I’m Still Here

As any of you who have seen di­rec­tor Michael Win­ter­bot­tom’s di­vi­sive, Al­ba-Bash­ing flop The Killer In­side Me will at­test to, Casey Af­fleck is one cool moth­er­fuck­er. Des­per­ate to keep his suave-as cult rep­u­ta­tion alive, Casey has cho­sen his next pro­ject wise­ly. I’m Still Here, a mock­u­men­tary mock­ment­ing the lost year of Joaquin Phoenix, will be Af­fleck’s di­rec­to­r­i­al début. Maybe it’s a lit­tle pre­ma­ture to use the term mock­u­men­tary when for all I know Phoenix’s well pub­li­cised fall from grace, in which the ac­tor quit his day job in or­der to pe­ruse a ca­reer as an MC, is as gen­uine as his por­tray­al of J-Cash in ‘Walk the Line’. But for now I’m gonna say elab­o­rate hoax.

One thing how­ev­er that is mak­ing me doubt my­self is a re­cent re­port in the Los An­ge­les Times, which puz­zles over the re­al/not re­al de­bate. John Horn, who wrote the piece, met with film dis­trib­u­tors who have seen a raw cut of the pic­ture and they ad­mit that they have no fuck­ing idea. But what threw me off most was the con­tent we’re promised. (I have to say it does sound con­vinc­ing.)

“The film over­flowed with Hol­ly­wood de­bauch­ery, in­clud­ing more male frontal nu­di­ty than you’d find in some gay porn films and a stom­ach-turn­ing se­quence in which some­one feud­ing with Phoenix defe­cates on the ac­tor while he’s asleep”

Yum­my eh?!?! All in all I think the scep­ti­cism sur­round­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of the film’s con­tent will make it all the more com­pelling as a view­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. And with Joaquin re­port­ed­ly ’snort­ing co­caine, or­der­ing call girls, hav­ing oral sex with a pub­li­cist, treat­ing his as­sis­tants abu­sive­ly and rap­ping bad­ly.’ I’m sure there will be plen­ty to talk about once the cred­its roll.

With sex, shit and (maybe some high con­cept) satire, ‘I’m Still Here’ sounds promis­ing. In an age where it takes some se­ri­ous­ly fucked up shit to shock peo­ple, the movie seems to­tal­ly zeit­geisty. Though provoca­tive as it sounds, I’m sure when it is fi­nal­ly re­leased (Sep­tem­ber 10th in the US) most of you hip­sters-in-the-know will on­ly be con­cerned with its plac­ing on Ul­tra Cul­ture’s patent­ed Dai­ly Mail sick-flith-o-me­ter. I’m gonna start the bets off by guess­ing a 9.

Ad­di­tion­al in­fo: A teas­er trail­er has just been re­leased and it’s fuck­ing class. Jokey-pre­ten­tious mono­logues FTW!

I’ve al­so read that di­rec­tor Casey Af­fleck is be­ing sued for sex­u­al ha­rass­ment by the film’s fe­male pro­duc­er and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er. Oh Casey you charmer you.