A "Joker" for Our Times

"Joker" is a dark, disturbing, powerful, and timely film. It is less a conventional comic book movie than a searing modernization of Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, or similarly brooding cinema. It is expertly directed, performed, shot and presented. Memorable and unrelenting, it pushes the boundaries of representations of violence as entertainment and is not likely to be enjoyed so much as endured.

The film's American release has been incredibly polarizing and is rightly controversial. However, that controversy should be reflected right back upon a country festering from a breakdown of trust in political institutions, growing economic inequality, eroding public services, insufficient mental health and social assistance programs... and yet awash in guns, television, psychotropic drugs, anger, fear and resentment.

The film has something to say about all of this and more. It is a brave, bold, ambitious and perhaps dangerous work of art. By the film's searing finale, we are all but forced to consider why such a film hits so close to home as a macabre distillation of our own zeitgeist. And perhaps we realize: the joke is on us.

Michael Cohen will be a Squealer

"President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, who once said he would do anything to protect the president, told ABC News in an interview released Monday that he now puts "family and country first." In Michael Cohen's first interview since federal agents raided his home and hotel room as part of a probe into his personal business dealings, he was asked what he would do if prosecutors forced him to choose between protecting the president and protecting his family.

"My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will," Cohen was quoted as saying by ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an off-camera interview that was reported on "Good Morning America." ''I put family and country first." (source)