Video Trailer of Ben Affleck in The Company Men 2010-01-13 12:00:22

Movie Preview: Ben Affleck in The Company Men

January 13, 2010

I'll be bundling up and heading to Park City, UT, next week for the Sundance Film Festival, and one of the movies I'm excited about is The Company Men. Ben Affleck plays a stereotypical corporate executive — sleek suit, perfect family, gorgeous house in the suburbs — who must reassess his life after he's been laid off. Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper star as his colleagues, with Maria Bello and Craig T. Nelson rounding out the all-star cast.

The trailer doesn't give away much, especially since it's montage of scenes set to music, but you can already see how the different men will be affected and their relationships tested by the changing economy. Kevin Costner also makes an appearance as a construction worker who offers Affleck's character a blue collar job after he's been let go. The cast alone is enough to capture my intrigue, and I always love to see Affleck in meatier roles. Check it out for yourself, when you read more.

6 Comments

3 years 16 weeks

Too bad haters! Ben and the movie are getting great reviews .It's one of the movies that are getting the most buzz.I'm hoping it'll last to award season.

3 years 17 weeks

Do I want to go and watch a movie about a bunch of actors playing men who have lost their jobs and are unemployed? only if i get a free ticket, no way am I was my hard earned dollars to watch a movie about unemployment. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

lizlee89 3 years 18 weeks

I agree with all of the above posts - Ben Affleck is a terrible actor and not sexy; the movie looks predictable but promising; and I love that the trailer doesn't give too much away...

lwimbush 3 years 18 weeks

that was a really good trailer, because it got me emotionally invested and makes me want to see the movie -- without giving too much away. i hate when trailers tell the whole plot. why even bother paying to see (an already predictable) film when i know the ending?

3 years 18 weeks

Ben Affleck sexy? Talented? Sorry, People: The guy who took the sizzle out of sex with a lesbian in "Chasing Amy" is just a bland everyman -- By Sheerly Avni Nov 21, 2002 | Within minutes of People magazine's announcement that Ben Affleck is this year's "sexiest man alive," e-mail outrage flooded my in box. These are typical: No way. He looks like a boy -- and kinda pasty. Have you ever noticed how small his teeth are? He looks like he's still got his milk teeth. How can you be sexy when you're still teething? I have it on very good authority that he wears a hairpiece. He's just riding J.Lo's coattails. I'm sorry, People, but Ben Affleck is not sexy. Ben Affleck is tall, buff, inoffensive, possibly charming, totally all-American. But from "Pearl Harbor," where he played Sgt. Square Jaw, to "Armageddon," where he played Capt. Cleft Chin, the guy is as far from Take Me Now as any Teflon god in recent American cinema. Is he pretty? Sure, in an "I can't remember what he looks like when he leaves the screen" kind of way. Except for the milk teeth, that is. If anything, he's That Guy, the one outsider girls want because he's so phenomenally mediocre that he may be able to transfer his normalcy to you via bodily fluids. When was the last time you got turned on by a Ben Affleck love scene? (The one with Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting" doesn't count.) In "Armageddon," when he made marching an animal cracker across Liv Tyler's naked stomach look boring? In "Bounce," where he rolled around unconvincingly with a woman he was shtupping in real life, Gwyneth Paltrow? In his first dubious shot at indie credibility, "Chasing Amy," when he somehow managed to take the sizzle out of screwing a lesbian? Even the folks at People seem to know there's a problem. Jennifer Garner, his costar in the upcoming "Daredevil," swoons: "He's IT. You want him to save you. I can't imagine anyone the world would rather swoop in and save the day than Ben." Well, that's funny, "Alias" girl, because I can. How about Russell Crowe, Vin Diesel, Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, or even -- yeah, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, who if not necessarily sexy, was at least cute and corruptible and knew how to kiss upside down. But this isn't about being saved. This is about being bent over a chair. You're supposed to want to ravish the guy, or have him ravish you. The very next rave about Ben tells us he's "really loyal, and really honest and really smart, and really funny." That's less interesting than the fact that the source is Matt Damon, whose grounds for commenting on buddy Ben's sex appeal are either nonexistent or the hottest story of the year. Finally -- and this is at least kinky, if not sexy -- our third endorsement comes from his mom. She wants us to know that she really approves of his relationship with J.Lo. We can watch that relationship chronicled ad nauseam in the new video for "Jenny From the Block," in which J.Lo writhes in 42 pounds of body makeup and croons, "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got." The video, which happens to costar Buff Young Ben, the most recent purveyor of said rocks, stands as proof that Ben has to be sexy: He literally gets to kiss J.Lo's million-dollar ass. Perhaps there's someone else smoldering under Affleck's vanilla multiplex persona. After all, Affleck says he has an indie heart -- he takes big-budget roles only so he can afford to finance his beloved small projects, like "Dogma" (good, but not sexy) or his surprisingly well-executed role as a charisma-free boor in "Shakespeare in Love." Maybe he's really a dangerous indie stud underneath it all, the ultimate subversive. (And maybe he's sleeping with J.Lo to improve his chances with Janeane Garofalo?) But I think the big-budget roles, the ones that pay for the rocks J.Lo asks us to ignore -- "Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon" and "The Sum of All Fears" -- are the real Affleck. There's always the jingoistic attempt at macho, but in the end he's a bland American everyman. Maybe that's supposed to be sexy now that we're going off to war. But I'm not buying that. Give me Diesel, Crowe, Sutherland, or Denzel -- now. If Ben Affleck is sexy, then the terrorists have won. My answers: The SAME goes for his "acting."

3 years 18 weeks

Ben Affleck has is a terrible actor and always has been...Matt Damon is the more believable star. I like Chris Cooper and I think I'd be interested to see Tommy Lee Jones too but (maybe) not so much the other actors. I bet that the film/story is not as strong as it could be either. Up In the Air is a film about a man who is going through a new phase in his life too, if you wanted to or could compare, but that movie shines...someone mentioned that this looks like a trend (which I don't think so because it's not necessarily on purpose) and there is a third film that backs that up. But Ben Affleck is very weak actor and something sort of lifeless about him too.

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