I was a bit skeptical last year when people started raving about Ben Affleck’s first directorial work. I’m not exactly in the “HE SUX!” camp, but he doesn’t exactly have the most distinguished record in front of the camera. But with Gone Baby Gone he more than got himself out of the doghouse.

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Gone Baby Gone is the story of private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monoghan, below) as they search for a missing four-year-old. Based on the novel from author Dennis Lehane (#4 in a series, from what I gather), the first half seems almost straightforward in execution, almost Law & Order–esque¹.

Then, somewhere in the middle, the emphasis went from the dramatic aspect to the thriller, with a pinch of character piece for good measure. It went from being about the missing little girl to a fascinating series of questions, each leading to the next, all of them exploring what happened around her abduction.

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But the film succeeds on more than just plot. The performances are stellar.  Ed Harris has an intensity that one would expect from a Boston police investigator. I loved his scene alone with Casey Affleck. Very powerful stuff. And Morgan Freeman was used sparingly, but he owned every scene he was in.

Amy Ryan (above, with Harris) turned in a stunningly honest performance as Helene McCready, mother of the missing girl. Putting aside her perfect accent, she was completely believable in the role. From her early flippancy to later when Helene finally understands the gravity of the situation, she totally sold it. She is the coke ho, in a totally appropriate way. (And she doesn’t really look like that. She’s breathtaking in real life.)

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But really, Gone Baby Gone belongs to the Affleck Brothers. Ben surprised just about everybody with his directorial vision. For starters, he had a difficult story on his hands, done in two acts rather than the standard three, which added some potential for failure. Also, I loved his use of local folks as extras in their native Boston (specifically, Dorchester), firmly rooting the film in reality.

By far my favorite scene was (how do I do this without giving something away?) the one in the bathroom. I didn’t see it coming², and the choice to shoot it as if it were a traumatic memory, with the slow drumbeat in the background slowly fading out as it passed, was insanely effective. Just wonderful.

Casey Affleck, who I loved in The Assassination of Jesse James, outdoes that performance with Gone Baby Gone’s detective struggling with issues of morality and duty. I totally believed him as he worked his way through the complex web of deception, and his performance in the aforementioned bathroom scene was (I’m running out of adjectives) stunning. (I do wish he’d get the marbles out of his mouth, though.)

Of course, now we come to the question that everyone asks after they’ve seen this film: Do you think he was right? I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and I can say without reservation, he absolutely did the right thing.

Both times.

¹ Almost! I said almost! ⇧
² I literally gasped and held my hand in front of my mouth for a good five minutes. ⇧

The Button Down Blog has moved, and hopefully you didn’t even notice! Say what you will about the political junk behind the scenes at WordPress, but moving the blog from one domain to another was almost painless. If I were keeping the old domain forever it would’ve taken about ten seconds to make the change. Literally.

Since I’ll be releasing ownership of the old digs in six months or so, I had to do some additional work porting stuff over to the new digs. But it was still almost painless, and now the name matches the address. W00t!

The only reason you’d notice any difference is if you’ve subscribed to my rss feed, in which case you got a nice sized dump of all the moved posts in your feed reader. Sorry, couldn’t be helped.

Anyway, as you were. Nothing to see here. We’ll be back tomorrow with a review of Gone Baby Gone.

Dear Matt’s Minister,

Last week I watched with interest as a new bishop was elected for our jurisdiction. (Church politics have become so interesting to me. Just understanding the inner workings of the conference system of the United Methodist Church is a challenge.)

Judging from the vote counts throughout the two days, it’s petty clear that the issue of human sexuality played a major part in the deliberations, at one point leading to a standoff between supporters of Greg Stover (on the board of directors for the so-called Confessing group) and David Bard (pastor of a Reconciling Congregation). While neither of them was elected, the election was marred by the struggle for a statement about homosexuality.

It seems like I’m always giving you a reason to sweat, but…

Several weeks ago you preached on Ecclesiastes 3, including the verse that says that there is “a time to be silent and a time to speak”. Dr. Bard lost because he wore my colors while I sat quietly in my pew. My time for being silent has past. I’m not about to disrupt worship services, but beginning Sunday I’ll be wearing this lapel pin whenever I’m at church and will engage people if/when the question arises.

Just an FYI in case you get some backlash.

-Matt

As I was getting this post copied in from my email (yes, I really did send it to him, and no, it’s not enough), my rss reader served up a new post from the Reconciling Ministries Network Official Blog.

All is not lost. All is not well, but it’s not lost either.

(Note: I’ll be starting a separate blog for these kind of posts in the very near future. I’ve been thinking about doing that, and I have five or six unpublished posts that don’t fit here ready to go, so it’s time to get it started. We’ll return you to your regularly scheduled blog shortly.)

You’ve heard of Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, right? It’s an Internet only project from Joss Whedon about a supervillain who wants to rule the world, but is constantly thwarted by his arch nemesis Captain Hammer and secret crush Penny. There are three acts to this comedy/drama/musical, all of which have now been released and are available for FREE at DrHorrible.com for a very limited time.

All episodes will be pulled at midnight this Sunday, so hurry over and watch. It’s darn good stuff, especially if you have an internet crush on Neil Patrick Harris, which I do. But it’s still good even if you don’t for some weird reason. Great comedy, touching drama, impressive music, the whole nine. Plus it’s got NPH. Did I mention that already?

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Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog also stars Nathan Fillion (of Firefly, Serenity, and Desperate Housewives fame) as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day (of Internet Sensation The Guild) as Penny.

Now go! Hurry up! And if you don’t get there in time, it’s also available for purchase at iTunes and later (according to rumors) on DVD. But for now, it’s FREE!

A quickie today. I saw the much lauded film Gladiator a few weeks ago, and I’ve been putting off reviewing it because honestly, I don’t have that much to say about it. I went in with (somewhat) high expectations, what with it being the Oscar darling of 2000, but I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with the entire film.

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The whole movie just seemed…obvious. There was no question at the beginning that they would win the battle, that something would happen to get Maximus (Russell Crowe) to eventually be the titular¹ Gladiator, so the first section of the film almost seemed like a waste of time.

Of course, there’s more to a movie than just going from point A to point B, but I didn’t find the characters that engaging either. Richard Harris was the standout actor, and he died fairly early on. (oops, that’s a spoiler) Jaoquin Phoenix and Connie Nielson were serviceable in their roles, but they weren’t given much to work with. And Russell Crowe does a fine grousing reluctant leader, but I was hoping for more depth in his role than that.

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I’m not saying it was a bad film; it just didn’t rise to the level of majesty that I think Ridley Scott was going for. It was all supposed to be Very Very Important, and it just didn’t work for me. The almost generic Important Movie Score, the golden glow cast over the every image (with the exception of the first battle, which got a bluish glow) seemed too calculated for me to get emotionally involved.

As I say, I was pretty disappointed.

¹ *snicker* ⇧