I'm Still Here (2010)
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 124
Fresh: 65 | Rotten: 59
As unkempt and inscrutable as Joaquin Phoenix himself, I'm Still Here raises some interesting questions about its subject, as well as the nature of celebrity, but it fails to answer many of them convincingly.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 17
As unkempt and inscrutable as Joaquin Phoenix himself, I'm Still Here raises some interesting questions about its subject, as well as the nature of celebrity, but it fails to answer many of them convincingly.
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Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 19,629
Movie Info
Oscar-nominated Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix announces that he's retiring from acting to launch a hip-hop career as his brother-in-law Casey Affleck captures the curious transition on camera in the film some are labeling an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style prank. In the fall of 2008, Phoenix shocked his fans with the announcement that he would no longer be appearing in features, but instead trying his hand in the music business. In the wake of a particularly bizarre appearance on the Late Show
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I'm Still Here Trailer & Photos
All Critics (126) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (65) | Rotten (59) | DVD (3)
No doubt what we witness is a performance for the camera, but with what motivation? Or is the hoax a hoax?
Top CriticI'm not sure I believed a word of this film. Actors who melt down on camera are usually, well, acting. But I couldn't take my eyes off I'm Still Here.
Chances are the joke is on us. The problem is the joke isn't very funny. In fact, it's kind of vile.
If we're truly witnessing the unraveling of a talented man in his prime, it's just sad. If it's all performance art, though, it's just pointless.
Joaquin is simply adding to the ugliness, encouraging the fools, and wasting everyone's time.
The movie is as damnably perplexing as the subject himself.
Joaquin gets the last laugh on us all. But the movie's a mess.
As a defeated Phoenix cleanses himself in the waters of Panama at the movie's climax, ultimately you're left asking the same question you were wondering when you went in: why should I care?
Is I'm Still Here an art film? Post-verité? Social satire? A big "**** you" to Hollywood? Disturbing? Hard to sit through? Oh yeah.
[A] disaster, a bratty, self-indulgent demand to be paid attention to, complete with the expectation that it will be paid attention to, because celebrity simply really is that irresistible no matter what it's doing...
If what's happening in the film is honest and real, it's more spectacle than introspection. If it's all fake, only the filmmakers are laughing.
This movie has to be seen to be simultaneously believed and disbelieved.
By the end of the film, I was hoping it was a fake. If real, it would reveal a famous person who should not be celebrated.
An ugly and disturbing deconstruction of self-destruction and emptiness.
Phoenix and Affleck aren't merely concerned with teaching everyone a lesson -- that would be cheap. They offer us an opportunity to step through the looking glass and see the human being that sits behind the famous personality.
If Phoenix and Affleck are engaged in an extended performance-art piece, their message ? that America?s celebrity culture is empty and soul-crushing ? isn?t anything that hasn?t been said before.
A clever stunt that shrewdly wrestles with issues of fame, truth and self.
Taken as satire, where Phoenix is the Trickster, I'm Still Here is a rare piece of provocation cinema, infiltrating the mainstream and casting an ugly light on a torrid, superficial society.
Phoenix needs a hug. And a Bowflex.
Casy Affleck is trying to claim that I'm Still Here is 'gonzo film-making'. And I'm right with him on that point. It DOES look like it was made by a muppet.
...it took something like courage to make it, and it has some ofthe same iconoclastic power of punk rock, with the same edge of sneering cynicism ballasted by a canny sense of the market.
I don't get it.
What Affleck and Phoenix have attempted is more than a film. I'm Still Here chronicles a two-year performance-art piece that's bold and, just maybe, brilliant.
I'm Still Here's gruelling faux-doc assemblage loses its charm after about 40 minutes.
Why leave all that wreckage in their path if there's no real point; no insightful takeaway?
Neither a verite portrait of an actor in decline, nor simply a hoax, but instead a diverting piece of Method-inspired performance art.
Audience Reviews for I'm Still Here
Super Reviewer
I think everyone is over thinking I'm Still Here. It's a mocumentary and a damn good one at that. Phoenix wasn't just acting in a movie, but acting in front of the whole world. The David Letterman interview is absolutely hilarious and Phoenix makes it so believable. You have to give Letterman some credit for going with it though. I can't believe he was able to make it through that interview.
I'm Still Here is hoax documentary about Joaquin Phoenix quitting acting and trying to pursue a rap career. Phoenix's performance is off the charts. He kills his performance and really sells the hoax that all this stuff is really going on. He embarrassed himself in front of the whole world just to make this mocumentary. How awesome is that? He faked having a complete mental breakdown. I think it's absolutely brilliant.
Besides the Letterman part of the movie; the next best scene is when he gets into a verbal argument with an audience member at his show. It is simply hysterical. It really is kind of irritating how bad the response has been to this film. It's a mocumentary, but a believable one. It's awkward. It's funny. I guess Casey Affleck almost went broke trying to make this movie and had to actually stop filming it in order to be in The Killer Inside Me, so he could finish the film.
Just go into it knowing it's a mocumentary and view it as a work of fiction. It's incredibly funny if viewed that way.
Super Reviewer
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Latest News on I'm Still Here
September 22, 2010:
Casey Affleck Comes Clean About I'm Still HereIn a exclusive interview with Roger Ebert, Casey Affleck discusses "I'm Still Here" -- including...
September 22, 2010:
Ranking I'm Still Here Among the Great Film HoaxesNow that we know "I'm Still Here" was just a hoax, it's time to ask: Where does it rank among the...
September 16, 2010:
Casey Affleck: Joaquin Phoenix Documentary Wasn't RealAccording to an article in the New York Times, I'm Still Here, the Casey Affleck-directed...
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Movie: ID: 771203533 Title: I'm Still Here Release Date: 2010-09-10 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- I'm Still Here (2010/I) (DE)
- I'm Still Here (2010/I) (CA)
