{"id":9081,"date":"2019-11-24T10:20:27","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T15:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=9081"},"modified":"2019-11-24T10:20:27","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T15:20:27","slug":"guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips"},"content":{"rendered":"

The movie, Joker, could be easily dismissed as an attempt to extend on the successful formula established by Christopher Nolan in his turn at the Batman franchise, launched in 2005. But beyond the constant \u201cdark\u201d refrain, not enough was said about Nolan\u2019s reformulation of the DC comic book character. When Tim Burton in 1989 first attempted to bring the character to film his movie temperament and the last shreds of maturity that remained in American popular culture required that he make it in its essence, comic. It\u2019s true he leavened the film with instances of \u201cadult\u201d gravity, but no more than in his other comic book movies.<\/p>\n

But Nolan did something that it took the success of the \u201880s and \u201890\u2019s Batman movies to make possible, play Batman straight. By 2005 struck upon the formula for converting the comic book into a \u201cserious\u201d movie by making the films \u201cdark\u201d, thereby removing the tongue from Batman\u2019s cheek. Nolan took the comic out of the comic book hero and the films became blockbusters. I suspect they did for the same reason space movies from 2001 to Star Wars were also so successful. The baby boomers and later Gen X-ers had a choice between the narcissistic atavism of their peers or withdrawal. The comic book fans were always outsiders so it was easy to choose withdrawal, and so they did, in droves. What has been truly remarkable was that most of the rest of America follow along, in even bigger droves.<\/p>\n

But what does it mean to movies and America to make comic book movies without the comic? One might say that comic books, at least of the super hero variety, always played straight. They were more like the serial genre fiction that anticipated both the \u201csoaps\u201d and the novel. Fair enough, but the illustrations, primitive graphics and primary colors, were a comic proscenium, perhaps helping to suspend disbelief for the comic book reader, but not his sense of humor. Theatrical movies have no such proscenium, they have long been understood to be psychological, subconscious, in their effect. They do not afford the comic book distance, the healthy separation. We needed Burton\u2019s fantasy gloss to create distance from the film. But Nolan\u2019s success argues that this view was wrong, or at least obsolete, that audiences yearned for the Dark Knight\u2019s subconscious payload, unmediated by winks at the camera.<\/p>\n

Todd Phillips\u2019 new contribution to the franchise, Joker, suggests that we might still need the winks. The movie attempts to use psychological clich\u00e9s and bathos to establish a \u201cnatural\u201d backstory to the one-dimensional villain. The attempt exposes the naivet\u00e9 behind Nolan\u2019s original reformulation. What is a joker, can one have a backstory? Lear\u2019s fool never needed one. Jokers are allegorical place holders for dramatic elements like plot and action, even fate, but never character. They are anti-characters, devices, not anti-heroes. Ah, but Phillips would counter, I wrote Borat and most people thought he was real. Isn\u2019t character fluid? Yes, it is fluid but not superficial. But what about the epics, they were full of the very same placeholders? Wasn\u2019t Hephaestus allegorical? The answer is Hephaestus may be a myth and allegorical to us, indistinguishable from a joker, but to the Greeks he was a god.<\/p>\n

Is Joker a god, is Batman or Thor, to us? The mind reels. So, Phillips may have wasted much of his runtime trying to pose Joachim Phoenix\u2019s anorexic torso to evoke St. Sabastian and paint the decay of \u201870\u2019s New York in renaissance yellows and gold. The adolescent retreat in the face of adulthood beaten by the American movie going public, however, is not a Christian martyrdom. Phillips\u2019 attempt to tell Joker\u2019s story as such is the latest landing in the vertiginous descent of American society into an arrested underworld. Must we now analyze the cardboard cutouts populating our comic book movies first as patients, to remove any moral question of their actions, then as victims, to instead apply a moral test to \u201csociety\u201d and finally as martyrs, to establish our newly reconstructed deities? Foucault would be proud. This mental ritual has become so routinized by academic and political rehearsal the director seems unaware of its emptiness.<\/p>\n

And that can be the only verdict reached for Nolan\u2019s vision and Phillips\u2019 realization. Empty. This explains the need to go to further lengths, to go darker, with each successive relaunch. The writers, producers and directors, even the actors, know they must work harder each cycle to pump up the crowd and distract from the inevitable descent. But by trying to make serious our comic book carnival posters, the Hollywood hucksters have drained the fun from their movies, and our laughs on the rollercoaster.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The movie, Joker, could be easily dismissed as an attempt to extend on the successful formula established by Christopher Nolan in his turn at the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,239,237,4,243,2177],"tags":[43,38,1355,2178,2151],"class_list":["post-9081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-contributors","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-movie-reviews","category-the-fat-man","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-the-fat-man","tag-the-joker"],"yoast_head":"\nGuest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The movie, Joker, could be easily dismissed as an attempt to extend on the successful formula established by Christopher Nolan in his turn at the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/picture-4.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"photog\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\"},\"headline\":\"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\"},\"wordCount\":801,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"movie review\",\"review\",\"Reviews\",\"The Fat Man\",\"The Joker\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Guest Contributors\",\"Movie Reviews\",\"Reviews\",\"Science Fiction \/ Fantasy\",\"SF&F Movie Reviews\",\"The Fat Man\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\",\"name\":\"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"name\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\",\"description\":\"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"width\":4022,\"height\":1419,\"caption\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\",\"name\":\"photog\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"caption\":\"photog\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire","og_description":"The movie, Joker, could be easily dismissed as an attempt to extend on the successful formula established by Christopher Nolan in his turn at the","og_url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/","og_site_name":"Orion's Cold Fire","article_published_time":"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/picture-4.png"}],"author":"photog","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_site":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"photog","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/"},"author":{"name":"photog","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3"},"headline":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips","datePublished":"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/"},"wordCount":801,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"keywords":["movie review","review","Reviews","The Fat Man","The Joker"],"articleSection":["Guest Contributors","Movie Reviews","Reviews","Science Fiction \/ Fantasy","SF&F Movie Reviews","The Fat Man"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/","name":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips - Orion's Cold Fire","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-24T15:20:27+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/24\/guest-contributor-the-fat-man-movie-review-joker-todd-philips\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Guest Contributor \u2013 The Fat Man \u2013 Movie Review \u2013 Joker \u2013 Todd Philips"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","name":"Orion's Cold Fire","description":"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization","name":"Orion's Cold Fire","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","width":4022,"height":1419,"caption":"Orion's Cold Fire"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3","name":"photog","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","caption":"photog"},"url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/"}]}},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9081"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9085,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9081\/revisions\/9085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}