Getting in Character: The retired criminal

There are many kinds of people in crime thrillers, film noirs and any film that has to do with commiting sinful acts. The main character of each film usually involves himself into crime. IT's often by choice because that character's pissed off, has a criminal history within his family or if he's just a wannabe or aspired to commit crime.

The release of Ben Affleck's movie The Town as a director, writer and actor shows a kind of person that's about to become cliched in future films like this: the retired criminal or the 'I-had-enough-of-this' phonie. In The Town, Afleck plays a proffessional bank robber but after falling in love with a hostage, he decided to change his act and leave Boston for good.

Affleck proves he can direct in this one and by no means Gone Baby Gone was just a fluke.

But when I see his character it just looks and reminds me of Martin Scorsese's The Departed and how Leonardo Dicaprio plays that same character. In The Departed, Dicaprio plays a rookie trooper Billy Costigan who goes undercover to take that down corrupt cops because he used to be a ruthless crim. Billy wishes he had given up crime for the sake of his family who were also crims and replace it with another piece of identity. He also falls in love with his appointed councillor.

When these characters get to this point, you would actually feel for them. When it comes to what I see, I wouldn't care. It's what they are that I actually feel. Leonardo is a great actor and the main weapon for his acting is that certain charisma and angst loaded in his system. In The Departed, he's pretty cool in this. He plays a character who wouldn't want to get back to his roots. But it's the police or else. Sometimes [his character] Billy can get steamy by how much pressure he can by the two points of authority: the cops and the crims for swhich he workes undercover. Unlike his opposite Matt Damon, Dicaprio's under pressure into taking risks. He also has to face some rules undercover. If you're late, you're likely to be the rat and if you don't do what's ordered, you're also a rat. Possibly losing his life

Affleck's character Doug though is sort of like him. He doesn't want to go through with his criminal activities because of his family saga and how he's currently in a relationship with the girl he had abducted. Creepy. So he wish to retire, but it wasn't in his wishes by his boss (played by Pete Postlethiate) and wingman Jem (Jeremy Renner). But instead of losing his life if he did, he would lose the girl because Jem had already found out.

The thing about retired criminals is by the point where they get to complain about commiting a crime, you'll know that character is becoming tedious and more hateful. It's their egos that comes to my groans.

Then why did I liked The Town. Because from the start Affleck's character was a dangerous crim at first, but when finding a connection, he decides that he's given up on himself and wouldn't continue for the sake of his family where his mom's dead and his dad's in prison.

And despite the fact I liked The Departed and is still one of my favourite movies, it wouldn't be the first time that a character like Leo's playing would be seen before. Well... I don't know any characters to begin with, but which characters are there that complains about being in the criminal underworld?

Review of The Town

7.2

Ben Affleck makes his second film as a director with The Town. The last time he directed a movie was three years named Gone Baby Gone which starred his brother Casey Affleck and it was widely raved by critics which I have to admit never seen that movie. But that movie had proved Affleck is poison no more to the film industry after featuring in massive flops - both critical and commercial - such as Pearl Harbor, Daredevil and Gigli (who would actually blame for his downfall? It's either his decisions or Jennifer Lopez)

Affleck wrote and stars in this movie and he plays a proffessional bank robber Doug McCray stealing truckloads of hard cold cash from the steel safes of banks in Charlestown. Along with his manic wingman Jem (Jeremy Renner, he of Hurt Locker fame) they abduct bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) leaving her safe. Out of guilt and fearing for her and their own safety, Doug decides to bond with Claire so she doesn't know that he robbed him and almost leaving her to drown while blindfolded. Doug, however, then wants to leave a life of crime for good while FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) is on the look out after their miscelleneous robberies.

There were many films set in Boston and most were all about the lives of criminals. Most notable films including Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, Martin Scorsese's The Departed creating a sub genre in the crime category. The Town may possibly join these ranks since it is so gritty due to the level of cinematography and storyline.

This movie is directed by control from Affleck and the best parts of his direction dring this movie were the action sequences that requires realistic props including cars and huge assault rifles it makes this movie so virtually gripping almost climatic.

