Have we entered a parallel dimension where Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are scraping by on reality TV shows? Is Martin Scorsese doing TV movies of the week on Lifetime? Because Ben Affleck won Best Actor for his role as George Reeves in Hollywoodland at the Venice Film Festival.
However this happened, it's definitely got to be a relief for Ben. Not only has he been hammered by the press recently for his poor film choices and weak box office performance, been trailed endlessly since his relationship with J Lo and then Jennifer Garner, but because his 2004 boozy grope-fest with reporter/junket whore Anne-Marie Losique has made it onto YouTube, and it is ugly. I remember her interviewing Ben at the Pearl Harbor junket, and it was the same thing, only Ben wasn't completely shitfaced. This clip was a few years later for Jersey Girl.
Note: I'm using the junket-whore term in a completely non-sexual way (which you may not believe when you watch the video), but that's what these people are. I admit doing this myself for two years (before I truly understood how the system worked), and it's gross. I got to interview amazing celebrities, but I was flown out to a great city, was put up in a gorgeous hotel, got access to movie stars, was able to see films before everyone else in fantastic screening rooms, and then I'm supposed to review the film with an unbiased perspective? Please... Oh, and if you don't say nice things, you're not invited back. Eric D. Snider recently wrote some funny columns about his experience at the World Trade Center junket, and then how his blog got him banned from future junkets or local press screenings. Heeee-larious.
If you want to read about my "confessions of a junket-whore" days, here are a few trip reports that I wrote back in the day. My friends tell me they're quite funny, but they could just be making me feel good:
- 9/9/2000 - The Toronto Festivus for the Rest of Us
- 10/15/2000 - Right in the Kisser from Charlize
- 12/12/2000 - Four Movies, Three Nights
- 12/22/2000 - Spider-Man, Neo, and The Lord of the Rings
- 5/28/2001 - American Cheese (Pearl Harbor junket)
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