Opening this Friday for its theatrical run is a narrative film, something for those who are keen to throw a non-documentary into the week’s mix: Joker: Folie à Deux. This new film, directed by Todd Phillips, follows on the heels of Joker, the smash-hit success in 2019 starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck (aka Joker)  in an Oscar-winning performance. It was a film that drew heavily on Martin Scorsese classics like Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy but offered an updated comic book twist on the Joker story, a dizzying combination that electrified audiences, many of whom became instant, passionate fans.  

With the sequel, Phoenix is back in the role, but this time his character is institutionalized for his crimes of the original film, and this time he meets the similarly institutionalized Lee Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn), played by Lady Gaga, a meeting that leads to new fantastical and musical flights of the soul for Arthur. 

Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir won an Oscar in 2019 for her brilliant work in Joker, and she is back with this new film, which is, in fact, a musical, a testament to both her and Phillips’s willingness as artists to take interesting risks. A more straight-forward sequel to Joker, certainly, would have been a slam-dunk at the box office, so the decision, instead, to make a musical, and cast one of our greatest working musical artists, Lady Gaga, alongside Phoenix, who is more known for his brilliant acting than his musical vocal talents (Walk the Line, notwithstanding), is an exciting endeavor. 

There’s a wonderful interview with Todd Phillips on Fresh Air with Terry Gross that I’d recommend anyone listen to, whether interested in Joker or not. It’s a fascinating conversation -- that also contains fabulous musical clips from the film that I found myself singing the rest of the day -- and it’s a reminder that there’s a lot more to Phillips than the films he originally became famous for (viz. Old School, The Hangover): that he is a filmmaker eager and willing to push the bounds of the cinematic art form.

I’ll leave you here with this reflection from critic John Nugent in Empire, who captures something of why audiences were so thrilled by the original Joker and gives us a tantalizing indication of what enticements the new film will add: 

He writes, "Comic-book fans should not come to Folie À Deux expecting a conventional superhero approach  — just as musical-theatre fans should not expect world-class standards of singing and dancing. It’s something scrappier and stranger, the brooding cello of composer Hildur Guðnadóttir now rubbing shoulders with a bold and brassy big-band orchestra. The mostly familiar songs have one foot in the real world and one giant clown foot in a fantasy land, evoking the soundstage set-ups of golden-age Hollywood musicals, smoky jazz clubs, variety acts like Sonny and Cher, even Looney Tunes cartoons. . . . In a cinematic climate saturated by superheroes, supervillains, and even Jokers, Phillips, Phoenix and now Gaga have fashioned a genuinely original narrative, even in its obvious magpie’s-nest borrowing. Folie À Deux is not the definitive Joker story — maybe there will never be one — but no other adaptation has burrowed this far under the character’s face-painted, mutilated skin." 

For the Halloween-inclined during this spooky month, we’ve also got the second film in our Bad Blood October series: The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the sequel to the original film, Twilight. While I was initially a bit disappointed when this film came out in 2009 that Catherine Hardwicke was not back to direct, New Moon, directed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy), holds all the blood-thirsty, teenage angsty, camp-pleasures of the first, but this time with more teen werewolves and European vampires. It’s always a joy when actors know the assignment and deliver the film we fans want, and Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Anna Kendrick, and Michael Sheen give it their all. It’s an absolute blast. 

Join us on Wednesday, October 9, at 8:00 pm. (Free small popcorn to all county students on Wednesdays!)

These are the docs playing with us this week -- click on the links to get to the film page and to a trailer -- and I’ve made a note on the dates where we have special guests, panels, and co-presenters: 

 No Other Land -- Fri., Oct. 4, Introduction by James Loucky, Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival (BHRFF). Film co-presented by BHRFF, WWU Arab Student Association, Jewish Voice for Peace, and WWU Political Science Dept 

A New Kind of Wilderness -- Fri., Oct. 4, co-presented by North Cascades Institute

Linda Perry: Let It Die Here -- Fri., Oct. 4, co-presented by the Bellingham Queer Collective