ARGO (Ben Affleck 2012) [Archive] - FilmLeaf

Chris Knipp

10-13-2012, 06:42 PM

Ben Affleck: ARGO (2012)

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BEN AFFLECK IN ARGO

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Ben Affleck's Argo takes on a remarkable CIA story, kept secret for 17 years, of how the six Americans who got out of the American Embassy in Tehran at the time of the Iranian hostage crisis were able to escape from their refuge in the Canadian embassy and fly back to America. The trick is a pretense, led by a CIA man played by Affleck himself, that some Canadians have come to Tehran scouting locations for a cheesy sci-fi movie. It's a big change for Affleck from the moody Boston crime stories that were the substance of his first two directorial efforts, and as a well-paced, nail-biting adventure, Argo succeeds admirably using old-school mainstream movie tactics. With a heavy emphasis on the "old-school" part. For me, this movie set in 1980 seems just a little too much like something from less sophisticated days. Argo has welcome splashes of humor from its Hollywood side represented by John Goodman (as a prosthetics expert who's helped the CIA with disguises) and Alan Arkin (as a salty aging producer), but otherwise the action and the characters are ultra-square. It's also pretty safe in America today to make a movie where the villains are Iranians, since there's been a major new campaign to demonize the country in recent years. (In fairness, Chris Terrio, the screenwriter, working from an article by Joshuah Bearman,does make clear why the young post-revolution Iranians hated America so much.)

The only thing you couldn't predict is that this movie would have turned out to be such a huge hit with American critics. But since the new Bourne episode fizzled, Taken 2 is a total repeat, and the new Bond isn't out Stateside yet, people were hungry for something big and exciting on the screen. Affleck is unquestionably dashing and handsome, if a bit stolid, in his late Seventies beard and fluffy hair. Couldn't Tony Mendez (Affleck's character) have had a single moment of self-doubt, though? When it's all over, Argo doesn't provide much to think about. But let's give Affleck credit: this is meant to feel old fashioned, and there's some sophistication in its allusions to period in its style. Affleck strove to give the film stock, camera movement, and handling of crowd scenes a Seventies or Eighties look, and he succeeds.

Maybe the best sequence, especially chilling in the wake of the recent attack on the US embassy in Libya, is the opening one showing realistically how the Iranian mob of demonstrators outside the US embassy in Tehran swarmed over the front gate and then entered in vast numbers, as staff panic inside, having sat there for days apparently without calling in adequate security, evacuated staff, or made up any real plan for an eventuality like this. The demonstrators pour in as staffers feebly struggle to burn or shred the documents. Details of the whole event aren't complete, but it still feels very detailed and specific to that moment.

It seems the seizure of the embassy has lasted for some time before officials in Washington become fully aware of the six staff members who've escaped and start brainstorming about an escape plan for them. CIA staffer Tony Mendez is the only expert on escapes present, and he scoffs at the suggestion of providing the six with bicycles so they can, in the winter, ride to the Turkish border. Deliver the six bikes, provide them with maps, one aide proposes. "Or you could just send them training wheels, and meet them at the border with Gatorade," Mendez scoffs. He hasn't a substitute plan yet; it's when he's talking long distance to his young son (at his estranged wife's house) and watching the same TV channel to feel closer to him that he gets the idea: a movie set in the desert. This is where he calls on John Chambers (John Goodman), and the funny meetings in California (set in period with a shot of the then still half-destroyed "HOLLYWOOD" sign) with Chambers and Lester Siegel (Arkin) take place, with the bits of funny dialogue about how being a phony fits you right in and how you could teach a monkey to direct a film in a day.

This part of the story is substantially true. Mendez really did collaborate with these guys to fake a movie production and make it look real by getting hold of a script, producing storyboards, and staging a reading before the press to get publicity about "Argo" being made, an idea Chambers and Siegel celebrate with the toast, "Argo fuck yourself." What I don't get is how this is supposed to work as cover if it's meant to be staged as a Canadian production. What may make this movie play less well in Canada is the way it fudges and underplays the actual role of the Canadians in getting the escapees out.

Not as badly as Argo will play in Iran, perhaps!

There will be some scenes of Chambers and Siegel later on, but we'll need to hang onto the Hollywood scenes' humor, because things get pretty nervous and sweaty when the focus shifts to the six Americans hiding out in the Canadian embassy and Tony Mendez's mission. This is where the movie, though again it's not particularly original, excels: in showing how scary it would have been for the six with Mendez to visit a crowded bazaar one day "scouting locations" to establish themselves as the skeleton film crew they've said they are, and then the next day to go out to the airport and, with great difficulty, go through three layers of security and make it into the plane. The movie slips in some predictable but effective tension-enhancers -- last-minute discoveries by the Iranian officials, a final chase at the airport.

