Joker ~ Why Is There Evil

W
hy is there evil? Ah yes, the age-old question rears its ugly head once again. Todd Phillips promises to answer that question, at least in the case of Batman's arch-nemesis in "Joker." As I walked in for my screening, I quickly noticed an armed police officer standing near the entrance.  I tend to not listen to what others have been saying, but with all the hub-bub about mass shootings, I understood why he was there.  

The film opens on a busy Gotham street looking eerily like the 1980's New York. Joaquin Phoenix ("Inherent Vice," "Walk the Line" ) is playing the hapless Arthur Fleck all decked out with white paint on his face, a rubber skull cap with green bozo hair and silly small bowler hat and the red rubber nose. He is twirling a sign in a gaudy clown suit. This is not the iconic image we all have come to know from images past. He is in front of a store that is going out of business. I didn't realize that they had sign twirlers in the '80s, but hey. 

A group of kids come running by and grabbing his sign, and they take off.  Arthur, in his giant clumsy clown shoes, gives chase.  They lead him into an alley, and Arthur follows. As he sees his quarry in sight, he is blindsided by a kid with the sign slams him in the face, and Arthur goes down.  The kids viciously begin kicking him.  They kick him in the back, the side, the ribs, and in the groin. You immediately feel bad for Arthur. But that is what writer and direct Phillips wants you to explore. He wants you to feel sorry for Arthur. Don't fall for it. 

As origin stories go, "Joker" is superb. The scene is set. A cold, cruel world where the common man is marginalized. Arthur lives in a run-down apartment with his mother, Penny. Frances Conroy () plays his mother throughout the film as one would expect a loving mother with a disability would be. "Put on a happy face," Arthur intones as he tells people he meets is what his mother always told him. Fleck also tells them that his mother says that he was put on this Earth to make people smile. In the run-down apartment building that he lives in, we meet Sophie (Zazie Beetz - "Deadpool," "Atlanta"), and her daughter in an elevator. Luckily for Fleck, that suddenly stops giving them a moment to make eye contact and give Arthur the moment to focus on a possibility.

As the film moves steadily towards his transformation into "Joker," we find Arthur and ourselves in a cold dark world of class upheaval. A world fraught with rudeness, cruelty,  and where the truth is turned upside down. Sound familiar? It should.

When "Jaws" came out in 1975, and "Alien" in 1979, we had monsters that evil was their nature. They killed the innocent because that is what they do.  In John Carpenter's original "Halloween," Michael Myers was just evil. He wasn't, as in Rob Zombie's version, a neglected and bullied child whose mother is not only single, but a stripper ignores the signs that her son is spiraling down into madness. We already knew the Joker was criminally insane. Did we really need to know why? We knew that Dracula was not only a vampire but evil as well. In both Bram Stoker's novel and in the 1931 Bela Lugosi classic, we are not told why he is a vampire or of any wrongs that God may have inflicted on the Count. It doesn't matter, he is evil. 

The picture that director Todd Phillips paints is one of man, used and abused just trying to fulfill his dreams.  What dreams are these? First, he wants to be like his hero late-night host, Murray Franklin. Enter Robert DeNiro ("Family," "Godfather") plays the Carson like talk show host in a manner, not unlike Jerry Lewis in the 1982 film DeNiro starred in with the late comedian, "The King of Comedy." The talk show host is aloof and to some degree, cruel. Joaquin Phoenix's performance is excellent, the story is both brilliant and direct. 

DC fans will both love and hate this adaptation, and I think in this political and conscious gun divide will both adore and deride the film with a good reason for both points of view. Movies are a reflection of our society, and this is precisely what this film is. I always said that a hero is only as good as his enemy or the villain of the story. When it comes to the Joker, Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson did it for me. That being said, go see this film, you might find yourself something within you that finds "Joker" appealing. "Joker" runs 2 hours and is rated "R" for restricted.

Movie Data

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Year:  2019

Starring:  Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy

Director: Todd Phillips

Producer(s): Bradley Cooper, Joseph Garner, Aaron L. Gilbert, Walter Hamada, Todd Phillips

Writer: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver

Rating: R

Running Time: 122 minutes

Release Date: 10/4/2019

The Family - A Fine, Fast, and Funny Film

Luc Besson's “The Family” is a funny look at the lives of a (dys) functional mob family in hiding in Northern France.  Luc Besson ("The Fifth Element," "Taken," "To Paris With Love") has focused his black comedy about organized crime directly on the subject of family.  Most of us, who watch films about the mob, the mafia, or whatever you want to call it, know that it is centered around the concepts of family.  In fact, the first scene Besson shows us is a family eating dinner at their table.  The family consists of an older father, a wife, a daughter, and a son.  There is a knock on the door and the father gets up to see whom it is.  The door explodes and a guy named Rocco (Jon Freda) enters and kills the family.  So, now we know what kind of people we are dealing with.  “The Family” is an hour and fifty minutes long, and rated R for violence and language.

Robert De Niro ("Godfather II," "Goodfellas") and Michelle Pfieffer ("Scarface," "Married to the Mob") star as husband and wife – mother and father of a family in the Witness Protection Program.  They have two children.  Their daughter is 17 and their son is 14 years-old.  Tommy Lee Jones ("The Fugitive," "No Country For Old Men") plays the FBI officer in charge of their safety.

Fred Blake (De Niro), from New York and also known as Giovanni Manzoni,  a former Capo in the Luchese family. You see, six years ago Giovanni snitched on the Luchese family.  He turned into a rat.  The FBI is constantly relocating his family to a sleepy little town in Normandy France.  The family has a hard time adjusting to the role of "normal" people.  In their first day in town, Maggie (Pfieffer) blows up the local grocery store.  Their son, Warren (John De Leo) gets his ass kicked, and daughter Belle (Dianna Agron) beats the crap of some guys at school who came off a bit too fresh for the American.  Fred on the other hand, decides he wants to write his memoirs. 

For some reason, we as an audience, find this very funny. Besson, a native of France, plays up the French character in this film as friendly, but with that underlying condescending attitude that American's just hate. 

Most people think of De Niro as a smart guy.  But, the impression one might get of Fred Blake or Giovanni Manzoni is not one who is capable of writing eloquent prose.  Considering that Fred's favorite word is F**K, he can convey whole sentences, nay paragraphs in just the way he says that word, why write?  It gets out to the neighbors in the town that the American is an author and is now an instant celebrity.  Not a good idea if you have the mob chasing you. Giovanni/Fred is so much a celebrity, that he is invited to speak at the town’s small film society.  The film for discussion is "Some Came Running" from 1958 starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.  Instead, they were sent the wrong movie.  The movie that came“Goodfellas,” makes for plenty of laughs.

"Like Al Capone said, asking polite with a gun in your hand is better than asking polite with nothing." Giovanni Manzoni

Michelle Pfieffer plays her character Maggie, both convincingly but with a certain sense of gusto.  The fifty-five year-old actress is staill as attractive as ever and an equal partner to De Niro's Giovanni. Pfieffer is whimsicale as she does her own fair share of damage to the stuck-up members of the small town.  Tommy Lee Jones, is well, Tommy Lee Jones.  His Agent Stansfield character is one that Jones has played before whether it was in "The Fugitive," U.S. Marshals," or in the "Men In Black" films.

What impressed me about “The Family” was the sense of respect that the two siblings have for each other.  Although I think that this ESS the least plausible part of the script, I found it one of the most likable.  Actor John D'Leo plays 14 year-old Warren as a mature kid, whose goal is, if not running the petty crime in his new school, he will settle for a cut while getting back at the bullies that beat him up the first day.  While his sister Belle (Agron) turns her interests toward a young, handsome Math substitute.  In spite of the trouble these two characters are having in the film, I liked the way their characters came to the aid of their family in a time of crisis.

In the Western musical scale, there is a finite collection of notes.  A musician must find a combination of notes.  Once those notes are found, the musician tends to play those notes repeatedly in different ways to come up with different melodic sounds.  Luc Besson has found a certain number of notes that certain people seem to respond to.  Have others used the notes before?  Yes, of course they have.  As I said, there are a finite number of notes that make music. 

In "The Family," Besson plays the mobster minor scale like the producer of a studio record, with masters of their instruments, or in this case, actors who are masters of their craft.  The composition requires the use of certain harmonies like actors who fit the characters and the parts they are playing.  Does this work tend to fall into stereotypes?  Of course it does, it is what we expect from a movie about the mob.  Luc Besson did the right thing when casting De Niro as a mobster; he is the expert at that role.  He can play the serious murderous gangster as he did in "Goodfellas," or he can play him comedic as he did in "Analyse This" and “Analyse That" with Billy Crystal’s many years ago. 

Luc Besson's "The Family" is not to be taken seriously. Made for a mere $30 million, "The Family," includes top-notch actors, genuine funny moments, and plenty of action interspersed with inside mob film jokes, and a third act that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Not one of the great mob films of all times, "The Family" is a solid, above average, entertaining film that is worth watching, if not in the theaters, then at home when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray.

Movie Data

Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime

Year:  2013

Staring: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D'Leo

Director: Luc Besson

Producer(s): Luc Besson, Ryan Kavanaugh, Virginie Silla, Martin Scorsese 

Writer: Luc Besson, Michael Caleo

Rating: R

Running Time: 111 minutes

Release Date:  9/13/2013

Limitless Has Its Limits

There Are No Safeguards in Human Nature

W hat would you do if you had a magic pill that made you a 100 times smarter? Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro show us how to evade killer henchmen, and murderous loan sharks in 'Limitless.'  Would you use this drug wisely or squander it?

"Limitless" is one of those films that you come away from feeling like you just took the best acid trip of your life. Bradley Cooper stars as writer Eddie Morra, a Generation Xer, whose life showed promise while in college, but has basically gone nowhere since. He lacks the creative spark that we all know exists within us, but is buried so deep that very few of us can access it. The hope that director Neil Burger ("The Illusionist") tempts us with, as Eddie is tempted with, is that magic something that would unleash that spark. In this case, like the drug Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) of 60's and 70's, Eddie is hoping his mind will open and with a new vision of reality he can see his future and write his book. Robert De Niro stars as Carl Van Loon, a big shot businessman who plays Eddies mentor, employer and nemesis. Abbie Cornish ("Sucker Punch") plays Eddie's love interest who works at the publishing company where Eddie has his book contract. Limitless is about a new drug that could potentially help humanity, but ultimately the film is about drug addiction, the dangers involved, depression, and most of all, the rush and the thrill. Limitless is rated PG-13 and runs about an hour and forty-five minutes. 

"Limitless" starts off with a cliffhanger, literally. Standing on the balcony of his high-rise fortress of solitude, Eddie is narrating the circumstances of his predicament. Eddie has the wolves banging at the door, desperate, not wanting to die a slow torturous death at the hands of a loan shark, he is about to end his life. Not much of a film if he jumps, so instead we flashback about a year earlier... Looking somewhat like a drug addict, Eddie is a writer with a bad case of writer's block. He has an advance from a publishing company and no book, not even one word, to show for it, and Lindy (Cornish) his girlfriend, ceremoniously dumped him. At the nadir in his life, Eddie has a chance meeting with his ex-brother-in-law, Vernon (Johnny Whitworth). Eddy was married to Vernon's sister Melissa, right out of college for about four months. Eddie knows Vernon once was a drug dealer, and although Vernon assures him he is not, while at lunch, he gives Eddie a free sample. Telling Eddie that what he has now is a miracle drug that will help with his creativity. The free sample is of a "FDA approved pharmaceutical called NZT, but yet doesn't have a street name. Eddie pocket the pills as he is trying to stay clear so he can write his book, Eddy heads home to his crappy little New York apartment with its multiple door locks and filthy dishes, and junk all over the floor. However he doesn't make it to the door, as his landlord's young cute wife happens to be there and is ready to bitch him out about the rent. So finding he has nothing to lose, he pops the pill and about thirty seconds later, the pill kicks in and he starts making connections, the girls text book, she is going to law school, the subject of her paper, suggestions for a better paper, etc. All this stimulation to his synapses is shown with CSI like visuals, and here is where Burger wants us to make the connection that knowledge can get us brainy guys, you guess it, sex. This is only the first of many situations that show us that being smarter will somehow get you laid. Knowledge like anything in this world is a tool, and the question comes to mind, what would we do with such a power. Would we get rich with it, help others; hurt others; would we work to make this world better?

Trying to encapsulate the ideas in Alan Glynn's novel, The Dark Fields, onto the big screen, Burger resorts to having Cooper narrate many main points that he wants us to remember. The narration both helps and hurts at times. The rule in filmmaking is show, don't tell. This is a visual medium, however, there is just so much material crammed into this film that it is actually draining at times. Realizing that NZT is like Adderall for normal people, Eddie finds that now he can focus and prioritize his life better than he could ever have before. Burger uses mind altering camera effects to show Eddie essentially being in many places as one time, while he picks up the pig-sty of an apartment. He sits down and writes out several chapters of his book, delivers it to his slack jawed publisher, all in a space of a day. What becomes apparent quite quickly is that without taking the drug on a constant basis, that clarity, the ability to focus, the sense of urgency, that Eddie experiences when he took NZT, is gone. Like a junkie who needs a fix Eddie goes to Vernon's apartment. Finding Vernon a little worse for wear, Vernon sends Eddie on some errands. When he returns, finds Vernon dead. Shot in both the chest and in the head, Eddie realizes that whoever killed Vernon was after the drug. He calls the cops and then searches for the pills,

