“’Rounders’ was mostly ignored on its debut….” Yet it “to some degree helped to spark the revival of [poker] in the larger culture”?

What larger culture, the one made up of people who ignored it? This seems unlikely.

“…his only hits since ‘Good Will Hunting’ had been supporting roles: ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘Oceans 11.”

What about your #1 choice, released in 1999? It did quite well, making back three times its budget. And Dogma, while on a smaller scale, made back three times its budget as well.

“Until these films came along, only a handful of Kevin Smith cameos had seen Damon display his comic chops….”

I don’t think Damon’s hilarious performance in Dogma could possibly be called a “cameo.” I mean not even the tiniest little bit.

“…the brilliance of the film is in the way that it keeps his motivations at length to begin with….”

Huh?

And I notice that no mention was made of the controversy of The Great Wall and the fact that it will also be released soon. Was this article a subtle reminder that we should like Matt Damon and not hold him responsible for it? (For the record, I do like Matt Damon, although I’m still not going to watch We Bought a Zoo.)

I really like this website and enjoy these pieces (I’m a big fan of the 50 Foreign Films and the Woody Allen ranking was great too), but this one just felt lazy. Especially at the end, with: “But to even glance at his IMDB page is to realize we could have made this list much longer,” followed by a few half-hearted examples. Face it, other than Dogma and Ryan you listed every movie of his worth seeing in your article. I mean, I’m sure he was good in We Bought a Zoo, too. Still….

If there’s better time, why do it now?

Carol in 30 Rock, he was so good! At least there’s Kimmy Schmidt on netflix