I just thought the screenplay was pretentious garbo.
But I want this to be a general thread about it’s number of nominations. So, even if you liked it, (which you likely did 
,) you can participate as well!
I was surprised at the number of nominations it got. I haven’t seen nearly as many films this year as I’d like to have, but I did see Joker, and enjoyed it. I’d say I’m mostly surprised by the sound mixing and sound editing nominations, which it seems usually go to flashier productions.
It was #9 on my list of best movies of 2019, but I have now seen Doctor Sleep again and will put it higher, pushing it to #10.
The Nightingale is the overlooked movie of the Oscars. It’s clear no one saw it, but it deserved a lot more attention than it got.
My list(not updated with Doctor Sleep). I’d probably slot Doctor Sleep now in at about #6 or #7. It was better than I first realized.
[spoiler]
- Avengers: Endgame
- The Nightingale
- The Lighthouse
- Jojo Rabbit
- Parasite
- Always Be My Maybe
- Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
- Midsommar
- Joker
- The Perfection[/spoiler]
I think it’s heavy overkill. The best nomination is, hands-down, the score, which is phenomenal. And I’m pretty much resigned to having Phoenix win, though he’s definitely been better elsewhere (THE MASTER and YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE just two recent examples). Those are the two that the film is the definite front-runner in.
I think the worst nominations (other then Director since Phillips displaced plenty of more deserving candidates) is Costume Design (over the wonderful period flash of DOLEMITE IS MY NAME and ROCKETMAN) and Makeup (since Phoenix’s gaunt body weight loss has more impact than the few times he is a clown and since there’s no one else of note in the film that’s a good exhibit of this category).
Stuff like Cinematography and Sound I’m assuming are tributes to the pain-staking world-building Phillips does in creating a sleazy, rancid Gotham so I get those though don’t necessarily agree.
I too was a bit perplexed by the broad number of categories that received nominations. Similar to MovieMogul’s comments, Costume and Makeup would not have been missed. I’m speculating that there was a lot of goodwill in the industry around the film, and it was helped by stellar box office. So it is being somewhat rewarded for success.
Eh, I watched it. It’s okay, but it’s nothing spectacular. I guess it’s better than The Irishman, so there’s that, but it’s clearly in a category of “by the numbers” indie films, competently made, but largely forgettable. Lesser films have won Oscars (they often do) but it’s no surprise this wasn’t pulled from the depths of obscurity and elevated to an Oscar nomination. But then again, it does have elements of race reconciliation fantasy, so… shrug
I’d put forward The Lighthouse as my “it should have at least been nominated” pick. It did get nominated for cinematography, at least.
I like most of the nominations. Didn’t expect Joker to get 11! I figured The Irishman would get around 15.
Most overlooked film this year: The Lighthouse
Most obvious win is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for BP. Because, well… it’s about HOLLYWOOD! (I live six miles from the Kodak. Trust me on this.)
My money is on Jojo Rabbit, which I haven’t seen, but have gathered is about the Holocaust or something, and if there’s anything Hollywood loves more than movies about itself or race reconciliation fantasies, it’s that.
I fell asleep on my recliner watching it (not because it sucked. I was just tired).
I am going to have to try watching it again so I can pick up on the parts I missed. But I do remember thinking this would have been a better movie if they had just made this about some crazy dude rather than connect it to the Joker and the DC universe.
It’s funny because I went in thinking I will hate it because it will be the “pretentious garbo” you speak of (and the fact that everyone praised/hyped it was a red flag for me) but to my surprise I absolutely loved it.
The music, cinematography and Joaquin Phoenix are so good and blend so well that I could watch it for hours. I enjoyed every scene. I can’t say this for 99% of new movies I’ve seen over the past decade.
Saw it last weekend and it’s only tangentially about the Holocaust. It’s a coming-of-age story about a ten-year-old boy in Berlin in the last months of WWII. It is really good - if it wins Best Picture it’s deserved. That said, Taika Waititi ought to also have bagged a Director nomination for it as his touch with a horrific subject was profoundly deft (although he might still get one for Adapted Screenplay).
Other awards: Scarlett Johannsson was good in it but I’m not sure I’d tip the Oscar her way for this particular performance. There were some outstanding elements of costume design, however (particularly the respective uniforms of Yorki and Colonel K at the end of the film).
Hey! I LIKE garbo! She did have man hands, tho.
Yes, it was awful. “The Irishman” was also terrible.
The Irishman certainly wasn’t terrible. It just wasn’t genius enough for most.
Phoenix was fucking brilliant in this film, and so was the direction. Far from being just another comic book adaptation, it’s the story of a man’s gradual slide into madness, complete with paranoia, delusion, self-medication and violence. I don’t know if it deserves all of those awards, but those two are definitely deserved.
My thought as I was leaving the theatre was Phoenix did an amazing job playing a severely mentally ill person in decline, and was going to be a heavy favorite for best actor, but Ledger and Hamill did a better job playing The Joker. I couldn’t see Arthur Fleck ever eventually becoming a criminal mastermind and Batman’s nemesis.
Ah, but in this imagining, maybe Batman becomes Fleck’s nemesis! Bruce Wayne chooses to become the Batman, and so may choose to seek the Joker irrespective of the attributes that make the Joker what he is. For Bruce, for Batman—is there any difference?—the Joker is him that has killed his parents. And in this reality, as far as young Bruce is concerned, that still holds.
Saw it last night. I was bored. After, my wife said the acting and cinematography was incredible. Maybe so, but it still was an unpleasant dreary slog, no matter how well acted/filmed.
So the joker is supposed to be - what? - 20-30 yrs older than Batman? Totally silly point, but in a movie like this, I always find it curious that there just happen to be so many identical masks available… 
I won’t say I hated it, it was entertaining, but it was far from anything original. It’s like you could tell they shopped this thing around for a long time before it had the DC connection and everyone was like “ehhh, haven’t we seen this story like 1000 times before?” Then somebody made a deal with them that they could make it but had to shoehorn in the whole “Joker” angle. So it was rewrote adding a Gotham reference here, a Thomas Wayne appearance there.
And while Phoenix was entertaining to watch I did have to roll my eyes at the weight loss gimmick he did to somehow show people how dedicated he is to his craft. Oooo, how a avante-garde!
So, a good watch by the numbers if that’s what you’re in the mood for but it really held zero in the way of twists or surprises.
I guess I’ll bump this rather than start a new thread…
I was kind of nervous going into it because everyone was saying just how messed up it was but after watching it yesterday I was like “If you guys think that was messed up you must not have seen a lot of movies, I mean Seven and Taxi Driver were WAY more messed up that that”