by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Joker: Folie à Deux | 2024
If Todd Phillips' Joker (2019) was the origin story of the Joker, then his latest film, Joker: Folie à Deux is the story of his deconstruction. It's an admittedly bold move for a comic book movie to spend its entire running time dismantling the character it just spent a whole movie setting up, and there's certainly some interesting thematic ground to cover here; unfortunately, Folie à Deux suffers from some of the same issues of self-importance that plagued its predecessor.
There's something agreeably no-nonsense about Alex Parkinson's Last Breath, a straight-down-the-middle, meat-and-potatoes true-life rescue thriller we rarely see anymore. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but there once was a time when mid-budget actioners like this were multiplex staples. Nowadays, you're more likely to see movies like this relegated to streaming rather than playing on a big screen.