All that difficulty didn't happen, though. The reality gaps are outlined in an article by David Haglund, "How Accurate Is Argo?" (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/10/12/argo_true_story_the_facts_and_fiction_behind_the_b en_affleck_movie.htm)The trip through the airport was "smooth as silk," in the real Mendez's actual words. But smooth as silk didn't fit the filmmakers' idea of an actioner. All the last segment is predictably more manipulative than technically accurate.

Also invented in Hollywood style are aspects of Mendez's character that give him a conventional story arc -- his outsider role at the CIA and his estrangement from his wife, allowing for his heartwarming redemption on both counts at the end. That didn't happen either, because it wasn't necessary. So when you watch this movie, you'll have fun, but put yourself into a square mood and don't ask too many questions. Personally I'm forced to ask why this may turn out to be more favored by the Academy at Oscar time than Moonrise Kinngdom, The Master, or Looper, though.

tabuno

10-14-2012, 04:32 PM

It's a nice opportunity to discuss Chris's commentary of this well-praised and it appears to Chris over-praised movie for being not original enough and wondering about the apparent omission of the central primary character's (the CIA operative directed and played by Ben Affleck) doubt about the op.

As this movie has my glowing appreciation in its well written, well edited story that reeks of emotive tension, I don't know if Chris can have it both ways. He wants to have originality and yet complains about the fictionalized portions that made the movie more compelling and interesting, at least for the audiences and other critics. What makes for a great movie is its ability to capture and compel an audience to feel the fictionalized events occurring on screen along with the human interest elements that are often left out or just tacked on as an afterthought. If one gets caught up in details, like Chris may have and as I did with my own technical problems with King Kong (2005), one misses the actual movie itself and Chris may have become lost in the trees being unable to see the beauty of the forest.

Personally, I experienced "a lot of doubt," with Ben Affleck's character when supposedly his operation is called off at the last minute and he must brood during the night with a bottle of liquor. Throughout the movie, there is an underlying sense of doubt about the likelihood of the CIA's operation succeeding and Ben's character is faced with doubt multiple times, especially in the crowded streets of Iran scene or where the American Embassy personnel have doubts themselves. For Chris to complain about this overt omission of a fretting, sweating, and doubting Ben character seems too far afield in that for such a Chris portrayal to occur would open up Affleck to just the opposite criticism of a CIA character who specializes in escapes being more of a weak character who in turn can somehow miraculously reassure seriously questioning US Embassy staff members and very suspicious Iran guards about his stamina and ability to genuinely lie well and be believed. This is a movie after all.

I don't know that Chris in this instance can have his cake and eat it too.

Chris Knipp

10-14-2012, 10:32 PM

He wants to have originality and yet complains about the fictionalized portions that made the movie more compelling and interesting, at least for the audiences and other critics.

I don't know that I was COMPLAINING about the fictionalized portions. I was merely pointing them out. But the fictionalized portions aren't original, they're just ways of jazzing up the film in a conventional way.

I don't know what you mean about having my cake and eating it too. A movie can be an effective crowd-pleaser but also square, xenophobic, and conventional. You seem to be dissatisfied whenever I praise some aspects of a film and criticize others. But only a great film can be wholly praiseworthy. ARGO is a rousing, enjoyable film, but not a great one.

The more I think back over ARGO the more I'm aware of Affleck's lack of depth. Affleck as an actor does not have an expressive face. Not in ARGO, anyway. He is not only forever confident and without plausible doubt, but he has no nuance as a personality. He just looks bland and confident: the same expression in nearly every shot. That night of self-doubt is based not on acting but a montage of him moving around the room with a whisky bottle. That isn't acting; it's photography. I am not the only one who has found this inadequate. You seem to be confusing the doubt that is cast on the operation by the government officials and felt by the six escapees with doubt shown to be felt by Tony Mendez. You are projecting the general doubt onto Mendez. It isn't reflected in his character as shown --the monntage with the whisky bottle notwithstanding.

This caper story is jaw-dropping and partly funny, but I think when the novelty wears off people will realize movies like SYRIANA (mess though that is) and Soderbergh's remake TRAFFIC are international political stories with much more nuance and complexity.

Watch Zemeckis' FLIGHT when it comes out. I saw it at the last day of the NYFF today (Oct. 14). This is a movie that starts out as a powerful action (plane crash) story but whose main character turns out to be interesting, richly, even disturbingly complex -- and this is in a mainstream movie too.

My review of FLIGHT is in the Festival Coverage section here: http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3341-New-York-Film-Festival-2012/page3#post28630

Johann

10-16-2012, 08:42 AM

You make some very solid points Chris, about Affleck and this movie.

