie.
I thought jacob was going tobreak into the city and cause
chaos.
I thought I might have seenbruce wayne.
I am so glad I was wrong andI'm so glad they didn't hint at
any of that in the trailers,because it you know that that's
what you should do.
You should exceed audienceexpectations and I think that's
the strong word here expectation.

(01:04:07):
Everyone expected a completelydifferent movie and they were
just disappointed.
I wasn't, and I don't think wewere.
To be fair, I think we were.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I mean we weren't, and it's just like I don't know.
I like I love the second one inthe sense that I like the way
Harley's used, which again Iwill sympathize that.
I think some people again feltthat they were being insulted by
with the character as she'ssupposed to be.
Oh, she represents the audiencethat glorified the Joker and so
if you're that person, likeyou're wrong and like that's, I
mean, and if you felt that way,like that's, I think that's a

(01:04:35):
generate, like that's a genuinecritique.
You didn't like it because youfelt like I like the first one
and I thought the Joker was coolpunished for like you're being
punished like yeah, like dude,that's an actual critique.
Bring that to me and I willabsolutely look at you and go.
That's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah, that's fine, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
I also like the first movie, but I didn't feel like I
was getting like yelled atbecause I watched the movie and
saw it as a tragedy Like this iswhat happens when you just toss
mentally ill people to the sideand don't like and help's not
available or whatever.
But, like I also think thismovie is very much an
overcorrection correction.
Like it's talking about theovercorrection of mental health
and like society where nowpeople kind of seek it out and
they want to actually wear theidentity of oh, I'm

(01:05:11):
neurodivergent as like a badgeof honor.
You know which.
It's like I walk through that mywife has to tell me all the
time like hey, don't use adhd orwhatever as a crutch.
Don't, don't use your anxietyas a crutch.
Don't like, own it, don't letit define you.
And I'm like and she's right,right, right and that happens.
But at the same time I do theseclasses where people going
through counseling and trying toget certified do mock therapy

(01:05:34):
sessions in front of the classand I do this as part of
Southeastern.
You just go in there and you doit and you're allowed to lie
and fake stuff.
I'm usually just real with themand I've literally had people
kind of go.
I like how eccentric and weirdyou are and I'm like that sucks.
Don't say that to a patientever.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
Don't ever say that.
You just define me as you thinkit's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I was like because, trust me, walking into a crowded
room sucks for me.
You don't want this, you know,and stuff like that.
But at the same time, Imaintain a constant mindset of
like I can get better, I canalways get better.
I can get better.
Like I can always get better.
I can do crowded rooms and Ican.
I can improve and I and I'vedone it through therapy, I've
got a lot better at socialinteractions and blah, blah,

(01:06:11):
blah and so like I.
But I think this movie's kindof poking fun at a culture of
like you know the hashtagactually autistic type of thing
where it's like people are nowgatekeeping with mental illness
and that, like you have likealmost a glamorization of mental
illness by people and hardlyrepresents that and and I was
like I, just like that themovies talk a lot about mental
illness and it's interesting tome.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
I think, honestly, I think what I'm getting out of
our conversation today is I'mseeing the difference between
like, and I don't think it'snecessarily either side is wrong
, but it's about what you wereexpecting and hoping for coming
out of the movie.
I think a lot of us, a lot ofus, we we were story focused.
We were like this isinteresting, it's different.
Like you're, like you're divinginto a lot of story moments

(01:06:52):
that aren't tied to comic loreand iconic characters and stuff,
and we're talking more aboutlike that kind of
experimentation or just likedeep dive and somewhat
metacritic kind of stuff, kindof going in, um.
But I think the other sidewalked in, going I want to see
these characters do what thesecharacters do.
So it was like this weirdemergence of a from a from a
much more creative art house noteven art house, but just like

(01:07:14):
more story based wanting to dosomething different versus like
people that wanted theirsuperhero uh stuff to eat up you
know, yeah, that I think that'sanother bad thing that we're
getting into with this era.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
I think the audience are actually having a say on
what they want to watch and whatto expect.
I mean, it used to always bethe director's job the
performers on stage, theaudience, don't tick, they don't
dictate anything.
You're there to enjoy the showthat they give you.
Now it seems that the audiencehas to have an opinion on how
they do it the next time, andthat is dangerous because that
is the end of storytelling,because it means everything is
formulaic, everything isexpected.

