Free Republic

The film is "Joker," and while it comes in the form of a comic-book movie, it is the opposite of light. The movie focuses on the pre-Joker Arthur Fleck, circa early 1980s Gotham - a sad-sack clown slowly unraveling u At the Venice premiere, a moviegoer approached Phillips and said he thought Paris would burn as a result of the movie. Stephanie Zacharek wrote that Phoenix's character "could easily be adopted as the patron saint of incels," referring to the "involuntary celibates" group of frustrated males whose beliefs have come up in several mass killings. "In America, there's a mass...

Thoughts on seeing Apocalypse Now again:It's 1979 and a young Martin Sheen is taking us up that fateful river again. He is our wise and somber Virgil, our guide, our narrator, the ORM (the Only Rational Man) leading us up that labyrinthine river of death and insanity which is our national crucible, our Vietnam War. That great river of no return, that winding thread of dark infuriating lies that will take us further and further into the Heart of Darkness, into the Heart of Darkness of our great national shame and guilt and self-loathing. This was the real secret mission...