Joaquin phoenix

Joker: Folie à Deux makes me long for the Joker of my childhood

Joker: Folie à Deux is the sequel to Joker (2019), and you have to admire Todd Phillips for returning with a jukebox musical, co-starring Lady Gaga, and not giving fans what they expected – or wanted. (There were quite a few walkouts where I saw it.) It feels like a film that hates its audience. And itself But it’s not what anyone else wanted, either. It’s so inert and pointless that if staying the course isn’t the issue it’s only because staying awake is. I don’t blame Joaquin Phoenix; no one has worked harder at trying to sing since Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia!. He deserves some recognition for that

A bit too short: Napoleon reviewed

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, has a running time of two hours and 40 minutes, which is scant by today’s standards, but don’t worry: a four hour-plus director’s cut is on its way. So this is Scott’s Napoleon Abridged, you could say, and it does have the feel of a film that’s been scissored to death. The battle sequences are spectacular but the jackhammer cutting-style – hang on, how did he get from there to here? – means the storytelling is hurried and confusing. I’m not too sure about this Napoleon either. Did you know one of the greatest military leaders in world history was essentially a man-child? Phoenix,

Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscars speech was beyond a joke

The 2020 Oscars will go down in history for two things: Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant film Parasite becoming the first foreign-language film ever to win Best Picture. And Joaquin Phoenix talking about artificially inseminating cows. Yes, in a crowded field of un-self-aware, right-on speeches and stunts during this year’s awards season – Natalie Portman’s Dior cape bearing the names of snubbed female directors certainly deserves an honourable mention – Phoenix came out on top. In his emotional acceptance speech for Best Actor, won for his skeletal, bravura performance in Joker, Phoenix was almost quaking as he talked about the need for a political unity of purpose among the Hollywood set. ‘[W]e