Well, Crowe does remain half the pattern for Reverend Rook, though the other half has since (weirdly) been taken over by a young Clancy Brown--but even that wouldn't be enough to make me watch A Beautiful Mind, I'm afraid, which has the Oh-Gemma-no one-two punch of higher math and glamorized insanity. I'm with you on Dame Helen, though...she makes anything better.
As for good Ben roles--I'm personally fond of his turn in Changing Lanes, with Samuel L. Jackson. You think it's going to be a complete rip-off of something like Michael Douglas's Falling Down, where a buttoned-down dude snaps for Big Life-Altering Socio-Economic Reasons! and starts shooting people, except with differently-flavored racism. But no, it's tricksy, and considerably less easy than that...and Affleck, as Jackson's chosen scapegoat/adversary, is half the reason: A guy who, on some level, knows he's done wrong, but is too invested in his own image as "a nice guy" (and the privilege that mask affords him) to risk doing anything about it.
On the Matt-and-Ben tip, meanwhile, have you seen their merciless skewering of their own public personae in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back? Jesus GOD, is it funny. (The rest of it's pretty funny too, but Matt and Ben's demented Method For Dummies backstage rituals and the few snippets we see from Good Will Hunting II: Hunting Season are the parts I'm always quoting.)
Also: They Made Me A Fugitive sounds great. I'll look it up in my Noir histories, see what pops.;)
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As for good Ben roles--I'm personally fond of his turn in Changing Lanes, with Samuel L. Jackson. You think it's going to be a complete rip-off of something like Michael Douglas's Falling Down, where a buttoned-down dude snaps for Big Life-Altering Socio-Economic Reasons! and starts shooting people, except with differently-flavored racism. But no, it's tricksy, and considerably less easy than that...and Affleck, as Jackson's chosen scapegoat/adversary, is half the reason: A guy who, on some level, knows he's done wrong, but is too invested in his own image as "a nice guy" (and the privilege that mask affords him) to risk doing anything about it.
On the Matt-and-Ben tip, meanwhile, have you seen their merciless skewering of their own public personae in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back? Jesus GOD, is it funny. (The rest of it's pretty funny too, but Matt and Ben's demented Method For Dummies backstage rituals and the few snippets we see from Good Will Hunting II: Hunting Season are the parts I'm always quoting.)
Also: They Made Me A Fugitive sounds great. I'll look it up in my Noir histories, see what pops.;)