Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Joaquin Phoenix--Crazy or Kaufman-esque?


Chances are you've been encountering snippets of gossip about the decompensation of Joaquin Phoenix. I'm not accusing you of reading Perez Hilton (though I do). It's just hard to entirely avoid celebrity gossip, especially when it increasingly makes the headline news.

Here's the short version: Phoenix said he was giving up acting for a music career. He had one spectacularly bad performance, raised eyebrows with some pretty diva-like behavior, and apparently (though I missed it) was absolutely bizarre in a recent interview on the David Letterman show.

Some say he's falling apart, others that this is an Andy Kaufman/Sacha Baron Cohen-like bit of performance art--the latter theory supported by the fact that his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, is supposedly making a film about his fledgling music career.

I confess, I don't know what to make of it all, though I hope he's not falling apart. I really like him as an actor. So I perked up a little when I read this piece about Phoenix (and his new movie) on Slate.

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