Quentin Tarantino is praising Todd Phillips and Joker: Folie à Deux after the Warner Bros. film bombed at the box office.
The Kill Bill director gave his thoughts on the Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga-starring film and shared why he enjoyed the DC Comics-based movie.
“I really, really liked it, really,” Tarantino said on the latest episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. “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.”
Tarantino added that he is “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.”
“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 added.
The filmmaker said that he found the film “really funny” and saw it at an “almost empty Imax theater,” allowing him to “laugh without bothering everybody.” Tarantino also praised Phoenix for portraying Arthur Fleck, saying he gave “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Tarantino also said the Joker sequel worked on a different level, saying that Phillips was actually the Joker himself.
“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?” the director said. “And then his big surprise gift — haha! — 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.”