(01:07:46):
You're feeding into theaudience expectations.
It is a very dangerous trail weare going along in, like the
2020 era at the moment, and youknow a24 are doing a great job
with like these stories that arecoming out.
I'm not just going about horrorgenres as well, but a24 is a
studio.
The stories that they're comingup with are amazing.
I'm not just saying thatbecause I love horror films, but
if you are going to follow astudio, that's the one to follow

(01:08:07):
, because everything at themoment is being corrupted by not
necessarily Todd Phillips'sstudio with Joker.
But they took a risk and itpaid off the first time and not
the second time.
But you know, I do think intime this film will be looked at
.
But OK, yeah, I think we gotthis one wrong.
We have to remember this filmcame out three weeks ago.
We haven't, we haven't given ittime to digest it.
There is still a hype on thismovie where I think it hasn't

(01:08:30):
really settled with people yet.
I think people like there's afew people on social media who
are saying this film is actuallyamazing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
So no, there's, it has its lovers, we're just not
as loud.
Yeah, exactly, I mean it'sbeing drowned at the moment.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
That's why we have a podcast exactly, but I think
we've done this at the righttime.
But it yeah, like you said atthe start, nick the, the attack
this film's gone is like noother.
Like it's ridiculous, it'srelentless and it's so constant
and it's everywhere, um, but Ijust hope people can just get
out of themselves and try andignore it, because unfortunately
, we have to read everythingwe're going to watch and

(01:09:02):
audiences do have a bigger saythan they did before, which is
really dangerous, I think and uh, like Ash, I don't want to
exclude you from this nextconversation, but I don't know
if this will pertain to you asmuch.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
But another thing I feel like I got a really gross
feeling about how much hatredwent towards this movie, in
terms of people who hated it arejust being really crass and
insulting anyone that loves it.
It's like this feels likeAmerican politics right now.
No one's actually bringing areal argument.
It's just how much.
How like?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
how high can you raise your middle finger to the
other person and you're like I'mopen to a discussion, like
please you know, in this, in thesame thread you had, you kept
being like agree to disagree,but I'd be more happy to talk
about it and constantly we'rejust basically giving the middle
finger yeah, it was just like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
No one was like.
No one wants to like.
Actually say why.
They just say like f you, it'sall it's like and my thing is
it's like.
I think it freaked me out too.
It's like man, are we just?
Are we just learning how tolike?
Are we forgetting how to have aconversation?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
we are, which is like are we collectively just
forgetting and that's on bothsides of the of any political
yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
I'm not attacking one side or the other.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
We're just we're forgetting how to just like
converse.
There's.
There's a sense of tribalismabout it on in some aspects,
there's a sense of like puttinga lot of moral labeling onto
everything, or like just it's.
It's the way that things havebeen, whether it's the media,
whether it's you know anything,it's all been very painted as
like black and white.
They don't want to allow theroom for great and which is

(01:10:32):
which is kind of weird withconsidering this movie, where
it's like, yeah, this guy's uhhas mental health issues.
He's being pulled one way tolean into those, but he's it's
like they're you're not getting.
I I don't want to say they'renot getting like the subtext or
like the the gray in betweenthis and stuff you can't sure.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
If you ask, I'm kind of with ash.
I'm at the the point where allmy conversations have come out
of it.
I want to defend that.
You probably hate hearingpeople saying you didn't get it.
But I start to think you didn'tget it and this is the really
interesting thing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
I've been watching a lot of American politics.
I mean, the votes are veryimportant, a couple of four or
five weeks coming up as well.
I watched an interview withDennis Quaid and he was on Piers
Morgan and and it wasinteresting because he's of a
certain age, he's like pushing80 at the moment.
He still looks very well.
And Piers Morgan just asked himstraight who are you going to
vote for in this election?
And he literally straight outsaid Donald Trump is like look,

