If you look up and revisit the list of names mentioned in the first paragraph, I think it’s fair to say that he is regularly successful in looking for filmmakers with unique vision. There are a lot of auteurs who have successfully made movies that are instantly identifiable via their special signatures and flairs.

In Ari Aster’s dark comedy, Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff of a New Mexico town riven by political clashes and pandemic anxieties.

A24 is known for its prestige arthouse films, but in its early days as a distributor, it made most of its money from elevated horror films like Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommar. Over a decade in, the ambitions of A24 and Aster have expanded beyond genre film. But for both, the more recent results have been mixed.

A sheriff, a mayor and a virus walk into a bar in Ari Aster’s bleak and brain-sick satire that stars a dueling Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone.

The typically stoic Luke Grimes is the most hilarious actor in the movie.The 41-year-old Yellowstone star plays Guy, a police officer in Eddington under sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and an impromptu campaign manager once Cross decides to run for mayor.

Phoenix recalled the 2009 interview during an appearance on Late Show With Stephen Colbert, explaining why he decided to appear in-character for the interview with Letterman for the mockumentary he was promoting, I'm Still Here, which documented his life after the spoof announcement that he was retiring from acting to pursue a hip-hop career.

In a move commenters described as having "Craig Ferguson vibes," Stephen Colbert and Joaquin Phoenix spent the last moments of their Late Show interview in awkward silence.

"Eddington," co-starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward, opens in theaters nationwide Friday, July 18.