Phoenix fooled us all

We all remember that infamous Joaquin Phoenix on David Letterman last year. It was so horribly painful to see the Oscar-nominated actor throw himself down a path of self-destruction and despair, and attempt to become a horrible rap star.

But PHYSC! Phoenix was playing an act, all for his new mock-umentary directed by Casey Affleck who finally let it on that the whole thing was faked for the movie, "I'm Still Here" (but Letterman wasn't in on it).

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe first let me onto the mayhem of the scheme last week when he reviewed the flick for the Globe. But in case we were all wondering, and in a way we all were, Affleck went ahead and told us that it wasn't for real. "I never intended to trick anybody," Affleck said in a E! article. "The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."

Kinda amazing. It seems that the Sasha Baron Cohen theme has gone into mainstream well-accomplished actors, after the whole "I'm not who I see to be" scheme started back with the great Andy Kaufman. How this sort of thing works with a man who is such an accomplished actor is beyond me. But I don't think I want to spend the money to see this in theaters. That's what Netflix is for.

Is Joaquin Phoenix Serious?

For those of you who don't know, "Walk the Line" star Joaquin Phoenix has basically gone off the radar (in a lot of ways) and he is trying to resurrect his celebrity status...in the form of a rap career. To answer your next question: yes, he does suck, but it seems like that hasn't stopped the powers that be from making a film out of it all. Here's the trailer for "I'm Still Here" about Phoenix's attempt to be a relevant musician. Good luck with that...