Martial Arts Database

Posted in Sites on Feb 27th, 2008 | 0 comments

Welcome to the Martial Arts Database (MARdb.com), the biggest and the best site for Martial Arts.

All about Martial Arts Styles, MARdb created and dedicated to the beautiful world of Martial Arts.

MARdb is simple, and easy to surf, This site contains valuable information regarding everything about Martial Arts of all kinds, so enjoy!

Martial arts are the systemized practices and traditions of training people to engage in combat. Martial arts have been present in some form in almost every nation and culture since before recorded history. Virtually all martial arts share a common original intent; developing the ability to defeat one’s enemies in a conflict, either armed or unarmed.

Many martial arts are still practiced today. Some retain their focus on the ancient techniques of war, others have incorporated modern modifications for the practice of self defense for civilians, and still others have evolved into international competive sports and Olympic events.

Martial arts, historically and today, place a wide variety of emphases on morality, spirituality, philosophy, or religion. Very often also, some kind of enlightenment, or at the very least personal self-improvement, are a core goal in the practice of many martial arts.
Martial arts vary widely, and may focus on a specific area or combination of areas, but they can be broadly grouped into focusing on strikes, grappling, or weapons training. Below is a list of examples that make extensive use of one these areas; it is not an exhaustive list of all arts covering the area, nor are these necessarily the only areas covered by the art but are the focus or best known part as examples of the area: Striking, Punching – Boxing (Western), Wing Chun, Kicking – Capoeira, Savate, Taekwondo, Other strikes (e.g. Elbows, knees, open-hand) – Muay Thai, Karate, Shaolin Kung Fu, Grappling: Throwing – Glima, Judo, Jujutsu, Sambo, Shuai jiao, Joint lock – Aikido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Hapkido, Pinning Techniques – Judo, Wrestling,

Weaponry: Traditional Weaponry – Fencing, Gatka, Kendo, Silambam, Kali. Modern Weaponry – Eskrima, Jogo do Pau, Jukendo. Many martial arts, especially those from Asia, also teach side disciplines which pertain to medicinal practices. This is particularly prevalent in traditional Chinese martial arts which may teach bone-setting, qigong, acupuncture, acupressure (tui na), and other aspects of traditional Chinese medicine.

Martial arts are commonly associated with East Asian cultures, but are by no means unique to Asia. Throughout Europe there was an extensive system of combat martial arts, collectively referred to as Historical European martial arts, that existed until modern times and is now being reconstructed by several organizations while Savate is a French kicking style developed by sailors and street fighters. In the Americas Native Americans have a tradition of open-handed martial arts, that includes wrestling and Hawaiians have historically practiced arts featuring small and large joint manipulation, a mix of origins occur in the athletic movements of Capoeira that was created in Brazil by slaves, based on skills brought with them from Africa.

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If you missed the Oscars

Posted in News on Feb 25th, 2008 | 0 comments

The Coen brothers completed their journey from the fringes to Hollywood’s mainstream on Sunday, their crime saga “No Country for Old Men” winning four Academy Awards, including best picture, in a ceremony that also featured a strong international flavor.

Javier Bardem won for supporting actor in “No Country,” which earned Joel and Ethan Coen best director, best adapted screenplay and the best-picture honor as producers.

Accepting the directing honor alongside his brother, Joel Coen recalled how they got their start in a career that has seen them advance from oddballs with a devoted cult following to broader audiences. He noted they have been making films since childhood, including one at the Minneapolis airport called “Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go.”

“What we do now doesn’t feel that much different from what we were doing then,” Joel Coen said. “We’re very thankful to all of you out there for continuing to let us play in our corner of the sandbox.”

Daniel Day-Lewis won his second best-actor Oscar for the oil-boom epic “There Will Be Blood,” while “La Vie En Rose” star Marion Cotillard was a surprise winner for best actress, riding the spirit of Edith Piaf to Oscar triumph over Julie Christie, who had been expected to win for “Away From Her.”

All four acting prizes went to Europeans: Frenchwoman Cotillard, Spaniard Bardem, and Brits Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton, the supporting-actress winner for “Michael Clayton.”

The only other time in the Oscars’ 80-year history that all four acting winners were foreign born was 1964, when the recipients were Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Peter Ustinov and Lila Kedrova.

As a raging, conniving, acquisitive petroleum pioneer caught up in California’s oil boom of the early 20th century, Day-Lewis won for a part that could scarcely have been more different than his understated role as a writer with severe cerebral palsy in 1989’s “My Left Foot.”

