Joker

A confused man who struggles to fit in suddenly responds with unhinged fury, to those who snidely provoke him.

He tries to socialize at work, to enjoy the friendly influence of camaraderie, but is attuned to a different wavelength that pushes others swiftly away.

He sees a psychiatrist on a regular basis to air grievances and seek shelter, but she's ill-equipped to deal with his issues and their encounters increase his frustration.

Before budget cuts bring them to an abrupt end.

He goes off his meds and starts researching his past after reading a letter written by his mother (Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck) to Bruce Wayne's father (Brett Cullen).

And as the woe disparagingly intensifies, he embraces reckless spleen, proceeding wild-eyed and menacing, with neither recourse nor path nor guilt.

Gotham's elite have developed an unsympathetic attitude regarding its impoverished citizens, who find solace in the Joker's (Joaquin Phoenix) rampage.

The result is incredibly bleak.

As despondent as it is abandoned.

A dangerous film, this Joker, released at the worst of times.

Characters like the Joker are often exceptions are they not?, but in recent decades the U.S has seen so much distressing carnage.

Joker could easily be dismissed if it wasn't so well done, and didn't reach such a wild wide audience.

Compassion abounds for the Joker within.

And Batman's father's a condescending jerk.

From the perspective of film, it's easily the best comic book movie, like mainstream tragic arthouse psychological horror abounding with sensitive emotion.

Not just sensational superheroes predictably poised and pouncing, Joker leaves behind both razzle and dazzle to distill nocturnal desperation.

You feel for him as he daydreams, as his explanations are dismissed at work, as he makes friends with a neighbour down the hall, as he traces the roots of his identity.

Perhaps nothing will come of it.

Perhaps people harbouring dark thoughts will see the horrifying nature of their outcomes and be emphatically deterred, like parents who teach children to respect alcohol by getting them drunk, school of hard knocksy pedagogical bedlam.

But hopefully people like Bruce Wayne or his father, people occupying positions of power in the U.S, will consider a more equitable distribution of wealth, and uphold institutions which aid the unfortunate.

It's not perfect in Canada and Québec, Britain, France or Ireland, but there is much less violence, according to Michael Moore's films.

Because these countries have elites who care about the unfortunate, like Bernie Sanders.

And encourage them to be productive team members.

Much harder to own your own weapons too.

Less idealistic.

Much more practical.

War Dogs

Rowdy comedy director Todd Phillips attempts something more serious with War Dogs, but without his trusty asinine array of inebriated misfortunes, his reliable armada steers dismally off course.

Not to say he shouldn't continue trying to make serious films, War Dogs simply representing a transitional foray creatively lacking in displaced junkets, full of miscues that can be corrected, capsuled, correlated.

Boring.

It's like The Wolf of Wall Street's adolescent fanboy.

The structure's there, rambunctious young adult friends who grew up together illicitly earning a living, capital concerns trumping ethical endeavours, as they serendipitously cash in.

Cocaine is taken, incredible risks abound, women are exploited, consequences cursed, slowly leading to a predictable climax that highlights greed's lack of foresight with typical reckless contagion.

One of the friends does have a conscience that separates the films a bit.

But The Wolf, even if it also wasn't that great, still had a dynamic script with a robust cast showcased in fluid mischievous condemnation, that at least impressed for lengthy intervals.

War Dogs still makes a thoughtful point about supply and demand, capacities and so on, the fact that sometimes massive entities are the only ones who can skillfully martial all the requisite personnel to fill extraordinarily diverse orders, in manageable temporal allotments, but it's not enough.

Monopolies can theoretically drive up the price while crushing innovation if their unchallenged prowess grows stale with pomp and complacency.

But I really don't know much about them.

That isn't to say I don't want to make a lot of money.

Cashing-in big time would be pretty sweet.

Some sort of more durable necktie perhaps.

Wars aren't all about establishing markets for the sale of goods as War Dogs contends either, although many of them do seem as if such characteristics motivate their degenerative sensations.

There can be more than one.

Every year a new season begins, every 4 years a new President's elected.

In a country like Libya, if everyone fighting to be the next Gaddafi put down their arms and moved towards forging a working constitutional consensus general prosperity might indeed flourish.

Easier said, as violence unleashes violence, chaotic infinitum.

Unchecked butchers.

Gaddafi.

Hussein.

ISIS.

The soundtrack's a mess too. Good songs, but, barf.

Starsky & Hutch

Starsky and Hutch.

Back at it again.

Although, this film was released 8 years ago so perhaps 'again' isn't the correct word to be using here, but, since I'm viewing it according to the dynamics of the ways in which the second decade of the 21st century is influencing my writing, the term 'again' can therefore be thought of as being applied appropriately, give or take that there's still a lot more I need to learn about globalization.

Much much more.