I love the fact that Ben is directing, and being ambitious with his projects. I LOVE that.
He has the ability to direct. I think he will only get better and better.
I'm not so sure he should be acting anymore. But I won't lose my mind if he does either.
He's been in some genuine turkeys, and people remember it.
Argo has been hyped up pretty good and you say it was disappointing.
Could it have been a lock for a Best Picture nod if Affleck took more time to perfect his movie?
Because it sounds like he tried to make a great movie.
Liz Braun here in Canada gave it 4 stars, claiming it's a well-made work.

TABUNO: I'm glad you give us your straight thoughts. No subtext with you.

Johann

10-16-2012, 09:02 AM

In an unrelated but kind-of related note, Iran has just exposed Canada's human rights abuses to the world, with the help of First Nations Chiefs.

Chiefs were in Tehran last week to publicly speak out against the "economic sanctions" the Canadian government imposes on First Nations Reserves, sanctions that create "an artificial perpetual poverty".

I can't stand Iran's President, but on this issue, he's got teeth.
The conditions on First Nations Reserves is appalling- worse than third world conditions in some cases.
And Harper doesn't care.
Canadians don't care either.
On the yahoo news feed on this item, people commented with stuff like: "Anyone in Canada can become Great- even Natives. They should stop feeling sorry for themselves!" and "Why don't they develop their own land for business and stop asking for handouts???"

People like that need to be exterminated. Ignorant, un-informed and oblivious.
Natives have advantages (they never pay taxes in their whole lives- for good reason) and they have severe disadvantages (rampant alcoholism, extreme violence, limited employment opportunities, a Long History of being fucked over by the White Man, etc etc etc.)

Stephen Harper revels in certain groups suffering.
He has no humanity or he would remedy this National Shame immediately.
Harper only cares about money. His and his friends' money.
If you believe otherwise I have some tar sand oil to sell you.

Chris Knipp

10-16-2012, 06:16 PM

It is a great movie in its way. It's fun, it's exciting, it's a surprising little known story. It is just conventional, without sophistication except arguably in the humorous Hollywood section (Arkin and Goodman), and as I have said, Affleck is sort of a courageous blank, with a blank expression. They have a good screenplay but it's a bit by-the-numbers. The big minus in terms of accuracy may not be the jazzing up of the final minutes of the escape but the underplaying of Canada's role, which apparently was much greater. My Iranian friend told me that at tahe time an Iranian cabinet official virulently attacked Canada for their assistance, said they were not as big devils as the Americans. I will be interested to see what the sizable and generally well-off Us Iranian community will think about this rather xenophobic picture. They may like it since many of them have no use for the revolutionaries, and in many cases left the country after the Shah did. I can't really think of one sympathetic Iranian in the picture, and there are plenty, though no real name characters.

I am still wondering why this has such an astronomical critical rating, up there with Moonrise Kingdom and The Master. It's not in that league artistically.

tabuno

10-17-2012, 04:03 AM

I don't think that the exclusive focus on a primary character's performance is the be all and end all of judging a movie. Chris's efforts to downplay Ben Affleck's performance, playing the primary character is overstated I feel. In some respects, to require a stand out performance in a number of instances is to allow a actor or their performance to outshine the movie, to the movie's detriment. Ensemble efforts where there isn't this fine laser beam attention to the nuance of primary characters, but the tone, rhythm, the imparting of the plot, the visceral emotions dripping off the screen, the riveting attention, the compelling story the grips the audience more than makes up for any perhaps too much reliance of Ben Affleck's superstar performance. Instead it is the balance and weight given to each character role and place in the movie that can elevate a movie to greatest. A great movie doesn't necessarily need to have best actor or best actress performance, it is the movie itself that calls forth its essential qualitative integrity and perhaps, Ben Affleck, as director should be given credit for accomplishing just that instead being in a position to highlight his own performance.

Movies that I feel a great that show good balance without the focus on singular performances include:

Fate is the Hunter (1964).
The Breakfast Club (1985).
Saving Private Ryan (1998).
Black Death (2010).
Fail-Safe (1964).
Black Hawk Down (2001).
Traffic (2001).
Super 8 (2011).
Dune (1984).
The Company (2003).
The Great Escape (1963).
Calendar Girls (2003).
Passengers (2008).
United 93 (2006).
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).
The Air I Breathe (2007).
Chicago (2002).
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
Planet of the Apes (1968).
The Blair Witch Project (1999).
American Beauty (2000).
Stranded (2001).
Being John Malkovich (2000).
Bobby (2006).
Jarhead (2005).
Munich (2005).
The Joy Luck Club (1993).
Across The Universe (2007).
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005).
Pulp Fiction (1994).
The Usual Suspects (1995).
The Tree of Life (2011).
Excaliber (1981).
Forbidden Planet (1956).
THX-1138 (1971).
Brazil (1985).
Crash (2005).
The Sixth Sense (1999).
Mama Mia!!! (2008).
Blade Runner (1982).
Alien (1979).
Inception (2010).
Money Ball (2011).
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007).
Doctor Zhivago (1965).
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Chris Knipp

10-17-2012, 09:26 AM

Of course there has to be balance and there is a lot going on in ARGO involving other characters besides Tony Mendez. There's no escaping Tony Mendez is the main character in ARGO and its hero, though. This is indicated by how many of the scenes he's in, really all the important sequences except the Hollywood ones scenes when he's in Iran. And his performance is unvarying and flat in all of them. To excuse Affleck by saying the movie "is not about a singular stand out performance" (which is hardly true) is not an acceptable excuse for a lackluster, un-nuanced performance by Affleck, who's unmistakably the hero of ARGO as well as its director.

