Greatest Films (2 Jokers) 9th and final post of an ongoing series

No deck is complete without Jokers. They transcend all, trump all, yet are often left out when dealing most games. These two films embody that.

Joker, El Topo, Alejandro Jodorowsky (dir)
A mess, an exsistentialist, surrealist, absurdist, psychedelic Western. I'll let Pauline Kael speak for me:

"The movie may seem bewildering, however, because the narrative is overlaid with a clutter of symbols and ideas. Jodorowsky employs anything that can give the audience a charge, even if the charges are drawn from different systems of thought that are -- *as thought* -- incompatible.... Well, of course, you don't need erudition to draw on matters religious and philosophical that way -- any dabbler can do it. All you need is a theatrical instinct and a talent for (a word I once promised myself never to use) frisson. Jodorowsky is... a director for whom ideas are sensuous entities -- sensuous toys, really, to be played with. By piling onto the Western man-with-no-name righteous-avenger form elements from Eastern fables, Catholic symbolism, and so on, Jodorowsky achieves a kind of comic-strip mythology. And when you play with ideas this way, promiscuously -- with thoughts and enigmas and with symbols of human suffering -- the resonances get so thick and confused that the game may seem not just theatre but labyrinthine, 'deep': a masterpiece."- Pauline Kael

Unfortunately this is a tough film to find due to a rights ownership dispute with the owner vindictively keeping this film out of circulation. It can be found though, I suggest you find it. (looking at various message boards, the fight may finally be over and a proper DVD release of this and Holy Mountain may happen in 2006)

Joker, Team America: World Police, Trey Parker (dir)
The greatest puppet film about counter-terrorism ever made. Includes, almost, the most explicit puppet sex ever filmed (Peter Jackson owns that title with this film). Includes an extended (and I mean really, really, really, really, really, really extended) vomitting scene. Includes searing song parodies. Plus the most cogent explanation of the importance of supporting the military and their mission in the most scatalogical terms imaginable. Time will look more favorably on this film than audiences did during its release.


UPDATE:

For ease of navigation, and just in case anyone comes to any of these individual posts randomly, I'm adding a link to each of the nine posts within each posts.

Summary
2-10 of Hearts
JQKA of Hearts
2-10 of Clubs
JQKA of Clubs
2-10 of Diamonds
JQKA of Diamonds
2-10 of Spades
JQKA of Spades
Jokers