We Live In A Society And Joker Lives In An Only Occasionally Successful Movie

So many people come and go in our lives every day, it's easy to forget that other human beings have had entire lives up to the point we meet them (maybe that's just the Walgreen's cashier in me talking).  Everybody's got a story for how they got to their current point in their lives, even wanna be stand-up comics like Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix). Residing in Gotham City with his mother and working as a clown-for-hire, Arthur struggles through life due to his mental illness that includes a handicap that sends him into sudden fits of uncontrollable laughter. Bad luck follows Fleck wherever he goes as he searches for purpose in his life and a reliable father-figure to serve as a substitute for the dad he never knew.

All Hail The Masterful Awkwardness of The King of Comedy

The King of Comedy is another great example of a movie made in a specific era of history that still resonates as relevant today. This 1983 Martin Scorsese directorial effort hinges on the idea of a comic being obsessed with garnering fame through the aid of a late-night talk show host he's obsessed with, and admittedly, it's hard to imagine modern-day people looking for their big break being this exclusively fixated on a broadcast television late-night host as their ticket to glory. But that obsessive drive to be famous at all costs, a creepy sense of entitlement to stardom, all of that is still relevant to today. Though the pursuit of fame may manifest in different ways in 2019, The King of Comedy is about a guy whose primary motivation is disturbingly timeless.