Batman – Splatter: on FILM

JOKER (2019) movie review

April 1, 2020March 30, 2020Leave a comment

REVIEW:
The dance of the madman.
Is slow.
Is emotional.
Is gripping.
Is the insidious dripping of water that finally drives you insane.
Is akin to slowly painting on a mask in wide, calculated brush strokes.
His reality remains skewed and sharp and sour.
Comes from a long festering narcissism.
Is fueled by fear and devastation, longing and loss, abuse and pain.
He’s alone and aware of it.
He’s had enough, and then he snaps.

Joker (2019) is a slow building crack in one man’s glass persona. So intensely introverted, the long-suffering soldier, son. Arthur says he feels he never existed until people started taking notice of his first acts of violence. Now people see him and smile, or better, they fight. He becomes the hero he’s always dreamed of being.

The smile motif also carries through into the classic crying clown, ever masking true emotion with a painted expression.

His small world shatters slowly, in tiny pricks to his subconscious that he fights until he has little fight left.

Therein lied the fear of the fateful masses who watched this color-soaked film on its first weekend of play as I did. He is anyone with a long-laden life of abuse and neglect. He’s the potential product of his poverty, of an angry society a-smoke with crime fascination.

Joaquin plays the role of a lifetime, memorable, wrenching, wicked, vain. He really lives it and we are left leering at his laugh-lines as they deepen.

He is to blame for his crimes, yet we can take up the mantle as caregivers for our neighbors, help them people feel seen, show all a kindness, so-called deserving or not.

Only the children in this film have time for him. They look without judgement beyond the mask into his childlike eyes blurred by abuse.

It’s a dance on a triple tiered stair and a late night subway ride. Joker’s loner journey of broken dreams and bad luck becomes a midnight rampage of death-tolled insanity. You never would have known that this writer /director also made The Hangover. The Hangover, then this.

RATING: R (for raw & rough, and for remind me to pick up a psych text book and read it next time instead of sitting again through this exhaustingly tragic film)

JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017) movie review

November 25, 2017November 25, 2017Leave a comment

Suffering from grief after the death of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman continue to fight crime in the shadows until Steppenwolf, the Lord of evil, returns from the land of doom to unite the three power cubes and destroy the world.Of course he does. What else would he do? So what must they do? They must form a team of superhumans and gods to save the world. Batman has the money, experience, and a new Alfred played by Jeremy Irons. Wonder Woman has her lasso of truth, her feminum wristbands, and her looks. They recruit The Flash, a fast kid with daddy issues, Aquaman, independent sassy king of the seas, and the Cyborg infused with alien technology and metal.

CG characters over saturated color spectrums, Zack Snyder maintains his classic 300 look.

The evil Steppenwolf seems a hybrid of stolen storylines from Sauron of Mordor trying to reclaim the one ring to Thanos hunting down infinity stones. Calling these “power boxes” doesn’t fix blatant plagiarism or disengage aware audiences of stereotypical evil master tropes.As far as seconds go, you often want to go back to the fridge hoping a dry slice of turkey will be better on the leftover plating. But it isn’t. Affleck’s tired Batman claims he’s getting too old for this. Gadot’s gorgeous Wonder Woman gets tighter leather and shorter skirts like she’s losing at poker with each film release.If only Batman didn’t constantly wince with exhaustion and chagrin. If only Superman wasn’t a CGI nightmare. If only Aquaman was given a likable presence instead of Wolverine’s aggression and an ocean of snarky one-liners. If only Cyborg was allowed a bit more humanity. The newbies were almost too strong, too wise, too capable. Cyborg can super hack any human or alien system. The Flash can essentially raise the dead with his super speed. Flash was surprisingly the bright spot and comic relief, but sadly not funny enough to counterbalance the darkness of a hero film left wanting.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: Dawn of Justice (2016) movie review

April 4, 2016April 4, 20161 Comment

Every monument, every idol eventually crumbles. The white knight v dark knight both tumble from pedestals of glory to writhe in puddles of shame and rise again to fame in yet another comic feature film.

Zack Snyder will give every film canvas his graphic glimmering oil painted 300 kiss. Viewers should expect this. Therefore, giant Doomsday miracle magic ooze and lengthy cinematic visions and previsions of glowy-eyed bat monsters and super villains duking it out should be expected.What I didn’t expect was increased respect for the writing, for Amy Adam’s lame Lois to play well in this her sophomore attempt, for Ben to work as the older angrier Bat, for Wonder Woman’s boots, lasso, & wrist bands to get their proper dues or for Eisenberg’s crazy-cruel quick wit and face-twitch to succeed. But they did. They all did. Don’t believe everything you read. Go see it for yourself. Just know what to expect, and maybe you too will be surprised to find yourself enjoying another hero flick that humanizes the super and normalizes the surreal making us all feel a little closer to cape-clutching hero status.

Your Thoughts?

Your Thoughts?

Your Thoughts?