Joker 2 was Trash on Purpose. Let That Sink In.

Joker 2019 was a decent movie. It made a billion dollars. So, it was successful and it was received well critically, too. But a billion dollars isn't special anymore for a movie. Many others have already done it. The original Joker was successful because of its underlying message: it mocked the Far Left. I don't think audiences realized that was the message at the time (and I still don't think they do now). Fans of the first just think it's an origin story about a supervillain. 

But it was more than that. And that's what kept people coming back. But its 2024 follow-up didn't follow up with clever themes about politics or social issues. Instead, it opted to be a boring, empty musical. 

Joker 2 2024

I'm not a fan of musicals, at all. They're just not my bag. They should stay as Broadway shows for the people who like that stuff. Plus, having Joker 2 as a musical would have made more sense if the first one was a musical. At the very least, Arthur Fleck could have been an aspiring musician who dreamed of making it as a rock star. If they had laid the groundwork for the musical in the first film, then I could see the various musical numbers in the sequel. 

The musical nonsense was too much of a distortion from the original. That's why people didn't care for it. Plus, it was more or less a courtroom drama.

On one hand, it was very well shot and the acting, of course, was great. Joaquin Phoenix is guaranteed to provide a good performance. But Lady Gaga was a snooze. She's overrated as an actor and musician anyway, in my opinion.

via GIPHY

It's as if the writer/director Todd Phillips created Joker 2 as an insult to the fans of the first one. Perhaps Phillips didn't realize he made a mockery of the Far Left in the original. If he did, maybe he didn't think audiences would pick up on it. Joker 2 was a response to that to save his career. Hollywood is super WOKE. It always has been since the 1960s. And his Joker movie shit all over that WOKE nonsense. Joker 2 was made to insult those who enjoyed the first anti-WOKE movie. Phillips is defending his WOKE compadres in Hollywood. 

That's the answer right there.

But more importantly, is the ignorance of money. Joker 2 cost like $200 million dollars to make. Now double that for marketing expenses. That's nearly a half billion dollars Phillips spent of other people's money to make a movie that he likely knew would flop (but possibly save his career). 

And we're forgetting the dwindling state of movie theatres in America. It seems as if each day, cinemas are closing. You can thank Netflix and other streaming services for that. Hollywood studios don't want to put their movies in theatres anymore. They rush them away to Hulu or Netflix or Amazon Prime as fast as they can. These days, that's how studios make their money back. It's from the contracts they have with the streaming companies. 

So, when a huge movie like Joker 2 flops hard, it doesn't just affect the big wigs of Hollywood studios and let down audiences, it hurts movie theatre chains. Cineplexes depend on concession sales to make their money (ticket sales go to the studios). The more people that come to the theatre to see the movie, the more likely the theatre will see concession sales grow, which means the theatre will survive to have jobs for its employees.

What does it say to movie theatre chains who depend on big-budget movies to keep the lights on when the director makes a flop on purpose? 

Werewolves 2024 is all Growl, No Bite

Werewolves 2024

Any time I hear about a new werewolf movie coming out, I'm there at the cinema. However, as much of a fan as I am, I'm not delusional. Werewolf movies, I hate to say, tend to be subpar. There's just something that writers can't do properly or that audiences just cannot connect with that doesn't allow the werewolf story to be as successful as it could be. 

It's not the special effects. Horror audiences crave practical effects, but we'll be satisfied with CGI, too. As long as the lore and story of the film are good. 

WEREWOLVES 2024 has decent effects but the story is extremely subpar. It pains me to say that, but it's true. 

With a pretty decent first half and a great scene of a science project gone wrong, the story quickly devolves into a road trip. A major fault I have is the relationship between the main character and his family. 

The B-movie star Frank Grillo plays Dr. Wesley Marshall, a scientist who thinks he can halt the eventual morphing of lycanthropy of every human on Earth with eye drops. The road trip he endures sees several instances with the viscous werewolves as he tries to get back to his sister-in-law and his niece. And this is the main problem I have with the story.

It isn't the acting (though it could have been much better). And it isn't the editing (though it could have been much tighter).

The issue I have is with the "familial" ties the main character has with the people back at the house. Apparently, Marshall's brother died the year prior during the first supermoon catastrophe and now Grillo's character has to take care of his brother's wife and his kid. That's not strong enough, in my opinion.

The writer should have made the family tighter, like in DIE HARD. The protagonist is on rocky terms with his wife, so he must go through hell to save her, thereby appreciating her and the family element. That's more realistic. Really, who gives a damn about their sister-in-law?