I don't think there is such a thing as a superstar performance, by the way. There is a superstar and there is a performance. Affleck is famous but not a superstar, and being a superstar doesn't necessarily mean being a good actor anyway.

I appreciate your enthusiasm for ARGO, shared by many. It's an effective, well-made mainstream action movie about based on an unusual event. It may be Oscar material. It still seems fundamentally uninteresting, xenophobic, simplistic, a distortion of historical events, and not a cool and original movie like LOOPER or even FLIGHT. Certainly not like MOONRISE KINGDOM or THE MASTER. Being effective entertainment doesn't mean all elements are perfect and your advocacy of the movie would be helped, not hurt, if you acknowledged it has some flaws.

You could have gotten by with listing fewer films as examples of ones "without the focus on singular performances." Brad Pitt not centrally important in TREE OF LIFE or MONEYBALL? These, two of his career best, not "singular performances"? Omar Sharif and Julie Cristie not what we all remember from DR. ZHIVAGO? Harrison Ford not the dominant figure and voice of BLADE RUNNER? Jake Gyllenhaal not central to the action in JARHEAD and its emblematic figure? You could have fooled me. You may claim that among these performances or characters some are self-effacing in some way, but that doesn't make them any less attention-getting or less clearly in the spotlight in their respective movies.

MUNICH is perhaps your best example, because it's a similar type of film. Of course when one thinks of it one immediately thinks of Eric Bana.

Chris Knipp

10-17-2012, 12:10 PM

When evaluating a movie about historical events it's worthwhile to hear what participants have to say about it. The new article in the NY Times, "Halting a Fade to History for an Ordeal in Iran (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/movies/argo-as-seen-by-the-iran-hostage-crisis-survivors.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)," is instructive.

The first important point is that the main event at that time, the hostage crisis, isn't the subject, only a "footnote," a sidelight to it. The actual prolonged holding prisoner of everyone else, the other 54 Americans, in the US Embassy when the demonstrators "posing as students" entered the compound and took it over, is not Hollywood material. Reactions to this from former hostages differed. "Let's let [the 'Houseguests' six] "have their time," one former hostage conceded to the reporter. "A movie about the 444 days, he said, would not supply Hollywood-type excitement. 'It would be the National Geographic channel,' he said." The article suggests that typically people tend to be so happy to be made the subject of a move at all (even peripherally) they don't mind distortions or an off-center focus on events. And there are legal reasons the former hostages, who are aging and dying out, want to be kept in the world's consciousness any way they can. They've been trying to sue for damages from Iran for decades, but the US courts have not supported them, the Times article notes.

Others interviewed for the article were more critical of ARGO as "history."
Barry Rosen, another former hostage, had a different perspective. He said the crisis, from November 1979 to January 1981, was no more than “a point of departure” for the movie, which he called a version of “Mission: Impossible.” Mr. Rosen, who has begun work on a documentary himself, added, “If people use this to understand the hostage crisis, then they know nothing about the hostage crisis.”

Now in the movie, key aspects are altered in a way that focuses on a single protagonist -- a star.
It also has lots of gritty detail about things that did not actually happen, like a trip by a solo C.I.A. officer (he had accomplices), assignments as movie crew members as cover identities (the C.I.A. offered a variety of covers) and brave but passive Canadian Embassy workers. (They turned out to provide lots of help, according to the participants.) But almost no one seems to mind, mostly because the film tells the story at all. Note the narrowing in the screenplay to
(1) one CIA person instead of multiple ones; (2) the US rather than the US and Canada; (3) CIA use of one (movie crew) cover identity instead of multiple covers. Affleck himself has said in an interview that the movie-within-a-movie played well when pitching ARGO to studios, "maybe...because it speaks to the narcissism of Hollywood."

All these changes are shifts away from what would really be non-narcissistic, non-US-centric "good balance without the focus on singular performances." In the movie mockery is made of strategies proposed to the CIA other than the movie cover, and then at the last minute officials order the whole mission aborted. Mendez/Affleck's decision to go ahead with the mission anyway (after some late-night whisky "doubt") puts more focus on his courage and initiative, heightening the focus on him. No information supports that this sudden move to abort and Mendez' overriding of it actually happened either; it's another way of making the action more of a nail-biter.

