JCC Common film-nerd critiques you find incomprehensible

Here's mine: Jack Nicholson wasn't that great as the Joker. He was just playing himself.

Are you out of your @#$% mind? Every scene with Nicholson is a masterclass in Grand Guignol magnificence. Every. Single. One. The post-op crackup. The murder of Grissom. The Mafioso barbecue. The execution outside the steps. The Smilex commercial. The museum dance. The parade. The cathedral dance.

He's not campy. He embodies every single quality I want from the Joker: the mirth, the mordant wit, the sadism, the style. This is one of the most perfectly-calibrated villain performances in genre film, and people are complaining?

And even if there was a scintilla of credence to that claim (there isn't), to quote Bill Hicks: "Four questions: Yeah? And? So? What?" It's Jack Nicholson playing the Joker. Most of us didn't deserve something this sublime.

 

Is this just a big defense of the Joker or are there other examples? I ask because I have never actually seen the first Batman film.

 

Did you make an entire thread to subtweet someone with a hot take about a film from…

… Jesus Christ 35 years ago?! But I was born that year!

 

You've never seen Batman '89?

 

Actually, this brings up a film nerd critique I find incomprehensible.

@Jabba-wocky -- how can you possibly find I, Robot to be the best movie ever made? Have you seen Hancock? Ghost Dad? Leonard, Part 6?

 

I'm not sure I would classify "Jack Nicholson is just playing himself" as a "film nerd" critique.

I have found that as the years wear on, I agree more with film nerds. It's difficult not to when the industry at large seems to be trying ever harder to turn the art form into nothing but slop written by literally brainless algorithms and made to be deleted for tax writeoffs.

 

The type of 'film nerd' I despise is encapsulated right here.

The correct type of 'film nerd', however, is this.

 

I dislike film criticism

 

the most common criticism I heard was "He's too fat."

 

I tried to watch this movie again in the late 90's. I couldn't finish it.

 

1.) Furiosa is set over a long period of time, revels in its own mythological/campfire story structure (and the real world mythologies it is drawing from), is divided into literal chapters, and is about a character seeking revenge set against events playing out on a massive scale around her.

2.) Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy's performances really anchor and expand on the emotional core of what Charlize Theron established in the previous film, and carry a foreboding sense of heartbreak, knowing what is to come for the character, for everyone and everything that she is set to lose, and the state of the world that she originates from.

3.) The film is utterly earnest. It refuses to be snarky or condescending or embarrassed by what it is like so many other blockbusters are. It owns every weird, off-kilter character and story beat and name wholeheartedly without batting an eye, and asks the audience confront what other blockbuster movies would paint as absurdities to be mocked or downplayed on a genuine, emotional level.

In other words, Furiosa is good.

 

Jack Nicholson being great as The Joker doesn't means he also isn't just being Jack Nicholson in white make-up.
The reason he was such a good choice is exactly because that's the type of actor he is, teetering on the fine edge of sanity and psychosis.

The same argument is used for why RDJ is so good playing Tony Stark, because RDJ is basically just playing himself so it comes naturally.

 

Point of order, the first Batman film didn't have Jack Nicholson as the Joker, it had the late, great Cesar Romero as the Joker.

 

I would argue that the original Batman movie with Adam West was a much more savage deconstruction of the comic book superhero genre than Watchmen.

The scene where he deduces the identity of the four villains using dream-logic showed that only a functionally insane hero could match with the functionally insane villains of the story.
Not to mention where Batman breaks the fourth wall with "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb", a meta-commentary long before the days of Deadpool and Howard the Duck.

 

Dream logic? The shark was pulling his leg, that’s unambiguous.

 

You’re thinking of Buttman.

 

I’m thinking of Fartman…





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Recently got more than a little frustrated whilst catching up with the "professional" reviews of GxK: The New Empire, all of which kept bringing up Godzilla Minus One for some bizarre reason. Came across like a bunch of snobs complaining that a children's soft play area didn't have an open bar.

 

I think there’s a pretty clear reason to compare the two most recent Godzilla films, both released within a year of one another. It’s even more clear which one is terrible by comparison.

 

“star wars is good”

yeah sure. since when?

 

that's just kind of what acting is, with the exception of a few actors maybe. like you cast paul rudd in your movie because you want paul rudd to be in your movie.