Hey, remember Joaquin Phoenix?  He’s that guy who was in Gladiator.  The surly one.  No, not that one.  The other one.  He’s kinda scruffy, and he’s always scowling, and sounds completely pompous in all interviews, and hasn’t been interesting in ages.  No, not Russell Crowe!  The OTHER one!

Well, anyway, he’s retiring.  Or at least that’s what he told E! Online:

Phoenix, who turns 34 today, recently finished shooting the romantic drama Two Lovers with Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw and Isabella Rossellini. When the director said, “That’s a wrap!”…Phoenix apparently took it literally.

“I want to take this opportunity to give you an exclusive…I’ve been through that. I’ve done it.

“No, I’m not kidding,” he added, presumably not kidding.

At Phoenix’s side Monday night was Casey Affleck, who told E! News that his To Die For costar is really serious about hanging up his acting shoes. Honest.

Yeah, I know you don’t care.  I don’t care either.  No one cares.  I’ve never even heard of this Two Lovers movie, and the fact that it co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow does nothing to spur my interest, as she is a jackhole about whom I can only be bothered to care in the context of Iron Man.  I’m not sure who Joaquin thinks he’s kidding with this announcement of his impending retirement from film.  The last time he made a genuinely interesting movie was Quills, and that was eight damn years ago.  What he calls “retirement”, the rest of us refer to as “irrelevance”.

Besides, I remember Joaquin Phoenix from when his name was Leaf, and he was in movies like Space Camp and Parenthood.  Then he disappeared for a few years, and when he came back he had a different name, and I was all, “Isn’t that the guy who was in that movie where his best friend was a robot, and then that other one where he skulked around with a big bag of porn?”  And nobody knew what the hell I was talking about.  I don’t really remember where I was going with this, but you know who else has pretend best friends and skulks around with porn and disappears and then comes back with a new name?  Socially maladjusted sex offenders, that’s who.