Given the unseen presence of former President Jimmy Carter in a final voiceover it's no surprise that Carter's failed "Operation Eagle Claw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw)" rescue attempt isn't mentioned -- though surely it should have been since ARGO takes pains otherwise to provide the basic historical background -- about the Shah, Khomeini, the demonstrators, the hostages' final release after 444 days. The humiliation of that failed mission was a major reason Carter didn't win a second term, so it must have been deemed too unflattering to include. The movie focuses instead on a glamorized, heightened version of a single bright spot of the period.

You can argue that all this works as a movie. And as I've said repeatedly in many ways it does. But the various pasted-in suspense-heightening plot devices, particularly toward the end, are transparent and routine efforts to up the adrenaline level. Which is fine in a B Action picture. In a film about actual history, it's more questionable.

tabuno

10-31-2012, 02:28 AM

"It's an effective, well-made mainstream action movie about based on an unusual event. It may be Oscar material. It still seems fundamentally uninteresting, xenophobic, simplistic, a distortion of historical events, and not a cool and original movie like LOOPER or even FLIGHT." states Chris about Argo.

What Chris experienced as "fundamentally uninteresting," I found riveting, compelling, sitting on the seat of one's pants experience with the sweating intensity of Fail Safe (1964), The Three Days of Condor (1975); Black Hawk Down (2001); United 93 (2006); Munich (2005); and Inception (2010). What Chris experienced as "xenophobic," I found strongly pertinent and relevant in the context of the hatred that is occurring throughout the world today. What Chris experienced as "simplistic," I found very detailed, nicely nuanced and focused, tightly visceral on the singular theme of escape and the frustrating bureaucratic politics that resonates deeply with the American views of the current problems and frustration occurring in our governmental system today. What Chris experienced as "a distortion of historical events," was a legitimately well-executed literary license in producing a fictionalized drama targeted towards audience appreciation of the art of film not as Chris appears to be holding onto some misplaced standard for historical accuracy afforded mostly to documentary films. What Chris experienced as "not a cool and original movie," I experienced as the elevation of traditional storytelling of an event using to great effect film principles that brought to life a rich and engrossing story, without the need to experiment and try something so new as to distort the essence of the story for its own artistic, self-serving sake, something that happened with Sean Penn's direction of Into The Wild (2007).

oscar jubis

02-07-2013, 01:35 AM

During the Golden Era, Hollywood would produce 20 or so pictures per year as expertly made as Argo. Nowadays, films that are truly emblematic of Hollywood's impeccable craftsmanship and mastery of storytelling are rare. Such pliable, enduring gifts! I appreciate how difficult it is to smoothly inject so much humor into a suspenseful drama like Argo and maintain the right balance between characterization and action. This film is simply flawless. Every shot is there for a purpose. One may not like what it is doing. It may not be "your cup of tea". But Argo thoroughly achieves its ambitions. It displays a narrative economy that makes it "easy" to watch and to "get lost" in it thanks in part to that old-fashioned but still wonderful "invisible" editing that has always been characteristic of the dream factory.

tabuno

02-07-2013, 02:04 AM

I appreciate oscar jubis's commentary because it helps to flesh out Argo's movie experience for me..."get lost" in the movie really describes my experience while watching the movie...at some point I lost awareness of even watching the movie and instead found myself just experiencing the movie without thinking or judging the movie, I was with or in the movie.

I also didn't capture the humor of this movie as a separate and prominent element even for commentary sake, but now that oscar has point out the funniness of this movie, I now begin to recollect and appreciate even more that balance and the editing that this movie displays.

oscar jubis

02-07-2013, 02:26 AM

Great. You reflected my main thoughts about Argo in your first post when you stated how well written and well edited it is and how it all serves "to capture and compel an audience to feel..."

Chris Knipp

02-07-2013, 07:30 AM

You are quite right, Oscar. ARGO is an old fashioned smooth performance on various levels like an old Hollywood picture and it has proven to be both a crowd pleaser and a general critical success. Its drama, suspense, humor and triumph are meted out seamlessly as needed, just as in the good old days.

The only trouble is that we don't live in those good old days anymore, and American triumphalism, ethnocentrism, and jingoism have taken on a sinister new cast now that the US is the sole reigning superpower waging perpetual war and daily extending its giant tentacles to every continent on the globe. It's disappointing that Affleck, who did movies focused on working class Boston, should have shifted to one that disregards the world that we live in and that he grew up in and adopted instead a narrow, limited viewpoint on international politics. ARGO provides no real insight into what was really going on in Iran in the Seventies.* Its main characters have little depth, and it's basically an escape-to-the-airport movie.

