Remember when Paris Hilton was spotted walking around Los Angeles with a grey-bearded, orange-robed monk? And it hit the tabloids, and the talk-show hosts worked it into their monologues, and for a few seconds everyone was wondering just what in the name of the Dali Lama was going on? At least they were until everyone took a breath and remembered that Ashton Kutcher was creating a soon-to-fail reality show called “Pop-Fiction,” a sort of bizzaro “Punk’d” where the target was the general public and the tricksters were celebrities. Remember that?
OK, now substitute Casey Affleck (“The Killer Inside Me”) for Ashton Kutcher. Imagine Paris Hilton as a two-time Academy Award nominee instead of an empty socialite husk, and extend the hoax for a year. Add in a dash of pathos and you’ve got the excellent, yet nearly unclassifiable meta-epic commentary “I’m Still Here.”
Despite what you might have read, “I’m Still Here” is not a mockumentary, though its premise certainly sets it up to be. Affleck films Joaquin Phoenix (“Two Lovers”) as he pretends to slowly lose his interest in acting, his sense of propriety and his mind.
The whole thing starts with Phoenix’s real-life announcement that he plans to retire from acting and start a rap career under the stage name JP. However, since Phoenix was a legitimate Hollywood star at the time of his “retirement,” the action can’t be scripted or planned as it would in a mockumentary.
Phoenix must deal, in mumbling, drug-addled character, with press requests, interviews, paparazzi and best of all the nagging suspicions of the Hollywood press that the whole thing is an act. Which, of course, it is, but it also forces Phoenix to go berserk at his assistants for leaking false information (actually, true information, but of course they didn’t leak it since they’re in on the joke) to the media. The action is being dictated by real world events – the movie is being written as it happens.
Neither, however, can “I’m Still Here” be called a documentary. There’s a definite story arc that Affleck and Phoenix are shooting for, though it keeps getting interrupted by the real world. And it’s not useful to categorize as documentary something that, with hindsight, was a total narrative construction.
Rather, it’s best to think of the film as a through-the-looking-glass commentary on the Hollywood media and us, the consumers. The genius of “I’m Still Here” is in its metaphysics: In watching a movie about Joaquin Phoenix going insane, what we’re really seeing is a reflection of our own reaction. Would the tabloids think the whole thing were fake, even if it were real? Would Phoenix’s management actually defer to him at every turn? Would we still be laughing?
In its own way, “The Expendables” is just as meta as “I’m Still Here,” though in a very different sense. Check out the cast: Sylvester Stallone (“Rambo”), Jason Statham (“Crank: High Voltage”), Jet Li (“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”), Randy Couture of MMA fame, Pro wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Terry Crews (“Gamer”) and Mickey Rourke (“Iron Man 2”).
And those are just the credited actors – Bruce Willis (“Red”) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (“Around the World in 80 Days”) show up in uncredited cameos as well.
The very point of the movie is that the actors are more important than their characters. Unfortunately that decision, plus the steak-fingered directorial touch of Stallone, leaves the plot flapping in the wind. Instead of creating an action-fan’s “Ocean’s 11,” Stallone, unable to secede the spotlight to his co-stars, comes much closer to making a James Bond knock-off for the pro-wrestling crowd.
The plot, such as it is, centers around a mercenary crew. The leaders, Barney Ross (Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Statham) travel to an island nation to do some dangerous reconnaissance work for a mission that involves taking out the head of a violent governing militia and his American financier.
However, they and their comely female contact Sandra (Gisele Iti?, “The Mystery of Sinatra”) are caught in the act. Ross and Christmas flee, but Sandra refuses to leave her home, leaving the embattled Ross with an existential decision: Call off the job for his own safety or return the island, rescue the girl, kill the dictator and shoot up the place. It’s a chin-scratcher, but don’t worry. Stallone’s got a lot of chin. And a lot of friends with a lot of guns.
Like “I’m Still Here,” “The Expendables” is fully self-aware – it realizes the absurdity of its star-studded cast and alludes to it continuously.
But, where “I’m Still Here” wove these references into the story, “The Expendables” treats them as amusing diversions from action and explosions, and it suffers for that choice. That’s not to say the references aren’t funny, like when Schwarzenegger’s character tells Stallone’s “you should read more,” when Jet Li angles for a bigger share of the earnings to feed his family, or when the shape of Statham’s head is brought up in conversation.
The problem is the meta-references, which are irrelevant to the story, are never returned to. Schwarzenegger is only seen once in the film, Jet Li’s character admits that he doesn’t have a family, and Statham remains as bald as ever.
Though it’s unlikely that either movie will age well, since both rely on an audience with knowledge of current goings-on in Hollywood, for the time being the difference between the two films is this: “The Expendables,” may be clever, but “I’m Still Here,” is downright intelligent.
Lin Weeks is a junior majoring in Finance and Marketing. He gave “I’m Still Here” five stars out of five, and “The Expendables” three. Upset with his omission of the DVD you were most excited about renting this week? Vent at [email protected].
