riesen2b's blog-o-rama: Joaquin Phoenix Flakiness Was Fake According To Casey Affleck

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Joaquin Phoenix Flakiness Was Fake According To Casey Affleck

Image via WikipediaThe bizarre behavior of Joaquin Phoenix for the past year, beginning with his whacked out appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman and culminating with the just recently released "I'm Still Here", the documentary (or as it turns out, mockumentary), was all just an elaborate hoax. That is according to Here's director, Casey Affleck, who also directed the movie about Phoenix, his brother-in-law. Affleck revealed the hoax to The New York Times today.
This contradicts what Affleck said earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival when he told reporters that there was no hoax. Also according to Affleck, David Letterman was not aware of the hoax. Phoenix will return to Letterman's show next week.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, none of this has hurt Joaquin's career as he is supposedly weighing several movie offers.
Below is a video of the David Letterman appearance:

I haven't seen this movie but from reading some of the reviews about the film, I have to say that for the most part the elaborate scam seemed to work, with many critics unable to tell whether this was a true look into the life of Phoenix or if it was staged. A review of particular note to laugh about is that of Roger Eberts, a critic whom I usually admire, but who was totally bamboozled and shocked by what he saw in "I'm Still Here". His review begins like this:

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. The tragedy of Joaquin Phoenix's self-destruction has been made into "I'm Still Here," a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin. Here is a gifted actor who apparently by his own decision has brought desolation upon his head. -read his full review here.

Having spent that long and working to convince people of his walk towards insanity, will Oscar voters see his performance as genius, or a slap in the face to Hollywood. My guess would be the latter although I myself think that it is the former. It will be interesting to see if there is any fallout from this project. I'm just grateful that it was just an act of performance art and his life hadn't eroded into madness. His performance in the Johnny Cash biography "Walk The Line" was absolutely amazing.
Speaking of Roger Ebert, he made the terrific announcement that "At The Movies", a show that he and Gene Siskel originated as "Sneak Previews" on PBS will be returning to PBS next year. He will make appearances weekly in a segment about classic older movies. No longer able to speak after loosing his lower jaw to throat cancer, his segment will consist of him typing while a computer will synthesize his voice and read what he types. Supposedly the company that made this program for him were even able to replicate the sound of his voice. It will be great to see and hear him once again. Ebert is the only film critic that has ever won a Pulitzer and his reviews, as well as being thoughtful, intelligent and informative, are often extremely fun to read and also, his opinions are dead on with what the majority of the public ends up believing about the film.