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The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford

Continuing my deep deep fascination with Casey Affleck...I watch this film by Andrew Dominik. Dominik has also directed Chopper with Eric Bana. This film was known as the shelved film with Brad Pitt...the film that was too artsy and not enough action. All the action we need here is the great acting by Pitt and my hero Casey Afflleck...so far I have seen many films with Affleck as a quiet, shy, croaking voiced, young man. Affleck seems at times possessed...maybe it's the foreboding knowledge that his character will at one point kill his idol Jesse James...but most is the very subtle acting of Affleck. The direction though can be tough...it's shot beautifully and you have to be in a mood to sit back and relax and have this film "wash" over you...the paranoia is palpable. Great flick...it left me feeling so sad for the characters...but also wanting much more from this Director...can't wait to see what else he has in store...by the way Australian singer songwriter Nick Cave is the composer and makes an appearance in the film...cave also did the score for The Proposition and The Road.

Stay Gone Baby Gone!

The Casey Affleck experience keeps rolling. Next I think is The Assassination of Jesse James. Why do I like Casey?...

1. He has grown into a really nuanced actor...very subtle and very convincing

2. He is NOT BEN

3. His voice is perfect...from "BAWSTON"...to "TEXAS"...he is just a throaty, sly, and cunning guy

OK so the best things about this particular film are:

1. Amy Ryan as the "COKE HO"...The Wire and Office's own is here in a brilliant performance as a bad bad MOM

2. Amy Madigan as the above Amy's sister-in law...she steals the show and her acting and accent is perfect.

3. Casey Affleck...See above...great acting and great set up for his character to change over time...but here is also the problem as seen later

4. The first 30-40 minutes...everything up to the point of the introduction of Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris...who I normally like

Things that are bad:

1. What happened to Ben Affleck as director?...did his Balls drop off at the point when the story became about a dirty cop...and not about a missing little girl?...maybe it's the book's fault...but you know, a lot of films have made much better Films then books...it takes a director with balls and a good ear for STORY...to do this...See Stanley Kubrick many many times...you try and read The Shining and A Clockwork Orange and the rest...all better films then books

2. Ed Harris:...normally I love ...see Apollo 13, see Pollack, see A History of Violence...but here?...just another hack...

3. The King of all Hacks...Morgan Freeman...O-Wait...another 3-4 times a film where he makes a great "monologue"...real energy and emotion from his voice...GO BACK TO THE ISLANDS MATE...he is the hack of all hacks and his ACT is threadbare with me...no more lines about dead girls and lines about doing the right thing...blah blah blah

4. After the introduction of the above 2 fools...the story is now about everything else but what the story should be about...we move ahead in time...we forget the girl...we miss and never see Amy M...but we luckily see Amy R...instead I get this bad cop, morally fake never really happen bullshit story that I hated...no one would ever have to make the decision that poor Casey has to suffer...and at the hands of his own brother of all people

5. By the end we don't care about Casey anymore...he made his decision, that we see coming from a mile away...and his decision to be true to some human code gets everyone pissed at him...

6. There are SOOOO many storylines in this that Ben must have said "Fuck the Audience, they won't remember all these plot holes...will they?"...well I did and this story is so not real its unreal...at one point Casey kills a guy execution style...and all the cops are thanking him...WHAT...wouldn't they arrest him...Casey was not defending himself and murdered a man..."no investigation needed here officer...don't you know he is the director's brother?"

7. What country was this filmed in?...because I had to put the subtitles on English to understand what the Fuck they were saying...I mean come on...the accents are SOOO good...or these people actually did not win the American Revolution...cause Boston accents are strong here folks

In all the first part of the flick is awesome...at one point Casey and his terrible actress wife are in a bar...it gets very real and very scary real fast..it was a great scene...and so based on the first scenes I was expecting it to be great throughout...I was wrong.

The Casey Affleck Effect

The directorial debut of Casey Affleck was I'm Still Here...I loved it , so I decided to see some Casey Affleck films as an actor...I heard good things about The Killer Inside Me....so I got it from Netflix...I also have Gone Baby Gone coming and will report on that...

Remember Casey as the younger brother of "you know who", Casey was in Good Will Hunting as the snarky brother...and also in To Die For with Joaquin Phoenix and the unforgettable Oceans films I guess....but know he is coming into his own with a great acting performance alongside Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, and Jessica Alba in The Killer Inside Me....unfortunately not all old books about Texas and Killers are as great as No Country for Old Men...cause even with a great acting performance and interesting story of how a man becomes a serial killer, this film is a mess...Micheal Winterbottom is a disaster as a director...because the "direction" of this film's plot and musical choices and editing is terrible...it's so bad that at the end of the film there is a key scene with an explosion...the CGI is so bad that most posters on the IMDB boards actually think that that is a "sign" that the end is "just a delusion of a character's mind"...whatever...it's just bad filmmaking

But don't let that fool you. It's worth a rent since Affleck to me is now better then his brother Ben...I still have to see The Assasination of Jesse James and Gone Baby Gone