“The reviews were so angry,” said Mr. Affleck, who attributed much of the hostility to his own long silence about a film that left more than a few viewers wondering what was real — The drugs? The hookers? The childhood home-movie sequences in the beginning? — and what was not.

Virtually none of it was real. Not even the opening shots, supposedly of Mr. Phoenix and his siblings swimming in a water hole in Panama. That, Mr. Affleck said, was actually shot in Hawaii with actors, then run back and forth on top of an old videocassette recording of “Paris, Texas” to degrade the images.

“I never intended to trick anybody,” said Mr. Affleck, an intense 35-year-old who spoke over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich on Thursday. “The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.”

– Michael Cieply, New York Times.

Oh, so it turns out Joaquin Phoenix rap career was all an elaborate hoax intended to make a good “documentary”? F@#!ing shocker.

Also, it really sounds like Casey Affleck only gave up the big secret because the reviews were bad, right? Like he was just a little bit defensive about all the criticism of the crappy camerawork and everything else, and so came out and was all, “Well the joke’s on you because it wasn’t even real!” Even though the crappy camerawork was real.

I love the idea of the long-form hoax, but I think if you’re going to do it you really need to have an endgame in mind. Revealing it to the New York Times “over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich” does not seem like a suitable culmination of two years of deception.

I went and saw Man on the Moon before it opened at a special showing in D.C. and Bob Zmuda, Andy Kaufman’s frequent collaborator who was played by Paul Giamatti in the film, spoke afterward.

Zmuda said that he and Kaufman actually once worked on a script about a comedian who faked his own death and showed up at the premeire of his biopic 10 years later. So though Zmuda was nearly certain Kaufman was actually dead, he said he still harbored some small doubt that he could show up on the red carpet. He didn’t, obviously. But that, that’s a hoax.

Joaquin Phoenix pretending to be drug-addled and crazy for two years? Meh. Not even really that convincing a performance, to be honest.

I mean, a noble effort for sure, and maybe I should check out I’m Still Here before I judge, but you really shouldn’t effort performance art these days without involving James Franco in some form.

Also, I love that Affleck says, “I never intended to trick anybody.” Ahh, excuse me, Casey Affleck? Isn’t that exactly what you intended to do?

Oh, and furthermore: One time in college I was at an end-of-year barbecue for the campus theater group and I wound up very, very drunk, something I don’t often do. I’m not proud of it, but I was behaving terribly in all sorts of ways, just a total lout.

Anyway, in a brief moment of lucid thinking I realized that if I didn’t come up with some way to redeem myself quickly, these people were all going to know me as the wretched, vile human being I exposed that afternoon.

So before I left, with great focus, I feigned sobriety and proclaimed that I hadn’t had even a drop of alcohol that day and was just acting all along. And the party full of theater types clapped for me as I exited.

In truth, the most impressive part of the performance was that I managed to walk out without stumbling or otherwise betraying my inebriation.

If anyone who was at that party finds their way to this post, I apologize for my behavior, twice over.

That’s not much of an endgame, but then that wasn’t as involved a hoax.