The jolt of original greatness can sometimes throw the audience for a loop

Rating: 10/10 (12 October 2019)

As it has soaked in more, and I keep not being able not to think about it..I think the Joker is a masterpiece.
As far as any of the negative reviews--This has happened before, and not just with movies. People hated on Moby Dick when it was first published. But decades later the consensus was that it was a masterpiece. Expectations based on Herman Mellville's previous adventure stories had a lot to do with that... And I think people who have expressed distaste for it as being excessive (and I wrestled with that while watching)--well, look at A Clockwork Orange. Taxi Driver. The Deer Hunter. All with shocking stuff. Deliverance. Scar Face.
Pfft, and this movie was better than Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter. And at least as good as the others, in my opinion. Probably ties with Clockwork, for me, but I haven't seen that since I was 17 (now 52)--but I have read the book since then twice, so that's where I'm probably making the comparison.
If I don't see it in theaters again I may have to buy Joker when it is released on disc. There's so much there. And I think for a "character study" where we never leave arthur's side, that's quite an accomplishment. And as one reviewer wrote: this didn't even have to be in the DC universe, it's so believable, relevant, its own stand-alone story.
Also, some seemed not to like it as a commentary on society, on how some evil people are formed, on the effects upon the downtrodden and dispossessed. To that I say PSHAW. The effective hammer-blow of an illustration or an allegory is sometimes needfully created by hyperbole. THIS Joker origin-story is as disturbing and as powerful as it is because of the recurring real-world stories it reflects back to us in its horror-house colors. The mass-murderers that have been among us and are still among us don't need this movie for inspiration. But the film's insights into the ramifications of wealth-driven elitism, of cruelty, and of apathy--those insights don't excuse violent rage--but I think they do legitimately spotlight some fuel sources for the fire.