Ben Affleck Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's not that strange for two people who work together to fall in love, but it does seem to happen an awful lot in Hollywood (although to be fair, most of us don't spend our days rolling around half-naked with our co-workers). So even though it might be easy to fall in love at work, it isn't as easy for a couple to stay in love once they're spending every waking moment together -- and the latest celebrity couple who will put my theory to the test is Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer (better known as Sookie and Vampire Bill) from HBO's True Blood. The two fell in love (and got engaged) while working on the vampire soap, and now they're heading back to work together in the thriller, Open House.

According to IMDB, the story will center on a couple whose marriage is on the rocks, and are trying to offload their palatial home during a weekend 'open house'. But, things start to get a little weird when it turns out one of the potential buyers never left. The film was written by Paquin's brother Andrew (who will be making his directorial debut), and the cast will include Tricia Helfer (BSG), Rachel Blanchard (Spread), and Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) in unspecified roles while the True Blood stars will play the married couple.

Moyer and Paquin aren't the first real-life couple who like to work together, and over the years plenty of Hollywood power couples have tried and failed to translate that relationship onto the big screen. After the jump: some other famous real-life couples on the big screen...

Following a packed advance screening of Extract, the new comedy by Mike Judge, in Dallas, Texas last night, the writer / filmmaker / animator was asked about his previous effort, Idiocracy. He admitted his disappointment that the film was so little publicized for its limited theatrical release three years ago: "When it opened in, like eight cities, someone told me that you couldn't look it up on Moviefone under its title," he related. "[The studio] didn't even want to pay the eight bucks or whatever to get a listing, so you had to search for 'Untitled Mike Judge Film' to find out where it was playing." Our own Jette Kernion wrote about the lack of publicity at the time.

Fortunately, Judge noted that Idiocracy has sold well on DVD, and Extract should be much easier to find when it opens on Friday, September 4. If I describe it as Judge's best work so far, it's not because he's "grown up" or "become more mature"; the film features some of his darkest comedy yet. Extract is very much a part of the Mike Judge Universe, where decent men enjoy working for a living but dream of escaping some day (Jason Bateman), where good women sometimes go bad (Kristen Wiig, Mila Kunis), and where most everyone is good-hearted but dumber than a pet rock (Ben Affleck, J.K. Simmons, Clifton Collins, Jr.). In other words, Extract is another funny, unpredictable comedy featuring recognizable, everyday people, like the guy who's sleeping on your couch right now, drinking two-liter bottles of Pepsi and watching TV all day.

More tidbits from the Q&A after the jump.

Above: An exclusive image from Mike Judge's upcoming comedy Extract

Everyone loves a free movie ticket, right? Well what about a free ticket to a red carpet premiere in Los Angeles? We here at Cinematical are hella excited to be a part of this particular contest, because not only are we big Mike Judge fans, we're also really looking forward to seeing his new film, Extract, which officially hits theaters on September 4th. But why wait in line on September 4th with all the other weird, smelly locals when you can attend the red carpet premiere of the film alongside its stars on August 24th at the famed Arclight Theater in LA.

That's right, Cinematical has 10 pairs of tickets to give away for the Los Angeles premiere of Mike Judge's (Office Space) new comedy Extract, starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig and J.K. Simmons, and, like with all our ticket contests, all you have to do is leave a comment letting us know why you'd like to attend the Extract premiere on August 24th and we'll randomly pick 10 winners to attend along with a guest of their choice.

Now, you must leave your comment by Monday, August 17th at 12pm EST, and Cinematical will not be responsible for transportation to and from the theater -- which also means you need to live in or around the Los Angeles area in order to attend.

Head after the jump to watch the film's trailer and read the official rules for this contest ... then sound off below.

Slowly but surely, Don Draper is making his way to the big screen, in what I'm sure will be a long and prosperous career. After making waves with Mad Men, Jon Hamm scored the Jake Ehrlich role in Howl, and then found himself the prime pick on Peter Martin's "TV Stars Who Should Be in More Movies (Male Edition)." Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that Hamm and Rebecca Hall will star alongside Ben Affleck in The Town. As I briefly mentioned last year, The Town is a full-on Affleck production -- he helped write it, will direct, and will star. An adaptation of Chuck Hogan's Prince of Thieves (not the Robin Hood sort of thievery), the film focuses on the blossoming romance between a bank manager (Hall) and a career criminal (Affleck) who robbed her, as an FBI agent (Hamm) tries to bring the thief and his gang to justice.

Will this be anything like Two of a Kind? You know -- John Travolta holds up a bank and the poor Olivia Newton John, and then the pair become pawns in a game between God, his angels, and the Devil? Not likely -- this is a crime thriller, and according to Publishers Weekly, most of the characters "are not very sympathetic." So, the most we can hope for is more solid fare that reminds us of Affleck's talents as he continues to re-build the career dashed by Beniffer #1.

Unlike some people, I've always been a fan of Ben Affleck. Sure he went through his own Pitt-Jolie phase back when he was dating JLo, and because of that a lot of people began to despise Affleck, but I hung in there and admired the choices he's made later on in his career, not to mention really enjoyed his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. For me, though, Affleck has always been at his best when he plays villain or wise ass or bully. One of my favorite roles of his is when he played O'Bannion in Dazed and Confused, and he's also fantastic in a brief supporting appearance in Boiler Room.

In Boiler Room -- which follows a young college dropout (Giovanni Ribisi in one of his best roles) up through the ranks of a Chop Shop out on Long Island -- Affleck plays Jim Young, the firm's trainer of new recruits. He's the guy they bring in to give all these newbies a taste of success, of money, of power -- and in this classic scene, he works the room like a stripper at a bachelor party, teasing these kids with visions of being millionaires within three years from their first day on the job. Of course we soon learn the job is a lot less glamorous than Young makes it out to be, but that's why he's so good at what he does: he knows how to turn nothing into a whole bunch of something. Boiler Room is currently making the rounds on cable; it's a pretty solid movie with some great, seedy performances. Definitely check it out.

Watch the NSFW clip after the jump

Newspapermen occupy that movie middle ground between detectives and action heroes. They dig up clues, but the clues are hard-won, based on experience and the building up of contacts and sources. The clues are rarely left at the scene of the crime. Newspapermen rarely get into danger, but when they do it's not something they're really prepared or trained for. Coming face-to-face with a deadly killer, Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) can barely make eye contact. Cal doesn't fight or outwit the bad guy; he just runs and hides. It's not important that he try to be a hero. It's more important that he survive to write the story.

Of course, real reporters don't get to solve murders and uncover international corporate conspiracies every day, and that's where Hollywood comes in. The new film State of Play is based on a six-hour BBC mini-series from 2003. I haven't seen the original, but I'd bet that it's much distilled and sped up, and no one is going to argue that the new film is any kind of improvement. But taken on its own, it's probably the best newspaper/journalism movie in years -- perhaps since Shattered Glass (2003) -- even if it falls far short of the purity of All the President's Men (1976). It's also the first movie of its kind to address the inherent feud between sturdy, superior, old-fashioned print reporting, and reckless, inexperienced, sloppy blogging. (Guess which side the movie is on?)

Thirty years ago, a political crisis and two movie stars inspired thousands of young people to pursue a career in journalism. Now that the profession may be dying, is it foolish to hope that an economic crisis and three movie stars could revive interest?

Opening tomorrow, Kevin Macdonald's State of Play stars Russell Crowe as a world-weary reporter investigating a murder in which his old friend, politician Ben Affleck, may have been involved. Rachel McAdams also stars as an up-and-coming blogger. Obviously, that's a very different kind of movie than Alan Pakula's All the President's Men, which starred Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who helped uncover the full extent of the Watergate conspiracy in the 1970s. In the wake of that movie, The Atlantic commented: "Today's generation of young Americans is flocking to journalism schools in unprecedented numbers ... the extraordinary popularity of 'communications' has been attributed to 'the Woodstein Phenomenon,' the effect of the Woodward and Bernstein feat of exposing and unseating the Nixon gang in the White House."

Ever since, there has been no shortage of qualified journalists; the problem is that jobs for journalists are drying up faster than a water hole in the Sahara. Without getting into a discussion of why the newspaper and magazine industries are dying, my questions are:

• Will anyone look beyond the murder thriller trappings of State of Play?
• Will it cause anyone to think about why good, solid investigative journalism is still so important -- in part, to hold elected officials, government workers, and corporate executives accountable for their actions?
• Will anyone be prompted to come up with viable solutions to sustain and support a valuable profession before it's gone forever?

Cinematical is absolutely, positively pumped up to be bringing you the debut teaser trailer for Mike Judge's Extract, starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig and J.K. Simmons. I'm a huge Judge fan; been following the dude since way back during his Beavis and Butthead days, and haven't really disliked anything he's put out. Folks have told me that Extract finds the writer-director returning to his Office Space-ish humor, and this teaser definitely shows some signs of that -- from the workplace mishaps to our hero's random romantic woes, classic Judge hilarity is watermarked all over this sucker.

Extract follows the personal and professional problems endured by the owner (Bateman) of a flower-extract plant, including a wife who won't sleep with him, a new hottie temp and ... Ben Affleck as a major stoner? Believe it. I think it's safe to say Judd Apatow's Funny People now has some serious competition when it comes to funniest film of the summer because this little sucker just shot up to numero uno on my anticipation list. What about you? Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think. Extract hits theaters on September 4.

Living lives of loud desperation for the sake of your entertainment / enjoyment / enlightenment (a generous assessment on all three counts) are Rachel from Friends, the Mac Guy, Firestarter, Daredevil, and a dozen other familiar faces and names, all of them hell-bent on telling you that if He's Just Not That Into You, all one merely has to do is swap out that target of affection. In a weird way, it's a strategy that the film itself seems to employ: If you don't like what supposed relationship insights we have to offer up across 10 blocks of Baltimore and 130 minutes of running time, just wait -- we all change our tune to make each other happy eventually.

Since this romantic omnibus already has too many characters for its own good, let's go ahead and get their introductions out of the way real quick like. There's the desperate-to-date-and-then-some Ginnifer Goodwin, who is blown off by Kevin Connolly in favor of the company of Scarlett Johansson, and who is friends with Jennifer Connelly and Jennifer Aniston and, now, Connolly's frank pal Justin Long. (With me so far?) Connolly buys ad space in the local paper from Drew Barrymore and yet flirts with Barrymore's friend, Johansson, who is herself more interested in tempting Bradley Cooper, who is currently married to Connelly (Jennifer, not Kevin) and happens to be friends with Ben Affleck, who refuses to propose to long-time love interest Aniston, and oh, great, now I've gone all cross-eyed.