ACADEMY AWARDS: BEST PICTURE #7: ARGO

ARGO
**** out of ****

ARGO is currently the frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.  It was the the frontrunner to win even before the nominees were announced, but the hype stumbled some when director Ben Affleck failed to garner a nomination for Best Director.  Since then though, it's regained traction by winning nearly every other major award that typically foreshadow an Oscar win.  For reference to the most likely reason for Affleck's snub, see his work in the late 1990's and early 2000's. especially GIGLI, PEARL HARBOR, SURVIVING CHRISTMAS and most of everything else he acted in from 1998 through 2004.  Hopefully, one day, the Academy voters will find it in their hearts to forgive him, but seriously, those Michael Bay movies were really, really, really bad.
ARGO though: so what does it mean?  "Argo f--k yourself," as Alan Arkin, as director/producer Lester Siegel frequently declares throughout the film, and eventually becomes the catchphrase for the film's heroes.  Chris Terrio's Oscar-nominated script, the first feature screenplay to his credit, is based on the declassified C.I.A. mission to smuggle six U.S. diplomats out of Tehran, Iran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.  The film opens an a quick, sort of comic book-styled animated prologue that provides a great deal of background information on the Iranian political situation of 1979 and then begins an incredibly intense sequence depicting the Iranian storming of the U.S. embassy where all but six are taken.  These six diplomats escape and find secret refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador, Ken Taylor, played by Victor Garber, best known for playing Mr. Andrews in TITANIC (1997).
In addition to his directing and producing duties, Affleck stars as C.I.A. officer and "exfiltration" specialist, Tony Mendez, who is inspired while watching the atrociously boring BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES to put together a "fake movie" as a cover to the operation to rescue the escapees.  Mendez contacts PLANET OF THE APES movie makeup artist John Chambers, played with excellent panache by John Goodman, who introduces him to washed-up film producer Siegel.  Together, the trio buys a script for a science fiction b-movie adventure Argo, assemble a cast, crew and publicity gala, all in the name of a non-existent movie.  The first half of the film is largely a comedy, milking big laughs from Arkin and Goodman while roasting the hell out of Hollywood.  Then, as the operation goes into action in Iran and Medez vets the escapees in their roles as members of the film production scouting team, the movie shifts hard into thriller mode.
In terms of the rave reviews and Oscar hype, I'm not positive what exactly makes this one so unique, but it is extremely well-made, informative and gripping.  But maybe that's all it needs.  In any case, it would be no real crime if it won.
IF YOU LIKE ARGO, YOU MAY LIKE:  THE TOWN (2010), GONE BABY GONE (2007), ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (1976), JFK (1991)
DIRECTED BY: Ben Affleck
STARRING: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Victor Garber
Rated R for language and some violent images.