I'm Still Here (Casey Affleck, 2010)

[domino harvey]

I finally saw this (I forgot I bought the Blu-ray a while ago-- where's that 12 Step Program for home media addiction again?) and critics must just be straight-up stupid to not see how scripted/planned-out most of the shenanigans are. I mean, Puffy giving perfectly comic reactions to Phoenix's songs, the choreography of many of the film's bits, this is the stuff of every mockumentary, and that it fooled anyone shows how close what's shown is to the actual empty-headed celebrity nonsense one expects to see from a film documenting a famous person. Whether any of this works is far more subjective. I wouldn't blame, argue, or debate with anyone who hated this film or found it unamusing, as my defense is merely "But I did." But I did. Phoenix is frequently hilarious with his grandiose statements and phony anguish (At one point he tells a Newsweek writer that he doesn't care what other actors do in his movies), the celeb cameos are a riot (Edward James Olmos gives such a pompous and comically absurd metaphor that it beggars belief that anyone watching could have mistaken it for a genuine moment), and the funniest and most lively moments involve Phoenix's intentionally goddawful raps (With lyrics like "I don't fear fucking fear")-- I was howling with laughter by the time we got to hear all of the climactic performance of the titular track. There's plenty here that doesn't work: all the stuff with the mistreated "assistant" doesn't go anywhere, and the inclusion of male nudity on several occasions seems to be the result of some kind of inside joke that doesn't translate, for starters. Yet I'd still recommend the "doc" to anyone curious, especially as we're in the midst of a Joaquin Pheonix Renaissance (Three masterpieces of acting in a row with Two Lovers, the Master, and Her). Why would anyone watch or care about all this? Because he's Joaquin Pheonix (which is the point).

[knives]

Finally got around to this and while it really only works in spurts for me it’s a pretty fascinating attempt for an artist trying to tear himself down. It’s almost like a juvenile Schizopolis. He makes himself so ugly he seems to be spitting at the Gladiator image the film introduces him as. Definitely a worthwhile experience of society’s arrested development eating its own tail.