Live by Night

Welcome to the October 26th edition of Working the Weekend with Luke here at Binge Media. Hopefully, you all enjoyed my top ten trilogy countdown (to see the full list, click HERE). But now that the list has been completed, I need to find a new way to entertain you. So I’ve come up with this. Every now and again, I’m going to bring you a celebrity showdown…a 1-on-1 matchup of two Hollywood heavyweights. I’ll give you a tale of the tape, the positives and negatives of each individual, and then I’ll pick a winner and let you either praise me or tear me a new one. Just a few that first came to me could be Pacino vs DeNiro or perhaps Van Damme vs Seagal, and you know I’m always open to suggestion. But for our first bout, I’m going to hang on to the success of Gone Girl for at least one more week and bring you a matchup of two childhood friends that have both gone on to big careers. That’s right, it could only be…………..

BEN AFFLECK vs MATT DAMON

THE TALE OF THE TAPE

 42                                                  AGE                                                  44

60                                      ACTOR CREDITS                                      68

  6                                    DIRECTOR CREDITS                                   0

   5                                    WRITING CREDITS                                     3

  15                                 PRODUCER CREDITS                                 15

    2                                  ACADEMY AWARDS                                      1

THE EARLY ROUNDS

We won’t count that both Damon and Affleck were extras in Field of Dreams during the scene at Fenway, so I’ll go ahead and start off with the film where both gained a little fame, Damon more so than Affleck.

Damn, were you really expecting to read anything about School Ties today? And yes, that is Chris O’ Donnell next to them. If you haven’t seen it, Matt Damon plays the overall villain where the star is actually….wait for it….Brendan Fraser in a dramatic role. Process that for a moment, but Fraser plays a Jewish kid who is recruited by a prep school to play football, but is forced to hide his religion. Matt Damon finds out, tells a Jewish joke, a naked shower fight breaks out and eventually Damon is expelled. The movie actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. It’s not great by any means, but it really did put Damon on the map. Affleck is in it as well, but his role isn’t nearly as big. He’s just one of the other students with a few lines here and there. So out of the gate, I’ve gotta give the edge to Damon.

But Affleck fights back with 1993’s Dazed and Confused. He certainly didn’t have top billing here either, but he certainly showed that he can play the asshole too as hated super duper senior O’Bannion. And in case you weren’t aware, this movie also helped launch the career of Matthew McConaughey, who happens to be sitting ringside waiting for his rumored bout against Leonardo DiCaprio.

But back to the action. 1995 has rolled around and Kevin Smith has made it big with a little low-budget flick called Clerks and finally has some money to spend on Mallrats. Affleck is cast as yet another prick who attempts to steal Shannen Doherty (why would anyone want to do that) away from Jason Lee. He still isn’t a star yet, but this movie and the next in the series, Chasing Amy really get his name out there. Matt Damon hasn’t been doing a ton, but gets a decent role in Courage Under Fire with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan. At this point, he’s definitely got the upper hand. Neither is an A-lister just yet, but they’re determined to achieve this status so they start working on writing a movie for themselves. You know what comes next.

And you know what comes next.

Good Will Hunting turned Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into full-fledged stars. Along with winning the Oscar with his pal for Best Original Screenplay, Damon was also nominated in the Best Actor category, so at this point, I’ve still got to give the edge to Matt Damon.

THE MIDDLE ROUNDS

With big fame usually comes big budgets and they both certainly took advantage. I will openly admit that I think Armageddon is a very entertaining movie, and Affleck is actually involved in the most emotional scene of the movie opposite Bruce Willis. Damon is still ahead on points here though with a nice role in Saving Private Ryan and stars in the very underrated Rounders with Edward Norton. But then come movies like All the Pretty Horses, so there’s certainly nothing positive to discuss there. I know a lot of people really thought The Talented Mr. Ripley was a good film, but I didn’t. The only points on my scorecard that Damon gets here is that he kills Jude Law, who I’ve never been a fan of anyway.

Affleck is trying so hard to be a movie star instead of an actor, but bombs like Reindeer Games (we do get a naked Charlize Theron here though) and Pearl Harbor certainly aren’t helping his case. And don’t pretend that you actually like Shakespeare in Love just to sound like you know about movies. Throw in Bounce, Forces of Nature, and Gigli and I think we’ve got our first knockdown of the fight.

