The Town ***

Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall
Blake Lively, Chris Cooper, Titus Welliver, Slaine, Pete Postlethwaite

Who would've guessed that in his directing Ben Affleck would manifest all the straightforwardness he fails to present in his redundant work as a thespian? The Town is barely his second directorial effort and already he's developing what could be called a style. Of course Affleck's style is highly influenced, if not directly extracted, from the work of Clint Eastwood (the cinematography and sense of in-justice) and Martin Scorsese (the seductiveness of crime as a lifestyle) but with this and Gone Baby Gone he seems to have mastered what it takes to deliver a no-bullshit film in what can be referred to as a "classic style".
His film is straight out of this universe where crime is the only kind of life and the one everyone's trying to escape. Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a career criminal who falls in love with Claire (Hall), the bank manager he takes hostage after one of his gang's heists gets threatening.
In Claire, Doug sees the perfect way to atone for his sins while giving himself a second chance. Of course this threatens the stability of his gang as his friend James (Renner) begins to resent Doug for wanting to leave and they also end at the mercy of the local kingpin (Postlethwaite).
The Town has all the makings of a movie we've seen countless times, or at least to come from the same place where these movies have come from. There's also an FBI agent, keen on catching the criminals and even a femme fatale, in the shape of Lively's Krista, a woman who had an affair with Doug and is reluctant to see him move on.
It seems that every element and every character in the film are trying to drag Doug down with them and in a way it's fascinating to see how Affleck manages to make us sympathize with this character who is unarguably guilty of several crimes. Yet we find ourselves rooting for him to succeed in his relationship with Claire for example and in the bloody climax we still have an idea of him as some sort of hero.
The film boasts an impressive cast and all of them deliver efficient work. The seriously underrated Hall gives Claire the complexity needed to empathize with her even when she makes strange choices, Hamm is superb, even if nothing is really demanded of him other than to look heroic and use the hell out of his Superman looks and Cooper is fantastic in a single scene.
Renner gives the film's best performance as he creates a character that's as real as he's cinematic. James is one part Method acting, two parts hybrid between James Cagney and Richard Widmark. He's electrifying!
In the biggest setpieces he seems to be fueling the energy from within his body and you can not take your eyes off him even as he commits the most gruesome acts of violence.
It has to be said that Affleck is a master at action sequences, there isn't a single action scene in this movie that feels lacking or unnecessary. They are executed with such precision and stamina that you believe they are recreations of things we might've seen on the news.
If he fails a bit with the most intimate scenes, it only means that he's still finding his niche (there are several red herrings that feel more like plot holes than Hitchcockian techniques) but for all that matters, The Town is nothing if not promising.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


The upper half of this poster is a thing of beauty. Simple illustrations to make a powerful point.
The lower half is a mess though. Not only is it a total ripoff of things that have been done better before but the images and credits are so conflicting.
For starters the movie is called Company Men, emphasis in "men", yet we have the awesome Maria Bello right in the middle of that testosterone party looking all lost and confused.
What's weird isn't that the lack of her name among the credits makes this seem like some misogynist Neil Labute experiment but that once you realize she's the only one in that group who doesn't have an Oscar (or a goddamn nomination for starters!) makes it all seem more unfair and just plain bad.


This movie is honestly making me think of this too much.
But just how cute was Matt Damon in the 30 Rock season premiere?

Interested in either of these movies?
Also I just realized this edition of Sheet-y Saturday paired Ben and Matt, I promise it was totally unintentional.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


Ben Affleck sure got himself an amazing ensemble for his second directorial effort (Look it's Hall! Look it's Renner! OMG Serena van der Woodsen!) and it makes sense he would want to show them off-hence the weird little squares with their pretty faces on them-but the poster would've been more effective with just that shot of the creepy, masked nuns.


Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis are beautiful and even if I have no idea what this French film is about, I'm getting a sense of it by the fact that the poster is a sad ripoff of this.

Dying to see any of these movies?

