Joker                                     4 ½ stars

I finally got around to seeing Joker from 2019, the movie where the iconic villain gets his star treatment instead of sharing the screen with Batman. Undoubtedly most movie viewers have seen this film by now so I don’t need to go into the story much. Director Todd Phillips has fashioned not so much an action movie but a character study that explores how Arthur Fleck went from mentally ill loner to violent master criminal prior to becoming the arch nemesis of Batman. The dark mood of the film is created by the score and an expertly depiction of the early eighties in gritty city scenes. And of course the movie wouldn’t be possible without the acting skills of Joaquin Phoenix as the tormented Arthur. Phillips commented on how flexible Phoenix was in changing his approach in each take of filming. He certainly deserves his Best Actor Academy Award for the role. I was not far into the movie before I saw the similarities to Taxi Driver, the Robert DeNiro crime drama of the seventies. Much of the inspiration of Joker had to come from the Scorsese film. DeNiro himself makes an appearance as a famous late night talk show host on a TV set that is a dead ringer for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show of the eighties. Though it is a dark movie, Joker belongs on the list of best pictures of the year.