Joaquin Phoenix is an idiot and The Joker is an unwatchable flick

I recently traveled to Amsterdam for work.  As part of that travel I obviously had to fly and during the flight they offered free movies one of which was The Joker with Joaquin Phoenix.  To be honest I'd never seen anything that he starred in.  Yes, I watched/enjoyed Gladiator but that was a Russel Crowe flick.  Nothing else that Phoenix has played in ever caught my attention (or that of anyone else, really).  The Joker was by far his biggest chance to show us something new and different and skillful.

So I start playing it on the plane and the first thing he begins doing is laughing the fakest, stupidest "gee I'm crazy even though I sound like I am trying to sound crazy" laugh which goes on and on.  Now don't get me wrong.  I like a good crazy act.  I thought Heath Ledger was legendary in his portrayal of The Joker.  Everything about it was perfect.  The small mouth movements.  The eye movements.  The change of pace.  Ledger was crazy cool personified.  It wasn't just the best Joker ever done (easily beating the crap out of Jack Nicholson's Joker and even Nicholson's crazy character in The Shining and, dare I say it, One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest), it was one of the best acting jobs of any kind that I have witnessed.

But Phoenix?  What a hack.  That fake laugh went on and on throughout the movie.  I watched 10 minutes of the start, couldn't stand it, and then jumped another 20 minutes in, couldn't stand it, another 20 minutes further in, couldn't stand it.  I gave him every chance to catch his stride but he never did.  There was nothing redeeming whatsoever about his horrible portrayal of the Joker.  And for this crap act, the self congratulatory Hollywood crowd gave him a Golden Globe. 

Now, we already know that these award ceremonies are largely political in nature.  I suspect Joker got this award not so much for the performance but for the anti establishment message that it presented.  Regardless, Phoenix stood up to give his acceptance speech and then acted (poorly again) like he actually deserved this recognition.  And then he went on to whine about human impact on the planet, mea culpa for living and consuming, blah blah blah.  And then with teary eyes he went on a PR mission to show he cares for living things, etc. by saving a cow (in front of the cameras, of course) and calf from the butcher (who he referred to as murderer multiple times on camera).

For my part I think the butcher should sue Phoenix for wanton defamation of character.  Phony Phoenix is simply playing to the liberal masses and pulling on the heart strings of the stupid who, without benefit of the butcher, would be starving to death.  This is ridiculous.  I love a good steak and a quality hamburger.  I know these animals can think to some degree.  That is not the issue.  The universe is hierarchical in nature; that is to say, it is intrinsically hierarchical.  Shall a black hole be sorry that it devours solar systems?  I think not.  It is simply the way of things.  It is natural.

And the way of things on Earth is that in order to live people have to eat.  We cannot live from eating inanimate objects.  Rocks and dirt will not sustain us.  Sure we can eat just plants but plants are living things too.  Do we hate them?  If not, why pick on plants?  And we can eat fish, but fish are intelligent as well.  In my many hours of SCUBA and snorkeling I have seen many a grouper behave with clear intelligence, at times even running away behind a rock and then turning around and poking his head out to see if I saw him do it.  Why should we pick on them?  I think a grouper is as smart as a cow.

While the liberals want us to believe that we evolved from bacteria and slime mold, I laugh at this notion.  In all my years of engineering I never saw anything evolve from nothing, and certainly not anything so masterfully complex and remarkable as human anatomy, human thought and human creativity.  Each time we discover more about the building blocks of our life form I am even more blown away by the order and logic and precision that has to happen at the molecular level in order for us to exist.  This is not random.  This is not evolution from nothing or from a pile of raw chemicals.  Even Darwinists are now admitting that Darwin himself would, with hindsight and based on current knowledge, disavow his own work.  They are now abandoning Darwinism in droves based on the new data that we have about how our bodies work and how life itself works.

And so, let's consider the other side of the coin, the creationist side.  Man was created by a superior being.  Let's call him G_d.  I don't know much about all the non-western creationist religions but many of them say similar things, just using different characters.  In the case of Judeo-Christianity, The Bible is the historical accounting and rule book.  In Genesis 9:3 it says, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.   And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything."  That seems pretty clear and unequivocal to me.  Several other references exist as well and all of them indicate that all living things on Earth are fair game for use as food for humans.

So what Phoenix is really selling is the same old liberal bullshit that we should be ashamed of our nature and by extension ashamed of our creator.  Sorry Joaquin, intelligent people aren't buying crazy.  Sell crazy someplace else. We are all stocked up here.