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Quentin Tarantino made headlines for defending “Joker: Folie à Deux” earlier this year against the onslaught of critical pans, and now another filmmaker is joining him by naming the maligned “Joker” sequel one of the best movies of 2024. “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” icon John Waters published his annual top 10 list on Vulture and “Joker: Folie à Deux” is in the sixth spot.
“Finally, a love story I can relate to,” Waters rights. “So insane, so well thought out, so well directed, so much smoking! It’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 ‘That’s Entertainment!’ ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment. Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!”
Waters’ list is topped by Kristen Stewart’s queer thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” and includes several Oscar contenders such as “The Brutalist,” “Emilia Perez,” “Hard Truths” and “Queer.” The “Joker” sequel is easily the most divisive film on the director’s list. The film earned mostly negative reviews and flopped at the box office with $58 million domestically and $206 million worldwide, a far cry from the 2019 original’s $1 billion gross.
Popular on Variety During an October interview on the “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast,” Tarantino raved about “Joker: Folie à Deux” and said Joaquin Phoenix “gives one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“The Joker directed the movie,” Tarantino said about the film’s helmer Todd Phillips. “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 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 fuck you to all of them. He’s saying fuck you to the movie audience. He’s saying fuck you to Hollywood. He’s saying fuck 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.”
These defenses of the “Joker” sequel are few and far between. Even actors who appeared in the movie have spoken out against it. Comedian Tim Dillon, who had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role in the movie as an Arkham Asylum security guard, went viral last month for trashing “Joker: Folie à Deux” as “the worst film that has ever been made.”
“It has no plot,” Dillon said. “We would sit there, me and these other guys were all dressed in these security outfits because we’re working at the Arkham Asylum, and I would turn to one of them and we’d hear this crap and I’d go, ‘What the fuck is this?’ And they’d go, ‘This is going to bomb, man.’ I go, ‘This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.’ We were talking about it at lunch, and we’d go, ‘What is the plot? Is there a plot? I don’t know, I think he falls in love with her in the prison?’ It’s not even hate-watchable. That’s how terrible it is.”
Head over to Vulture’s website to read John Waters’ best movies of 2024 list in its entirety.
