Joaquin Phoenix has been playing sullen, out-to-lunch weirdos for so long that it’s hard to recall when he last played a normie with a semi-attractive (i.e., palatable) psychology. Well, it happened 12 years ago. His last normie, an empathy guy named Theodore, surfaced in Spike Jonze‘s Her (’13). And that was all she wrote.

For the last 11 years Phoenix has been playing (with one exception) nothing but repulsive creepazoids…Inherent Vice, Irrational Man (pot-bellied asshole), You Were Never Really Here, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (quadraplegic), Mary Magdalene (old Jesus), The Sisters Brothers (greasy gunslinger), Joker, Beau Is Afraid (old, moaning, liver-spotted neurotic), Napoleon and Joker: Folie a Deux.

The exception was Mike Mills‘ C’mon C’mon, in which Phoenix played a radio journalist normie named Johnny. Viewers didn’t relate. They’d become conditioned to Phoenix (now 50 going on 75) playing twisted incels and eccentric glummos.

I thought about Her last night after watching Bill Maher’s “New Rules” rant about the growth of romantic AI relationships.

On 11.13.13, or soon after catching my first screening of Spike Jonze‘s Her, I shared an alternate ending with a few friends (including some critics and columnists). A much better ending, I insisted.

I posted it on 7.9.15: “As we all know, Her ends with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) more or less dropping Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) — something about her having evolved so far and taken in so much and gone to so many wondrous and mystical places in her head with Alan Watts and possibly others that she’s no longer able to just simulate a girlfriend experience, and so she’s expanding her wings and moving on. Or something along those lines. (If I’m not mistaken the same thing has happened with Amy Adams‘ OS1 relationship.) The OS1 software has evolved itself out of being an emotional relationship surrogate for lonely humans and has gone up and into the universe….right?

“This is where and why the movie is going to lose Joe Popcorn. The film ends with Amy dropping her head on Joaquin’s shoulder as they sit and stare out at the vast LA cityscape, but it’s not quite enough. The movie ends, but the way it ends isn’t an ‘ending.’ It just kind of slows to a stop. It’s an ending that says, ‘We haven’t figured out an ending but at least we’re ending on a sad kind of note.’

“Here’s how it should end. We know that Theodore’s intimate letters book has been published and gained, let’s presume, a certain attention, a certain fame. We include a brief scene near the end in which the creators of OS1 get in touch with Theodore and tell him how much they loved his book and particularly his voice (both inwardly and stylistically), and that they have a proposition for him to think about. Theodore has presumed that they were getting in touch with him to express regrets about his relationship with Samantha going south, but this is surprising. A proposition…?

“Cut to a time transition of some kind. The camera glides across Theodore’s office and stops at his empty desk. The camera gently glides across Theodore’s empty apartment…perfectly-made bed, everything in order, no Theodore.

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There were only four golden years enjoyed by William R. Wilkerson’s original Cafe Trocadero (8610 W. Sunset Blvd**., West Hollywood, CA) — the spring of 1934 to May 1938, when Wilkerson sold the place to Nola Hahn.

Over the next nine years the “Troc” opened and closed under several shifty owners. By the time Clark Gable and his new Lincoln Continental posed for this shot on Sunset Plaza Drive in the fall of ‘46, the “Troc” was in its final year of operation. It shuttered in ‘47.

The Hucksters, Gable’s first significant post-war film, opened on 7.17.47. Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr co-starred.

** Chin-Chin West currently occupies the lot at 8610 W. Sunset (the address is actually 8618 W. Sunset Blvd).

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I have a vague feeling that Timothee Chalamet‘s dweeby-dork appearance in Marty Supreme (soup-bowl haircut, insubstantial jerkoff moustache, string-bean bod) will diminish the box-office popularity of Josh Safdie’s ping-pong film (A24, 12.25).

Everybody was loving him in Santa Barbara three nights ago, but at the same time some were muttering “what’s with the dorky green shirt?” and “why does he look so dweeby?” You could feel this in the room.

Which presumed Democrat candidate is likely to beat him? Think about it. There’s no one. The Democrats are weak and flabby.

— from Patrick McGilligan‘s “Woody Allen: A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham” (Doubleday, 2.5.25)

After catching The Substance in Cannes on 5.19.24, I wrote the following:

Now here’s ‘80s Olympic gymnast superstar and biomale-trans-scolding enterpeneur Jennifer Sey more or less saying the same thing in a 2.5.25 Federalist post:

As I said on 1.9.25…

For what it’s worth, I’m no fan of David Hogg either. The Dems need real dudes in charge, not Harvard-educated woke wussies. Okay, Hogg isn’t necessarily a wussie but he’s certainly a skilled opportunist.

What Hogg endured during the Parkland nightmare was obviously traumatic and devastating. In no way have I dismissed or minimized the terror of almost being shot to death by a deranged teenaged maniac.

Nonetheless Hogg DID seize upon and then master and then ride this experience to fame and influence and political glory in much the same way that Audie Murphy rode his WWII combat trauma like a racehorse to become a famous movie actor & a man of property and symbolic power.

Murphy would have been foolish to turn that opportunity down at the end of WWII; the same applies to Hogg in the wake of Parkland.

Hogg may well have had political careerist ambitions all along (I’m presuming that he did), but surviving the Parkland trauma and then railing against the pro-gun lobby served as quite the dynamic springboard.

And here he is now…a political player, a guy with skin in the game, a young establishment Democrat who has risen in the ranks. He’s in a position now to run for a seat in Congress before long or for the U.S. Senate when he’s a bit older, and perhaps even the Presidency some day. He rode that traumatic horse, all right.

HE’s American LAX-to-JFK jet touched down around 8 pm Thursday night. I’m now (10:18 pm) parked on Metro North train to Westport. Public transportation almost always lets me down in some way — this time it didn’t — thank you.

The jig is up for Team Lively. She may as well throw in the towel — everyone despises her — vindication is out of the question. Team Baldoni needs to give in also…please.

Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.

The days when an actor like John Lithgow could be shamed into not playing a role over Stalinist trans outrage rhetoric are over. A couple of years ago trans terror was a force to be feared. Not so much these days. In my view J.K. Rowling is a woman of backbone.

Gulf of Emptiness? Gulf of Nowhere? Gulf of Infinite Nothingness?

I’ve always liked the sound of the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone should revert to that when Trump leaves office on 1.20.29. He won’t die in office — of that I’m fairly certain. German genes.

Gulf of Jose Jimenez?