Argo

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, and Alan Arkin
Directed by Affleck
Year: 2012
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every now and then, I will find it necessary to break protocol to tend to my extremely large Netflix queue. This is one of those times.

Those who know me and have read this blog know I’m not a fan of Ben Affleck. This saddens my wife because she enjoys his work (a bit too much, but that’s another post) so when she got this from Netflix I shocked her by saying I wanted to watch it with her. Despite myself, I broke down Affleck’s career and I find myself liking his work more than I’m willing to admit. After seeing this film, I feel two things: he got robbed of a Best Director Oscar nomination (and probable win) and Affleck is probably better behind the camera than in front of it. That last one’s not a dig, it’s the truth.

The movie tells the true story of how a CIA operative helped free six American Foreign Services worked trapped at the Canadian diplomat’s house in Iran in 1980. The mission hinged on building a cover for the operative and the six Americans behind a fake movie location scouting mission. The story could have been cut-and-dry showing only the plan and its details, but Affleck did a good job on his end showing the complex emotional and political strife happening on both sides of the issue and the underlying cause of it all. Though some details were embellished for the sake of drama, the movie is a cohesive drama that delivers in both action, suspense, thrills and, most importantly, reality.

Most Valuable Actor: Alan Arkin makes any movie he is in better. He has a way to play a role that seems larger than life but does not pull focus from the film itself. Playing the role of aging Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, he plays the “juice” behind the fake movie to make it all seem plausible. If you watch this film and don’t believe he was the best part, you can Argo-fuck yourself.

Trailer:

The Campaign

Starring Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, and Jason Sudekis
Directed by Jay Roach
Year: 2012
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every now and then, I will find it necessary to break protocol to tend to my extremely large Netflix queue. This is one of those times.

Politics can be hilarious without even trying. I have witnessed many elections turn into a comedy of errors for one or both major candidates and it always provides a sense of delight. With this opportunity, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis had an opportunity to do a movie that took a good shot at politics portraying two very flawed candidates trying to be the lesser of the two evils. Unfortunately, in the search for humor a really stupid, unfunny movie broke out leaving me with out a clear winner.

The opportunity that was squandered was the angle of corporations buying elections for favorable candidates (something made legal under the Citizens United ruling) but it was reduced to a squabble between two morons with a lot of cussing, sex jokes, and pratfalls to bring it down even lower. Some might say I was asking too much from a Will Ferrell vehicle, but I held out hope. What was disappointing was that the rest of the cast kept trying to make this movie something more but the two leading men kept dragging it down, something I never thought I would say about two very funny guys. Perhaps they were trying too hard to appeal to a wide demographic and failed (and in that case this is a closet-comedic genius project) but on a basic level it fell flat. Don’t waste your time,

Most Valuable Actor: Though a bit player in this farce, Karen Maruyama, the Asian housekeeper for Galifianakis’ racist old southern father (Brian Cox) provides the only deserved laughs in the entire film as she is forced to use a haughty black-southern accent to remind the father of “the good old days.” Her 90 seconds of screen time make the movie almost worth it. Almost.

Trailer: