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Ari Aster’s ‘EDDINGTON’ Sloppily Relitigates Pandemic Woes

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Covid denialism. Mask mandates. BLM protests. Ari Aster’s fourth feature revisits all the trials and tribulations of the 2020 pandemic, dragging us back to that societal fever dream while adopting a decidedly odd “both sides” stance to interrogate the existential mania of the era. The result is a film that tries to tackle a lot—most notably how partisan mainstream media, social platforms, and fringe sites funnel viewers into conspiratorial rabbit holes that deepen division and further otherize an already fraying left/right American divide—but ends up feeling more like the frazzled screed of someone who, frankly, had a really bad pandemic. Read More

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Singsong Sequel ‘JOKER: FOLIE Á DEUX’ Is Provocative Anti-Entertainment

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If you’re like me, when you first heard the title of Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his controversial 2019 smash hit Joker, you probably Googled “folie à deux.” It refers to a kind of shared insanity experienced by those closely connected. Pretentious? Absolutely—doubly so for a Joker sequel—but it promised more than just your standard superhero/villain fare. Especially when we learned the film would be a love story between Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck/Joker and a new take on Harley Quinn, played by none other than Lady Gaga. Then came the kicker: it’s a “jukebox musical.” Doubts redoubled. Much like the first film sparked a million think pieces, fan adoration, cultural backlash, and Oscar plaudits, Joker: Folie à Deux is sure to rile up the masses—but this time for a very different reason. It’s an aggressive form of provocative anti-entertainment. Read More

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Existential Dark Comedy ‘BEAU IS AFRAID’ is Unhinged, Overlong, Hysterical 

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Reeling from the death of his iconoclast mother, an emotionally stunted, mentally ill man must traverse to her funeral in Ari Aster’s oft-indescribable dark comedy, Beau is Afraid. Aster frames the journey as if he were Homer himself, making for a melodramatic and depraved comedy of errors turned familial nightmare, stuffed to the brink of bursting with pure orchestrated chaos. Shocking, subversive, and very often hilariously funny, the genre-defying A24 feature stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Beau, a man for whom the pressures of the world are quite overwhelming. The film plays like What About Bob as remade by the director of Hereditary, but as an Oedipal fever dream. It’s a lot thematically. It’s a lot structurally. It’s a lot from a performance-perspective. It’s just a lot of movie. And most of it is pretty brilliant. Read More

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Put Your Happy Face On, ‘JOKER 2’ Officially in Development

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It should come as a surprise to no one that Joker, a film which has broken the record for biggest R-rated film ever, and has smashed plenty of other records along the way, has officially been greenlit for a sequel. The Joaquin Phoenix-starring supervillain origin story enjoyed a celebrated festival run, winning the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. and further praise along its path to wider cineplexes. The reputation of the Todd Phillips’ film began to proceed itself, with Joker becoming a central topic of cultural conversation and somewhat critically divisive, even before its release. Ultimately, Joker became an unmitigated mega-hit for DC and Warner Brothers (already well on its way to a crisp $900 million total tally), with fan fervor matching its box office ferocity. Read More

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With Phoenix’s Bleak ‘JOKER’, a Good Punchline Can Re-Write History

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Trash is piling up in Gotham City. Plunged into a recess of political gridlock, societal malaise, and civil unrest, the city is steeped in refuge. Waste management services are on strike. Black bags of Gotham’s waste line the streets. Arthur Fleck counts himself amongst the discarded. He’s trash personified; tossed out alongside his creepy cackle. According to Arthur, he hasn’t had a happy day in his life. A simmering hotpot of childhood trauma, deep-set depression, daddy issues, hallucination-prone psychosis, sexual repression, and rage-onset tendencies, Arthur just ain’t a happy camper. And yet, he’s told to smile, to grin and bear it, to play nice. Read More

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Joaquin Phoenix Puts a Smile on That Face in ‘JOKER’ Trailer

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In the wake of whatever the hell Jared Leto was doing as the Joker in the frankly awful Suicide Squad, there came rumblings of a handful of new iterations of the iconic Batman villain. When rumors swirled that Martin Scorsese was interested in producing a clown prince origin story, curiosities peaked. When the always reliable Joaquin Phoenix was tapped to fill the shoes, anticipation only rose. The long-awaited first look at Todd Phillips’ Joker has finally surfaced online and it promises a dark and thoughtful look at the origins of madness in maybe the world’s most iconic villain. Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘THE SISTERS BROTHERS’

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Manifest destiny makes no promises of prosperity. Those seeking riches in the wild, wild west were treated to the same pittance of dumb luck and social hierarchy that they were long familiar in the eastern shores. What distinguished the far reaches of the American West in the mid-1800s was the fierce cascade of violence that hung over the land like a raging conflagration and the profit one could seek by exacting that violence. Bounty hunters and criminals pocked the far-flung towns, trading human lives for riches. This is where we meet The Sisters Brothers.  Read More

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SIFF ’18 Capsule Review: ‘DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT’

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Recovery is a marathon not a sprint, not that the snarky wheelchair-bound protagonist of Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry would be able to stand for either. Telling the true story of celebrated, irreverent Portland cartoonist John Callahan, from his reckless drinking days to his untimely paralysis to his long tenure at AA, Van Sant’s latest is a hopeful salvation saga sprinkled with un-PC delights lead by a powerful Joaquin Phoenix performance. Lippy but uplifting, Don’t Worry crutches on a jumbled timeline that can make the narrative feel sloppy and untethered but is harnessed by a message of preservation in the face of all obstacles. Jonah Hill is raw as a flowy flaxen-haired sponsor amidst a standout supporting cast. (B) Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE’

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Violence is cynical in Lynn Ramsey’s down and dirty arthouse thriller You Were Never Really Here. A rough and tumble look at a life surrounded and dictated by violence, Ramsey’s long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s We Need to Talk About Kevin stars Joaquin Phoenix as a mumbling fixer. Armed with a hammer and crippling PDST, Phoenix’s squirrelly and traumatized antihero is a hired gun; a vigilante who specializes in liberating young women from sex trafficking.  Read More

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Out in Theaters: IRRATIONAL MAN

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To “get into character,” many actors have taken it upon themselves to devastate their money-making temples. History credits Robert De Niro with starting the trend; his packing on pounds for Raging Bull set a record, as well as the stage for silver screen physical transformations. Today, Christian Bale is a particularly looney example of someone willing to batter himself with physically implausible weight-gain and loss but, to his credit, it informs his performance in oft tremendous ways. Read More