Culture

If you haven’t been following Mr. Phoenix’s career moves like I have,well he is putting on a ruse of Andy Kaufman proportions by reportedly quitting acting (last fall Defamer article) and starting a music hip hop career full time. His brother in law Casey Affleck is filming a documentary on the whole thing but according to Gig Wise the whole thing is an elaborate hoax.

I’ve been following Mr. Phoenix’s Andy Kaufman esque hoax closely to decide whether its a hit or miss. I’m not a huge fan of this type of humor, but its refreshing in America’s culture. The LA Times has a write up about his last film “Two Lovers” mixed press. of the off screen theatrics of two of its main stars: Gwyneth Paltrow’s solipsistic self help website Goop and Phoenix’s aforementioned new music career.

And then last night Phoenix went on Letterman.  Its a great straight performance by Joaquin, but an even better one by David Letterman. In my opinion, its Letterman that really did a great job with this.  And there is a big reason why JQ didn’t go on Jay Leno–Leno just wouldn’t be able to play this scene as well as Letterman.  Leno may have overtaken Letterman in ratings, but Leno’s humor is more about dirty and silly jokes, where Letterman relies more on dry humor than stale comedic devices of Leno’s giggle standards.