“My deepest thanks to the academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town,” Day-Lewis said.

The Coens missed out on a chance to make Oscar history — four wins for a single film — when they lost the editing prize, for which they were nominated under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.

“The Bourne Ultimatum” won the editing Oscar and swept all three categories in which it was nominated, including sound editing and sound mixing.

Past winners for their screenplay to 1996’s “Fargo,” the Coens joined an elite list of filmmakers to win three Oscars in a single night, including Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather Part II”), James Cameron (“Titanic”) and Billy Wilder (“The Apartment”).

With $64 million domestically, “No Country” is the biggest box-office hit for the Coens, whose tales often are an acquired taste appealing to narrow crowds. Their films include the modest hits “Fargo” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and such lesser-known yarns as “The Hudsucker Proxy” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Cotillard, the first winner ever for a French-language performance, tearfully thanked her director, Olivier Dahan.

“Maestro Olivier, you rocked my life. You have truly rocked my life,” said Cotillard, a French beauty who is a dynamo as Piaf, playing the warbling chanteuse through three decades, from raw late teens as a singer rising from the gutter through international stardom and her final days in her frail 40s.

“Thank you, life; thank you, love. And it is true there (are) some angels in this city.”.

A relatively fresh face in Hollywood, Cotillard has U.S. credits that include “Big Fish,” “A Good Year” and the upcoming “Public Enemies,” featuring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

With a heartbreaking turn as a woman succumbing to Alzheimer’s in “Away From Her,” Christie had been expected to win her second Oscar. She won best actress 42 years ago for “Darling.”

Heavies ruled the acting prizes. Along with Day-Lewis’ greedy oilman, Bardem played an unshakable executioner in “No Country” and Swinton played a malevolent attorney in “Michael Clayton.” Bardem, referring to the sinister variation of a page-boy bob his character sported, said: “Thank you to the Coens for being crazy enough to think I could do that and for putting one of the most horrible haircuts in history over my head.”

Host Jon Stewart joked that Bardem’s haircut in the film combined “Hannibal Lecter’s murderousness with Dorothy Hamill’s wedge-cut.”

Mickey Mouse gained a rival as Hollywood’s favorite rodent as the rat tale “Ratatouille” was named best animated film, the second Oscar win in the category for director Brad Bird.

Bird thanked his junior-high guidance counselor, who expressed repeated skepticism over his desire to become a filmmaker.

“It went on like this until we were sick of each other,” said Bird, who also won the animation Oscar for 2004’s “The Incredibles” and shared a nomination for original screenplay for “Ratatouille,” a $200 million blockbuster. “I only realized just recently that he gave me the perfect training for the movie business.”

The ceremony’s montage of photos and film clips of stars, filmmakers and others in cinema who died in the past year ended with a scene from “Brokeback Mountain” featuring Heath Ledger, who died of a prescription drug overdose last month.

Glen Hansard of the Irish band the Frames and Marketa Irglova, both non-actors who starred in the musical romance “Once,” won the best-song Oscar for “Falling Slowly,” one of several tunes they wrote for the film.

“What are we doing here? This is mad,” Hansard said, recounting the low-budget history of “Once.” “It took us three weeks to make. We made it for a hundred-grand. We never thought we’d come into a room like this and be in front of all you people.”

The song won over three nominated tunes from “Enchanted” written by composer Alan Menken, an eight-time Oscar winner, and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, a three-time winner, whose previous academy prizes included their song and score collaborations for “Pocahontas.”

The sound-mixing win for “The Bourne Ultimatum” extended the years of Oscar futility for Kevin O’Connell, a nominee for “Transformers,” who holds an academy record: 20 nominations, no wins.

Michael Moore, who assailed President Bush over the Iraq War in his Oscar speech for documentary winner “Bowling for Columbine” five years ago, missed out on a chance to take the podium again. His health-care study “Sicko” lost the documentary prize to “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a war-on-terror chronicle that centers on an innocent Afghan cab driver killed while in detention.

Box-office dud “The Golden Compass” scored an upset for visual effects over the blockbusters “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

Other winners included “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” for costume design, “La Vie En Rose” for makeup and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” for art direction.

The Oscar broadcast began with a fanfare and an effects-laden opening segment showing key characters and creatures from past films lining Hollywood Boulevard.

Stewart started his opening monologue with a wisecrack about the 100-day writers strike that ended just in time for the Oscars to come off as usual.

