Siamois My expectations for this movie were pretty low. Ben Affleck's resume is very much hit and miss, with the misses being sometimes being of epic proportion. As well, I had seen two recent movies by director Mike Bender (Upside of Anger and Reign over Me) which certainly did not live up to praises and high ratings they received. It was thus with skepticism that I decided to kill time watching Man About Town, expecting a total dud. I was proved wrong.Much like its successor Reign Over Me, the main character here is going through issues and everything is rather organic and poignantly directed, contrary to the usual remote third person view employed in "safer" Hollywood work. There are some light comedic moments here but what makes them work is how human and heartfelt the struggles are depicted. And while Ben Affleck will never be the second coming of a Ed Norton or Anthony Hopkins, here he gives a very honest and balanced performance and we cannot help but sympathize with this character caught in the artificial life of Los Angeles and talent agencies.If anything, one plot tread about his book takes perhaps too much importance in what is otherwise a sober treatment of character and the issues he has to deal with in his personal and professional life. The entire cast is extremely good and was well chosen, although it does feel like they could have done more with John Cleese. One exception: I really felt Bai Ling was off in her performance.Overall, this is a very enjoyable movie with a satisfying conclusion instead of the usual eye-rolling fest with the easy way out.

ldavis-2 Caught this during Showtime's free-view as the first of what (I hope) was an unintentional Ben Affleck Marathon, as this stinker was followed by another stinker (The Third Wheel), then one more stinker for sh*ts and giggles (Reindeer Games). Why a Lifetime Razzie has so far eluded Benny's talentless clutches is beyond me! As one of the posters said, just when you think he can't sink any lower, he does!You think Jack A-Hole would have figured out what his minions REALLY think of him when they haul him to that dentist! Au contraire! After beating the crap out of the guy who beat the crap out of him, he goes back to the SAME DENTIST when he should be hauling the clown into court for making him look like Tom Cruise's retarded cousin! And some people wonder why this turkey was shelved for 2 years!The female characters are even more loathsome than the male characters: Barbi is a Dragon Lady racist cliché; Mrs. Jack A-Hole is a brainless Trophy Wife; and the less said about the Sharon Stone wanna-be, the better. At the climax of this masterpiece, Trophy Wife and Dragon Lady duke it out over Jack A-Hole's precious journal in one room, the Sharon Stone wanna-be crosses and uncrosses her legs in another room, and Jack A-Hole's Top Client (over whom he kicked Trophy Wife out of the house) drops in to beg forgiveness. That whirring sound you hear is Preston Sturges spinning in his grave!So who winds up running Jack A-Hole's agency after he and Trophy Wife kiss and make up in his fish tank (I kid you not)? The token lesbian, who has more cojones in her pinkie than all the men in the movie put together!

joinhip Okay, first of all, Ben Affleck is one of the partners of a high-powered Hollywood agency. About halfway through, he moans about never being able to close a deal or get things done. How the hell did someone like that become head of a high-powered Hollywood agency? Second, why do we care about him? He's shallow, uninteresting and his life is meaningless. That's supposed to be the point, I gather, but this is no Jerry MacGuire and no hidden interesting depths are to be found here. Third, his supermodel wife (!) has absolutely no character. She mopes around about how much she loves him (even though she's been having an affair with one of his clients), but we learn nothing about her except that she has no personality. The whole movie's emotional center is supposed to be whether he gets back together with her, but we have no reason to think they should be together in the first place (and no, the idiotic virtual CGI sequence of them scuba-diving doesn't provide that context). Fourth, the Asian woman who steals Ben's journal - every time the agency folk meet this woman, she (A) HAPPENS to have the journal in her purse (which would be the stupidest thing in the world to carry to a meeting with them) and (B) they STEAL it from her and run in a merry Keystone Cops-like chase that's completely absurd and unnecessary since...IT'S NOT HERS TO BEGIN WITH. IT'S STOLEN PROPERTY. CALL THE POLICE, YOU SIX PEOPLE WITH CELL PHONES!!! But, no, no, that would make sense. And finally (although I could go on and on), the ending where Ben and Rebecca ride away from Hollywood to who knows where. I thought to myself, where are they going? They can only function in Hollywood. They have no other existence beyond Hollywood. The viewer can't conceive of them anywhere else the way they've been presented. This movie made absolutely no emotional or logical sense, I didn't understand the writer-director's take on Ben Affleck's character at all. I don't want to bag on Ben - he's actually good when used correctly = I blame the script and direction that left him standing around with egg on his face (and on his Armani suit).Oh, I did like Howard Hesseman.

mathmaniac This is the Ben Affleck that I like. He's the average man. When asked if he completed college in one scene, he replies 'Community College, two years.' Of course, he's fantastically rich - not bad for a guy from Community College, and all of this in the dog-eat-dog world of the L.A. entertainment industry. This is the Ben Afflect I like!He's handsome, yes. He's got a gorgeous wife (who cheated on him) and a Dad who is loopy (from having had a stroke) and clients who threaten to leave him and do and people who try to blackmail him. He's just juggling all the balls, dealing with it all one crisis at a time. A lot of what he does is contradictory. The movie is often narrated with entries in his journal. He thinks that he has lost his nerve and his drive. Yet the first thing that he does in the movie is toss his wife out of the house for her infidelity. Without a moment's hesitation. This is what Ben Afflect does really well in a movie: he plays a character who has ambition but a humble background. He contradicts himself by acting contrary to his beliefs, he attempts to redeem himself. And all the while, the audience can see the machinations of his very average brain trying to makes sense of it all. Because he's basically charming and has screen presence and yes, acting ability, you sort of think along with him and find that you are having a hard time making sense of it too!But aside from the average intelligence trying to solve a difficult question, there's a lot of emotion, too, and his average brain can't decide whether that is a help or a hindrance.I thought the movie was entertaining, a little slow in parts, surprisingly funny (I laughed out loud several times which hardly makes it a great comedy but it kept me watching!)Rebecca Romijn doesn't have to do much in a picture but look gorgeous. She acted well but her beauty actually gets in the way - it's distracting.Ben made a similar movie with Gwyneth Paltrow - 'Bounce' that I have watched several times and each time, I think it gets better with the re-watching.