WTF Moment #1: Joaquin Phoenix (Sorta) on Letterman
It’s been a crazy first half of 2009, and Joaquin Phoenix has carried the torch for much of it. Once considered the heir to the throne of the Daniel Day-Lewis school of Method acting, the Oscar nominee has quit movies and launched a rap career … unless, of course, he’s in the midst of his best performance yet (which is what most people believe). Real or staged, Phoenix’s Feb. 11 appearance on The Late Show—on which he was supposed to be promoting his “last movie,” Two Lovers, but instead wound up promoting his newly launched rap career—made for some of the most endlessly riveting TV in a very long time. Letterman, it must be said, deserves just as much credit for the hilarious/awkward segment, whether he was acting or merely responding viscerally to the inanity coming out of Phoenix’s mouth—you know, the opening in the center of that facial-hair forest. KEEP READING: WTF Moment #2