It should have been his wife. That's a no-brainer.

So, while the third act lingers way too long and the wolves not being as deadly as they should have been was a huge problem, what makes the film suffer is the nuclear family element. It didn't know what it wanted to be. 

The way the film abruptly ends is a joke. I couldn't believe they ended it like that. It deserved more. Maybe I would given the film a few more viewings before passing judgment on it. But the filmmakers didn't give a shit because they actually think they'll get a sequel from it, but they won't.

The Jesus Demon of Elm Street

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a timeless classic. It's Wes Craven's magnum opus. SCREAM 1996 is a close second. Whereas SCREAM is a slasher film that focuses on meta-commentary of the horror genre, ELM STREET's deeper meanings revolve around faith.

Yup. I said it. ELM STREET is a religious movie. Or should I say anti-religious movie?

via GIPHY

We must discuss Craven's strict Baptist upbringing to understand ELM STREET's religious themes. His zealot mother applied her Christian teachings to her son at every chance. Of course, Craven rebelled during his youth and also while at college. He provoked the powers that be his whole life. We can see this from his wild horror films during his early days as a director. 

The two films that put Craven on the map in Hollywood were THE HILLS HAVE EYES and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. But it wasn't until a small, desperate studio called NEW LINE CINEMA took a chance on Craven's original screenplay that he won the chance to express his true self: his longtime stance against religion. 

Enter the character of one Fred Kruger. 

Freddy is, in my opinion, the best human villain in all of horror cinema. Craven didn't create Freddy with a sympathetic background to make Freddy more three-dimensional to the audience. Nope. Craven just made Freddy as vicious and horrific as he could, and let the characters in the story deal with that. Too bad most films these days don't do the same. Movies now want to make a villain that's only a villain because of some societal nurture. That's boring and cliche at this point and many times implies left-wing political messages.

So, what makes Freddy so special as a villain. There's no easy way to say it, so I'm just going to say it: Freddy Kruger is symbolic of Jesus Christ.

Freddy is a Jesus Demon. In each ELM STREET film that Craven was involved with, Freddy is considered a God-like entity with religious subtext. However, ELM STREET part 2 trades the religious theme for queer subtext. Although Craven wasn't involved in Part 4's THE DREAM MASTER it even incorporates the church setting in its last 5 minutes. 

For example, let's start with Craven's last dance with Freddy in 1994's NEW NIGHTMARE. Although it was written by Craven, it lacked the authentic pizzazz of the original and instead was a meta-take and overall redo of the first entry. While I applaud its metafiction element that had never been seen before and gave birth to SCREAM just two years later, NEW NIGHTMARE is, unfortunately, redundant and doesn't progress the series or say anything new about the Freddy character. 

However, Freddy does, in NEW NIGHTMARE return to his Godly, villainous state. He's back to his old self. Just quick lore to establish his presence. No sympathy. Freddy's just pure evil again. He's a demon once more and we see this in his hellscape finale where Nancy/Heather must venture to rescue her son. 

There's a highway scene during the third act that shows Freddy's overwhelming and Godly power. With subpar CGI, the clouds part, and Freddy appears in the sky. He hangs Dylan over a busy highway while Heather watches to see if Freddy will be merciful of her son's life, which he is. Freddy, just like the original, has complete power over his victims. He uses his God-complex to manipulate the characters. Some live and some die. 

Counting backward, ELM STREET 3: THE DREAM WARRIOR also uses the religious slant I'm referring to about the Freddy series. 

Craven, once again involved, but as a co-writer this time applies the nun aspect and her sexual assault by the dozens of freaks and psychos in the nuthouse. From this, Freddy is birthed and now provides the audience with a rhyme and reason for his actions. 

I don't like explanations in films that had previously used subtext and symbolism to send a message. But I guess the more a series goes on, the more the audience demands answers. And so we have Freddy's origin. He's only a serial killer because his nun mother was raped by mental asylum patients. That's the nurture message I was referring to earlier. 

Freddy is disposed of by striking his bones with holy water, causing him to burst light from his person and to physically spiral out of control until he explodes. Granted, that's not as clever as ELM STREET's first movie that used religious undertones to express Craven's opinion, but it'll do. I guess. The Christian subtext from the first installment has become actual context in the third.

via GIPHY

Craven's original is a masterpiece in filmmaking. It truly is. It deserves its spot as a runner for the best horror film of all time. No question, in my opinion.

Just like Darth Vader's virgin birth and corrupted Christ figure, Freddy Kruger does the same. 

