Oh look, there's video! Always seems to be, huh? The Sun, chronicler of the ages, tells us that Casey Affleck, Joaquin's brother-in-law and potential partner in hoaxery, was also in the crowd, filming away for this alleged documentary. The whole thing looks pretty staged—from Phoenix bragging about his millions of dollars in the bank, to the completely unsurprised and calm look on his face as he sets his mic down on the stage and heads into the audience for a bout of fisticuffs.

The audience was eating it up, chanting "Beat him up! Beat him up!", so that must have felt nice for Phoenix. No matter how out-to-lunch on various handfuls of drugs he may be, which Phoenix undoubtedly is, a performer still enjoys, nay requires!, the love of a sweaty, heaving audience. So even if it's a tiresome, indulgent meta joke, we're all at fault for perpetuating what has become an all too real and sad personal history.

Wino and Blaaaaake are off, too: The ever-reliable Sun is saying that Amy Winehouse's hubby Blake Fielder-Civil, freshly sprung from the slammer, is being whisked off to another country by his mum. In this cracked-out version of this story, it is Wino who is the corrupting influence on Blake, not the other way around.

A vampire named Madonna leaves the house during daylight hours: Madonna and her new boy toy Carlos Leon, I mean, Jesus, were seen leaving the Kabbalah center in NYC with her kids, David, Lourdes, and Rocco.

Joaquin Phoenix to shrink: STFU: The retired actor-turned-rapper-turned-possible hoaxter is insisting he's not mentally ill, despite what the doc told the L.A. Times.

Last but not least, Lindsay Lohan is converting to something else, too. The Mirror is claiming that La Lohan, after becoming a lesbian (sort of), may also be converting to Judaism for her honey. Aw, sweet. Just like Charlotte in SATC!

Frank Coraci had done the same bit just the night before at the Independent Spirit Awards, Page Six reminds us. Stiller was at the ceremony only via recorded video, since he was in his ill-fated Oscar rehearsals at the time, but would have had time to hear buzz about Coraci's stunt in the intervening day. Stiller kept his impersonation plans secret until he arrived at the theater Sunday, according to Page Six.

Coraci's impersonation (above, NSFW) wasn't as good, but then again he's a director, not an actor. And he was first! Plus the idea of pairing Phoenix with a ranting Christian Bale is inspired. It's not, in the end, surprising that a mainstream actor like Stiller would appropriate and reprocess the idea for a broader audience (video below): That's how his business works, and how the Oscar audience was able to enjoy some biting humor along with all the cheery musicals.

And having invested so much time in being a good guest himself on shows like Saturday Night Live, Baldwin no doubt disdains your disastrous performance on the Late Show the other night.

On the bright side, this is but the first of many times you'll serve as the punch-line for a joke about drugs or TV interviews. Should keep your name out there.

James Gray, who directed Two Lovers and is also close to Phoenix personally, told ABC News Radio, "if it's an act, it's the most committed act I've ever seen in my life."

"I mean, he built this studio [in his house]. The lengths to which he's taken it are quite extreme."

"Toward the end of the shoot, he kept saying 'Oh I'm so tired, I'm so tired.' You hear that kind of thing and you think it's a joke," he said. "I just ignored it."

Gray said Phoenix got into rap after Gray played the actor some unspecified recording relating to his own teenaged freestyling. "He said, 'I want to do that, I want to steal from that."

Now Gray feels guilty, because Phoenix quit acting. "I feel like I've ruined Joaquin Phoenix for the world."

More worrisome than Phoenix's career switch is the possibility that he's gone off the deep end. Maybe he did so intending it to be part of a hoax, maybe not. But if he's drowning does it really matter?

(Counter theory: It's just a hoax and Gray, who by his own admission is Phoenix's buddy, is in on the whole thing.)

The man in question is Phoenix's Two Lovers director, James Gray, who we once sympathized with—after all, the film's publicity tour has become a circus of late adopters who just watched Letterman and don't realize that this rapping enterprise is so hoaxy, it could have been brainstormed in a committee made of Rosie Ruiz, the Nigerian email scammers, and the Backwards "B" Girl.

