Hoo boy! Starting off the month with an excellent movie, Joker! As advertised and how one could assume, this was a very dark take on how Arthur Fleck became the Joker. We open on Arthur laughing for an almost painfully long time before we see that he’s talking to a social worker. Having previously been in an institute, Arthur now works as a clown for hire, and seemingly enjoys it. That is until he gets the crap beat out of him by some mean teens. Life just continues to pummel him throughout the rest of the movie.
People don’t understand his constant, nervous laughter, and think he’s downright strange, which means they are always rude to him and sometimes violent. His mother has her own bouts of psychosis, telling Arthur that Thomas Wayne is his father. We get a little bit of contact with the Wayne family, and the end serves up an iconic Batman origin moment, but the sole focus of the film is how someone with mental illness just keeps getting put down and the services to assist him just keep getting taken away until he finally can’t take it anymore. While most of the DCU films have been darker compared to all the Marvel endeavors, this unrelated installment is significantly darker and equally heartbreaking. It makes you feel sympathetic to one of Batman’s notorious villains, and I’m quite fond of that take! It would be absolutely preposterous if this doesn’t score Joaquin Phoenix an Oscar nod. Bravo!
As soon as I got home from that magical cinematic experience, I pulled up Netflix to watch the new horror film, In the Tall Grass, based on the novella of the same name written by father-son duo, Stephen King and Joe Hill. Normally, something like this may not garner my viewership, but two of its stars were Patrick Wilson and Harrison Gilbertson, so I caved! We open with siblings Cal and a pregnant Becky. They pull over on the side of a road when they are called to from a field of tall grass by a boy named Tobin. Tobin’s mother, Natalie tells her son not to call them in, but Cal and Becky go searching for him anyways. Soon after they are lost. As night falls, Becky runs into Tobin’s father, Russ who tells her he can find Cal.
Meanwhile, Cal finds Tobin, who brings him to this large rock in a clearing. Before Tobin can convince Cal to touch the rock they hear Becky being attacked nearby. We then cut to Becky’s ex-boyfriend, Travis, looking for the siblings. He hears them in the grass and enters, where he runs into Tobin. Tobin leads Travis to Becky’s rotting corpse. Then we flashback to Tobin and his parents getting lured into the grass by Travis, and as night falls, Russ touches the rock. Rather than ruin the rest of the film, just know that there are lots of time loops and some serious creepy things happening in that grass. And if you think the grass is the only scary part, think again Patrick Wilson’s mustache! Having not read the novella, the time looping was slightly confusing, but the scares were certainly enjoyable! If you’re already paying for Netflix and you’d like an unexpected scare, give this a go!
I’ve got a few more movies queued up for the weekend, so stay tuned!