Argo

One day after seeing Looper, a group of us went to see Argo. Evan was busy attending a friend's wedding (the reason he was in town at all), so I scrounged together eight other people. And when I say I, I actually mean Carolina, who invited more people, so it turned into a group of myself, Carolina, Trina, Kim, Steph, Sammie, Brian, Clement, and Steve. And this is why you should go see movies with me - you never know who else might show up.

We chose a different theatre than usual, and that may have been a mistake. For one thing, I have never seen so crowded a multiplex. It seemed like all the available space was taken up by people. For another, Argo was nearly sold out when I bought tickets, so we didn't get fantastic seats. It a bit too close to the screen. In fact, we were in the row directly in front of the main aisle. I've never sat there before, but apparently in UltraAVX theatres, that row of seats leans way back, so at least that was good.

Trailers for the movie included Cloud Atlas, Midnight's Children (I guessed it was Life of Pi, but only because it was set in India. Whoops), and Gangster Squad. There may have been another one, but I forget what it is. Zero Dark Thirty, maybe? I feel like I've watched that trailer with other people.

The movie opens with a brief history of early Iran, how various people came to power, and how the CIA instigated a coup to put a puppet in charge, and how he was overthrown. Now there's a Shah in charge, and things aren't that much better. Then there's a lot of shots of massive protests outside the American Embassy, soon followed by the Iranians breaking into the embassy and taking everyone hostage. However, six potential hostages slip out onto the streets, unnoticed, and take refuge in the Canadian Ambassadors house. All this is based on real life - the CIA documents were declassified during the Clinton Presidency.

For 70 days, nothing happens, except for the growing risk to the Canadian Ambassador and his wife. They tell the Canadian Government they want their guests out, and the government relays that message to the US, who gets their State department to put together 6 bicycles, so the hostages can bike 300 miles to the Turkish border. The CIA nixes that idea based on the fact that it's colossally stupid, and so Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) has to put together a different plan. The plan goes as thus: Mendez will pose as a movie maker doing location scouting in Iran, and the hostages will ostensibly be a Canadian film crew going along with him. Then they all fly out together. That's the plan, and like all plans explained in detail in movies, things are bound to go wrong.

First, Mendez knows nothing about making a movie, so he flies out to Hollywood to learn all about it. Here is the part that satirizes movies in general. They even made jokes that I didn't get until I read about them later. A bit of self-deprecation on Ben Affleck's part.

Anyway, the rest of the movie is about delay. Delays for the heroes. Delays for the villains. Basically, whoever wins is about whoever gets delayed least by the plot-contrived obstacles of time. That said, it's a very good movie. I wasn't expecting it to be action-y (since it was listed as a drama), and I was expecting it to be a bit funny (which is was), complete with unofficial tag-line and motto of "Argo [expletive] yourself".

So it's a blu-ray movie. Not quite enough of my style to firmly plant itself as a theatre movie, but I can honestly say that the worst part of the movie was the very end, when they panned over a series of science fiction toys, and had Boba Fett in there. And I was screaming in my head "BOBA FETT WAS NOT A TOY BACK THEN!" because The Empire Strikes Back wasn't to be released until a few months later. But other than that, excellent movie.