The performances... uh, well depending on what I saw it was almost a range. Affleck is fine as Doug but he reminds of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting as if swapped both characters in that film as we wants to get out of town, his family has a history of crime. Rebecca Hall is also fine, but the chemistry with Affleck was predictable from the beginning, despite the fact that it made Affleck's character more believable.

Jeremy Renner is a scene-stealer here as his characters goes trigger happy and somewhat crazy, it just the same character he played from his breakthrough The Hurt Locker. Like how 'war is a drug', Renner's character would replace war with crime.

Jon Hamm and Blake Lively who had careers in TV (Hamm's from Mad Men and Lively's from Gossip Girl) actually gives performances. However I'm not quite sure what is Lively is doing here as Affleck's ex-lover but when they're both together in one scene it gets really edgy.

The main problem with this cast is not because of the star power, but because none of each character are developed and we just go on becoming apathetic to these people. However Chris Cooper and Pete Posthethrate are both excelllent even if they had small roles.

Affleck's main flaw is the script. In Good Will Hunting, he had an excellent credit into writing the screenplay which he won an Oscar for. However for The Town, it's just one phrase after another and the next thing you'll know it's an idiom, a metaphor, then a freakin' euphemism that I quite don't understand. Thankfully it was covered by every character's thick Boston dialect (or Irish accent if I may) because I swear to god, I can't hear one bit of dialogue from the thick of it. The thickest of them all may be a tie between Hamm and Lively as if they just stayed in a small apartment and hearing leprachauns talking.

The Town however may be one of 2010's most underrated movies as awards season is getting closer. Whether or not it would be nominated for an Oscar, I'm not supposed to know if they had greater chance in that category.

This may not be Affleck's best work but The Town is a gripping crime drama that may light a spark to Affleck's position as a director.

Try to go to town, baby!

Why Inception is ridiculed at my school and it will do the same to The Social Network

You know what. Honestly, my favourite movie of 2010 is Inception. Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo Dicaprio. But then I find out something ridiculous and totally unpredictable. Everybody at school (and I'm going to tell you what school am I but it's under WSHS) hated this movie. They either seen it and hated it or just didn't see it and hated it. All from the trailer.

I went over to the At The Movies website, went into an article for Inception wherr David and Margeret gave it 4.5 stars each. If you want to see the whole review, click here

But when you look down, surprisingly some of the comments were mixed. People say they enjoyed it, but there were some comments down to zero stars saying it's the worst movie ever made. "It's illogical and I hate that". Here's one example:

Name: nick

11 Aug 2010 6:25:46pm

Rating: 

Too much.

No subtlety.

Obvious, predictable and pretentious. Characters were cardboard cut-outs. Main plot device (getting Fischer to break up the company) was uninteresting and not worthy of the over importance placed on it by the film. Multiple dreams in dreams != complex stroyline.

When Cobb says "He'll go into Limbo, a world of pure subconscious" I couldn't help laughing, that was the line of too much for me 

although, the idea of the Totem is very clever.  

Seriously, these comments can be anyone who went into the movie and just wanted corrupt the website. But the truth is, these comments can be people from my school. Well, it can't be because nobody at my school actually watches the show where it was reviewed since it was aired on a public broadcasting network and...

Whatever. My school would ridicule me for watching Inception during the school holidays and not watching Grown Ups which they called it the funniest movie of the year. it woud have been said by breakfast shows. I wish they would have the proof to tell me that it was the dumbest movie made. But all I get is Leonardo Dicaprio is a bad actor. Look, whatever that is, these are just stupid reasons. 


For instance, the scene where Joseph Gordon Levitt floats on gravity. That looks cool since there is minimal CGI used and the fact is punching a guy within zero gravity is awesome. The gravity brings Inception into a really climatic stage. Somewhere, I tried hard to find many themes. But I can find two: dreams and manipulation. Manipulating the mind into finding or searching a memento by their dreams. That was Cillian Murphy's role in here. 


I really hate how people think of this movie and it's not fair to be slack to a movie when they never seen it. And I get pretty angry when I am being tormented for watching a really smart movie. These kids made me miserable. Besides I'm not a teacher, I'm a student at this school and I suffer that.


