a special thank you to each of our subscribers who make this channel possible here's today's story Joker Foley do maybe ambitious and superficially outrageous but in a basic way it's an overly cautious sequel Phillips has made a movie in which Arthur really is just poor Arthur he does nothing wrong and isn't going to threaten anyone's moral sensibilities I must admit I didn't know what to do with Todd phillips' Joker at first the polarizing super villain drama based on Batman greatest Nemesis dazzled many viewers with its epic photography its righteous indignation at Broken Social systems and waen Phoenix's eerie and fragile performance as Arthur Fleck but beneath all that there was a frustrating lack of specificity about what it was actually angry at and a distracting lack of originality since it cribbed wholesale from several obvious sources especially Martin scor's taxi driver and the king of comedy it took some time but I finally found where I stand with Joker and it's halfway between the praise and the criticism all the film's fine qualities and all of its deficiencies are in a symbiotic relationship and the derivativeness is their connective tissue after all Joker is the story of a failed standup comic who only finds acceptance and success after he abandons his craft in favor of flashy violent performance art it makes sense that he'd think of his story through the lens of other better stories because he can't come up with any good material on his own Arthur Fleck is the new patron saint of mediocrity and Joker celebrates that averageness with a strange mange of fine craftsmanship and tacky pretention it's an interpretation that seems all the more fitting after watching the strange sequel Joker fly do which just had its World premiere at the Venice Film Festival but unlike the original which finds a perverse heroism in Arthur Flex failings fley do doubles down on how pathetic he is and always was it's a sad pensive and impressively odd motion picture that uses the theatricality of movie musicals to undermine its Hero's Ambitions instead of elevating them Joker Foley do takes place 2 years after Arthur Fleck murdered talk show host Murray Franklin on live TV and incited a riot which orphaned Bruce Wayne who was probably his secret half brother or not if you want to take the word of a morally compromised billionaire at face value Arthur has now spent the last 2 years in Arkham Asylum awaiting his competence hearing which is right around the corner if Arthur's found sane his trial will commence and the death penalty is on the table so his lawyer maranne Stewart Katherine Keener tries to prove it wasn't Arthur who killed all those people it was a separate personality who calls himself Joker but even Arthur doesn't seem so sure all he knows is that there's another inmate Lee quinzel Lady Gaga who loves Joker very much she even saw a TV movie they made about Arthur a whole bunch of times Todd Phillips co-wrote both Joker movies with Scott silver and they keep bringing up this TV movie and frankly it's rude that they never show a frame of it who would they even have got a star in it back in 1983 Mark Harmon kir dulia Larry Drake anyway Arthur is suddenly reenergized by the possibility that somebody loves him even if they might not love him for who he really is or for only half of him and since they meet in Arkham's music therapy class Arthur starts to Fantasy I about expressing himself through songs for once in my life he croaks in his head I have someone who needs me it's not a subtle sentiment but then again musicals aren't exactly renowned for their gritty realism Joker Foley do takes the Rob Marshall Chicago approach to musical numbers they take place mostly inside Arthur and Lee's heads representing their inner worlds better than their actual circumstances can Arthur sings at least one song where other people can definitely hear him and it's a lot creepier in person than it is in his brain the whole approach strikes an obvious but effective contrast between Flex reality and his inflated image of himself as an Entertainer the original Joker crescendoed into an act of violence and Chaos that validated Arthur's breakdown if only to himself he found his audience he made his impact what Foley do makes clear is that this isn't a comic book Universe where that's an act of Glorious coup that's all for this story We upload videos every day covering many different subjects so hit that subscribe button to stay informed thanks for watching