From another era, yes, but an era we no longer live in, when this viewpoint is no longer okay. This is why I can't get on the ARGO bandwagon. Mind you, even if its politics were despicable, like those of D.W. Griffith or Leni Riefenstahl, if he had made a great movie, I'd be obligated to applaud. But ARGO is not a great movie. It's spoiled by its shallow characters and the obviously trumped up suspense of its finale, and I don't feel that obligation.

ARGO's received studio smoothness is generic, not the touch of a master, with the individuality Affleck might have achieved if he'd stuck to his roots. As Guillaume Orignac wrote in the French review Chronic'art, in his book Affleck gives us "a dab of Pakula, another of Pollak, some Greengrass and some Michael Mann. This is not a signature, it's a milkshake without alcohol or steam, the minimum degree of what is acceptable, now taken to be, due to the pathetic level of the present era, the ultimate in Hollywood mise-en-scene."

*For the text of a Progressive Radio Network piece on how ARGO and Affleck ignore the real context of the Iran hostage crisis: go here. (http://prn.fm/2013/01/14/waking-up-to-irans-real-history/#axzz2KDKrQbzf)

Johann

02-07-2013, 09:25 AM

I have held off on seeing ARGO. I think it will be a renter.
I haven't read anything that makes me rush out to see it.

I can tell Oscar came to the film on it's own terms and that is awesome, but Chris came to it on it's own terms and the terms of the geo-political landscape of today and the days it takes place in. This is important. Did Affleck give us a time-capsule with no regard for Iran's progress or regress? Did he miss an opportunity to make a movie with WAY more impact?
I will see the movie eventually to confirm, but I think Chris may be right in that Affleck ignored the real context in favor of "flawless craft"

tabuno

02-07-2013, 08:13 PM

It appears from Chris's most recent commentary that he has muddied the boundaries between what is good quality film-making and the moral, political assessment of the contents of a movie. Just because geo-political times have changed, doesn't mean a movie can't be a classic...take any period movie and based on Chris's comments, they would most likely fail the relevancy test by today's standard.

While it is impossible oftentimes to separate out what constitutes a great movie from what they have to say, how pertinent and relevant to the times it is, and how they say it to a new generation, it is important that this website maintain a clear in its distinction between being an editorial opinion page for the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal and judging am movie verses the American Film Institute or Golden Globes awarding a movie on the basis of say great cinematic work. Instead I return to the AFI's criteria to remind us:

critical recognition
Popularity Over Time
Historical Significance
Cultural Impact
Major Award Winner

There's little doubt that Argo has received critical recognition and major award winnings, has had a cultural impact and sustained popularity at the moment. Whether or not the movie will has a sustained historical and its popularity with will continue only time will tell.

cinemabon

02-07-2013, 08:48 PM

Flawless, Oscar? Really? I had no idea you liked this film that much and yet you did not review it. I find the film full of flaws - both historic and in execution. This drooling over Ben Affleck this year is a bit of puzzlement to me because I was far from enthralled with this movie on so many levels I should at least mention a few.

Camera placement - the documentary effect is used so often by filmmakers that it has become routine. I see nothing innovative here. Jerking a hand-held or steadycam through a crowd or in a car chase is supposed to impose heightened suspense. But it is not very good cinematography and makes editing a film difficult later. Long continous shots with a steady-cam in a crowd have also been done to death, again nothing new, and I grew bored with them after awhile. If Affleck is out to make a name for himself, he should at least establish a style of filmmaking that is unique. We've discussed filmmakers on this website (and I refer to directors) whose style is easy to follow. Take the work of Robert Altman, a director who was one of the first to introduce the handheld camera and simulate the documentary feel, very well done in "MASH" as well as "Nashville" which is seldom discussed any longer but is one of the true innovative films of the last generation.

Story - Affleck must have known that when he was playing with the events of such a sensative subject and altering them for dramatic effect he would draw flak. Everyone (and by that I mean the Hollywood community and most Americans) seems to be ignoring this fact. He's really pissed some people off. However, he got a green light from the media outlets. I don't know why his film got such a pass. I liked his script for "Good Will Hunting." I also liked the program he set up to encourage young directors. I like him as a person. I like his acting. He's a good actor. But I don't find anything in this movie that puts it above so many mediocre films this year when the field has so many other movies that were better. Was he snubbed at the Academy Awards. Tab thinks so. I don't.

Please educate me in the Affleck flawless style, how his editing, his lighting, his camera placement, his actors, his story is so much better than "Life of Pi" or "Lincoln" or "Silver Linings Playbook" or "Amour" because I'm in the dark after seeing this film and coming away thinking it was ok, but far from flawless.