(01:11:15):
I'm at a time when you couldvote for whoever you want and
have a discussion of why you'regoing to vote for them, and
you'd be OK with it.
It wouldn't be an attack.
Now I know a lot of people, alot of celebrities, a lot of
actors, and they won't answerthe question because they don't
want to be attacked.
And Dennis Quaid was like well,I'm from a time when you could
say something.
People would disagree with youand then you'd have a beer

(01:11:35):
afterwards and that would bethat.
And I feel like the samething's happening even with our
politics and your politics.
And now this movie, because itdoesn't matter what your answer
is, it's just an attack, it's afight.
There's no discussion, it's notlike okay, I respect it.
It's just an attack.
If you're voting donald trump orcome up or harris, it's like no
, you're wrong and that's that.
Because, like you said, it's atribal attack and we've lost

(01:11:56):
that right to have a discussion.
We've lost that right to justbe like okay, you're voting for
trump?
Fine, I don't disagree.
I I disagree with you, but youknow, okay, cool, you want to
grab a beer?
Fine, it's like you're over oneside or another and that's also
very.
It's always happening here inEurope as well.
It's ridiculous, it's so bad,and I've seen the stuff that's
going on with the debates withTrump and Harris as well.

(01:12:16):
I mean, it's just like there'sno, there's no prisoners over
there.
It's just like you were with usor against us, and I don't know
how you guys think that's truein terms of having a
conversation with respectingsomeone who's going to vote the
other way.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
It's the simple answer is that we don't have
conversations.
It's rare.
Yeah, at this point you're justlike, if you're not in the mood
for a fight, you just avoid itand like I have friends that are
on like the opposite, I guessside political spectrum of
myself that I can haveconversations with and yeah, but
and I sit there and go like,yeah, I can't get on board with
that like this.
This is my like.
You get to a point like this ismy line.

(01:12:47):
This is where I just don'tagree, and I'm it's.
I think you want to try toblanket and go like this side's
evil, or this side's evil, thisside's corrupt, this side's
great.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
They're both saying the same things about each other
yeah and when you start tonotice that you kind of stop
getting pulled into thearguments yeah, I mean like, and
I think another reason why Iconsider and say I'm really
confused at like.
I mean again, I have never,ever said I like a movie and had
people just be incredibly likeverbally violent with me.
Um, and I like grease too.
People, if you're gonna tell meto suck a dick for liking a

(01:13:17):
sequel to any movie, it's jokertoo.
It's not grease too.
Grease two's good, corey,grease two's great.
But like like the fact thatpeople can just go like okay,
that's fair, you know all right,where's that right now?

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
just give me that what I'm asking for you to say,
like with the 70s and 80s, allright you know, like like a
choker too, and I just want to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
All right, that's fair I can see why you might
like it.
I didn't like that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
That's all I want I think all we just yeah, it's
like, it's like it's.
You get to the I love it or Ihate it and you don't go.
Well, I liked this aboutbecause I can see her say I
think the movie is a little long, I don't like how the ending I
didn't love the ending.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
Yeah, I like, I like I'm okay that spoilers Arthur
Flex killed.
Yeah, I just hate that theymake the Joker give himself
scars.
That just opened it up to adumb debate about the Nolan
verse, or just like, just anyverse, yeah let's not do that.
I don't like that I don't likethat.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
He gave himself scars and it was stupid, but uh it's
like todd philip I don't know ifyou it's movies are hard.
It's a business, it's a fullyfunctioning thousands of people
involved, a lot of high upidiots and it's probably them
going.
We need the scars at the end.
Or it's like I'm sure someonelike something like that,
because it's like okay, todd, ifyou're gonna double down on the
, this is not tied to anything.
I'm not giving you any eastereggs or anything like.

(01:14:24):
Why'd you let that in?