“These past three and a half months have been very tough. The town was torn apart by a bitter writer’s strike, but I’m happy to say that the fight is over,” Stewart said. “So tonight, welcome to the makeup sex.”

Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy voted worst

Posted in News on Feb 24th, 2008 | 0 comments

Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy take honors for worst acting at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Razzies’ odd couple: Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy and Lindsay Lohan were named the worst actors of 2007 at the Golden Raspberry Awards on Saturday for two movies that dominated the mock awards created to spoof the Oscars.

For their lack of acting prowess, the veteran comic and the young actress with the hard-living reputation each won three gold spray-painted Razzie trophies worth $4.89.

The awards are presented by the Golden Raspberry Foundation, which announced its winners one day before the sometimes pompous Academy Awards presentation ceremony.

Murphy, who starred in the critically savaged comedy “Norbit,” set a record by winning three of the four worst acting categories.

Still, moviegoers turned out for the film, which took in $158 million at worldwide box offices based mostly on Murphy’s popularity.

Lohan won two worst actress awards for playing twins in “I Know Who Killed Me,” a film that was named worst of the year.

She also won worst screen couple for a scene in which she appears opposite herself in the tale about psychically linked siblings stalked by a serial killer.

“I Know Who Killed Me,” a major box office flop with $9 million worldwide, won eight of nine Raspberries for which it was nominated, breaking a record of seven wins previously held by “Showgirls” and “Battlefield Earth.”

Lohan was in and out of rehabilitation programs last year and acknowledged last month that she had fallen off the wagon at a New Year’s Eve party. In November, she served 84 minutes in jail for drunken driving and cocaine possession charges.

Murphy won the worst actor award for playing the hapless hero of “Norbit.” He had several parts in the movie and also won worst supporting actor and actress Raspberries for roles as a Chinese man and Norbit’s screaming overweight wife.

The comic actor earned an Oscar nomination for his dramatic turn as a troubled soul singer in 2006 musical “Dreamgirls” and some critics said the widespread distaste for “Norbit” — which hit theaters only weeks before the Oscar ceremony — cost him support for those prestigious awards.

Like Lohan, Murphy’s personal life also made headlines last year when he acknowledged fathering a child out of wedlock with Spice Girls singer Melanie Brown. In January of this year, Murphy and his new wife, Tracey Edmonds, split just two weeks after getting married in French Polynesia. ~ Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Bill Trott

Following is a list of this year’s Razzie winners:

  • Worst Picture: “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Actor: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Actress (tie): Lohan as twin sisters Aubrey and Dakota in “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Supporting Actress: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Supporting Actor: Murphy in “Norbit”
  • Worst Screen Couple: Lohan & Lohan in “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Remake or Rip-off: “I Know Who Killed Me,” based on several films
  • Worst Prequel or Sequel: “Daddy Day Camp”
  • Worst Director: Chris Siverston for “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Screenplay: Jeffrey Hammond for “I Know Who Killed Me”
  • Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie (New Category): “I Know Who Killed Me.”

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Ben Affleck new Wallpapers

Posted in Actors on Feb 23rd, 2008 | 0 comments

Ben Affleck .. Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American Golden Globe Award-nominated film actor, director, an Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-winning screenwriter. He became known in the late 1990s, after his involvement in the film Good Will Hunting, and has since become a Hollywood leading man, having starred in several big budget films.

Affleck was born Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt in Berkeley, California, the son of Chris Ann (née Boldt), a school district employee and teacher, and Timothy Affleck, a drug counselor, social worker, janitor, auto mechanic, bar tender, and former actor with the Theater Company of Boston.

Affleck’s mother attended Harvard University and taught at Brearley School. Affleck’s younger brother is actor Casey Affleck. Affleck has Irish ancestry.

His family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts when he was very young and his parents divorced in 1984. At the age of eight, Affleck met ten-year-old Matt Damon, who lived two blocks away.

Affleck and Damon would later attend Cambridge Rindge and Latin School together, although they were in different year groups. Affleck attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, as well as the University of Vermont.

Affleck worked as a child actor, appearing on the PBS kids’ series The Voyage of the Mimi as well as in several made-for-television movies. Throughout the 1990s, Affleck had a role in LifeStories: Families in Crisis as a steroid abusing athlete as well as several notable films, including 1992’s School Ties (with Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser), 1993’s Dazed and Confused, 1995’s Mallrats and 1997’s Chasing Amy; Mallrats and Amy began his collaboration with writer/director Kevin Smith. Affleck has appeared in every film Smith has made with the exception of Kevin Smith’s first film Clerks.

