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I'm Still Here starring Joaquin Phoenix.  It's out in theaters, namely more 'art house' style theaters in bigger cities.  I saw this today, available On Demand.

It's been released as a 'documentary', showing essentially the spiraling of Joaquin from being an award winning actor to being this fat, out of shape unkempt guy with a long beard and dirty hair trying to be a rapper.  He runs around his loft, snorting cocaine, ordering hookers, and constantly calling Sean "P. Diddy" Combs hoping he'll be the producer on his debut rap album.  He announces at a function that he's retiring and the news hits Hollywood, and Ben Stiller shows up at his house with a script hoping Joaquin will be in it.  Joaquin goes on a rant against Stiller, telling him that he's retired, hates the script and Stiller's brand of humor, stating that films like There's Something About Mary are terrible and all Stiller does is show up and "be Ben Stiller' without even trying to act.

There's a smaller subplot of someone in Pheonix's camp releasing to the press that the documentary isn't real and it's completely fake.  Joaquin finds out it's his assistant, as pictures surface of him selling the story to Entertainment Weekly.  Joaquin barrages a verbal assault on the guy, tells him he's worthless and the guy retaliates by defecating on him while he's asleep. 

He ultimately does a debut concert in Miami, where he's universally booed by the audience, and it culminates with him jumping off stage and assaulting a heckler. 

They announced recently that this was in fact a performance piece, a 'mockumentary', supposedly done in the vein of Andy Kaufman.  If it's indeed real, as was initially reported, it's kind of a sad piece showing the sad fall of a talented actor succumbing to drug use and slipping into insanity.  If it's a 'mockumentary', it works very, very well, as he turns in a brilliant performance, possibly the best of his career.

It wouldn't be the first time that an actor or actress has fallen to the drug\alcohol\overindulgence thing.  Looking at what it does, I thank the Powers That Be that I never got involved with this stuff. It's been proven time and time again that even the rich and privileged are not above it's influence.  Drugs are garbage, plain and simple.

It's certainly not the first time an actor's fallen to the drug scene.  He's seen several times throughout the film under the influence of alcohol, cocaine and marijuana.  He's gained a lot of weight and is quite out of it.

But, if it is a peformance that he put on, it's a great peformance and hopefully he does return to films, as it'd be a shame to have this be his 'last' flick.

Apparently they said it is a performance piece.  Although, it seems quite real in several scenes so that could just be them saying "It's peformance" as a way to try and rebuild some burnt bridges. :buggedout:

Back when he originally appeared on Letterman, I thought "Andy Kaufman?" There was even a point in his bizarre appearance where the audience was laughing and he said softly, "why are you laughing, this isn't a joke." I'm paraphrasing there. But it immediately struck me as Andy Kaufman-ish, because Andy would do that all the time. People would laugh at him and he would say "I don't understand why you're laughing, this isn't a joke."

The cat's out of the bag now, and too soon in my opinion. If he was trying to construct a Kaufman-like hoax, which I find amusing and applaud, then he should have taken it further. Personally I think Joaquin intended for the hoax to explode into a bigger thing than it did, getting the movie a wide release, but it didn't pan out that way and he's coming out now to try and get some more attention on it. I suspect if the story had blown up bigger and the movie had turned into something as big as, say, Borat, he would have drawn out the hoax longer.

Anyway, that's may take.

Anyway, here's Yvonne DeCarlo singing the song written for her by Stephen Sondheim - I'm Still Here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLmYEuoHPWM&feature=related

"First you're another sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone's mother,
Then you're camp!"

Funny thing, a person with the same name and description was arrested in the Providence area the other day.  The police insisted that it was "the actor".

I kinda wish it blew up bigger than it did.  The movie is quite good for what it is, and myself personally am a big fan of that Kaufman type stuff so it just added to it for me.  He is a hell of an actor and does quite well in it.

Good point, and good comparison to Borat. The thing that makes Sasha Baron Cohen's hoaxes so viable, is that he's a master of disguise for one thing (I never even knew who he was in Talladega Nights until my wife pointed him out.)  Second, and biggest of all, is how he keeps a low, low profile before he does something (or so it would seem.)  If you tip your hand too quick, people are likely to see it, and I think even moreso after Borat because it taught us all a good lesson about hoaxes.

What hoax with Borat?

Was I the only one who knew it was Sascha Baron Cohen doing a movie? :question:

I knew he made the film too, but unless I'm mistaken, wasn't Borat a "Candid Camera" type of film, where people actually believed he was from Kazakhstan? I had heard that was the gist..At least that's what I got form it.

I was referring more to the allusions that Cohen pulled the wool over everyone's eyes and made them believe he was actually from Soviet Central Asia (if that was the case.)

Same here, but my perception was it was kind of like This Is Spinal Tap, plenty of people were hip to it being a joke, but there were also plenty of people who thought Spinal Tap was a real band. In a way, they were.

There's a bit more 'drama', so to speak, in I'm Still Here as opposed to Borat or Spinal Tap.  Not many laugh out loud moments.

There are a few.  Mainly, Ben Stiller coming to Pheonix's house to offer him a movie role after his 'retirement', and Joaquin berating Ben Stiller for not being 'funny' and just showing up in any movie and 'being Ben Stiller."  Then there's the scenes of Joaquin rapping and then getting booed offstage so he jumps off and assaults a fan. :buggedout:

Ultimately, I read some reviews from critics that I kinda agreed with.  As a dramatic piece it works wonders but as a supposed 'documentary' that's supposedly 'real' as was initially marketed, it's a sad statement of a great actor becoming a junkie living in a bedroom.  If anyone's got On Demand it's available.

Most of the people interviewed in BORAT didn't realize they were being manipulated by an actor in character (the frat boys threatened to sue, in fact).  On the other hand there were a few actors mixed in who were in on the joke, like the fat call girl.  But the actors generally just assisted Cohen in getting disgusted reactions from the real people who were targets of the joke.

It definitely worked, that's for sure!  I think Pam Amderson was in on it too during her "kidnapping" at the mall, which was allegedly a Kazakh's way of posing the question (if I recall right.)  Very funny movie, though they could have done W\O the nude wrestling scene between him and his sidekick...

Am I the only one who doesn't like Sacha Baron Cohen?

Really? :buggedout:

Plenty of people don't like him. And Bruno is not doing nearly as well as Borat did in terms of notoriety. He will have to develop other ways of doing comedy because he's not going to be able to continue with what he has been doing. I do think he is very funny.