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
exactly.
But then that's what it does.
It creates that debate.
I mean someone.
I watched it with someone.
They didn't even notice thatscene at the end because they
were like too busy with arthurdying, oh well they were already
on letterboxd.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Yeah, they're already on their phone.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
I hate this movie and it's like you know if you're
going to give him an easter egg.
Like that it's good.
It creates a discussion.
I mean the other discussion waslike was she actually pregnant?
I mean that was a gooddiscussion to have as well.
Like was it you know, andthere's a lot of like unanswered
thing which is open for adiscussion, but at the moment it
is just a attack after attack.
Like me and my friends, we alsoliked it as well.
The abuse we got in person.

(01:14:57):
I mean, it was, it was okay,but I was, it was just.
You just asked him a simplequestion.
I got some stupid responses onmy mate.
What are you talking about?
Like, how is that even a reason, like if you give me a genuine
reason and I'm not here todictate what a reason is but to
say that it was shit withoutgiving me any like form of why
or shit is just rubbish.
Um, and and you're right, itgets to the point where you're
like I am just not in the moodto get into a fight right now

(01:15:18):
because I'm just, I'm justtelling you I like the film.
I'm asking why you don't, I cantell you why I like it, and you
know we can on.
But then it becomes so personal, for whatever reason, and then
it gets escalated and it's likeyou, I guess I don't know, and
it's just everything.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
I think it's just especially with movies because,
like Hollywood movies, it's atwo way street, like it is
personal.
You grow up that memory of StarWars or Batman or something is
very personal to you.
No-transcript, same time goingwell.

(01:15:57):
But we want to have creativeintegrity like we've had in the
past and and not be dictated bywhat people want because, like a
lot of artists and stuff willtell you is like if you try to
write to what the trends are,you're gonna fail.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
Like you have to always be trying to push the new
thing out or just be yourauthentic self all the time yeah
now, and I mean again, I'm, I'min a marriage where my wife is
politically different than I amand we're cool.
So like I think it's weird when, like, I enter the wild and
people are just really soaggressively mad towards anyone,
because again my wife will votedifferently than I do.

(01:16:27):
Our house kind of cancel eachother out, but we're both going
to vote and she's going to voteone way, I'm going to vote the
other way and we're going tohigh five at the end of the day
and still be married and sothat's how it should be.
That's how I'm kind of with you.
I'm just like it just seemslike where are the days where
you just be like okay, agree,disagree, and everybody's still
cool and happy, and it's justlike we've fallen away from that
and it's just we treat everyelection like, like it's the end

(01:16:49):
of the world, like if you don'tvote our way or or this way,
everything it's going to besocietal collapse hey, here's a
question does this movie dobetter if it doesn't happen?
in election year, everybody'sjust good and triggered.
I mean maybe last year.
I wonder if people are justlike now now joker one came out
in 2019.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
So that was before COVID, during the former 2016
Donald Trump at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
Yeah, so we're just in the middle.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
I wonder.
So here I'll wrap it up,because I have to ask now.
It's interesting.
Terrifier 3 has really benefitedfrom Joker failing because
their whole media thing now islike we're the number one box
office clown and to me I'm justlike.
That makes me want to vomitwhere I'm like.

(01:17:37):
Alright, this is where we areas movie watchers.
I mean, I'm still gonna watchTerrifier 3 hopefully.
Joker 2 has flopped and like Imean Terrifier 3 being number
one, it only made like it did.
It made it didn't make a lot ofmoney.
It's an independent film, but,like, because it's an
independent film, it makes justa little bit of money it's huge,
you know yeah, but it's like Iam.

