Over the weekend I saw what felt a little like watching a slow motion car crash.  A little like that anyway.  It wasn’t a car crash, but gave the similar feeling of “I can’t watch but I can’t stop watching”.

It all started on Saturday evening around 8pm, after finishing dinner with my brother in law and his wife near the corner of Jon and King downtown Toronto.  We were on our way to see Casey Affleck’s quite controversial documentary, “I’m Still Here”, at TIFF.

Fortunately I had no preconceptions coming into the movie (which retrospectively is a little ironic).  I honestly hadn’t heard an awful lot about the film before hand.  In the last year, I’ve been fairly out of touch with celebrity culture and the film industry.  There was a time when I spent nearly every weekend at the cinema.  That hasn’t been the case over the last half dozen months and I’ve really not been taking in the news much in the last year either, which is perhaps the reason why I really had no clue what I was about to witness.

The Cineplex theatre at the Manulife Centre has comfy seats, but the low grade seating isn’t any good when someone sits in front of you and the film contains subtitles.  I learned this during an Italian film earlier in the day called “Solitude of Prime Numbers” – a title which I’m sure has something to do with the film although I’m still grasping at what that could be.  Fortunately with “I’m Still Here”, inability to see the subtitles doesn’t cause any loss of impact.

Shortly after sitting down, a five foot something, overweight man with a very long beard and bushy hair stood up and professed to the entire audience that he was happy about the turnout at his premiere. Although possibly a doppelganger from another dimension, he certainly wasn’t Jaoquin Phoenix.  He suggested he was, but despite handing a mix tape to another random theatre patron, I’m fairly certain he was an imposter.  The rest of the audience treated him as such anyway.  Perhaps a little bit of a puzzle, but definitely not the real puzzle of the evening.

The lights dimmed, the audience all exclaimed “argh” in unison during the TIFF anti-piracy slide (something that grew old very quickly).  Then two plus hours passed with my mouth hanging slightly open in awe at the spectacle before me.

“I’m Still Here” is a documentary about Jaoquin Phoenix – in short, a first hand account of a great actor seemingly going mad, ditching his acting career and attempting to make it as a rap artist.  Nearly a cliche, I suppose.  The last time I had seen Jaoquin was as Jonny Cash in “Walk the Line” – a film that was quite a bit better than it sounded.  This was certainly not the same Jaoquin Phoenix.  In “I’m Still Here”, Phoenix is washed up, obese and in definite need of a shave, a haircut and quite possibly a shower and a therapist.

The documentary goes through over 2 years of footage shot by Affleck, Phoenix’s brother in law.  Two years of Phoenix convincing others (including himself) of the authenticity of his new career choice – to be a rap star.  And authentic it is.  It would take the biggest of skeptics to walk out of the theatre with the impression that the movie was a hoax – that it was all an act.  Maybe it’s the sign of a good actor – to be able to delve so deeply into a role and play the character with such conviction, but there is no doubt in my mind that Jaoquin Phoenix was thoroughly committed to every fleeting moment.  For better or worse, hoax or not, Affleck was filming the Phoenix truly in self-destruct mode.  It may have at one point been a script, but it is very apparent that in Phoenix’s mind, it was all real.

The puke was definitely real.  The drugs were probably also real.  Certainly the reactions from Letterman and P. Diddy were real.  The beer gut was real and so was the sense that Phoenix hadn’t bathed in some time.

After the movie, I had to wonder – if it was an act, it was brilliant.  If it was real, it was still brilliant.  No – I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

So to the imposter who stood up before the film started – kudos; well played.  You started things off on the right foot.  But the puzzle you left me with was nothing compared to the puzzle left by the Affleck and Phoenix in what is sure to be one of the biggest films of the year.

I can remember leaving the theater and listening to other people’s reactions. I was amazed how many people thought it to be a “meh” kind of film. They obviously hadn’t seen the same move as I did. I mean, they may have seen the same film as I did, but I must have read into the story a bit more or something. I was absolutely energized afterward.

It was “Yes Man” – a modest movie about a very cynical, socially inept man who, after begrudgingly attending a motivational seminar, is struck with the inability to say “No” to things – requests, invitations, questions of all sorts.

At first, this “curse” causes him no end of grief and frustration, not only because the whole experience of saying “Yes” is utterly foreign to him. But he soon begins to embrace the change as he finds that the impact that this new “Yes Man” personality has is powerfully fulfilling.

Of course, nobody should say “yes” to everything. If someone had asked this character to jump off a bridge, unfortunately he would. Obviously we shouldn’t necessarily be so accommodating. But there are times when we make excuses and try to rationalize why we can’t do something, be it going out for drinks with work colleagues or signing up for the co-ed beach volleyball league or taking that dream adventure zip-lining trip to Costa Rica.

Time and time again many of us find ourselves making these sorts of excuses that have very little foundation to them. In fact it isn’t uncommon for us to try and convince ourselves various obstacles really do exist and that the trouble isn’t worth the effort.

The truth is that there are very few things in life that can be enjoyed without having to overcome obstacle at some level. What Jim Carrey’s character learns is that these obsticles are peanuts compared to the fulfillment that the end result achieves. Although he believes he is physically incapable of saying “Yes”, he actually becomes addicted to the word.

So for me, 2010 is the year of the “Yes Man” and if things keep going the way they have been the last few months, 2010 is going to be one of the greatest years that I’ve lived. All simply because I’ve been saying “Yes” and taking action to accomplish something that perhaps in the past I would have put off (getting my motorcycle license) or thought of as something that would require too much effort to do (zip lining in Costa Rica) and would possibly try to rationalize why not doing it would be a better decision (like taking Karate lessons). Some things I’ve done this year would have possibly never even crossed my mind in the past (like piloting a plane).

The moral of this article (and the movie, in my opinion), is that we should not constrain ourselves by concentrating too much on the obstacles in the way of doing something. We should not stay content with living inside our own little box of day in, day out. Unless there are real constraints, we should not try to make excuses why not to do something. Life is too short and there is far too much out there to do, far too many other people to meet, so much in this World that will bring personal fulfillment and ultimately make us better people.

So my challenge to you is say “Yes” when you would otherwise possibly not. Stretch yourself and experience new things. You do have the time. You probably can afford it. It really won’t be too much effort. In the end, it will be worth it all.