Freddy was a psycho serial killer. He was an evil man. But for some reason, he was allowed to be resurrected and hunt down the kids of the parents who murdered him. 

That's so outlandish that it has to mean something more than what it provides. Surely, Craven, the talented director who grew up in a super strict religious household, wouldn't simply craft a story with no depth such as that. 

Original Sin, like the eternal Adam and Eve story, is used here. But rather than an apple, Craven uses the murder of a serial killer by the parents. The parents of the murdered children use vigilante justice. You would think that because the courts messed up and allowed a killer like Freddy to once again roam the streets of Springwood the parents taking the law into their own hands isn't that wrong. But the story implies it is. 

Lynch mob tactics are wrong, even when the law everyone depends on to protect them and their children fail. Perhaps the parents were wrong for taking the law into their own hands. But a sadistic person like Freddy was free and open to doing his crazy crimes again.

Freddy's death by the parents is the reason he was able to rise from the dead like Christ did. Whereas Christ is a symbol of peace and love, Freddy's resurrection allowed him to torment and kill, once again, the kids of the parents. Freddy's reign of terror is unstoppable. Whether he's alive or dead, Freddy is coming. 

What message does that send?

A horrible one, indeed. 

The creation of Freddy Kruger is a mock symbolism to combat Craven's strict religious upbringing. Jesus rose from the grave to give the sinners of the world faith and penance. Freddy's death stained the parents who murdered him. His death became their original sin. And as a result, their children must endure the sins of the fathers. Freddy was resurrected to do in death the same he did in life for no reason other than Craven rebelling against his Baptist childhood. Because his childhood, in his opinion, was ruined by religion, ELM STREET shows how that same dogma destroys other's lives. 

To Craven, ELM STREET is how religion treats its members. They are always held guilty, and therefore tortured and killed without any hope.

La Femme Fatale in PULP FICTION

We’re not introduced to Mia right away like how most characters usually are. Instead, Jules and Vincent talk about her first. We learn that Vincent will take Mia on a date later that night. Jules tells a story of how a previous man who went on a date with Mia had been permanently disabled because he gave her a foot massage. Although a foot massage doesn’t seem sexual to Jules, it certainly does to Vincent. He knows physical interaction with another man’s wife, if even just a foot massage, warrants a violent reaction. 

The reactions from Jules and the bartender Paul foreshadow that a date with Mia won’t be normal. So, now that the audience has been primed to know of Mia’s likely charged sexuality, we finally meet her. Right from the first time we hear Mia’s voice, it’s with implications of sex. The note Vincent reads is not of his narration, but of hers. She mentions she getting dressed, suggesting her nakedness.

What Huh GIFfrom What GIFs

 

“Son of a Preacher Man” by Dusty Springfield plays over the scene as Vincent walks through the house. The sexual lyrics foreshadow the night Mia and Vincent will have together. Mia playfully speaks with Vincent over the intercom as she watches him from the home camera. We only see a closeup of her lips and the microphone, symbolically implying fellatio. This focus on Mia’s lips becomes even more obvious during the Jack Rabbit Slim scene when she drinks the milkshake. If she and Vincent were to finalize their night with sex, the implication is that she would have gone down on him, if not more. 

As Vincent wanders around the living room, he stares at a portrait of Mia on a couch, smoking a cigarette, barefoot, before he lounges near it, as if he feels comfortable around her presence. He’s not afraid of her like the others warned him he should be. He’s already letting his guard down. After she prepares for the date with a few lines of coke, what do we see next? A low tracking shot of her infamous feet. 

When we first see Mia’s whole face in the car, she discusses the restaurant with Vincent. She uses her fingers to draw a square to playfully entice Vincent to accept the restaurant. It's one of the very few moments of special effects used in the whole film. And the only time one is used by a character. She possesses a supernatural power, the story implies, which she uses against men. Mia is a woman of myth in the crime world, like the sirens or mermaids of Greek mythology.

Pulp Fiction Mia GIFfrom Pulp Fiction GIFs

 

She represents more than just the pretty wife of a gangster. She’s a temptress and a villain in her own right. Men in that world know to stay away from her. The men who don’t know or who do know, but are easily entranced by Mia’s sexuality, succumb to her temptations. 

In the film noir genre, the femme fatale character is a woman who gets what she wants by manipulating others, primarily men, which is typically done by seducing them. Mia’s a femme fatale of the truest form. She’s arm candy for her gangster husband and a warning to others they’ll suffer the consequences when dealing with her. 

