Ben Affleck Talks About "Surviving Christmas"

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Ben Affleck on Christmas Memories and Starring in a Comedy
In "Surviving Christmas," Ben Affleck stars as a rich, single guy who wants to recapture the joy of Christmas by spending the holiday at his childhood home. There's only one catch: the people living there are complete strangers.
In this interview, Ben Affleck spreads some early holiday cheer by talking about his role in "Surviving Christmas," starring in a comedy, and even shares a few Christmas memories of his own.
INTERVIEW WITH BEN AFFLECK ('Drew'):

Is Christmas so hard that you need to survive it?(Laughing) Some people do. Yeah, some people do. It’s family, really. This is more a movie about family. Christmas just represents that time when families get together and start kind of making each other crazy.
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House of Blues TicketsHouse of Blues concert tickets. Tickets to House of Blues Hob showsHouseOfBlues.EventTicketsCenter.comWe love our families but they’re like us and I think we kind of sometimes don’t like things about ourselves. We seem [those traits] in our family members so they make us irritated. And this really is a movie about a guy who pays for someone to pretend to be his family, and then makes them crazy just like he would his real family. It’s very funny.
This is different from most of your films in that it's a broad comedy.It was very hard to convince people that I could do this. You know, you have people who put actors in certain categories. Like I could do a billion action movies once I did “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,” blah, blah, blah. They go, “If things blow up, Ben Affleck might work.” But when you have a comedy, people think Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, maybe I’m missing one or two guys – or nobody. So the script was there and it was very, very hard for me to get them to agree to use me. They’re like, “Oh, we like Ben. We like him to do this movie or that movie, but we don’t think that Ben Affleck says 'comedy'.” Which is one of the reasons I thought it was important for me to host “Saturday Night Live” again, right before this, to say, “Hey, I can do comedy. I can be funny.”
What's it feel like to not only star in this comedy, but also produce it?It feels great. I’m really proud of this movie because comedies are really hard to do, but when you do them you know. It’s like you promise the audience, “Come see this movie. You’re going to laugh. You’re going to find it funny.” Delivering on that and seeing the audience laughing makes me feel really comfortable and happy. It’s not like some movie where you’re going to go, “Oh, this is going to make you cry and think about your life in a different way.” Those movies may be out there, I just don’t want to see them.
Director Mike Mitchell said you are great at being annoying.(Laughing) That is the point of this movie. I’m this lonely, crazy, rich guy who is miserable. All his friends are bought or else they work for him. So Christmas comes and he’s totally alone. He goes to the house that he actually grew up in feeling nostalgic and he rents the family that lives there and makes them pretend to be his family. And in the process, he makes them insane. So I had a lot of practice at being annoying. Jim [Gandolfini] was very good at being annoyed by me.
What do you want for Christmas this year?What do I want for Christmas this year? I want a little quieter life.
Have you ever experienced a Christmas like your character does?No. I’ve been very lucky. I have a wonderful mother who raised us almost by herself. She always made sure that me and my brother had a nice time on Christmas and that we saw our grandparents. Now, Christmas gets a little crazier because once you get other people, like my brother’s wife and their in-laws and putting them together and then where are we going to go and what if they don’t get along – that’s really what this movie’s about. It’s really about family. Christmas is just a time where you end up seeing your family and your brother’s wife or your brother’s boyfriend, you know what I mean? And then you get all these different personalities forced to be in a room together, and that’s really what it’s about. It’s about family and trying to work that out. And the sort of unconventional nature of families today and what’s really important about it. And in the process hopefully you’ll laugh and think it’s funny.
Did you always get everything you wanted for Christmas?No. When I was a kid I used to get really bummed out if I didn’t get like the right Christmas present, but I would hide it. I didn’t want to disappoint my mom so I’d be like, “It’s good. I like this present. It’s okay.” I always got that we couldn’t afford it. I remember I wanted the Millennium Falcon. I did get the Millennium Falcon.
You’ve talked about doing some more writing. When are you going to do it?I just adapted a Dennis Lehane book. I just turned it in, which I’m really excited about. He wrote “Mystic River.” And this was called, “Gone, Baby, Gone.” And that was really fun. I had two months by myself in the office writing. It’s gotten me inspired to write something original. Maybe I’ll do that soon. ( part two of this interview will be served tommorow, courtsy:

Hollywood Movies

It’s Time to Fast and Pray

(courtesy: Charisma magazine,Charisma@strang.com)

Our prophetic word for this week is from Lou Engle, co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies, which draw youth together to fast and pray for revival in our nation. TheCall was dormant for a few years but is being revived on July 7 in Nashville, Tennessee. (For more information, go to www.thecall.com.) Engle believes that if we seek God through fasting and prayer at this crucial hour in world history God will respond by sending a great spiritual awakening.

“I believe that if we respond in repentance in this moment of time, we could release a great revival of confession of sin and a cleansing by the blood of Jesus that could draw us back into marital faithfulness with our Bridegroom. I believe a great spiritual awakening could be at hand that would affect the elections of 2008 and overthrow Jezebel's death march in this nation.