Affleck had a one-line speaking role as a high school basketball player in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. He and fellow Boston Red Sox fanatic Matt Damon had roles as extras in the movie Field of Dreams when characters played by Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones go to Fenway Park.

Affleck came to national attention working with best-friend Damon in Good Will Hunting (1997). They shared credit and both received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Along with Damon and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, Affleck founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the four created the documentary series Project Greenlight, as well as the failed mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada amongst other projects.

Project Greenlight was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004 and 2005.

Following Good Will Hunting, Affleck had starring roles in many successful movies, including Armageddon, Forces of Nature, Pearl Harbor, Changing Lanes, The Sum of All Fears and Daredevil, establishing himself as a Hollywood leading man throughout the early 2000s. However, after the release of several critically panned, box office flops, including Gigli (2003) and Surviving Christmas (2004), Affleck’s career waned considerably.

He did not appear in any films until 2006 when he appeared in Clerks II. In addition to being a fan of the Daredevil comics (Frank Miller’s run specifically), he wrote the introduction to the trade paperback Daredevil: Guardian Devil which reprints Daredevil (Volume 2) #1 – 8 (written by Kevin Smith).

Affleck made what can be considered a comeback with the September 2006 release of the critically acclaimed George Reeves biopic-noir Hollywoodland, directed by HBO TV-series veteran Allen Coulter. His performance was impressive enough that he was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and has also won the Supporting Actor of the Year award at the Hollywood Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. Affleck had his directorial debut with Gone, Baby, Gone, for which he also co-wrote the screenplay, about two Boston area detectives investigating a little girl’s kidnapping and how it affects their lives.

Based on the book by Dennis Lehane, it opened to rave reviews in October, 2007, and has led to speculation of Academy Award nominations for Affleck and his brother Casey (who plays the leading role). Writes Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News: “Ben Affleck won an Oscar for the Good Will Hunting script he co-wrote with Matt Damon, but this is his first outing behind the camera.

Whatever you think of his acting, he’s got real chops as a filmmaker. The movie has energy, pace, some insanely well-choreographed action sequences, outstanding performances and a couple of speeches that belong in the pulp fiction hall of fame.” Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks: “Ben Affleck has come of age as a director.” And Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post comments that Affleck “shows that even if he never developed a memorable performance when he was in front of the camera, he was paying attention to what was going on behind it.”

Personal life: Affleck had a high-profile romance with actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998, following her breakup with actor Brad Pitt. In 2002, he began dating actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, whom he had met prior to filming Gigli.

The same year, his engagement to Lopez was announced, and the relationship between the two received a lot of attention by the entertainment media who dubbed the couple “Bennifer.” The couple broke up in 2004 while they were due to get married on the 14th of September of that year, both blaming the media attention – including an alleged incident in which Affleck partied with Christian Slater and some lap dancers in Vancouver. This negative publicity and media attention was also brought along to the 2004 Jersey Girl, which also was a box office failure.

Affleck subsequently dated his Daredevil co-star, actress Jennifer Garner, and the two were engaged after nine months of seeing each other. In May 2005, it was announced that Garner was pregnant and the couple were married on June 29, 2005 on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. Garner gave birth to a daughter, Violet Anne Affleck, on December 1, 2005 in Los Angeles, California. Affleck has a holiday home in Savannah, Georgia. The family was in Cambridge for the summer while Affleck was directing Gone, Baby, Gone.

Affleck is an avid poker player, regularly entering local events. He has been tutored by poker professionals Amir Vahedi and Annie Duke, and won the California State Poker Championship on June 20, 2004, taking home the first prize of $356,000, which qualified him for the 2004 World Poker Tour final tournament. Affleck is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots and Boston Celtics.

Affleck quit smoking after starring in the 2007 film Smokin’ Aces, in which he was required to smoke heavily, and lost his taste for it after a week of chain-smoking for his role.

Affleck supports a non-profit organization called the A-T Childrens Project. He started supporting the A-TCP after meeting Joe Kindregan when filming Forces of Nature. Kindregan, who was then 9 years old, has a rare disease called ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Affleck has attended benefits and spoken to Congress to advocate for the A-T Childrens Project. The disease, described as like having muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, immune deficiency and cancer all at once, is progressive; children with A-T usually do not live beyond their late teens. In 2007, Affleck was the keynote speaker at the Graduation Ceremony for Falls Church High School at the GMU Patriot Center. Of his best friend and graduating senior Joe Kindregan, Affleck mentions that though Kindregan is bound to a wheelchair, through his perseverance he has taught Affleck, “How to stand.”

