Friendo to HE: “C’mon C’mon was so mediocre. I can’t get over critics digging this Mike Mills film.”
HE to Friendo: “I’ve never been much of a Mills fan. That Santa Barbara movie with Greta Gerwig was kind of a drag. 20th Century Friendos….Women, I mean. 20th Century Women.”
Friendo to HE: “I’m no fan either.”
HE to Friendo: “Smooth and mellow Joaquin doesn’t wash. I don’t want to hang with a nice, sensitive, caring father figure played by that fucking guy. To me Joaquin is a twitchy, flakey, cigarette–smoking weirdo. I can’t accept him as a kind, gentle, soft-caressing fellow.”
Friendo to HE: “I wrote this: ‘As much as I’ve championed Phoenix as one of the great living actors, it pains me to say that he’s miscast here. The actor tries to, for once, embody a ‘normal’ character but it just doesn’t work. He’s best at playing unstable eccentrics rather than any kind of subdued, big-city schlub a la Mark Ruffalo.”