(01:17:59):
I am like my algorithm onthreads is really messed up.
I'm trying to correct it andI'm trying to input words.
I don't want to see you knowthings like that and like, know,
I'm trying to figure all thatout and like, but it's wild,
because people like Joker 2.
It's the worst movie I've everseen and it made no sense.
Why were they singing none ofthis?
And then like the same personlike Terrifier 3 is great.
I'm like the Terrifier moviesdon't have a plot, but they just
genuinely don't have a plot.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
They're entertaining.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
I'll.
It's fun and like.
My thing is, horror movies needpretty minimal plot.
You really just need an originstory to your bad guy and in a
lot of ways you kind of root forthe bad guy a couple teenagers
to kill it's all good, but likeyou, root for the bad guy, but
you don't want to become the badguy.
That's the difference.
No one wanted to be freddykrueger but like um, but like
it's, it's wild to me becauseit's just like maybe that's

(01:18:44):
where we are, maybe people, yep,because everything's a
zeitgeist.
So I'm also wondering if we'rejust 2018 was this perfect storm
for Joker?
And then 2024 is just thisperfect storm against Joker.
I think that's fair, because alot of people are also just
retroactively taking back thatthey liked the first one too.
Now they're like you know what,looking back at it, it was

(01:19:04):
stupid, it's just like all right, but like I'm like, okay, it's
interesting because I'm likemaybe the people just wanted a
psychopathic homicidal clown.
That's just all it was.
That's where we screwed up.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
That's where choker 2 screwed up they didn't, they
didn't give us anyone damn it inthe clowns, cory.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
You know art.
The clown doesn't even need abackstory.
You just throw some people at aroom with them and just let
them be as viscerally gross aspossible and murdering them and
people are like this is goodcinema.
Yeah, absolutely terrifier 3has got like an 80 rotten tomato
score that this is where welisten.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
The stocks on clown violence is up, cory.
We need more.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
I'm just saying it's worth noting that, like you,
just almost have to go, becausethat's what we do on Quantum
Recast.
We look at the year and we'relike what's in?
And it's like all right clownsare in, but only if they're just
recklessly violently murderingpeople without reason To add to
your point.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Wasn't it 2020, not long after that that we had the
actual clowns murdering peopleor being spotted everywhere
randomly?
Oh, probably, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
Stop talking about it , oh gosh, did you guys have
that there as well?
Yeah, yeah, we had that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
I don't know if we had it.
I think it was happening inEngland.
It was happening in America.
Oh, okay, I remember keeping upwith it in.

Speaker 3 (01:20:14):
England.
No, something was happeninghere because someone watched
Hell House, which I watchedrecently.
I thought was actually quitegood Hell.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
House is great.
Hell House.
Well, the first one was ones.

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
Yeah, I absolutely loved it.
I actually want to go to that.
Anyway, someone watched itapparently in England and
decided to just go in clownoutfits and just walk around the
green grass and it was justlike an epidemic for like two
weeks where people weren'tallowed to go outside or have
any face masks on.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Such a weird thing.
But yeah, I think when Jokercame out was it Hell House 2
that came out.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
Or 3?
I thought the clown things werehappening around the time of it
.
The it remakes that's 2016.
Yeah, it was like 2016, maybeit was 20.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
There was a lot of weird years in there, guys.
We went through a lot of weirdyears.
Yeah, it was really fast now.

Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
Yeah, it's a fun circle eight years ago that was,
was it?

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
oh my gosh yeah, it was a minute ago but I remember
that happening.
But I'm just so, I'm justwondering, like I think it's
also fun to just go, like it'sinteresting that one clown movie
bombed and this other clownmovie is just like absolutely
being raved about and it's justa throwaway slasher film 2016
clown sightings.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
So it was 2016.
Another election year.
Okay, yeah, all right, clownsin election years, not the best
Clowns outside election years,even a year out Great.
Even a year out, great, greatsuccess.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
highly recommend man I love life, but closing,
closing all that out.
And I'm not saying, by the way,I'm not trashing the terrifier
movies, they're perfectly funslasher films, if you're just I,
I don't like torture, gore porn, but you know they're fun if
you like them.
Yeah, I just I just I laughbecause people are like on

