Review of "I'm Still Here"

It doesn't really matter whether Joaquin Phoenix is playing a role or being himself in the perhaps-faux documentary "I'm Still Here."

Either way his character is obnoxious and the film is mostly a bore.

Phoenix ("Gladiator," "Walk the Line") announced a few years back that he was quitting acting to become a hip-hop musician. Then he famously showed up on "Late Night with David Letterman" sporting a long beard and hair and acting semi-comatose.

When news leaked that Casey Affleck, Phoenix's brother-in-law, was shooting a film documenting Phoenix's transformation, rumors began swirling that the whole thing was a put-on.

That seems to be the truth, since both Affleck and Phoenix take writing credits on "I'm Still Here." Beyond that, it's hard to conceive of anyone releasing a real self-portrait this negative.

Phoenix is seen cavorting with prostitutes, viciously berating assistants, taking copious amounts of drugs and rambling incoherently. In fact, he rarely rambles coherently, and most of what he says makes him sound like a spoiled, arrogant jerk.

Of course, this is probably just the character; but who wants to watch a spoiled, arrogant jerk even if it is just a character?

If the entire enterprise is supposed to say something about the American preoccupation with celebrity or the decadence of show business brats, well, those already overdone subjects have been covered better elsewhere.

And by the way, if Phoenix is actually retiring from acting for a music career, he's bound for disaster. The guy has no discernable talent and he's terrible on stage.

But chances are the joke is on us. The problem is the joke isn't very funny. In fact, it's kind of vile.

Review of "Easy A"

The first indication that "Easy A" is not your average teen movie comes with its supporting cast.

Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson. Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci. Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church. Emmy winner Lisa Kudrow.

What's going on here?

What's going on is an extremely witty, inventive, sweet and perceptive coming-out party for Emma Stone ("Zombieland," "Superbad") in her first front-and-center starring role.

"Easy A" is stuffed with sharp dialogue, snappy characters and embarrassingly relevant situations. The ghost of John Hughes hovers over it and that ghost is likely smiling.

Stone plays Olive, a bright, ambitious and thoroughly overlooked high school student who tells her best friend (Alyson Michalka) that she lost her virginity to a college guy just to shut her up.

Unfortunately that false admission is overheard by the school's unofficial Christian morality monitor (Amanda Bynes) and soon, like Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter," she's branded. And, for the first time, popular.

When a secretly gay guy convinces Olive to pretend to have sex with him to enhance his reputation, she figures she's just doing him a favor. Soon everybody wants favors from Olive. And some of them don't want to fake it.

The script from first-timer Bert V. Royal crackles with laughs and smarts, which is probably why Clarkson and Tucci (Olive's mom and dad) and Church and Kudrow (fave teacher and guidance counselor) signed on. All get a chance to shine under Will Gluck's direction.

But this is Stone's movie, and the relaxed, wisecracking intelligence she's shown elsewhere sparkles. Her real-feel good looks and hip attitude come across naturally on screen. She's an actress you like, simple as that.

As a result, "Easy A" isn't just a good teen movie; it's a solid, fun film, period.

Review of "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps"

'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" wants to remind us: Greed is not good.

As timely as that message may be, it may also be somewhat unnecessary as millions of Americans look to their wrecked pension funds and underwater mortgages and shiver as unemployment statistics remain unnervingly high. Pretty much everybody knows it was greed that brought us to this messy state.

Still, the current economic crisis proved too great a temptation for director Oliver Stone, and thus there is "Wall Street" redux, coming 23 years after the original film. This sequel doesn't so much amplify the first film's message as offer a grand "Toldja so." And it's hard to argue with.

This time around, former Wall Street power broker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is just getting out of jail for crimes committed in the first film.

He is estranged from his now-grown do-gooder daughter, Winnie (the luminous Carey Mulligan), who -- as cruel fate would have it -- is dating a young Wall Street hotshot, Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf).

The film revolves around Jake, with Gekko serving as a mentor-manipulator. Early on, Jake's godfather in the financial business, Louis Zabel (Frank Langella), is driven to suicide by the mean-spirited money-juggling of yet another Wall Street honcho -- this is a film filled with honchos -- Bretton James (Josh Brolin, piling it on a bit thick).

Jake figures out that James caused his father figure's ruin and soon strikes back, causing a bit of chaos that hurts James' bottom line. Rather than infuriating James, though, the act intrigues him, and he hires Jake.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to his girlfriend, Jake has met her father, who has written a book and is hitting all the financial talk shows. Gekko begins dispensing advice, Jake starts soaking it up, and eventually Winnie reconciles with her lonely father.

If this all sounds like a lot, it is, and Stone is just getting started. Wall Street collapses, the government bailout commences, and eventually Jake is corrupted by his surroundings.

Stone handles the financial stuff quite well. As in real life, it's never quite clear how the financial industry got away with acting so stupidly, or why the government had to bail out such mammoth and incompetent organizations, but the gist of it comes across: These were bad people acting badly and they will continue to act badly.

For the most part, the actors are better than their characters. LaBeouf's intensity carries the film, but did Jake have to prove his essential goodness by backing some mad scientist green energy contraption? Brolin plays James with more than a hint of Snidely Whiplash, and while Douglas is always an effectively likable louse, he does a sudden marshmallow turn at the end that seems apologetic.

Still, Stone's strong sense of melodrama and the undeniable reality of the situation he is describing make the film something of an entertaining civics lesson.

It's also massively disheartening much of the time, which is probably why Stone makes a soft landing at the end.

He still gets the point across: Greed is not good. But do the greedy really care?