“I take no pleasure in watching this train wreck of a performance on David Letterman. I love Joaquin Phoenix’s work in Two Lovers–but the folks marketing the movie should ever have put a guy in the shape that Phoenix is in on national television. He could barely talk. I hope he gets his act together. Soon.”
Anne Thompson’s article earlier today reminds me that not everyone isn’t in on the joke just yet, and contrary to her thoughts on the matter — not only did Phoenix haphazardly inject some life into a film that was released VOD several weeks before getting its theatrical send off this weekend (if I’m Magnolia Pictures’ marketing people I’m extremely happy) but he managed to hype up the “character” piece he devised with buddy Casey Affleck. It might not be the best executed display of “method acting” in public, but Sacha Baron Cohen had the chance to go incognito without having a spotlight track his every move. And since I’m on the subject of Borat, I think Phoenix traded places with the film’s director director Larry Charles. Same beard and get-up.