(01:21:46):
thread saying what's the plot ofthese and why is everyone
talking about this movie andcelebrating it?
And it is because they'remarketing it.
well, they're saying we're thenumber one clown now and it's
fun, and I would do the samething if I were them.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
But literally the actor I've seen the actor that
plays them going on people'sthreads.
They're like these don't evenhave a plot and they're like, no
, no, there's a plot.
The cat lady in the second onetells you that he's just a clown
that enjoys killing people.
I'm like that's not a plot,that's just a character.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
It's just you're a thing, yeah, um, all right.
7.1 on imdb terrify free.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
7.1 but, like to me, I think it just proves that,
like this is all fake, it's allmade up.
You should go see movies.
You should go watch joker 2 andyou should go see Terrifier 3,
just because you want to see amovie.
That's it.
And if neither of those appealto you.
Don't go see them.
But like don't go see things tohate it.
Don't go see things becausesomeone told you to see it, or
not see something because peopletold you not to see it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:39):
Just go see stuff.
We're just trying to fightagainst this toxic culture,
Corey.
I.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
I'm with Ash.
Ash said it so brilliantlyMaybe it's his accent.
I just want to go back to atime where you can just talk
about things with people, ohyeah, and not everything be so
locked and loaded all the time.
Maybe one day, corey, maybe not, who knows?

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Time will tell.

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
I hope so, Ash.
I don't know if you know this,but just closing out, we had a
vice presidential debate on TVhere.
We're the two vice presidents.
The only thing people came outof it with is that they were
civil to each other.
People were like we're, we'reso screwed up here politically
in this country that like twopeople in different parties
shaking hands and everyonewatching while saying yeah, I

(01:23:18):
agree, was shocking.
That was shocking.
Yeah, that's shot.
That's all the news talkedabout.
They're like wow, they didn'treally fight with each other at
all.
Where's?

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
the blood, act in blood and fight, oh my god kind
of like joker too what's theworld we've done?

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
kind of but like, whereas I saw it as hopeful you
know I was quite frankly, if jdvanson uh, uh, what's his name?
Wall tim waltz had like gonerogue and said, actually we're
the right as president, vicepresident, I'd be like I'll take
it, oh God, uh.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
I think you can figure this out.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
So old man and young guy just think it's time to wrap
this thing up.
I enjoyed it.
I'm just saying All right, um,but yeah be sure to subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
Make sure to follow us at quantum recasts on all the
social medias.
We're also on on all the socialmedias.
We're also on.
You know.
Obviously you listen to us oneither Spotify or Apple Podcasts
or something.
Make sure to hit that likeleave a review, do whatever the
options are on your favoritestreaming service of choice.
And if you want to support us,give us a dollar on our Patreon.
It's just to support the show.
We might need new things, likenew headphones or something.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
No-transcript um, but that's the thing, though.
We're not telling you what tothink.
Go see things, go see movies.
Yeah, if you review somethingyou're, the last sentence of
yours should be like but that'smy opinion, you should go see it
that should literally be theending of every review.
That's true, that was my opinion, but you should go see it Also,
followed by why'd you wastetime reading this?
This was just me writing.

(01:24:53):
I'm just a regular guy, just aregular dude who downloaded an
app, just like you.
But yeah, subscribe.
We hope you listen.
We hope you missed Ash's sultryvoice.
I did, I did, I missed it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:05):
So good to be back guys.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
I miss it.
I'm glad we were able to getscheduled.
It's a little time jump here.

Speaker 1 (01:25:11):
We're glad you could join us.
Topped on.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
It's only 10 o'clock yet.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
By all means find us on social media and give us an
actual reason why you didn'tlike Joker 2.
That's not just telling me todo something horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
Slip into the DMs Comment on the post.

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
I genuinely think it's fine if you hated this
movie.
I just want to know actualcritical reasons why you didn't
like it that aren't insulting meand telling me to kill myself.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Be careful what you wish for, alright.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
But I hope you enjoyed it.
Say goodnight Nick.
Goodnight Nick.

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Joker: Folie à Deux - In Defense of the Sequel

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Joker: Folie à Deux - In Defense of the Sequel