Now, though, Gray is telling ABC about fears that he set off Phoenix's "rap career" by asking him to freestyle poorly in Two Lovers:

"That rap thing ... in the movie actually comes from something I played for him," Gray said. "I had an obsession with doing that sort of thing as a teenager. ... It turns out that Joaquin is imitating me in a lot of the movie. He said, 'I want to do that, I want to steal from that, I want to do the rap that you used to do.' I said, 'OK.'

"And now I'm seeing him do this thing, and I feel like I've ruined Joaquin Phoenix for the world," Gray added. "I don't want to be the guy that destroyed Joaquin Phoenix's acting career." [...]

Gray saw Phoenix Wednesday night, after the star taped his appearance on "The Late Show," but before it aired. Gray asked how the interview went.

"He said 'Oh it was good, it was really good," Gray said. "I watched it this morning ... I don't know what to say."

How about: made up, made up, it was made up, it was made up. But at least he'll get an US Weekly cover sidebar out of it!

• Director: I Feel I Ruined Joaquin Phoenix [ABC]

Phoenix ostensibly visited New York on Wednesday to promote his new film Two Lovers, but the movie proved secondary to the faux-enigmatic persona that left the actor muttering nothing in particular between long, awkward silences abetted by David Letterman himself. The results speak for themselves, as did Casey Affleck's camera-wielding appearance at the day's earlier press rounds in New York, which we hear wound up having even less to do with Lovers than Phoenix's hirsute, gum-depositing late-night escapades. So enjoy what promises to be the last of the star's half-assed film interests, at least until Darren Aronofsky digs him out of hiding 20 years from now for a moving, Oscar-ready comeback. We'll be waiting. [CBS]

TMZ and our sister from another, Quaadlude-riddled mother Defamer are heavy on the hoax beat. 'Cause, you know, Casey Affleck is filming a documentary of Phoenix's transition from good if not very well liked actor to his new rapper persona: Old Sergeant MacGruffin', a Civil War soldier who got lost in the Great Smoky Mountains for 140 years. So it must be some sort of mockumentary thing and there will be a big "ha ha" and then Phoenix will go back to being an actor, still as good, probably, and definitely still not very well liked. And I believe that!

But I also believe that there's a current of sincerity in the whole debacle, not really born out of an actual desire to become a rapper, but stemming from a great desire for more and more precious drugs. Phoenix's cataclysm on Letterman last night came freighted with the usual "nervous tics" of people currently on or desperately awaiting their next dance with heroin. And like the junkies on The Wire were always cooking up harebrained schemes to go rob junkyards or drug stashes, a rich smackhead with a lot of time on his hands might decide that it makes complete sense to make some gonzo comedy/art project about being a rapper. And then maybe said golden triangulist might start to buy into the whole act a bit too much, because they're crazy and on drugs all the time. That would explain his highly-focused commitment to the act, even while he's being eviscerated by David Letterman. (Or maybe Letterman was in on it!)

The only thing tough to reconcile is Casey Affleck's involvement. If Phoenix really is on drugs, Affleck is kind of a shitty friend for indulging the whole Rip van Tinkle experience. Hopefully, in defense of a world I like to imagine where Casey Affleck is still a nice boy from Cambridge, Phoenix really is a nut, but sober as can be, who is just now finally showing the effects of growing up in the supremely bizarre way that he did. If that's the case, then godspeed. Just don't do anymore national television. It makes me uncomfortable.

Again, celebrities: Dave doesn't want to rip you to shreds on national television, but if you're not going to help him fill the 10 minutes or whatever, he has no choice.

This particular trainwreck was predictable. The movie star has been generating embarrassing tabloid headlines for weeks with his slurry rap performances, to the point where some of his associates started insisting the whole thing was a joke. Phoenix then had to assure everyone he was serious.

Phoenix also announced that Two Lovers, the film he was sent on Letterman to promote, would be his last, since acting now bores him. So even if he hadn't been behaving erratically, Phoenix was not likely to have brought much enthusiasm to Late Show tonight.

Phoenix certainly knows how to turn on the late-night charm when he wants to; here he is on Letterman on 2005, sounding coherent and humorous (and wearing the same suit!) while promoting Walk the Line:

This time around, Phoenix has either come unhinged again, or wants the world to think he has. It's possible he's engaging in some performance art for the documentary his brother-in-law is making about him. But on Letterman, at least, where Phoenix grew increasingly hostile toward the host and crowd, the celebrity doesn't appear to be doing that sort of cool-headed calculation and planning.

