Argo

If Argo did anything besides make me grab a complete stranger in the movie theater for fear of the hostages lives, it was prove once and for all that Ben Affleck is a great director.  He has proven his stuff in the past with Gone Baby Gone and The Town, but Argo has affirmed that he can direct the crap out of anything.  It has the perfect mix of tension, action, drama, and laughs and may be one of the best movies I have seen all year.  You may expect a dry telling of a hostage negotiation you have never heard of, but Argo is a masterfully crafted story that will have you on the edge of your seat. 

The movie is a hodgepodge of emotions.  Going in I thought this would be a political drama mixed with action.  Here Affleck mixes everything from politics, to insider Hollywood humor, to a thriller-drama.  Anyone could have messed this movie up, but Affleck squeezes every possible drop of emotion out of every scene.   He captures the perfect feel of the movie, from panic in the embassy right down to a grainy camera work that movie goers would have seen in the late seventies.

Right as all the information seems overwhelming in DC, Ben Affleck's character Tony Mendez comes up with his plan to free the escaped hostages held up in a hostile Iran.  They plan to free the six that made it out of the embassy by going into Iran as a movie company looking to scout a desert location.  It is at this point that Mendez goes to Hollywood to create a back story for their fake movie.  There they meet two Hollywood producers played outstandingly by John Goodman and Alan Arkin.  Throughout the California scenes the dialogue is littered with inside Hollywood jokes that everyone in the audience is able to enjoy.  They create laugh out loud moments that help to relieve the audience from becoming too overwhelmed.  And while Goodman is good Arkin is great, he steals all the big laughs.  Laughs I wasn't even expecting to get when I first sat down to watch this movie.

If the first half of the movie is about the planning and the set-up then the last half of the movie is about the execution of the plan.  The drama and tension is set high in the first 10 minutes of the movie as the Iranians take over the U.S. embassy, so by the last 45 minutes of the movie I was literally on the edge of my seat and if I didn't biologically know I had to take in oxygen at least every three minutes I wouldn't be able to tell you if I breathed.  I didn't know this story at all before watching this movie, and since it was recently declassified chances are you didn't either.  My biggest suggestion is don't look anything up.  Allow this story to happen and allow yourself to experience the gamut of emotions that Mr. Affleck wishes you to experience.

The only mistake that Ben may have made is casting himself as the male lead.  I don't agree with all the criticism he has taken in the past about his acting, I actually believe he can be a good actor, especially when he is playing a d-bag.  Here he is supposed to be a patriotic stoic thinker.  And that is what he is, almost to a cardboard cut out precision.  He is so stiff in the movie, and it stands out even more by the cast he puts around him.  Even the hostages as unrecognizable actors do a better job than this household name.  I wonder if anymore could have been made of the movie if he had cast someone else in the lead, but hey he is directing, I'd probably cast myself too.

Argo has it all, and does a great job at hooking you into the material.  While every part of the movie was great, there was no point in which I was hoping they would cut to another scene.  I was engulfed in all of it.  Come award season expect some major praise coming for Argo.  A

Super 8

It won't be for everyone, it won't be for those looking for sci-fi action flick. It is a fair expectation from the few details we gathered from the trailer. In that regard it has every opportunity to let you down, but if you are looking for strong story telling with a loving nod to film makers delivered in the hands of children than you are in for a treat. It has been a while since a movie has come out without any marks of irony, sarcasm, and pop culture references leaving only a well done story about a simpler time, a simpler time of monster attacks.

If you are ever going to steal/pay homage to anyone's film career, you might as well get their blessing before you do so. That may have been what J.J. Abrams was doing when getting Steven Spielberg on as a producer. Perhaps the logic was Spielberg has dabbled with movies concerning aliens and children before so he may offer some sound insight. The truth is they had known each other for some time and both had been looking to do something semi-autobiographical about growing up and playing with Super-8 films. It shows on the screen, while J.J. may be in the directing chair you see a lot of Spielberg influence on the screen from the soft music, to the ambivalent close minded single parents, to the use of a crane to tilt up on a close-up of our hero's face. Spielberg's influence is all over this film, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The story is a convergence of two ideas that balanced each other out as neither was enough to fill out a movie. The original idea was one about kids growing up in the seventies and making movies, but the problem was they didn't believe the audience would care. With both having a clear interest in science fiction they then started brain storming about aliens, Area 51, train crashes, and getting it all caught on film. Suddenly they had two films rolled into one with both ideas being in their wheel house.

This movie has caught a lot of flak for never really explaining what it was about, and while the previous post doesn't ruin anything for you, it does give you a better idea of what you are dealing with than any of the trailers have. While neither director wanted to give away too much of the film the lack of details may be working against them as no one knows what to expect. Last time J.J. employed this technique was during 'Cloverfield' and while it did well in the box office it left many audience members with a bad taste in their mouth, probably from the motion sickness. So audiences may not be jumping at the chance to see this new science fiction collaboration.

Really the monster functions as a plot device to get to the real heart of the story. The best parts of the film center on the kids making their movie. The kids are all interesting characters and the interactions between them seem genuine. They play off each other well and it comes off very naturally. Plus Joel Courtney is a dead ringer for a young Henry Thomas, if the connections to ‘E.T.’ weren't clear enough already. Watching the filming process go was a treat. While everyone else in the town is wondering about the strange going ons, the kids are left to finish their project while analyzing the information they have gathered about the crash. I would be hard pressed to believe that any movie lover or movie buff didn't enjoy this movie for this part alone. I'm sure most, if not every film lover out there, played behind a camera before so they can appreciate the young cast doing all they can to create an interesting story. It was these small moments of pure joy that won me over.

The movie lives and dies by the child actors in the movie, and normally I hate kids in films as mostly I just find them to be annoying, but these kids did great. The only name of these rugrats that you may recognize is Elle Fanning, younger sister of Dakota, playing the cute girl from across the tracks. The other youngsters were all grabbed from obscurity, but are all perfectly cast into this endearing group.

The effects in the movie are great and all there for reasons even if they may run a little long, seriously how long can a train crash for. Also useful are all of Spielberg's trademark moves of camera angles and music. If you are going to mimic a style why not borrow the style of one of the greatest directors of all time. The soft music helps to enhance every emotion while each angle seems to reflect whether we are dealing with our kids or our troubling monster and the moment that surrounds them.

The opening hour of the movie was so enthralling I felt myself going through a full gamut of emotions. Reflecting back on the movie I find myself still smiling as the overbearing director/sidekick goes over film making 101 with his make-up artist/our protagonist and then watching as J.J. follows his own rules to a T, it would be rather embarrassing if he didn't. These emotions carried through as the second half of the story focused on our monster which wasn't as compelling. But the care and love of the story shows through the screen and makes it worth going beyond the shroud of mystery to see this movie. B+