Big Ben Weekend

It's been a Ben Affleck weekend for me watching The Town, which Affleck co-wrote, directed and starred in and his debut piece Gone Baby Gone based on Lehane's novel. The Town is essentially a caper film and does not really cover any new ground - it could easily have been made in the 1930s - but is well-directed by Affleck and all the performances ring true. A great cast, solid and believable performances, and good direction of this dark and tragic piece - if you missed it in the theatres in the last few months, its out on dvd as of last week and well worth a look.

Which brought me back to Ben's earlier work, Gone Baby Gone based on the Dennis Lehane novel. The Kenzie-Gennaro series are one of my favourite pieces of American crime lit at present and the latest, Moonlight Mile, is the sequel to this piece ten years later where the couple are now married with a child of their own. The movie has some of the best performances you'll see on film in recent years with  Amy Ryan's work as the mother of the missing child a standout performance. The Kenzie and Gennaro on screen don't quite match who I had in my head from the books, but the relationships ring true as they do on paper. They remain one of the great crime romance couples with great sexual tension in the earlier novels in their on-again-off-again relationship. If you haven't seen this movie and you loved The Wire TV series, watch this...gritty, hard and real with an ending you'll love and hate. GoodonyerBen!

Burn brightly, Pete.