In the Jack Rabbit Slim scene, Mia flexes her flirtatious skills against Vincent. She uses playful nicknames with Vincent, as if she already has a close rapport with him, referring to him as an “Elvis man” and “daddio” and “cowboy.” In return, he calls her “kitty cat” and “cowgirl.” When Vincent removes her straw to sip the milkshake, she opposes, saying she’ll accept his germs, basically outright implying she welcomes him sexually. 

Once the conversation dies down, Vincent and Mia have an awkward moment. Her eyes are laser-focused on him and she seductively plays with the cherry in her mouth. She even implies she found that special someone in Vincent, which is obvious flirtation. 

When she returns, she vehemently denies that she and Antoine, who she acts as if she doesn’t know at first, had any sexual interactions. Mia then ridicules Vincent for the foot massage and overall sexual accusation she might have had with Antoine. But her actions speak louder than her words, as we’ve already seen and will see more of. 

Dance Pulp Fiction GIFfrom Dance GIFs

The choice for the 1964 Chuck Berry song “You never can tell,” tells a story of newlyweds in love. If there wasn’t any sexual tension there before, which there certainly was plenty, it’s surely there now with them dancing. When they return to her house, they enter dancing, holding one another, laughing. They've developed close rapport now to the point it’s nearly physically sexual. 

And then they have another awkward moment. This is when Vincent realizes he’s been smitten by her. He goes to the bathroom and talks to his reflection about loyalty. He has a moment of clarity and plans on going home. If it weren’t for Mia finding and using Vincent’s heroine, he might have stuck around and taken his chances with her. The sexual tension was there because that’s Mia’s natural state. She’s a femme fatale and most likely a cuckoldress, too.

THE ROAD is a religious movie. Get Over it.

If you peruse any THE ROAD video on YouTube you'll see a plethora of comments from people discussing what they think happened to the planet. "It's global warming." Or "it's an asteroid, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs." Or "it was from nuclear war." (the last one I could almost agree with if it weren't for the religious symbolism in nearly every scene). 

While everyone is free to think what they want--I have to admit--it really bugs me that film lovers these days don't have the foggiest clue how to analyze and see the blatant clues right in front of them. It's like they're unable to put together the pieces of the puzzle the movie lays out for them. There's never any mention of war or climate change or an asteroid. Come on, people! Think like the filmmakers. Try to put yourself in the minds of the writer and the director and imagine why each scene is presented the way it is.

The Road 2009

My YouTube video about THE ROAD perfectly analyzes the film, in detail, and you'll see why it's about the lack of allegiance to God and why forgiveness will solve it. THE ROAD is a perfect mesh of both the Old and New Testaments. 

And while I certainly appreciate a film that very covertly credits Christianity in a positive light, I must admit that it also saddens me. There was a time in Hollywood, just before the 1960s and the start of the Vietnam War, when Christianity in Hollywood films was depicted as positive. 

This is not the case now. 

Other than THE ROAD in 2009 and Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST in 2004, there hasn't been a big-budget Hollywood film that portrays Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, in a good way. Most Christian films are produced without major studios backing these projects. For example, Mel Gibson financed PASSION by himself because nobody else would partner up with him. 

The Passion of the Christ 2004

I work for a movie theatre, so I see many films I don't usually see. And every once in a blue moon, a Christian film comes to our theatre, does moderately well, and then disappears into the ether a week later. They don't last. Why? Because they don't have a big studio producing and marketing for them. It costs money for a studio to keep a film in rotation at the theatre. And if the film doesn't have a popular word of mouth or an advertising team behind it, then the movie will certainly perish and be reduced to Lifetime or Hallmark channel status, if they're lucky enough to get picked up at all. 

I recall one Christian movie I walked in on at the end that had a short video inside its end credits scene. It was the main character of the movie telling its audience that it's extremely difficult for movies with Christian messages to get produced in Hollywood. The actors and those involved had to fund and produce the film itself because nobody else would. 

Let that sink in. 

It seems like there's an attack against Christianity in Hollywood these days. With the amount of films against Christianity, it seems likely so. I wonder what would happen if a movie were made disrespecting and depicting other religions negatively? Would they get made? I doubt it.

Why is that?

That's why I'm grateful for THE ROAD. Even though its religious subtext gets typically overlooked for scientific reasons, like climate change, at least the real movie aficionados, like you and me, know that THE ROAD is a pro-Christian movie warning us about inhumane treatment, and how faith in God and forgiveness in others will promote a healthy planet.