Political activism: In the final weeks of the 2000 Presidential campaign, Affleck promoted the Democratic ticket, supporting Al Gore and repeatedly delivering a get-out-the-vote plea: “It’s very important to vote. The president will appoint three or four Supreme Court justices.”

During the final week of the race, Affleck spoke on behalf of Gore in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. During a stop in Pittsburgh, the star — along with Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and other actors — spent an hour at a phone bank calling registered Democrats. “People in my generation have a low voter turnout. One of the reasons that I’m here is to demonstrate that no matter who you are going to vote for… I think it’s important to get involved and get out and vote,” Affleck told reporters. “But I’m going to tell people to vote for Gore.”

On October 28, 2000, Affleck flew with Hillary Clinton, who was running for a Senate seat, to Ithaca, New York, where he introduced her at a Cornell University rally. Affleck told the college crowd that Clinton had been advocating for women and working families since “Rick Lazio was running around the frat house in his underwear”. Lazio, then a Long Island congressman, was Clinton’s Republican opponent.

On November 6, 2000, the final day of the campaign, Affleck was one of several high-profile celebrities summoned to Miami Beach by Miramax Films boss Harvey Weinstein for a late-night Gore rally, just hours before polls opened nationwide. The Gore campaign’s last event, a final effort to energize South Beach voters, did not end until about 1:00 a.m., but Affleck flew back to New York that morning and made a surprise live appearance on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. It was 10:15 a.m. when he made his final public pitch from a Rockefeller Center studio, noting that he was “a little bit tired… I’ve been out getting involved, doing stuff and trying to get people to vote. And that’s why I came by here”. Also, “Today is the get-out-the-vote day and…I think this is the time to get involved, especially the young folks who are here … I’m about to go vote,” He then said, “I am personally gonna vote for Al Gore”.

As votes were tallied that night, Affleck told Salon.com’s Amy Reiter, “I’m nervous this evening, but one of the things that’s exciting to me is the number of people who voted. No matter who wins, I think it’s a healthy thing for our country that so many voters have come out and participated in the process. Either way, I think the most important number will be the turnout”. However, as The Smoking Gun later discovered, Affleck himself did not vote that day.

In the May 2001 issue of GQ, Affleck said, “My fantasy is that someday I’m independently wealthy enough that I’m not beholden to anybody, so I can run for Congress on the grounds that everyday people should be in government”.

In the March 2003 issue of Vanity Fair, Affleck again proposes the possibility of a future run for Congress. “I think there’s a real nobility to public service… It would be fun to run on a platform I really believed in, without being beholden to the win-at-all-costs mentality”.

In 2004, Affleck actively campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. During the first day of the Democratic Convention, Affleck was featured on Larry King Live with Tucker Carlson and Al Sharpton. Larry King asked Affleck if he would consider running for office, and Affleck admitted to contemplating the proposition. Specific attention focused on whether he would run for Kerry’s open Senate seat (as Affleck was from Massachusetts).

He noted that the line between politics and entertainment is becoming increasingly blurred, as political figures Ronald Reagan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both came from the entertainment business, although both were members of the Republican Party. During the campaign, Affleck remained diplomatic, saying, “I had the pleasure of and the honor of meeting the President of the United States at the Daytona 500.

I found him to be a collegial, affable, kind guy.” He went on to say Bush “is a patriot and he.s a man who believes in the country. He’s trying to further an agenda he believes in. I happen to disagree with most of his policies, but I respect the man.” (Interview with Bill O’Reilly July 27, 2004).

He appeared in a print ad with his openly gay cousin, Jason, in support of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.  He once said, “Everyone has the capacity for being bisexual.” He has, however, never suggested that he himself is bisexual.