At the end of the interview, Letterman says he owes an apology to Farrah Fawcett. Fawcett was considered his all time most disastrous guest — until now at least. Here's her 1997 appearance:

Best moments from tonight's show are above; the full CBS highlights reel is below:

James Gray has collaborated with Phoenix on three films, and his latest, Two Lovers, is purported to be Phoenix's last EXCEPT FOR THIS HOAX MOVIE HE IS FILMING WITH CASEY AFFLECK IN WHICH HE IS CLEARLY ACTING AND WE'RE ALL CLEAR ON THAT, RIGHT? In a Huffington Post essay published today, Gray charitably describes the actor as "mercurial" (of their first film together, he notes, "I seem to remember a whole lot of torment and angst and yelling and screaming"), then recounts Phoenix's gonzo performing on the set of We Own the Night:

We worked night and day, rehearsing and discussing. Sometimes it would lead to horrible arguments — often my fault! I'm no diplomat — but in my (weak) defense, there were times I couldn't distinguish with whom I was speaking. Was it character or actor? This time, he went in, and he went in deep. Okay, you want me to see my father dead, in the street? Well then, I might vomit for real (he did); you want me to be terrified of that man? Go 'head, have him belt me, right in the face (he got walloped, but good); you want me to swallow that charcoal? Force it down my throat, man (he inhaled, with relish).

Now, Phoenix has kindly returned the favor, asking America to open its mouth while he shoves a hard, unwanted vanity project down our gullets. Expect a middling aftertaste, for it is half-baked.

• Joaquin Phoenix Retires [HuffPo]

• Everyone agreed that it was nice of everyone to show up so poor Jen wouldn't just be sitting alone on her couch gulping wine, like she's done for all her other birthdays. Well, not all the guests. "[My wife] Rita [Wilson] told me we were going to Disneyland," complained Tom Hanks. "But then she pulled in here and I was like 'Aww, what the fuck?' Jen's just so... needy." [Gatecrasher]
• Joining the stellar cast for this season of Dancing With the Stars will be forgotten funnyman David Alan Grier, one-time US Poet Laureate Jewel Kilcher, big fat computer nerd Steve Wozniak, and some naked dude from the Sex and the City movie. [Us]
• Joaquin Phoenix, mumbling actor turned mumbling rapper, says that he looks scruffy and pudgy and all around gross on purpose: "It's been important for me to just do something that's extreme - that really separates me from that public Joaquin Phoenix persona, whatever the f*** that is. Or maybe I'm just lazy." [Showbiz Spy]
• A disgruntled rapper named Mark Curry has written a book called Dancing With the Devil: How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip-Hop about how Puffy P. Diddy-Daddy screwed a ton of rappers over. No words yet on whether this is the same Mark Curry from Hangin' with Mr. Cooper. [P6]
• Grumpy old gay person Elton John doesn't like it when you make jokes about him paying for things. He was at a restaurant in LA recently and Courteney Cox-Arquette and her husband, Dewey the Eight-Legged Freak, made a loud joke about John picking up their check. All the restaurant's celebrity guests (including Lurleen Lonely-and-Miserable herself, and Mick Jagger) chuckled. Elton John did not. Either because he's a jerk, or David Arquette isn't funny. It actually could be both. [P6]

The Playlist managed to uncover this clip of Phoenix's nascent on-screen rapping from the upcoming Two Lovers (which has already seen its publicity tour devolve into a bullshit-calling festival). In it, Phoenix attempts to woo Jersey girl Gwyneth Paltrow and her friend with a little bit of freestyling that, like its real-life counterpart, ends horribly. Yes, Gwyneth—we, too, began by laughing with Phoenix, but that stinky "WTF" face you make at :07 is the best summation of his new career that we could possibly give. Brava.

• Was 'Two Lovers' Joaquin Phoenix's Hip-Hop Training Wheels? [The Playlist via Vulture]

Phoenix's poor, poor publicist reminded him that he still has one more completed movie to go out there and sell (James Gray's Two Lovers), and so Phoenix has embarked on a press tour that, like his clearly fake rap career, is being filmed by Casey Affleck. Naturally, reporters have about zero interest in Two Lovers and are peppering Phoenix with questions about another cinematic achievement: the video of his terrible, faaaake rap debut in Vegas that was met with rolled eyes from an ahead-of-the-joke internet populace.