But we also get some more Kevin Smith in here, including this gem from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

And I’ll be completely honest. Affleck gets a point from me for Jersey Girl. Maybe it’s because I have daughters, but I love that movie and I don’t care who knows it. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t give anything away, but I will share a great scene he has with Will Smith.

In the meantime, Matt Damon has entered the world of franchises. The Ocean’s franchise became wildly popular with Damon starring alongside heavyweights like Clooney, Pitt, and Cheadle, and I thought he did a great job holding his own. But honestly, the franchise that became his really surprised me. I never thought that Matt Damon could be an action star, but now I can’t picture anybody else as Jason Bourne. Score a few points for Damon here.

Affleck tried to get in on the action with Daredevil, and do I really need to get into that?

I really wish more people had seen Hollywoodland. If you don’t know what this is, Affleck plays George Reeves, who played the role of Superman (the TV show) back in the day. It also stars Adrien Brody and Diane Lane, but Affleck is really solid here as he shows the back and forth that Reeves had with playing the iconic character, ultimately ending with his death that was ruled a suicide but many have thought to be murder. Overall, this is a really underrated movie.

The problem for Affleck that year (2006) is that Matt Damon was part of yet another dynamic ensemble cast in The Departed. Again, Damon really holds his own with crazy talented guys like Leo and Jack.

Clearly, Affleck has always been behind in points in the acting category. So what can he do to get back in this fight?

THE LATER ROUNDS

There’s a big shot by Affleck!

And another!

And another…… and Damon is down!

The well-rounded attack from Ben Affleck has everybody asking themselves “Oh damn, did you know he could do that?” Obviously, we knew that he could write. But he’s really made a name for himself behind the camera. 2007’s Gone Baby Gone proved that he could take a script that he wrote and turn it into a really solid movie. The same can be said for The Town, which actually gets better each time I watch it. And somewhere along the line, his acting skills jumped up a notch as well, as evidenced by that same movie and in Argo, where he starred, wrote, and produced, picking up his second Oscar to boot.

Meanwhile, Matt Damon hasn’t given me anything that I’ve really been crazy about since Invictus, but that was five years ago. He looked a little out of place to me in True Grit and I will admit that I did not see Elysium, but that movie just looked awful to me. Let me know if I’m wrong. I suppose We Bought a Zoo was nice for families.

As for this year, The Monuments Men was basically a dud for Damon, but Affleck has a huge hit on his hands right now with my favorite movie of the year thus far.

In my mind, Gone Girl has put Ben Affleck ahead on points. He’s actually become a very solid actor, which is where Damon had the advantage for so many years. Throw in the fact that Affleck is doing more behind the scenes with all of the writing, directing, and producing and I’ve got to give Ben Affleck the overall edge in this battle to this point.

So what’s next for these two? Well, Matt Damon knows he’s behind a little bit these days. He does have a small role in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and on a similar note, he will be starring in The Martian due out next year about an astronaut stranded on Mars. More Bourne movies may be on the horizon as well, if all the reports I’ve read are true.

Affleck will continue to be busy as well. Once again, he’s set to write, direct, and star in a movie, this time called Live by Night, a Prohibition Era crime drama, so I’ve got high hopes for that. And in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, there’s this.

I may be in the minority here, but I think he’s going to kill it as Bruce Wayne/Batman, but that’s just me. The rest of the Internet seems to think he’s going to bomb in the same way they thought Heath Ledger was going to bomb as The Joker. How’d that turn out by the way?

So now I leave it to you. This fight is far from over, as each is poised to have a long career, especially if the rumors are true that Damon will be getting behind the camera as well. I’m giving the slight edge right now to Ben Affleck but that’s just me. But where do you come out on this? Are you a Damon guy or an Affleck guy? Who’s going to deliver the knockout blow? Leave your comments below or you can always follow me and tweet @THElukenorris.

And after a week’s hiatus, the Beverly Hills, 90210 clip of the week returns. Since I mentioned Mallrats today, here’s a little more Shannen Doherty for you.