Quentin Tarantino is a fan of Joker 2.
Joker: Folie à Deux was released in United States theaters earlier this month. The Joaquin Phoenix-led movie polarized fans and critics alike, as some hated and others loved the direction that Todd Phillips decided to take the Joaquin Phoenix-led sequel.
Tarantino — the director of a number of highly acclaimed movies, such as 1994’s Pulp Fiction and 2009’s Inglourious Basterds — has revealed he’s a massive fan of Joker: Folie à Deux.
What did Quentin Tarantino say about Joker: Folie à Deux?
During a recent interview on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast, per World of Reel, Tarantino said Phoenix gives “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life” in Joker 2.
He continued, “I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously, and I went to see it expecting to be impressed by the filmmaking. But I thought it was going to be an arms-length, intellectual exercise that ultimately I wouldn’t think worked like a movie, but that I would appreciate it for what it is. And I’m just nihilistic enough to kind of enjoy a movie that doesn’t quite work as a movie. That’s like a big, giant mess to some degree. And I didn’t find it an intellectual exercise. I really got caught up into it. I really liked the musical sequences. I got really caught up. I thought the more banal the songs were, the better they were.”
He noted that the movie is “indebted” to 1994’s Natural Born Killers, which Tarantino wrote the screenplay for, and also said he thought it was “really funny.”
Tarantino continued, “Todd Phillips is the Joker. The Joker directed the movie. The entire concept, even him spending the studio’s money — he’s spending it like the Joker would spend it, all right? And then his big surprise gift — haha! — the the jack in the box, when he offers you his hand for a handshake and you get a buzzer with 10,000 volts shooting you — is the comic book geeks. He’s saying f— you to all of them. He’s saying f— you to the movie audience. He’s saying f— you to Hollywood. He’s saying f— you to anybody who owns any stock at DC and Warner Brothers…And Todd Phillips is the Joker. Un film de Joker, all right, is what it is. He is the Joker.”
