Expectations suck.

Usually when people rant and rave about a movie I back away slowly until ready to be disappointed because Hollywood is so out of touch with me and most of the world that I don’t enjoy most of their modern work.

I have stepped away from supporting most major films due to the continuous acceptance of pedophilia, rape, sexual harassment, and other ridiculousness within tinsel town. But even the people I trust who roll their eyes at the propaganda factories spanning throughout California went nuts over Joker.

I expected it to be good.

I wanted to like it.

Its 8 Mile all over again. Everybody talked that movie up so hard but it boiled down to Eminem getting a hand job in a factory.

As cinematic as quickies are, I didn’t connect with a damn thing in it even though I came from a life of poverty and was a white R&B singer when it was released.

Go figure.

I can at least say that movie was just built up too much.

Joker is another story.

It relied on previous connections with the character rather than taking the time to introduce a specific version of him. The writers must have just shrugged and went, “They already know who this guy is, no need developing a personality for him or introducing it.”

There was nothing for me to connect to from the very first scene where he was melodramatically robbed and then beaten… for a sign. Not money, not valuables, but a sale sign… cuz thugs are ALWAYS running around plotting to steal cardboard and assault people for it. I already knew what was going to happen before it played out based on the obviousness of the theme.

I didn’t care about the character’s pain or injuries because he chased after his attackers and followed them down a dark alley. He was basically the big tittied blonde in the horror movie who trips and falls running upstairs to get away from the murderer.

The “laughing because I can’t cry” metaphor was so over-the-top that Joaquin Phoenix should teach a Masterclass on Over-Acting.

I have uncontrollable laughing fits at the most inappropriate times. It’s unstoppable. When I sat down with my ex-husband to tell him it was time for a divorce I laughed so hard I’m sure he hated me, but I couldn’t stop. It was just too much.

And instead of wanting pity for my insanity, I’d rather laugh it off. I accept who I am because that’s all a person can do haha

This movie was a caricature of mental illness. It was begging for pity and anyone who begs for pity doesn’t deserve it.

Hollywood tried so hard to make me “love” an already lovable character that I hated him. I was glad when he got hurt and masochistically laughed during the overly-dramatized portrayal.

It shoved how “ poor, and stupid, and pathetic” he was in my face so hard that I kept thinking, We get it. he suffers soooooooo much and he’s soooo crazy, it’s sooo harrowing. We must pity him… Robot voice Pity him.

Let’s just completely overlook the fact that this film rips off ‘The King of Comedy” (featuring Robert DeNiro) and Taxi Driver (also featuring Robert DeNiro) because this movie also features Robert DeNiro as the evil-comedy-late-night-host who just won’t let the Joker be the shitty stand-up comic that no one wants.

Cool.

I guess everyone who loved this movie also overlooked the setting. It seems to take place in the 70s, but uses common vernacular. They throw around the term “Mental illness” as if we’ve always used those two words together (we haven’t, that is a development of the past decade or 2).

He loses a job because he brings a gun to work, but in the 70s nobody cared about that, especially in a city modeled after New York. In the 70s it was common for high schoolers to drive to class with shotguns in the back of their trucks. The gun-control push was not a thing.

But I guess it’s fiction so time and place and world-building don’t matter. Who cares? Hollywood has agendas to push.

Cool.

The dialogue is laughable, which might be a redeeming quality because you’d expect a real laugh or two from the damn Joker.

The age difference between Bruce Wayne and the Joker is also hilarious because based on this movie Batman is fighting a geriatric fool. Way to go comic book hero. You can’t even catch and reform a crusty old man.

The common Hollywood, “Let’s make him have delusions but portray them as reality and then reveal it all with flashbacks at the end” was more predictable than the subway shooting or him killing DeNiro, which is obvious if you’ve ever seen a movie or read a book.

This is what happens when you let the director of “The hangover” and “Road trip” make a drama…

It’s hilariously wrong.

I laughed so hard after the Joker “is forced to kill” (yeah right no one is ever forced to kill) and does some weird ass yoga dance. I can’t wait to dress up and parody it for Halloween. Later, the famous dancing on the stairs scene was as bad as it sounds because the film switched from a classical jazz score to randomly playing football music, and we’re just supposed to accept that, I guess.

I did like the scenes of him walking on the stairs, they were pretty like a perfume commercial.

What did I expect? Hollywood has let me down so much recently that I should have expected this. They seem to think we’re not smart enough to spot poor plotting and bad writing.

I was so bored that while the Joker’s mom was in the hospital I started writing a list of all the indie movies I need to buy and go see. A24 makes great films. I could have watched The Lighthouse again. I should have gotten a baby sitter and gone to see Uncut Gems. That looks to be something actually well-made.

Well-funded and well-made are not synonymous. Joker was well-funded. As my husband put it, “They’ve dazzled people with music video cinematography.”

I guess that’s what people want now. No use risking losses on new characters or story lines. No use actually writing something realistic and helpful to others. No lets pretend we’re spreading “awareness” some more. It sells. So I guess I’m the one who’s out of luck here.

I’m a thinker.

I don’t watch movies to play on my cell phone or taut around my “fan-girl” status.

Who needs artistry in screenwriting when you can pull out every cliche and make money off of them?

There was a “walking in the rain with his head down” cliché shot that made me want him to die, and wonder why Cinema Sins hasn’t done “Everything Wrong with Joker,” yet.

I heard it rumored that this film was supposed to be a regular movie about a man breaking down but to get it made they had to slap a super hero movie franchise name on it. It seems very likely being that this Joker has no wit, intelligence, class, style, or any of the charm we know of the ACTUAL character. It was as if someone slapped the name on him and threw in a few Batman references to get the fan club notice, and it worked.

But it won’t hold up.

In 5 years this movie will be a joke. Longevity is true karma.

Which is maybe the ultimate punchline.

This joke tried to portray Thomas Wayne as a rich Trumpish figure. Curiously, all throughout the movie there were little subliminal messages sprinkled in the background, like headlines that read: Kill the Rich!

The first piece of media seen in the film is a sign that says: Everything must Go.

By the end they’re calling batman’s dad a fascist. That’s not some politically funded Hollywood nonsense thrown in there at all…

Of course not.

This is about the “Joker.”

One of the most beloved villains of all time…

Except that THIS Joker is a whiny pathetic brat written to “blame the system” for all his problems instead of owning up to his role in his own demise…

The best part of our regular sociopath is that he KNEW he was wrong and he didn’t care. He was everything a good person is not but he could at least laugh at himself and that drew us in. Not self-pity, self-hatred, or hack story lines.

We couldn’t possibly have a movie about a poor white guy breaking down, we had to water down the Joker and slap a big name on him because “white men are evil” unless of course they’re famous or a beloved character.

It’s complete “Oscar-worthy” garbage for a Hollywood that heralds pedophiles, rapists, drug addicts, and abusers. Great job tinsel town. Throw all the statues you want at this schlock.

I’m going back to my indies and not looking away again.