State of Play **1/2

Director: Kevin Macdonald
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck
Rachel McAdams, Jeff Daniels, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren
Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Michael Berresse

A research assistant working for congressman Stephen Collins (Affleck) dies mysteriously. A man and a pizza deliverer are shot by an unidentified gunman.
Before you can say Clark Kent, Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey (Crowe) has found links between both incidents as well as a corporate conspiracy involving senators, sex scandals and hitmen.
Based on Paul Abbott's magnificent miniseries for the BBC, director Macdonald finds himself trying to deliver six hours worth of material in two streamlined hours; with results that often thrill, but never fulfill.
The succession of events is rapid and keeps you interested in the action, especially because new evidence/leads arrive by the minute and for this the film essentially achieves its mission of being one of the only adult thrillers delivered so far this year.
The cast is phenomenal, even if they don't really push their craft too much. Crowe is always fascinating to watch, he inhabits McAffrey in such a way that you never doubt he's been a reporter for almost two decades.
McAdams as ingenue blogger Della Frye brings a sense of girl scout perkiness that flies well with Crowe's more established macho ways (romance between them is never hinted, but there is sexual tension all the time).
Mirren plays editor Cameron Lynne and the role is a walk through the park for her, it requires her just being commanding and elegantly offensive. Wright Penn, who really needs to get herself a leading role, brings a moving sense of despair playing Stephen's cheated wife.
Daniels is wonderful in a limited role, as is the always fascinating Davis (she gets one miserable scene here!). The only inadequate piece is Affleck, who thinks playing a congressman requires him to frown and overuse his squared jaw.
The screenplay remains taut and the changes that have been made from the miniseries actually work (for the most part), there are still some lose ends and some rather Hollywood-esque plot twists (a deranged hitman goes all Terminator on Crowe in the final, unnecessary, showdown).
But mostly the film suffers because it fails to follow one of the guiding rules of journalism; it doesn't choose an angle.
It wants to be about everything, about current politics, about Iraq war profits, about the decease of printed media (which should've been the angle to pick!), plus each of the characters represents a particular point of view.
Cal is all about respect for the the story, Della believes in morality and "the right thing", Cameron thinks about money and company losses and there is just so much going on that the whole movie feels as a work in progress.
Those who can, should stick to the miniseries, those who have not seen it will probably enjoy this movie with all and its typos.

He's Just Not That Into You **

Director: Ken Kwapis
Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore
Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson
Ben Affleck, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Justin Long

When a film based on a book, based on the plot of an episode in a television series is made, you would think that this postmodernist basis would also be said film's axis or at least help it.
This romantic comedy however chooses to take the cliché path and delivers an old fashioned, trite plot with very modern intentions.
Several storylines involving the main actresses are intertwined as they all deal with a specific man who just isn't into them.
For Beth (Aniston) it's her boyfriend of seven years (Affleck) who has no intention of marrying her. In Gigi's (Goodwin) case she's so disappointed with men that she starts taking advice from a misogynist (Long). Anna (Johansson) is set on conquering a married man (Cooper) who's having trouble of his own with his wife (Connelly).
Then there's Mary (Barrymore) who is having trouble adjusting to the need of keeping up with all the possible ways of meeting people nowadays and who receives her advice from the men she works with, all of whom are gay.
Their stories, announced by title cards with phrases that explain their problems, are preceded by documentary like interviews with people (mostly unknown actors) who give the "every(wo)man" point of view before we get to see the big stars put on the show.
And in fact when the cast is so good as the one featured here, there's at least the satisfaction of watching them mingle onscreen.
The rest of the time they just blabber and move towards emotional realizations we've seen coming for ages.
That's perhaps the film's biggest problem; anyone can argue that the "rom-com" has become perhaps the most predictable of the genres, which is why it's also a known, but rarely accepted, fact that people don't come to them for advice of any sort of wisdom.
We come to see these movies because we want to escape our own realities. So a film that takes the extra step and tries to deliver a little bit extra should not comply and follow traditional genre rules which is exactly what happens here.
Some scenes are uncomfortable to watch, not because they ring emotionally, but because they are so forced that you can't laugh, be inspired or even entertained by them.
The screenplay is loaded with so many lazy symbolisms (a marriage coming apart while their home is being remodeled...just imagine all those deconstruction analogies you can come up with) that you wonder how people fail to see that this "chick flick" actually has no idea how to treat women.
Men who think female audiences are driven to anything involving romance will be hugely disappointed to learn that, when it comes to love, in fact female and male processes of thinking and perceiving information couldn't be more apart if they tried.
This doesn't mean that one is better than the other, they're just different and the film works when it grasps on to that and spices it up with some irony and tongue in cheek humor (Barrymore's monologue about how she must use eight different technologies to know if the guy is interested is brilliant!), but then the director comes and reduces these women to stereotypes we've seen in a million different movies.
Stereotypes nobody in the audience is going to want to take advice from. That the film ends with a character emphasizing what is arguably the most popular word in the current English language (it rhymes with "mope") is more than enough to know that for all its intentions the director works like the boyfriend who ignores his girl throughout the game, but then gives her a present expecting she'll forgive and forget.