"I don't know where that [criticism] comes from," Phoenix said. "If it comes from people that I've had a falling out with, that are (ticked) off at me?" [...]

"There's not a hoax," Phoenix said. "Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that's possible, but that's certainly not my intention." [...]

"It sucks that, yeah, the footage is out there as like this incredibly bad sound, and you literally can't hear what's happening," said Phoenix, who still has his bushy beard. "It was much better in the club, and I don't know who said that people were booing ... because that was not happening.

"Unless, of course, it's a pretty big place, and maybe it was happening," Phoenix added, laughing. "But it was not my experience. My experience afterward was I had a lot of dudes come up and say, `We really respect you for doing it, putting yourself out there, and going with it.' Because I think true hip-hop heads know that it's hard, it's going to be a hard transition, and people are going to be lining up just to make fun of me."

At this point, we're becoming perversely curious to see Affleck's finished film—now that even Phoenix can't make it through an interview without laughing (and yet insists on perpetuating this hoax), his cinematic attempt to lampoon self-involved "pompous actors" takes on new, unintended meaning.

• Joaquin Phoenix Defends Rap Career, Denies Hoax [HuffPo]

In a statement released to MTV News on Wednesday afternoon (January 28), Phoenix rep Susan Patricola said the actor's hip-hop turn is very real and that he's not letting a few naysayers stand in the way of his rap-star dreams.

"The transition from one career to another is never seamless. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Joaquin came from a musical family, in addition to winning a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Johnny Cash," Patricola wrote in an e-mail. "He intends on exploring his musical interests despite speculative, negative or positive reactions."

So, basically: "Yes, this is a hoax, I couldn't talk him out of it, does anyone know if Zac Efron needs a new publicist? I have a lot of ins with Puma and could get him some primo swag, LOL!"

• Joaquin Phoenix Rep Insists Actor's Hip-Hop Career Is Serious [MTV]

The grumbly actor announced back in November that he was done with the acting game. He wanted to pursue a music career. Everyone assumed (or at least I did) that it would be some sort of Dogstar or Bacon Brothers-esque bar rock. But no... it was rap. Slurry, awful, heavily-bearded rap. And to add to the bizarroness of the whole thing, Phoenix's brother-in-law, actor Casey Affleck, was following him around with a video camera, getting footage for some sort of "documentary."

But now two people are telling E Dubs that it's all an Andy Kaufman-ish bugaboo. One anonymous source tells them: "[Phoenix] said, 'It's a put-on. I'm going to pretend to have a meltdown and change careers, and Casey is going to film it." A second confirms:

It's an art project for him. He's going full out. He probably has told his reps that he's quit acting. Joaquin is very smart. This is very conscious. He has a huge degree of control.

Oh good. A weird smirking art project from a self-important actor whose best work was playing a whiny lady in a sword and sandals movie. Thank ye, Art gods!

If this is all a ruse, we're curious about the endgame. Will there be a Guffman-esque, Affleck-directed mockumentary? A short-lived Showtime series? An installation exhibit at MoMA?? There's no way of telling. And that leaves us terribly vexed.

Following his widely panned three-song debut as a rapper at a Las Vegas nightclub on Jan. 16 — a shambling performance that concluded with the actor falling off the stage — two competing theories emerged: Either Phoenix is perpetrating an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style hoax (with an assist from his friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck, who's ostensibly shooting a documentary about his career transition), or he's truly lost his marbles. The truth, it seems, is closer to the former. "He said, 'It's a put-on. I'm going to pretend to have a meltdown and change careers, and Casey is going to film it,'" says one source who recently worked with Phoenix.

Though Phoenix's interest in music is sincere (he earned Oscar and Grammy nominations for his turn as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line and has directed several music videos), with this supposed career reboot he is evidently trying to both lampoon pompous actors and punk the media that covers them. Whatever his motivation or ultimate endgame, don't expect him to break character anytime soon. "It's an art project for him," says a source. "He's going full out. He probably has told his reps that he's quit acting. Joaquin is very smart. This is very conscious. He has a huge degree of control."

