Stephen Ticktin

Ok Dudes. In spite of whatever negative reviews it received I found Joker Deux far out. There was the same feeling of brilliance as in Joker 1 and it continued the psychological thriller narrative of its predecessor. And how interesting to subtitle it Folie a Deux as I pointed this theme out in Joker 1. Folie a Deux is a situation where 2 people share the same delusion. In Joker 1 it occurred between Arthur Fleck and his mother and in Joker 2 it is a folie a deux between Joker and his admirer Harly Quinn played magnificently by Lady Gaga.Although some people found the music and dancing pointless I actually thought it actually enhanced the artistry of the movie. Arthur Fleck is a very complex character and he shows what happens when you try to throw the psychiatric system at him to try and save him from life imprisonment. He rejects psychiatry and rightly so. He knows that all these psychiatric labels: multiple personality etc have no validity and he does not want to abide with them in order to be deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. This is why he fires his lawyer and starts to defend himself. In all honesty for a long time I never cared for Joaquin Pheonix acting. In fact I used to put him in my list of anti-actors along with Keanu Reeves and David Caruso. However his last four films--Woody Allen's Irrational Man, Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, and the 2 Joker films have made me rethink my appraisal of him. He fully deserved the Oscar for Joker 1 and don't be surprised if Joker 2 walks away with multiple statues. Hats off to Todd Philips. Hope there will be a Joker 3 Stephen Ticktin

This is a tremendous out of sight movie wherein you see the evolution of a fatherless child into a psychopathic murderer whose mother,who suffers with a rare psychiatric disorder called De Clerembault’s Syndrome aka erotimania, tries to seduce him into a folie a deux in which the Joker believes that his father is also Batman’s father. Duped he goes crazy, kills his mother, as well as a TV talk show host (Hope you’re listening Dave Letterman) and as a symbol for the lumpenproletariat clown revolution proves once again that jokers are wild.