“What must we do? God's holy prescription for our diseased state in times of national crisis and moral collapse is in Joel 2, verses 12-13, 15-16, 18 and 28, which describe a solemn assembly of united fasting and prayer:

‘Now, therefore,’ says the Lord, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.

‘Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room.’

Then the Lord will be zealous for His land, and pity His people.
‘And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions’” (NKJV).

POWER TIPS.(courtsey: Power_Tips@personal-enterprise-self-help-resources.com ).

Tips for your Happiness

To be happy is relatively easy; just decide to be a happy person.
Abraham Lincoln observed that most people for most of the time can choose how happy or stressed, how relaxed or troubled, how bright or dull their outlook to be. The choice is simple really, choose to be happy.
There are several ways by which you can do this.
Being grateful is a great attitude. We have so much to be thankful for. Thank the taxi driver for bringing you home safely, thank the cook for a wonderful dinner and thank the guy who cleans your windows. Also thank the mailman for bringing you your mails, thank the policeman for making your place safe and thank God for being alive.
News is stressful. Get less of it. Some people just can't start their day without their daily dose of news. Try and think about it, 99% of the news we hear or read is bad news. Starting the day with bad news does not seem to be a sensible thing to do.
A religious connection is also recommended. Being part of a religious group with its singing, sacraments, chanting, prayers and meditations foster inner peace.
Manage your time. Time is invaluable and too important to waste. Time management can be viewed as a list of rules that involves scheduling, setting goals, planning, creating lists of things to do and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.
Laugh and laugh heartily everyday. Heard a good joke? Tell your friends or family about it. As they also say -'Laughter is the best medicine'.
Express your feelings, affections, friendship and passion to people around you. They will most likely reciprocate your actions. Try not to keep pent up anger of frustrations, this is bad for your health. Instead find ways of expressing them in a way that will not cause more injury or hurt to anyone.
Working hard brings tremendous personal satisfaction. It gives a feeling of being competent in finishing our tasks. Accomplishments are necessary for all of us, they give us a sense of value. Work on things that you feel worthy of your time.
Learning is a joyful exercise. Try and learn something new everyday. Learning also makes us expand and broaden our horizons. And could also give us more opportunities in the future.
Run, jog, walk and do other things that your body was made for. Feel alive.
Avoid exposure to negative elements like loud noises, toxins and hazardous places.
These are the few simple things you can do everyday to be happy.

Power Quotes:

Happiness: "People facing death don't think about what degrees they have earned, what positions they have held, or how much wealth they have accumulated. At the end, what really matters is whom you love and who loved you." - Bernadine Healy, MD
Health: "When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place." - Bhagavad Gita
Prosperity: People are eternally divided into two classes, the believer, builder, and praiser, and the unbeliever, destroyer and critic.- John Ruskin

Tips for your Happiness:

Learn How to Succeed by Thinking like a Genius
You don’t have to be a certified genius to think like one.
When you learn how to think like a genius, you’ll soon reap the kind of rewards that used to be exclusive for people ten times more creative and smarter than you.
Start Thinking Out of the BoxDon’t allow yourself to be limited and restricted by traditions and conventions!
You should always tell yourself that you can do something that’s not expected. Although people who think out of the box are usually those with definite artistic talents, working in a regular office doesn’t mean you can’t let your creative juices flow. Just persist in proving your critics wrong and you’ll stay on the right track.
Have a Strong Dose of Confidence in YourselfGeniuses aren’t all arrogant or conceited, but they do have a healthy dose of self-confidence. They know what they want, they know what they can do, and they know what they should do. They don’t let anything stop them from reaching their goals if they know they deserve it.
Have a Realistic GoalAt the same time, geniuses are smart enough not to reach for the moon – figuratively speaking, that is.
All their goals are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Their goals may not be smart for others, but they definitely believe that it’s smart for them, and in most cases, that’s all that counts.
Maximize the Power of VisualizationMany people wonder how geniuses were able to create or invent such wonderful products or services. The answer to this is simple: they have powerful visualization skills. They can picture in their minds what they wish to happen in the future. As time passes by, the picture becomes clearer and sharper until it becomes reality.
If you want to succeed in life, you need to think like a genius and that includes being able to see in your mind where you want to be in the future.
Use Self-AffirmationReminding yourself about your goals, talents, skills, and abilities will strengthen your resolve in achieving your goals. Geniuses are smart enough to recognize the importance of motivation and inspiration and the role it plays in one’s life. If you wish to be as successful as most geniuses are, you need to remind yourself constantly that you deserve and are capable of obtaining such success.
Don’t Be Afraid to Take RisksGeniuses are rarely afraid to take risks because they know that taking risks is usually the only way for people to make new discoveries and take advantage of new opportunities. Of course, being willing to take risks doesn’t mean you should take all sorts of risks without thinking the matter completely.
Use both facts and intuition to analyze if the risk you’re about to take is sensible.
Don’t Stop AskingLastly, it’s important that you don’t stop asking questions. Geniuses are the way they are because they’re eager to learn things all the time. If you want to find out the same things they know, you need to question incessantly about everything.
Learning how to think like a genius and making a conscious effort to do so at all times will not only give you the rewards you desire but also cause you to become one yourself in time. Nothing in this world is impossible and that’s something only geniuses understand and believe in!