That being said, I still don't have much to say about Starsky & Hutch.

To literally break it down, it takes two psychological law enforcement extremes, one which is so anal retentive that it alienates everyone and is consequently regularly forced to find new partners, another with an approach that is so laissez-faire that it can smoothly make contacts and move about suavely but can't effectively get any work done, and slowly synthesizes them throughout as they grow and come to function like a strong resilient team.

Alternatively, in regards to its comedic aspects, I didn't find it as funny as I probably would have in 2004 but I may not have found it that funny back then either.

Cool car though.

Alright, I'm really not that into motorized vehicles.

Just trying to sound cool.

Fun to ride around in sometimes though.

I'm not cool.

The Hangover Part II

And they made another Hangover film.

This time the Wolfpack's in Thailand, and, thanks to the fact that everywhere they go someone speaks English, they're able to loosely piece together what took place during their second rowdy blackout. Character types are solidified and exaggerated. Phil (Bradley Cooper) once again maintains a level-head and calmly leads the pack from one reconstructed debacle to the next. Stu's (Ed Helms) future father-in-law humiliates him regularly and his adventures in Bangkok potentially complicate the bonds of holy matrimony. And Alan (Zach Galifianakis). Alan consistently elaborates upon his peculiar relationship with highly 'alternative' conceptions of the status-quo, and thoroughly demonstrates that he hasn't the slightest clue in regards to socio-anything. Of course, many of my favourite characters are Alanesque and the status-quo is a slippery conception whose malleable determinants relativistically engage opposing cultural semantic designations (internally and externally) which are dependent upon political and economic (and so on) qualifiers and whether or not anyone pays attention to them. But Alan's such a yutz when it comes to Teddy's (Mason Lee) inclusion in the pack, that it was difficult for me to generate any related sympathy.

Although the generation of sympathy is where The Hangover Part II's strength lies, not simply sympathy generated for the slapdash script, which was potentially written in haste in order to cash in on the simmering Hangover phenomenon, perhaps over the weekend or during daily trips to the washroom, but sympathy for reckless behaviour brought on by years of predictable engagements whose consequences resultantly clarify and distinguish their uniformity, for better or worse. Yes these particular things happened and they were the by-product of other general things which also happened and therefore, while problematic in regards to a strict definition of responsibility, accentuate and integrate said responsibilities into a traditional framework nonetheless, fully and completely, through the art of forgiveness.

It's too hot today.

Due Date

As you enter your fourth decade, you may find getting along with people difficult, especially if you're not interested in fucking people over, or, are very interested in fucking people over. If you're interested in fucking people over, you'll get along well with your brethren, but any sort of genuine affection is always mitigated and diluted by an underlying creeping sense of dread, which can lead to misery if not alleviated by church on Sunday (or a weekly chat with a psychiatrist). If you're not interested in fucking people over, you'll seem odd, and the ways in which you interact with others will be judged as suspect and counterproductive, as if you don't want a three storey house, although there will be an unspoken respect for your good nature that underlies your social interactions. Todd Phillips's Due Date takes a representative from both of these categories and sticks them on a road trip together from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) simply wants to make it back to L.A. for the birth of his first child while Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) has a meeting with an agent in Hollywood. The relationship between their personalities is very Plains, Trains and Automobiles, although the consistently awkward and ridiculous scenarios have been crafted for a 21st century audience (like the difference between Back to the Future and Hot Tub Time Machine or Growing Pains and Family Guy). It's sort of like high-strung lackadaisical perseverance meets care-free trusting tactless generosity while co-ordinating various provocatively inane exchanges on an uplifting heroic comedic adventure. Will an enduring friendship be the result and will Ethan and Peter learn to fuck each other over productively by openly caring for one another? My favourite Todd Phillips's film to date.

The Hangover

Don't really see what all the hype's about surrounding Todd Phillips's The Hangover. Sure, some scenes are seriously hilarious, and it's fun to watch a group of rowdy dudes hit some cataclysmic highs and lows while partying it up in Vegas. But a lot of the humour is of the "taser to the groin"/"beaten down with a crowbar"/"I'm a lunatic psycho" variety and after a while all the juvenile violence wears a little thin. The lunatic psycho (Zach Galifianakis) has a lot of offbeat points to make that infuse the film with a particularly dark functionally awkward comic sensibility, but it's overt psycho awkward without the mediated ridiculousness that made famous psychos like Serial Mom and many, many Christopher Walken characters so appealing. The over-the-top shenanigans try and establish a dimension of ridiculous awkwardness but the constant jocktacular beatings and bizarre attempts to establish a realist counterpoint destabilize its productivity. It has its moments, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas accidentally runs into Animal House while recycling a bad "and then I #$%# her" joke, but those moments are few and far between, and the high-powered "yeah, we're full of testosterone" backbone doesn't help The Hangover convalesce.