Her – Left on Read

Q: Should I email my neighbors about the excessive noise they might hear as I jump around because of the fitness app I downloaded?
A: Oh, you lift?

Q: Why did I buy so many beans?? I don’t eat beans!
A: Eat your fucking beans.

Q: Can I have a little doorknob lick? As a treat?
A: No!!

Q: Why was Amy Adams’ character in Her? She seemed pretty unnecessary?
A: Your guess is as good as ours.

Q: Am I no longer practicing social distancing if, while working out, I jump so hard that I open up a hole in the floor, causing me to fall approximately 8 feet into the living room below me and onto my neighbor’s portly 7-year-old as he plays Boggle?
A: This is a meet-cute.

Q: Can I commit a crime and use social distancing as an excuse to not let the police in?
A: Only if Anthony Fauci said you could.

Q: Can I complain about my neighbors smoking weed?
A: Fuck off dude, stand by your fellow man.

Q: How stocked up on pickles is too stocked up on pickles?
A: Too much is never enough.

Q: Exactly how disinfected does an orgy need to be for it to be acceptable?
A: As long as assholes are bleached, you should be good.

Q: When the fuck will I get to watch Fast 9 in theaters?
A: Not soon enough… not soon enough.

Q: Do I have to have my video on while using Zoom?
A: Only if more than 40% of the participants are also sharing video.

Q: What is Pep Boys doing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak?
A: Furloughs!

Q: Can someone please take some of these beans!!!
A: No, eat up bean boy.

Q: How many people need to get infected before I can get hella racist about it?
A: Go lick a doorknob, asshole.

Q: How long does it take for Amazon to deliver a 14th-century bird doctor mask?
A: Not as long as it will take for the package to sit in your front hallway while you wait for the virus to fall off it and die.

Q: Will my gimp mask protect me?
A: Not if you’re using it the right way 😉

Q: Okay, I’ll just be direct here: how much is the Social Security burden going to be lightened?
A: On advice of counsel, we have redacted this answer.

Q: Asking for a friend: Can anyone sneeze in Mitch McConnell’s face, just for fun?
A: Oh hell yeah. Especially if you’re showing symptoms.

Q: I stayed inside today, am I a hero?
A: Yes, you make healthcare workers look like lazy pieces of shit!

Guys (and, since this is the Academy we’re talking about, I really do mean “guys”), we need to talk. Are we sure that Joaquin Phoenix is good in Joker?

Two things up front, both of which we can hold in our heads at the same time: First, Phoenix is one of the best actors of his generation (and also probably an alien). Second, Joker is a mediocre movie at best and morally irresponsible at worst.

But putting all that aside, are we certain that America’s foremost anti-cow-insemination scoundrel was a great actor, much less the ~best~ actor, in Todd Phillips’ gritty Taxi Driver reboot?

Acting weird doesn’t make you a great actor. If we’re going to give Oscars to off-the-rails performances of characters with a destructive persecution complex, then Adam Sandler would have had himself a night on Sunday. And Phoenix himself has played memorably weird characters in the past but, unlike Joker, all of them had an unmistakable depth and generated unique insight into what it means to be human. I still can’t tell you what half of The Master was about, but I know there was something true about Phoenix’s Freddie Quell. The same goes for his roles in Her, in Walk the Line, hell even in Gladiator.

But all those roles had what Phoenix’s Joker didn’t—they were interesting. You trusted that Phoenix didn’t just have a reason why his character was behaving like he was, but that it was a good reason. Even not having a reason at all can be enough, but that wasn’t what we got here.

Instead, Phoenix’s Joker was a hollow pastiche of victimhood and trauma. Few actors have pushed the envelope quite like him, and he was rewarded for it on Sunday. It’s just a shame that it wasn’t for his best performance.

Tag: Her

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