I really can’t see Joker as anything other than a King of Comedy rip off. Its almost beat for beat the same movie and seems incredibly lazy. As though someone had the idea to remake that movie first and then DC came along and said “Slap a Joker origin story to it.”
And also, who wants a fucking Joker origin story? He is the embodiment of chaos, we arent supposed to be sympathetic to him.
Can’t say I’ve seen King of Comedy, so I can’t speak to that part. Disagree on not wanting origin stories, and I don’t really equate simply having an origin story that offers a character backdrop as creating significant sympathy for a character. Lots of terrible people had backgrounds that inform who they became, which doesn’t make me feel like they altogether lack agency in what they have gone on to do.
It’s been long enough since I’ve seen it that my memory on it is fuzzy, but I just never saw that movie as truly sympathetic to the Joker. I do get irritated if I feel a director lacks moral clarity about their own characters, and I just didn’t process Joker that way.
You should watch King of Comedy. It’s very good and you will be shocked at how much Joker lifts from it. It’s far more than simply “inspired by”.
I agree with Matt that the Joker doesn’t really need an origin story. He’s evil/chaos for the joy of chaos. I liked the Nolan/Ledger approach where Ledger’s Joker repeatedly lies about the origin of his scar. First he says it was his father then he tells Dawes he sliced his own face. He may have told something different to Batman as well, I don’t remember.
Wait, Beat Takeshi is a game show host?
This whole time I thought he was an actor. Interesting.
I been rewatching and reconsidering William Friedkin’s movies, idk what happened in the 90’s; after making back-to-back-to-back masterpieces he just fell off and made a string of completely forgettable movies. Sorcerer is brilliant? Why don’t we talk about this more?
Still, I humbly suggest Friedkin’s Bug (2006) , a weird little claustrophobic thriller that takes its time but eventually goes completely off the rails. Fair warning, this gets intense and legitimately disturbing once it gets going.
Lol this movie got a blink and you’ll miss it mention in a recent episode of How To with John Wilson 
I forget exactly what happens. It’s in the workout episode and he asks someone if they’ve heard of the movie.
Silly but such insider references are like catnip.
Wow, forgot about this one. Now I’m itchy just thinking about it 
Good movie.
He was talking to guys who transport giant pumpkins on their trucks.
My thoughts exactly.
You have the ear and the memory
I feel like I should be getting this, but im not
You have to have seen the movie Talk to Me
First 60 seconds of this scene from Talk to Me should clarify things. No real spoilers beyond explaining the rules of the hand.
Purely hypothetical question: suppose you meet someone who describes themselves as a film buff. What movie would you be very surprised to learn they haven’t seen?
To make things more concrete, assume this is an American man between the age of 25 and 45.
I will say Pulp Fiction
Shawshank. Dominated cable TV forever when cable was at its height of ubiquity, very little divisiveness about it relative to the amount of attention it’s gotten. “Broadly acceptable” goes a long way with a question like this.
I love Pulp Fiction, but I have to assume it has a much larger number of detractors than Shawshank (even if I could buy that it could have just as many or more passionate advocates).
I think if someone told me they LOVE movies, I’d be stunned if they hadn’t seen Pulp Fiction.
But I wouldn’t have the same expectation for a cinephile, who is going to be a lot more deliberate about how to use their very limited time on this planet consuming specific pieces of art.
It’s not that Tarantino isn’t amazing, it’s just that he makes commercially viable cult classics, but they are still very specific tastes from an American filmmaker.
I’d be a lot more surprised if a cinephile hadn’t seen a variety of international films from across the decades like Metropolis, The Bicycle Thief, or Last Year at Marienbad.
