Ben

Word out on the street is that "Hollywoodland", might pull Ben Affleck out of the "worst actors of all time" category. People are saying that you may have to start treating Ben Affleck as a serious actor. This to me is like saying papercuts are fun.

To those who believe that Ben is ready to become a major player in Hollywood acting, I scoff at you. Ben Affleck is the flagship for bad movies and I stand by this, he is the president of the "Worst Movies of All Time" fanclub.

"Hollywoodland" (Adrian Brody, Diane Lane) is just another "Good Will Hunting" (Robin Williams, Matt Damon) -- a movie with stellar acting and Ben riding on their coattails. I tell you now, regardless of how Ben appears to be quote-unquote acting in this upcoming film, he is just a coat-tail rider.. in fact you might say he is the superhero of coat-tail riding, with his pals Alonzo Mourning and Orlando Bloom* as his side-kicks.

*More on Whorelando later.

One movie I'm really looking forward to is one starring the aforementioned Matt Damon, one of my more favorite actors. "The Departed" is a star-studded collaboration of quality actors, including Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Leonardo DiCaprio. Heck, even Marky Mark is in this one. You just know that when guys like Nicholson and DiCaprio come out from the woodworks, you are in for a very good movie. What I like about these two guys, and DiCaprio in particular, is that you get the sense that they take their craft very seriously.

What I like most about DiCaprio is that he doesn't 'ride the wave', as many other actors tend to do. He'll do a movie and then go back into hiding, do another movie, go back to hiding, and etc. Other actors (at least those who tend to be thrown into Leo's category of actors) tend to put out a good movie and then lay out a series of bombs that seemingly make some good movie while riding the actors' popularity from that first movie. But with Leo, even after Titanic he didn't make anything until a year later. I think that's a good sign that the actor is taking his job seriously and isn't just there for the fame and wealth.

Anyway, that's a movie I'm looking forward to, and also there is a movie called "Fearless", starring Jet Li. Apparently this is his last epic kung fu movie.

*Elizabethtown. Somehow I got sucked into watching this movie. I think it was because I was watching Kirsten Dunst reprise her role from Crazy/Beautiful, only with a little extra "hyper"-ness. What a terrible movie starring Mr. Bloom. Orlando Bloom is the boy-wonder of overrated actors.