Joker
Finally saw this thing. I don't know what to think of it yet, I'm still mulling the thing over. I think my problem is the total was smaller than the sum of it's component parts. Many of the scenes were very well done, some cool, intense stuff to work with. But added altogether and it just wasn't exciting. The ending was pretty good, but not good enough to justify the slow roll up to it. The makeup and Phoenix was excellent, but it was a kinda weird mix of intensity without depth, kinda a conundrum of a thing - it was at once too deep and not deep enough. It would've been a mistake to make the thing a deep dive into mental illness, but at the same time it was just a patchwork of stuff. It simply had no feeling to it - like I wasn't rooting for or against Joker - which is fine, not saying we as viewers need to have skin in the game, but I simply didn't give a shit one way or the other. I wasn't offended, scared, excited or thrilled. I wasn't even a voyeur.
It was poorly directed, pure and simple. The story had legs, but not filled out. The actors were very good, good cinematography, ok sound track ( not great, but it was fine, I guess ).
EDIT: I will give it points for translating Feck's uncomfortability to the viewer, I was antsy watching scenes unfold, wondering how bizarre he would behave in "normal" social situations. So that was good.