Well I'm not going to judge kids watching this movie based on their intellect, but the fact is teenagers would never get this movie. They'll never understand movies when they're an adolescent. They never wanted to be challenged by filmmakers. All they want is action. Inception supplied that. Teenagers want hot girls in their movies. Well... Inception put in Marion Cottilard, but I'm not quite sure if she's actually that sexy. But yeah. They like Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen beause they had all of that despite the fact that it lacks a story, there's no logic and it has the worst directing ever by Michael Bay! But I have to admit, I actually enjoyed that movie.


Now I wonder what will happen when The Social Network will come out. I think I would experience the same thing when I watch The Social Network, because they've never heard abourt rumours that Hollywood is making a movie about Facebook. IF they seen the spots on TV, they will get it but they won't see it. But if I seen it, I said it was great, they'll torture me with "that's movie gay".


The Social Network is getting universal acclaim currently receiving a 97% rating. The reason for this was because of the charismatic performances, beautiful cinematography, dark direction by David Fincher and witty dialogue from Aaron Sorkin.

But I'm not quite sure whether my school would see this because I just don't think they would go to movies that are really good. Try to ask a teenager had they watched There Will Be Blood. Chances are 1 in 10. They are unlikely to see that movie because the movie's really small and relies on word to word marketing.


The Social Network looks like a very small movie. It deserves all of the critical attention and once its released, it will beat many other films that were quite dull like Let Me In (which I think was a bad idea to remake this movie when the original was pure genius). 


But this wasn't the only movie I'm worried about of what people think. Next week, I'm coming back to school and movies releaased that week are Resident Evil 4, The Town and Cyrus. I wouldn't be watching Cyrus becuase i thought it would have been predictable movie about a middle aged man meeting a single mother of a 23 year old son. 


I'm going to see The Town, directed and starring Ben Affleck by the time its released. It's a box office success and also a critically acclaimed movie. I should think Ben Affleck must retire acting and do directing. He's like the next Clint Eastwood. The trailer was absolutely gripping and it might possibly be one of the most underrated movies of 2010. So that's why I wanted to see this movie. And I also like crime dramas situated in Boston.


But apparently, I'm not quite sure if the school had known anything about this movie. As far as it goes, I'm a 100% sure that the majority of the school is watching Resident Evil. I wouldn't want to watch that movie because it looks like The Matrix with a zombie set.


So as far as it goes, people would want me to watch the dumbest movie ever like they tell me to listen to the dumbest music ever and not letting me listen to my own music because they think is gay.


Back to The Social Network, and it's ironic that the majority of school use Facebook and will tank this movie since again they've never heard of it or they wanted to hurt me for watching really good movies.


Honestly I like being different to the whole school, but when I talk about what i like, I feel totally hurt and I feel miserable because they're totally ignorant, intolerant hypocrites. These people at WSHS do not tolerate what I like and it seems that as far as this go, I would go ahead calling everything they like gay.


Look, I don't know what it is about my school hating the movies I like, but apparently it might be the fact that I like The Hurt Locker over Avatar. Nobody in my school actually seen The Hurt Locker, but at least they heard that it won this year's Best Picture Oscar. The whoe school had seen Avatar and called it the greatest movie of all time because they have seen it in 3D and enjoyed the movie made $500 million for its special effects.


I'm getting tired of my school making fun of me and picking on me for the stuff I like. I can't talk about Inception because they hated that movie. I can't talk about Scott Pilgrim since nobody heard about it and if I talk about it, they will tease me for it. And if I talk about THe Town or The Social Network, they'll say "sorry, but we hate your movies". 


So if I don't talk what I like, my life would be isolated and boring. And yet this school makes this boring.


I wished everybody cared about my movies because I wish people would tolerate what I like instead of saying they're gay without any reason. Because they ignore me when I said Justin Bieber is stupid to listen, and said bad things about my favourite bands Muse and Radiohead as well as Linkin Park. Or which actress I have a ccrush on. Nobody cares if I fallen in love with Scarlett Johansson or Anne Hathaway. But everybody cares about Megan Fox and she couldn't act a single cent. Now I'm almost on the verge of being virtually ignored by everybody. I didn't want to have attention, I didn't wish that people would see me as a smart person. But I wish people cared about my views.


But these are the movies I would like to see and I hope my mates at school would care and understand what are the things I like:

• The Town
• The Social Network
• Tron: Legacy
• The King's Speech
• Black Swan