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It’s the middle of October, and for me, apathy has set in. There are obviously, as I pointed out last week, some high-profile films heading to theaters in the next few months, but they mostly won’t hit until November. Frankly, the rest of this month’s slate of films bores me. Another Saw movie? Snore. Hilary Swank in Oscar bait? Been there, done that. What I need to shake me out of my apathy is something exciting, something different, something totally unexpected. The closest I am getting to that comes out this weekend: Jackass 3D. Now, on the one hand, hearing that Johnny Knoxville and crew are coming back to theaters with state-of-the-art 3D technology makes perfect sense. On the other hand, the mere thought of the movie kind of makes me gag in my mouth. Do we really want to see the most disgusting sight gags imaginable even closer to our faces?

Still, what Knoxville, Steve-O, Bam Margera and everyone else in the Jackass team do could be considered performance art of some kind. Don’t believe me? Did you know the new movie was being shown at the Museum of Modern Art this past weekend? Of course, that doesn’t automatically qualify Jackass 3D or any Jackass movie as performance art, but think of what such art is meant to do: incite the audience, surprise them, confront them. Even in the most childish, immature, raunchy fashion, this is what the Jackass films do. This week’s A-List will cover five recent bits of high-profile performance art, from the obvious to the somewhat surprising, as it should be. Jackass is just the tip of the iceberg for modern performance art in film, so let’s get moving with this week’s list.

I’m Still Here

What is more surprising, that Joaquin Phoenix was faking his “I’m a heavily bearded rapper now, not a moderately respected and Oscar-nominated actor!” ruse, or that so many people (including venerated critic Roger Ebert) thought he was for real? I don’t want to turn this section of the column into a baffled bit of boasting - though I probably dedicated all of one minute to thinking about it, I never bought Phoenix’s prank - but I am genuinely shocked that film journalists and other people were snookered in by I’m Still Here, the mockumentary directed by Phoenix’s brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, who dropped the other shoe on the situation just in time for Phoenix to return to David Letterman’s show, where the mischief all really started. Phoenix’s career doesn’t appear to be hurting, as he’s rumored to be co-starring in Clint Eastwood’s biopic about J. Edgar Hoover.

Having said that, I still think I’m Still Here, at least as it ended playing out, was a dumb, if bold, choice from Phoenix. Sure, his career’s not actually over, and sure, you could argue that the last two years of Phoenix’s life have garnered him the most media attention. But is it the right kind of attention? Making fun of celebrity and media in the 21st century is a popular and ripe topic, but some people just won’t be able to take him seriously anymore. Joaquin Phoenix was always thought of as a serious actor, someone whose work should be admired and appreciated. Maybe part of why everyone was thrown off is because he seems like the last guy to pull a prank like this. Whatever the case is, Phoenix’s performance art may have backfired: I’m Still Here was not successful, and Phoenix is once again barely considered by most people who only knew him as the whack job from Letterman.

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