Movie: Joker
Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz
This emperor is not naked, but the underwear he is wearing is limited to an incredible performance by Joaquin Phoenix. This film, apart from the last forty five minutes, is something a comic book based film should never be: frequently boring.
The constant of comics is that they are open texts - a structure upon which the author allows the reader to build almost any meaning or significance they like. So here we are, with people writing essays disguised as reviews about this film extolling not really the film itself but their half-baked reflections on the world, possibly not at a level I have seen since Forrest Gump. That film also cleverly used its open text nature to allow it to be whatever each audience member wanted it to be, but it had the advantage of being consistently entertaining.
Like Gump, the cleverness here is in not having a meaning and yet so very much appearing to be drenched in meaning. Just as happened with Gump people have fallen for their own propaganda. In Gump, Forrest is almost entirely a reliable narrator (not in what he says but in what he sees) because, deliberately, he is too limited and too unsophisticated to torture a predetermined meaning onto the skeleton of reality. Quite bluntly he repeatedly does not understand the meaning of what is happening around him because he is incapable of constructing it. Part of the point was that despite this reliable narration the critical and audience interpretation was so politically divided. (This might be news to Gen Y of course but it was a big deal at the time.) Some of the drivel written about this Joker fails to even notice the one clear point available in the film: the narrator, much like ourselves, is entirely unreliable, and yet there will be a similar partisan insistence on the ‘meanings’ to be taken from Joker.
If you enjoy tortured artists doing interpretations of awkward, tortured and confused souls then knock yourself out with this. I suppose on one hand there is a cleverness to using a popular brand to throw some light on the confusing issues surrounding mental health, but on the other this is only tenuously a Joker film and it is seriously off-canon. There is a lot of worthy cinematic craft on display here, but the intellectual masturbation attending this via extrapolations of political meanings might be more entertaining than the film itself. Nonetheless, the box office success will see similar takes on other characters coming soon.

Movie review: Ready or Not
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillet
Stars: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Andie MacDowell
I probably enjoyed this far more than was reasonable. It is straight up schlock-horror farce. The pacing from the relatively innocent scenario of poor girl marrying into rich family to its full descent into gore-fest is adroitly managed, with tension and suspense well balanced with humour; black and otherwise.
Samara Weaving, Hugo’s niece, is perfect as the new bride, and Andie MacDowell, eye-catchingly made up as the tight-skinned, face-lifted and botoxed mother-in-law, is also a standout. If the trailers catch your fancy you will enjoy the film.

Movie: The King
Director:  David Michôd
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, Joel Edgerton
At times historical but mostly ahistorical treatment of Henry V relying somewhat on Shakespeare's version of events. Dealing with the difficult nature of kingship, this pulls off a film worth a look if you like a bit of plate and chainmail, Game of Thrones style. It has only a brief cinema run, which you have probably already missed, as it is a Netflix film.
Timothée Chalamet does some excellent work here with brooding gazes aplenty, though as always I struggled with the casting of a slim, pretty thing as a warrior. Robert Pattinson plays The Dauphin in the camp style with which the English are so fond of depicting the French.
Some good effort at combat - armour actually works - and worth it for the battle scene of Agincourt alone. It is likely that Agincourt somewhat influenced the battle of the bastards scene from GoT, so it is interesting that the scene here offers some similarity to that “battle”.
On the motivation level for political players this will be infuriating for any of you actually familiar with The Hundred Years War or even just Henry V. I would love to see some statistics on how often historical dramas actually reverse the roles significant people played but it seems to be very high for some reason.

Movie: Gemini Man
Director:  Ang Lee
Stars: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen
Will Smith performs slick combat choreography against Will Smith. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, highly watchable in Season 3 of Fargo, adds genuine interest. Clive Owen is in it, and the date is post 2009 which tells you there is a very, very high chance of disappointment. If you are just not a Will Smith fan then catch RED and RED 2 instead on your streamer, if you have not seen them. Otherwise, the first hour of this is fine and typical of the genre of super spies and mastermind villains. After that it starts to drift down towards its lowly IMDB rating. For an Ang Lee film this is a serious disappointment.

Movie review: Zombieland: Double Tap
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg
Catch the first one if you have not seen it, it is both a more charming film and some of this will not really work without it. Ten years have passed since Zombieland's release (it predates The TV version of The Walking Dead) and Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg have both gone onto much bigger things and the expectations were a bit higher for this. Presumably they had fun or they would not have bothered coming back, but this film is really just a weaker echo of the first. It is mildly fun and if you do bother, then you might as well stay to the very end as there are a few more seconds of Bill Murray in a second post credit scene.

Movie review: Hustlers
Director:  Lorene Scafaria
Stars: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Stiles
It is difficult to believe that a film about strippers could be so boring, yet here we are. J Lo’s Romona’s opening dance provides an erotic spectacle by which the industry might wish to be measured, but in terms of the dead-eyed cynicism-about-men that workers in the industry and its adjacent industries develop then the original article, The Hustlers at Scores, penned by Jessica Pressler (Julia Stiles) provides a far more illuminating, and frankly entertaining look.
This is one of those films that presents scenes that suggest mere unpleasantness, without enabling a genuinely visceral response to actual diminishment. It is the plastic, sanitised bourgeois version -which might be all you want or need, after all. Be warned there is little titillating here, it is mostly the story of a friendship gone wrong; large part pity-party and sob story.

Juddy keeps busy consuming cultural media while posing as a student at a major Sydney university, thus shirking real work. He hosts pub trivia, and tutors at said university, for beer and book money.