This MSNBC gossip exchange is, well, gossipy, but pretty darn funny. Especially the prediction (on Oct. 19) that Surviving Christmas would revive Ben's career. Poor guy.

Is Ben Affleck beyond help?
A comedy could be just the thing to save this tabloid-abused little puppy’s career

COMMENTARY
By Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 5:11 p.m. ET Oct. 19, 2004


Ben Affleck got off to a smart start in Hollywood — appearing in “Dazed & Confused” as anger-management poster boy Fred O’Bannion, bolstering that indie cred with a few Kevin Smith movies, then pulling down an Oscar with former BFF Matt Damon for “Good Will Hunting.” Six or seven years ago, Affleck seemed poised to write his own ticket.

Alas, at about the same time, Affleck stopped reading the scripts he accepted, starring in expensive but drecky blockbusters like “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor,” dating every Jennifer he could put hands to, and positioning himself as the public face of…poker?

Affleck has nearly completed the transition from writer/actor to celebrity/Hollywood Square — can he do anything to stop the inexorable slide into “Love Boat”-guest-dom? Or has he doomed himself to a life of “famous for being famous”?

Tara Ariano
God, isn’t it depressing to think that, by the age of 32, he could have already screwed up his entire career beyond all hope of repair? And yet, if anyone’s done it, Ben Affleck has. You know, he dated Jennifer Lopez…on purpose…in a year starting with a “2” …and he’s smart enough to know: live by the “Us Weekly,” die by the “Us Weekly.”

Affleck is, no question, kind of a self-important ass. On one level, anyway. (Yes, he has more than one level. But maybe not more than two.) I think that, post-”Good Will Hunting” — and especially post-Oscar for same — he had some idea that he had to act less like the funny, loud-mouthed boob he played in the movie and more like the tuxedoed scribe who accepted the award for writing it. Except I really think his natural personality is a lot closer to Chuckie Sullivan’s, and that if he’d just make his peace with that and quit showing up on red carpets plying his squinty Blue Steel look or stumping for Kerry (dude, we know you didn’t vote in the last election, so…don’t help), we’d all like him much better, and he’d be much happier.

This is why “Surviving Christmas” may end up doing his career more good than a lifetime of “Paychecks.” He’s naturally funny — he even has a sense of humor about himself — and he’s better in roles where he gets to demonstrate that than he is in roles where he’s trying to save Baltimore from nuclear bombs.

Sarah D. Bunting
I agree with you — Affleck should probably stick to comedies, or to funny second-banana roles in more serious movies. I get the feeling that he finds the idea of himself as A Dramatic Thespian faintly ridiculous; he spent most of his screen time in “Bounce” and “Forces of Nature” looking like he wanted to burst out laughing, at the script and the “wacky” antics of his miscast co-star respectively.

But the problem with Affleck’s career isn’t the roles he takes (although “Pearl Harbor” is not what I would call a great choice). It’s everything else he does: dating high-profile actresses; show-offily attending Red Sox games, probably in a miscalculated attempt to “keep it real”; spending more time playing Texas Hold-’Em than subjecting sequel scripts to the proper consideration. Affleck’s job right now isn’t “actor.” It’s “being Ben Affleck.”

He could stand to take a more selective approach with movie roles, but what he really needs to do is drop off the radar for a while — working on “Project Greenlight,” maybe, but concentrating primarily on staying out of the pages of “Us Weekly.” And on not signing to star opposite Jennifer Grey in anything, because — enough already with that.

We can’t miss him if he won’t go away, is my point. Although the fact that DreamWorks is dumping a Christmas movie into theaters before Halloween might expedite the going-away process. That movie looks baaaaaad.


Tara
Aw, you think? It made me chuckle a little when I saw it. I don’t know anything about it except that it has Affleck completely committed to acting like a hyperactive goof, which is an Affleck I enjoy.

You’re absolutely right about his escapades as a famous person, as opposed to what (little) he does as a professional actor. The J.Lo thing was just bizarre; I know I came up with a few theories as to how it could happen (eventually settling on the explanation that his substance-abuse problems have left him with cripplingly low self-esteem, such that he doesn’t think he deserves to be with anyone better than Lopez, and/or that he was with her to punish himself).

BUT, in his defense, I give Affleck credit for, after their parting, publicly acknowledging that their coupling was a mistake. At least he doesn’t act like he places a premium on privacy (and he can’t, ever, now that he co-starred in the “Jenny from the Block” video) when he’s asked about his personal life, unlike a certain untalented Latina “triple threat” who hasn’t even confirmed her marriage to a certain manorexic crooner.

Affleck is like your college friend — we all had one — who would drink too much at parties and embarrass you sometimes and hook up with boring girls he shouldn’t have, but was the first to make fun of himself for it and was still fun to hang out with…occasionally. And I completely agree with you that (to continue the analogy) he needs to stay home now and then so that he doesn’t wear out his welcome.

Sarah
“We all had one”?