Chris Knipp

02-07-2013, 09:25 PM

Well, tabuno, in your somewhat (to say the least) annoying headline, "Chris is Allowing his personal beliefs to intrude on the judgment of movie quality," you seem not to have read my comment carefully. Then you misstate the whole matter at hand.
Just because geo-political times have changed, doesn't mean a movie can't be a classic I said that, more or less; but that misstates the whole issue I was bringing up. ARGO is not disappointing to me politically because times have changed. It simply shows little awareness of the geo-political times then or now; the changes in between the hostage crisis period and now are not the point. Second, I acknowledged that a politically (and morally) mistaken, indeed abhorrent, film can be an acknowledged classic, prime examples I alluded to being Griffith's BIRTH OF A NATION and Riefmanstahl's TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. But ARGO is very far from being on that level, so I don't fee obligated to cast aside my objections to ARGO's political naivete and jingoism. I really am dissstisfied with ARGO niot for political reasons, though those don't help, but because of the cheap, obvious way it drums up suspense with hokey complications in the last couple of reels. ARGO is a slick crowd-pleaser on a very naive level. In addition, if you are a thinking person, you may object to having such serious matters dealt with in such a superficial way. Better watch a BOURNE movie, which is technically and intellectually more sophisticated, but doesn't drag you down the jingoistic flag-waving, Canadian-participation-ignoring road.

Frankly I don't know what Affleck's politics are. I don't think they come much into play. But as the piece from Progressive Radio Network that I cited above points out, Affleck's remarks in interviews show he has got a simplistic, confused view of what was going on at the time of the January 1980 rescue known to actual students of the history as the "Canadian Caper. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Caper)" I am not so much interested in politics as I am in an accurate understanding of cultures and of the nitty gritty of historical events.

tabuno

02-08-2013, 12:30 AM

I don't think that Chris can have it both ways logically. The slippery slope of artistic license that either a classic movies like BIRTH OF A NATION or TRIUMPTH OF THE WILL are given a pass for being "mistaken" or "abhorrent" or that a great movie must adhere to some strict standard of xultural understanding while the same can't be said of ARGO and then complain about the lack of cultural understanding, "jingoist flag-waving, Canadian-participation-ignoring road." Maybe Chris might be willing to make a case for the Iranian's film that is being made in response to ARGO which I would think would be very culturally appropriate and accurate for their standards. By Chris definition ARGO might be considered classic just because of this simplistic drummed up suspense...that's what the creative art is all about, drumming up stuff that captivates the audience which apparent many, many, many critics have supported and that's perhaps the reason ARGO has won some any BEST PICTURE awards as well as the audiences. It's strange to be on the side of the public and many art critics this time around since I've usually ended up in the dump heap of odd minority of best film selections.

tabuno

02-08-2013, 01:28 AM

cinemabon requested "Please educate me in the Affleck flawless style, how his editing, his lighting, his camera placement, his actors, his story is so much better than "Life of Pi" or "Lincoln" or "Silver Linings Playbook" or "Amour" because I'm in the dark after seeing this film and coming away thinking it was ok, but far from flawless."

I appreciate cinemabon's technical critical review as it pertains to the cinematic components of film review (he certainly lives up to his user ID). However, my layman response won't be nearly has acceptable nor readily persuasive for him.

It's possible that how one came into the movie feeling, may also influence the filters used to experience the film, so it would be interesting to note how cinemabon really felt about ARGO even before he stepped into the darkened theater.

I really can't say unfortunately whether the editing, the lighting, the camera placement, the actors, the story had what if any influence on my mesmerized reaction to ARGO. In order to do so I would have to revisit and watch ARGO again but this time with a deliberate intent to not experience the movie but to become a distant observer with a list of elements to carefully watch for as cinemabon has so carefully outlined above. But this I have not done yet.

Maybe this is a case of subliminal messages or something. Nevertheless I was entertained, I was captivated and felt for the characters, I felt the urgency and the dramatic raw language spilling out, it even felt like one of those life and death movies - where the audience really worried about the outcome even though this was history, the reality of the outcome was already known and thus being so, it is a testament of just how good this movie was even if the ending was assured. Perhaps like sheep, for those of us not immune to the power of this movie that like sheep we were somehow hypnotized like the evil dictator Germany's Hitler somehow forced his will on his people, Ben Affleck has also accomplished to hypnotize many in the audience into a mindless state where by where we just experienced the movie along with the characters and began to react as if we ourselves were part of it, thus coming to embraced to the movie's energy and dramatic and life-threatening experience as our own. If so, who could argue against just how good this movie was to us, for it would be as if we had to betray our own experiences or own senses of having had such a thrilling immersive, emotional Disneyland ride that just went on and on and on...

tabuno

02-08-2013, 01:44 AM

One storyline that really had been upset with Lincoln in response to cinemabon's wanting some comparison with ARGO was how Lincoln's wife was portrayed by Sally Field. I came into the movie unlike Sally Field with the impression from my reading that Mary Todd Lincoln was mentally ill whereas Sally sincerely felt she was not. It was such a distraction having felt that Mrs. Lincoln was such a politically carefully safely portrayed character that like Chris Knipp with Les Miz or Argo perhaps, that history was being so distorted as to betray the essence of the movie. It was my understanding that instead Mrs. Lincoln really mad both the staff and President Lincoln's life a hell. However, this point is one that I haven't mentioned before in my criticism of Lincoln and instead have focused primarily on its severe lack of background story of the characters, lack of sufficient character development and the severe shortage of time devoted to this entire period which justly required almost two movies, such as a mini-series on television - six hours. When compare to past epic movies such as Lincoln, I've noted elsewhere how short shrift the entire product ultimately became. The earlier scene were just too short and created an imbalance for me of scene selection and editing.

