Well, now all the nonbelievers can finally add Disheveled Joaquin Phoenix to their list of imaginary holiday figures -Casey Affleck has officially revealed to the New York Times that his upcoming Joaquin Phoenix fecal party, I’m Still Here, is actually just a piece of performance art. Shocking, I know. And for all three of the people who just genuinely gasped, I’d like you to drink some of this Kool-Aid.

*hands over leather canteen*

In a series of e-mails that followed a Thursday interview with the paper, Affleck turned all bromo and couldn’t stop praising the star of his film:

“His performance is compelling, always watchable, manages to be repulsive and charming, believable in all emotions, completely committed, incredibly brave,” wrote Mr. Affleck. It must have been “tedious” for Mr. Phoenix, he said. “How difficult to resist the cheap joke, the wink, the nudge.” But, he added: “He has the tools for this. He has the goods in spades.”

“I hope Joaquin gets nominated for all kinds of awards,” wrote Mr. Affleck. “He deserves it.”

Yeah, whatever you say, Casey. He has goods in spades and three in the stink, we get it. When asked about the infamous David Letterman interview, Affleck was adamant that Dave wasn’t in on the gag, but the New York Times posted a link to an article from Nuvo.net where Late Night writer, Bill Scheft, claims Letterman was completely aware the whole time.

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Just released by First Look Studios in support of today’s DVD release of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, here’s an animated version (created by Sascha Ciezata) of Werner Herzog telling the story of how he once pulled Joaquin Phoenix from the wreckage of a car crash.  Between this and Gary Busey helping a crash victim a few weeks ago, I’m beginning to think of Malibu as a magical land full of batsh*t celebrities playing bumper cars with each other on city streets.  Anyway, I transcribed the part that picks up just after Werner Herzog sees a car going too fast lose control and shoot up an embankment, eventually coming to rest on its roof.  Herzog is the first person on the scene and discovers that the driver is none other than MC Poo Pants himself, Joaquin Phoenix.

“It was clear I couldn’t get him out through the window, and the moment I diverted my attention from him, he had picked up a cigarette and tried to light the cigarette.  And I said to him, ‘Man, relax.’  And he said to me very calmly, ‘I am relaxed.’  And I said to him, ‘No you are not.’  And what I noticed and what he was not really aware, was that gasoline was dripping throughout the car.  So I confiscated the cigarette lighter and then I crushed the rear window and got him out.”

After that, I imagine he disarmed some car jackers, then held forth for a three-hour lecture on 17th century French imperialism that was so beautiful that afterward they cried and thanked him and promised to turn their lives around.  If those Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads were halfway accurate, they’d star Werner Herzog.  He once got shot in the belly during an interview, an experience about which he said, ‘Nein.  Das eest eine flesh vound.  Eez poetry.” He once filled a movie full of midgets laughing maniacally, just to see how it felt…

[Indiewire]

I’m Still Here, Casey Affleck’s documentary about Joaquin Phoenix’s mumble rappin’, cape buyin’ public breakdown, which may or may not have been a put on for the movie (it clearly was), is currently playing the Venice Film Festival.  And now, according to reports, the festival has been crashed by a Joaquin Phoenix impersonator.  A hoax about a hoax from a guy pretending to be a guy pretending to have a breakdown?  That’s so meta it makes my scarf chafe.  (*BRAAAAAHM*)

As Casey Affleck, producer/director on the offbeat documentary “I’m Still Here” builds buzz in Toronto for his directorial debut, his PR team has raised the alarm on an apparent charlatan who arrives by limousine at festival venues, and is accompanied by “a massive entourage of security and scantily clad female groupies.”

The blogosphere hasn’t yet lit up with confirming sightings of the faux Joaquin Pheonix, but Affleck is concerned enough about his fans being “tricked and disillusioned by the fraud” that he’s set to address the media Friday night outside the Varsity Theatre, just before “I’m Still Here” debuts in Toronto. [HollywoodReporter]

Gosh, it’s strange that his PR people have been the only ones to report this so far.  It’s almost as if they’re… inventing a publicity stunt… to promote their movie about… publicity stunts.  Hey, guys, I’ll go see your poo-prank movie, but not if you’re going to act all smug about it.  No one likes a smug poo pranker.  My mother taught me that.

UPDATE: According to a tipster, the impostor in question is this guy:

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I’m Still Here, the Joaquin Phoenix Cleveland Steamer documentary directed by Casey Affleck (best tagline ever), is currently playing at the Venice Film Festival.  Although it seems pretty clear to me that Joaquin’s crazed cape sprees and mumble rapping were a put on, Casey Affleck (C-Flex) is still telling anyone who will listen that it wasn’t.  …I think.  See if you can figure out what this means:

“Elliptically, I would say … I sincerely don’t want to influence people’s interpretation,” Affleck told reporters. “I can tell you there is no hoax. It makes me think of ‘Candid Camera’ or something.”

I don’t know what that means, but I’m pretty sure he’s being deliberately elliptical (you can tell because he begins the sentence with “Elliptically”).

What follows are scenes depicting his negative downturn [pff,says you]. There’s drug use, graphic language, the search for online sex, a meeting with a prostitute and other hard core scenes, such as of Phoenix attacking a spectator at his own concert.

According to an alleged eye-witness report, there wasn’t much of an “attack”, but that’s neither here nor there…

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Casey Affleck’s Joaquin Phoenix documentary, I’m Still Here, opens next month and now it has a teaser trailer.  I must say, it seems to be taking itself rather seriously for a movie about Cleveland Steamers and cape shopping.  I don’t get it.  This whole thing seemed like a stunt from the very beginning, and the fact that there was a documentary about it seems to corroborate that.  It’s funny as a huge practical joke, so why are we still trying to sell it as some artsy, fall-from-grace documentary?  It wouldn’t have been quite as dramatic if Tony Montana had spent the second half of Scarface deciding he wanted to become a mime and rubbing his wiener against people on the subway.  Anyway, the whole trailer is narrated by the Scorsese-movie version of an Apache medicine man who tells Joaquin that he’s a “mountain-top water drop” (buttercup baby just to let me down…).

That’s you. [pointing at drops of water] Drops of water.  And you’re on top of the mountain.  A success.  But one day you start sliding down the mountain.  you think,wait a minute, I’m a mountain-top water drop.  I don’t belong in this valley, this river, this little dark ocean, with all these drops of water.  Then one day it gets hot. And you slowly evaporate into air.  Way up.  Higher than any mountain top.  Then you understand that it’s at your lowest that you’re closest to God.

If that’s true, what about the part where the water drops are covered in sh*t?  I guess I don’t understand these fancy metaphors.  However, if you listen closely during that speech, you can almost hear the sound of Terrence Howard playing the bongos.

Also, is it just me, or does Joaquin Phoenix kinda look like the pregnant Asian dude?