Heh. Anyway. I think you’ve hit on something interesting with your rationalization of Bennifer Part I. I agree that Affleck doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, and it’s a definite asset in his position — if you make a “Gigli,” you’d better be able to chuckle at yourself for it.

But it occurs to me that he doesn’t take himself seriously enough — that, in a way, the whole acting-career thing is just a lark to him, so he doesn’t bother vetting his schedule to prevent crud like “Reindeer Games” from happening. Or maybe it’s that he thinks he can’t do any better than “Jersey Girl” and its half-baked ilk, and he doesn’t turn anything down because he thinks he won’t get any other offers.

In short, the theory that he has low self-esteem is a solid one, because it would explain a lot. It would also make me feel bad for ripping on him, which I do anyway, a little, because…J.Lo. He’s taken enough abuse already, probably.

So, I guess Affleck needs to take a break, decide where he wants his career to go, and do a few Stuart Smalley affirmations in the mirror each time his agent sends a script over.

He might also consider using the time off to get a hot oil. He’s handsome, but the hair is kind of a problem.

Tara
Well, if it’s even his. There are rumors that it doesn’t need hot oil so much as a vacuum cleaner.

But that’s a question for another day.

© 2004 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6239247/

In response to the thread title: yes.

(A poll, maybe?)

IMO, Ben's more concerned about being interesting than interested. Almost immediately after he and Damon headed off to do their own things I began to wonder who it was who really pushed Good Will Hunting through. Damon seems much more, well, grounded, and when he participates in a bad movie--at least he doesn't take himself nearly so seriously in the doing. Damon also backed out of the Greenlight spotlight, ostensibly after he and Affleck didn't really see eye to eye on the creative versus marketing aspects of the project.

Now, I love Texas Hold 'Em too--I still think Howard Lederer and Vincent D'Onofrio should do a flick together--but I think Affleck is summed up perfectly by the cards he plays: he bets on everything, gets fidgety when he sits too long, and spends as much time seeing who's watching as he does watching the cards. He plays in a noncommittal manner which only becomes serious when he's bored--he isn't concerned about losing because he doesn't make his career playing--and it's hard to believe he even enjoys the game as anything more than escapism--but escapism that still affords high-profile coverage.


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I did a double-take when I heard that Surviving Christmas was actually scheduled to come out LAST year but they held it off so as to avoid a clash with Paycheck. Surviving Christmas is the only Affleck movie I am aware of this year, and if he hasn't got any OTHER films, then ... is he still getting any work?

He's in some cop drama coming up, by Mike Binder, and he's in some gambling tournament movie starring opposite ... uh... Werner Herzog.

So, uh, if you call that "work" ... he's getting it.

Jennifer Garner?

Oooh, how cynical of me...

Phil.

No I don't think Ben is beyond all help, but he definitely needs someone to help him get his head on straight. I feel really bad because I like him in a lot of movies (especially Kevin Smith's comedies, and Good Will Hunting, thought he made a couple of good choices a couple years ago with Changing Lanes etc.

But his career is going down the drain, but I dont believe that he has always been a no talent bum. I think there is some talent there, but he let stardom go to his head. Losing J-Lo was a step in the right direction. Now he just needs to find some good movies. Maybe Smith can write him a juicy role in Clerks 2 cuz it seems to me him and Smith work well together (I thought Jersey Girl was his best film since Changing Lanes easily).

Kinda depends if you're a Kevin Smith fan, really. I'm not and so I tend to assoiate Affleck with Smith's brand of smug, self satisfied film-making. I'd so I'd like him to break off and do other things, but he does seem unable to make much headway in any genre. For my money, the best work Affleck's done in recent years was on The Sum of All Fears not least because it impressed Tom Clancy (who pretty much hates everything else ever done in adaptations of his books) Before Gigli the Jack Ryan franchise looked quite safe in his hands. Now, of course, Red Rabbit is stuck in development heck until Affleck becomes bankable again.

Now he also did impressive work in Boiler Room despite being by no means the star of that film. Perhaps he needs to hang back from all these romantic leads (which clearly he isn't creditable for at the moment because of his messy personal life. Although the Garner relationship might salvage this image in the minds of his female followers... I can't believe I'm saying this stuff) and look for some interesting and edgy supporting roles to build himself back up to a leading man in genres not romance oriented? (If such things even exist these days!)

Phil.

That'd be my prescription for his career, too. At this point, though, could he convincingly do that? Now that he's so famous for being famous, he'd have a tough time disappearing into a good supporting role. He might end up in the Zsa Zsa Gabor school of cameos - i.e., playing himself in the next Naked Gun sequel. And if he tried disappearing for awhile (not likely) he'd run the significant risk of falling off everybody's radar screen. It's not like he's got an impressive body of work to draw on for a "comeback" in five years.

I agree with Boiler Room and Changing Lanes as his best stuff, though. If he manages to land a few smaller, weightier films like this, he might come through. He'd have to cut off the Celebrity Poker and starlet-dating, though.