Here's the thing, though: can the media that covers Phoenix really be lampooned when they're already calling bullshit on him? And wouldn't the real "pompous actors" be the ones who, like Phoenix, think this vanity project/mockumentary is worth doing anyway? In that sense, then, by lampooning him on a regular basis, perhaps we've come the closest to Phoenix's actual intent. Joaquin, we will accept a "story by" credit under our pen name, D. Famer. As for compensation, please just stop.

• Joaquin Phoenix's rap career: An elaborate hoax? [EW]

Not only do we have video footage of Phoenix's victorious post-rap aftermath (bouncing up and down and falling off the stage in what may have been a Pogo Ball accident gone wrong), but Gatecrasher brings word that concertgoers were treated to far more of Phoenix's nether regions than they'd anticipated thanks to an eye-level wardrobe malfunction. Page Six has its own backstage account, which details a feud that erupted when the faux shenanigans were in danger of delay:

"He was waiting for Casey Affleck" - who's directing a documentary about Phoenix's venture - "and when the film crew arrived late, Joaquin flipped out," said our insider. The spy said Phoenix yelled at the crew, "Thanks for being late and [bleep]ing everything up." He then threw a CD on the floor and stormed out. "He came back five minutes later and did the sound check," said the source, who added, "Nobody can tell if he is for real or if this is all a big joke."

Oh really?

• PHOENIX FLIP-OUT [Page Six]

• At hubby's 'Spread,' Demi Moore plays Ashton Kutcher-Kutcher-koo [Gatecrasher]

• Britney Spears has supposedly been offered the sum of $14 million for a three-to-five books about herself over the course of a decade. And yet she still tips poorly.
• MSNBC hottie Dan Abrams is now dating Renée Zellweger. The shady influence broker's conquests have included Elle Macpherson.
• Lindsay Lohan is going to try posing sexy in a New York magazine again and see if it takes her anywhere interesting. [Sun]
• Chesley Sullenberger, the hero pilot, enjoyed a low-key inaugural celebration at a DC restaurant called (yes) Hudson with fellow crew members. [P6]
• Joaquin Phoenix continued to be a train wreck, flashing a Las Vegas crowd through his corduroy pants and yelling at a documentary crew.
• Jude Law wasn't about to go to the Box without his "protective collar." [P6]
• Animal-hoarding monster Paris Hilton was somehow given an award by the Humane Society. [E!]
• Wesley Snipes can't even get free headphones at Sundance without somebody trying to snitch him out for tax evasion. [P6]
• Paula Abdul invented dancing with cartoon animals in music videos. She also invented Beyonce. And Rihanna. And pop music itself. You're welcome. [Showbiz Spy]

First of all, some background: as we know all too well at this point, Joaquin Phoenix has grown out a beard and is pursuing a stunty fake career as a rap singer for what is clearly, clearly a mockumentary directed by Casey Affleck.

Also, your associate editor was inebriated at the party where he snapped this picture.

Anyway, let's try to figure this thing out.

REASONS WHY IT COULD BE JOAQUIN PHOENIX:

· Phoenix had a high-profile rap performance in Vegas on Friday (pictured at left). That's close enough to Park City!

· The beard growth is about the same on both d-bags. The blond wig on the Sundance d-bag (which threw us off) is clearly fake.

· Seriously, the Sundance idiot was so douchey that he approached self-parody (which is apparently Joaquin's new vocation). He was dancing like a loon and had oven mitts on his hands, for God's sake.

· The build (including the slightly bulging tummy) is about the same.

REASONS WHY IT MAY NOT BE JOAQUIN PHOENIX:

· It was at the Queer Lounge kickoff party? Which is not to say that New, Awful Joaquin is gay-unfriendly (though he is a rapper now), or that he's unaware of the fact that gays throw the best parties. But still, something to note.

· The Queer Lounge people we've talked to don't know a thing about it. Casey Affleck wasn't there and neither were any cameras (as far as we could tell).

· Though we're currently well-insulated in a Sundance bubble, we haven't heard any other news reports that place Joaquin at the festival.

· Actual Joaquin appears to have a more sizable soul patch and different nose (though the angle and iPhone camera could account for the differences).

THE VERDICT:

Hollywood is filled with douchebags.