Affleck in popular culture:

  • Affleck was mentioned in “I’ll Sue Ya” on “Weird Al” Yankovic’s CD, Straight Outta Lynwood: “I’ll sue Ben Affleck…… aw, do I even need a reason?”
  • On Will & Grace, after the character Jack has his voice dubbed over in his most recent TV series, he explains to Josh Lucas that Lucas is Matt Damon and that he’s “Ben Affleck in Gigli…or Paycheck…or Bounce…or Jersey Girl…or Surviving Christmas.” This is a joke on how many films he has had bomb.
  • Affleck appears to embrace some of his failed movies; in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Affleck is seen alongside Damon on the fictitious set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season, where Damon mocks the failure of Affleck’s Reindeer Games while the two discuss their movie choices.
  • Affleck has been prominent in two South Park episodes. In “How to Eat with Your Butt”, Affleck was found to be the missing child of a couple suffering from a facial deformity in which their heads were encased in buttocks. In “Fat Butt and Pancake Head”, Affleck was portrayed as Jennifer Lopez’s boyfriend, until he left her for Eric Cartman’s hand puppet, also named Jennifer Lopez.
  • Affleck is a favorite target of Mike Nelson’s RiffTrax.
  • Affleck has also been parodied on Family Guy episode Fast Times at Buddy Cianci, Jr. High, in a flashback scene in which he was lying on the couch while Damon wrote Good Will Hunting, with the joke that he contributed nothing to the script, smoked all their pot and added his name only after adding a word to a sentence. In the episode Barely Legal, Megs’s friends say that Brian looks “just like Ben Affleck” despite the fact that he looks nothing like him.
  • Affleck is mentioned in The Simpsons episode “See Homer Run”, saying that he ran most of Homer’s political campaign.
  • In the movie Team America: World Police, Affleck is mentioned in a song when the vocalist makes a joke about how he needs his girlfriend like Affleck needs acting school.
  • In the video game Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, one of the first tasks the player must complete in Hollywood is performing a kickflip over a “lame” actor named Ben Whofleck. This is later confirmed as a takeoff on Affleck, as an PC comments that Whofleck “sucked in Pearl Harbor”.
  • In the film Date Movie, Affleck is mentioned when the main character goes to see “Hitch” (a parody of the Will Smith character in the film Hitch), who references all of the couples he’s responsible for to show his expertise. Ben Affleck is referred to three times: first with “Ben and Jen,” (Jennifer Lopez, whom Affleck actually dated) “Ben and Jen,” (Jennifer Garner, whom he is currently married to) and “Ben and Matt (Matt Damon).” This is a play on how close they are as friends, suggesting that they were close enough to have been involved, although they actually never were.

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Ryan Reynolds Career and Photos

Posted in Actors on Feb 23rd, 2008 | 0 comments

Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian television and film actor. He came to prominence in the television sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001), before establishing a career as a Hollywood motion picture actor, starring in both comedic and dramatic roles.

Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the son of Tammy, a salesperson and career student, and Jim Reynolds, a Vancouver food wholesaler and former semi-professional boxer. He is the youngest of four brothers. Reynolds graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1994.

Reynolds starred in the National Lampoon movie Van Wilder and the American television series Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place, playing medical student Michael “Berg” Bergen.

He also cameoed in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle as the male nurse, appeared in The In-Laws with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, as well as the Canadian production Foolproof and 2004’s Blade: Trinity with Wesley Snipes.

In 2005 he played a waiter named Monty in Waiting…, and as music executive Chris Brander in the romantic comedy Just Friends alongside Amy Smart and Anna Faris. He has also appeared in an episode of the television series Scrubs, where he played Spence, a college friend of J.D. and Turk.

Although he has performed primarily in comedies, Reynolds played the dark character George Lutz in the remake of the horror movie The Amityville Horror.

Reynolds underwent intense physical training to play an action role as the character of Hannibal King in the film Blade: Trinity, which also starred Wesley Snipes and Jessica Biel. He has also played as an FBI agent alongside Ray Liotta in the thriller Smokin’ Aces.

In a March 2005 interview, Reynolds spoke of his interest and involvement in a possible film adaptation of Deadpool with screenwriter David S. Goyer.and also the possibilty of playing the incarnation of The Flash known as Wally West in an adaption of the popular DC comics character in the upcoming movie project. Reynolds will first portray Deadpool in the X-Men spinoff, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

From 2002 to 2007, Reynolds had been romantically linked to Alanis Morissette, becoming engaged in 2004. In July 2006, People reported that the two had split, but neither party confirmed this report. Morissette and Reynolds were pictured holding hands in Los Angeles, sinking the rumors.

However, in February 2007, they mutually decided to end their engagement. He has recently been seeing Scarlett Johansson. In February, perezhilton.com, reported that they might have been engaged but Johansson’s representative has denied the rumours.

Reynolds is a Green Bay Packers fan and loves motorcycles, owning three: a customized 2005 Harley-Davidson Springer Softail, a 2006 Ducati Sport 1000, and a 2005 Confederate.

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