For the last three or four years, I hope Ben Affleck can be our generation’s Clint Eastwood. Affleck has completely transformed himself into a Hollywood A-lister. With a career that began with Kevin Smith movies like
Mallrats and
Chasing Amy, Affleck became a household name when he won an Academy Award (best original screenplay) for
Good Will Hunting, a film in which he co-starred with Matt Damon. Affleck then stars in big-budget blockbusters such as
Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and
The Sum of All Fears. But after he started dating Jennifer Lopez and co-starred with her in both the forgettable
Jersey Girl and
Gigli, a movie that many people have called one of the worst movies ever made, his perception as an actor began taking a turn for the worse. Forgettable money grabbers like
Daredevil, Paycheck, and
Surviving Christmas accompanied tabloid fodder, and seemingly, in the blink of an eye, Affleck became sort of a joke in Hollywood circles.
Continue reading Live by Night (2016) →
Dark comedy is not a genre that was made for me. Though there are many exceptions to the rule, the comedies I most enjoy star actors such as Will Ferrell (Old School, The Campaign, Step Brothers, The Other Guys), Adam Sandler (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy), Jason Segel (I Love You, Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Five-Year Engagement, Sex Tape, or Ed Helms (The Hangover, We’re the Millers, Vacation). Some of my other favorite comedies are There’s Something About Mary, all three of The original-cast American Pie films, Meet the Parents, Daddy’s Home, Get Him to the Greek, Hall Pass, The Internship, and Long Shot. Some comedies I greatly liked from my adolescence include Uncle Buck, Parenthood, Father of the Bride, Three Amigos, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Money Pit, and A League of Their Own.
Talk about The tragedy of being bored. Now and then, a movie earns more undeserved praise than it is worth because of an established director securing multiple acting heavyweights. The most recent example I can think of was in 2017 when Steven Spielberg combined with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks for 
The year was 2003, and a quiet little movie named The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Academy Awards biggest prize, winning Best Picture. Some will argue that this was the culmination of a pretty darn good trilogy, and that will ensure that the Peter Jackson franchise was worthy of its share of accolades, although maybe Best Picture of the Year wasn’t one of them. I can’t give my opinion on that one because I have yet to see the film as of this writing (February 2019). I liked the first two enough and didn’t have a reason for not seeing the third other than length. I should probably watch The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers again beforehand.