Comment on Joker: Folie à Deux Feels Like a Movie for No One

WASHINGTON — Days before rioters roamed the halls of the U. S. Capitol threatening to “hang Mike Pence,” Donald Trump told his vice president that people are going to “hate your guts” and “think you’re stupid” if he failed to stop the 2020 election certification. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The New Year’s Day warning wasn’t the first time Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election results.

(To get this story in your inbox, subscribe to the TIME CO2 Leadership Report newsletter here.) Hurricane Helene is a significant human tragedy with more than 200 deaths reported as of Oct. 4. Thousands more have been left homeless, with North Carolina hit particularly hard. And the property damage will be difficult for the thousands of homeowners to manage without adequate flood insurance.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Three former Memphis police officers were convicted Thursday in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, but were acquitted of the harshest charges they faced for a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Jurors deliberated for about six hours before coming back with the mixed verdict for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith. All were convicted of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating, but Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges.

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Joker: Folie À Deux. It’s pretty unclear who exactly Joker: Folie à Deux is for. While 2019’s Joker earned more than $1 billion at the global box office and remains the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, Folie à Deux doesn’t exactly run with the troubled-loner-enacts-violent-revenge-fantasy formula that helped make its predecessor such a success.

Edibles aren’t just for weed anymore. There’s a growing market for gummies, chocolates, and other products that claim to contain psychedelic mushrooms and promise consumers a new—and legal—way to get high. Psilocybin, the best-known psychedelic substance derived from “magic” mushrooms, is a Schedule I substance: an illegal drug considered to have no medical use and high potential for abuse.

A movie can be a major downer and still carry no emotional weight. That’s the sad, stoop-shouldered truth of Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his explosively popular 2019 vigilante extravaganza Joker. The picture has so little energy that it sags off the screen—it’s as droopy as the sad, psychiatric-prison underpants worn by its depressed, underfed hero, Arthur Fleck, played once again by Joaquin Phoenix.