From here on out, "Limitless" takes on most aspects of a thriller, not only is he followed by the man in the Tan Coat, Unwisely, Eddie makes a deal with an Eastern European loan shark for a hundred grand. Coming out of nowhere, Eddy makes a small fortune, meets some really nice upper crust friends, gets a new wardrobe, cuts his hair, and goes to town. Knowledge is power. Using his limited supply of NZT, he sets out to take the small amount of cash of about eight hundred dollars into a small fortune by playing the stock market, and using math to win at Black Jack. Eddie gets noticed by one of the biggest badass businessman in New York, Carl Van Loon (De Niro). Not the type to take no for an answer, De Niro plays Van Loon like, uh, De Niro. Pressing Eddie to review some investment options, Eddie filters through all the data to see connections, between crap investments and some more lucrative possibilities that are buried deep in the portfolio. Scenes like this will actually cause the audiences eyes to glaze over, but it's the concept that matters. Human beings retain all that they hear, and all that they see, however, the problem is in recalling all that information as needed. Remembering the name of a song an hour later or a day later doesn't help you if you are trying to win a radio station contest for a prize.

Speaking of concepts, the idea of a smart drug is not new. Flowers for Algernon and the 1968 movie adaptation, "Charly" take on the subject with both positive but ultimately disastrous events. In the 1999 film, Deep Blue Sea, the search for an Alzheimer's cure leads to death by shark. Essentially, humans need the synapses in our brains to fire consistently, continually, and the ability to make new synaptic links. NZT creates these temporary links but as Eddie finds out, not only do you lose your ability to focus and recall information on a whim, but your brain actually deteriorates without it. Meeting up with his ex-wife Melissa, he sees a woman who let NZT suck the life out of her. She warns Eddie about it, informing him that he should wean himself off of it slowly. As the movie progresses, you will start noticing in other characters the signs of NZT addiction. You will start suspecting everybody, however, Burger, and producer Cooper will leave you with an interesting twist.

Bradley Cooper plays all version of Eddie Morra well. From the loser at the beginning, the successful but addicted Eddie, the desperate and depraved Eddie, and finally the completely changed Eddie that the film leaves us with. The question I have is without Cooper's good looks, but with his increased mental prowess, would he still score all the women that the film depicts? Abbie Cornish's Lindy seems a bit shallow, she dumps Eddie, but once he gets smart, she's back in his arms and in his bed. Robert De Niro plays Van Loon like Jimmy Conway from "Goodfellas." Andrew Howard plays the Eastern European mob character Gennady, and does so with gusto. 

Limitless is chalk full of special effects that Neil Burger uses to get our attention and trip us out with. Thank God the film is not in 3D as I think I would have puked. Images go on forever, space bends, and there is actually a very cool Matrix/Bourne fight scene. Drugs, like a viral video on YouTube get around. It doesn't seem to matter if the drug is legal or not, if people want it, they will get it. Is this another social commentary that is being pointed out to us? Another thing this film does, is that it encourages me to attempt learning a new language, or read Brian Greene's Elegant Universe and understand string theory. Not going to happen, but in the moment it seems achievable. Limitless also points out to us very clearly, is that we are actually only pale reflections of our true selves. The ability to use more than the 20% of our brains that we currently limited to, seems like a worthy aspiration doesn't it? What Limitless does show that there is a cost to letting the Genie out of the bottle? For some, they pay with their lives; some deteriorate physically, while others sink into the depths of depravity.

Although there is a lot to like about Limitless, there are a few things I didn't care for. The fact that, like "Underdog" we need to pop a pill in order to get out of jams. This seems just a bit too handy for the writers, sort of a Deus ex machina. Libby is told, by Eddie as she is chased through Central Park, that all she has to do is pop one of those clear, round NZT tablet, and all her problems are solved. Where is the work, the safeguards? As Eddie points out in the film - "There are no safeguards in human nature." A few people get killed in Limitless; however, these murders seem to clean themselves up a bit too neatly. Take Vernon's murder for example, although it was Eddie who called the police, he did have the NZT on him, yet the cops failed to at least pat him down. Or a girl, who Eddie was with before she was killed, seems to fade away without further mention. The film does point out, or at least infers to the theme that intelligence is not a substitute for wisdom, and this film points out some pretty unwise moves that the characters make. Far from being perfect, "Limitless" is worth a matinee showing, or for the thrill seekers it is a decent date film. I would definitely watch it again when it comes out on DVD or Blu-ray.

Movie Data

Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Year:  2011

Staring: Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Abbie Cornish, Andrew Howard, Johnny Whitworth

Director: James Gunn

Producer(s): Leslie Dixon, Ryan Kavanaugh, Scott Kroopf

Writer: Leslie Dixon, Alan Glynn (novel)

Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 105 minutes

Release Date:  3/18/2011

First posted on Associated Content/Yahoo Voices on 3/19/2011