As for cinemabon's mention of "Life of Pi" or "Silver Linings Playbook," they both made it to the top ten of my movies list for this year, I haven't seen Amour. With "Life of Pi" I have to admit that I didn't want to see it, the trailers seemed to be over glorified and nothing I hadn't really seen before. Nevertheless, I ended up going by myself, and was quite impressed with the movie. I can't really rule out that my subjective resistance to seeing this movie and my movie preferences didn't influence the ultimate outcome of how I rated this movie - it's almost perhaps a subjective preference in how to place "Life of Pi" compared to ARGO. With "Silver Linings Playbook," I actually rated it just a bit better than ARGO ultimately, and I have a small desire to see "Silver Linings Playbook" win best picture over ARGO, but perhaps that's because I'm a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who works in the mental health counseling field. It so hard to separate one's own personal bias from how I view movies.

oscar jubis

02-08-2013, 02:04 AM

Flawless, Oscar? Really? I had no idea you liked this film that much and yet you did not review it.
I have been doing more essay work rather than reviews in the past couple of years. Now I'm beginning to work on the dissertation, which I hope to complete by December. Most of what I read about new movies is what you guys write here. I will continue to post comments about current films (which I typically catch later than you) but not reviews.

I find the film full of flaws - both historic and in execution.
Camera placement - the documentary effect is used so often by filmmakers that it has become routine. I see nothing innovative here. Jerking a hand-held or steadycam through a crowd or in a car chase is supposed to impose heightened suspense. But it is not very good cinematography and makes editing a film difficult later. Long continous shots with a steady-cam in a crowd have also been done to death, again nothing new, and I grew bored with them after awhile. If Affleck is out to make a name for himself, he should at least establish a style of filmmaking that is unique." (cinemabon)

Perhaps I don't know enough of the historical record on the events depicted to judge the film on historic accuracy. So I yield to your opinion on that but I'm not sure you're serious when you mention flaws in the execution of the film. However, you're right to decry the lack of innovation or originality. I did not make those claims for Argo. Instead, I think of it the way I think of Casablanca as a film emblematic of an "invisible" seamless style and storytelling strategies that achieved "classical" status during the Golden Age and continue to demonstrate vitality and resourcefulness.

Please educate me in the Affleck flawless style, how his editing, his lighting, his camera placement, his actors, his story is so much better than "Life of Pi" or "Lincoln" or "Silver Linings Playbook" or "Amour" because I'm in the dark after seeing this film and coming away thinking it was ok, but far from flawless.
I did not compare Argo to other movies. But, I like Lincoln...roughly the same. I will see Amour tomorrow. I have not watched the other movies you mention.

cinemabon

02-09-2013, 06:57 PM

I can think of more recent films than "Casablanca" when it comes to thinking of a "flawless" film or one I would consider a high standard in filmmaking. First to mind is practically anything by Stanley Kubrick (not a big fan of "Barry Lyndon"). Next, "The Godfather I and II" (those would be works by Coppola). Several "foreign" films are high on that list, too... going with directors like Lean, Renoir, Fellini, Kurosawa, and Bergman among other more recent directors. Add the lifetime of works by Hitchcock and Wyler, Ford and Wilder, Sturges and Cukor, Allen and Powell. (you might even throw in Zemekis and Spielberg!)

Is Affleck in their league? Perhaps in his mind, but not in mine. If that is the standard you wish to hold up and say this film is flawless, you'll have to do better than that.

cinemabon

02-09-2013, 07:08 PM

FYI - I've been on the road recently running my son around to various universities so he can audition. Suffering from lack of sleep, road weary, and a feeling of being "mired in malaise" (I don't know if you recall the famous speech)

cinemabon

02-09-2013, 07:35 PM

Speaking of directors, this has come to my attention and is worth noting...

http://www.thewrap.com/awards/column-post/how-david-o-russell-grew-become-ultimate-actors-director-76856

Chris Knipp

02-09-2013, 08:09 PM

cinemabon, your loyalty to the cause of our discussions is admirable.

I'm glad as that article suggests that David O. Russell's Hollywood stock is soaring.

cinemabon

02-11-2013, 08:20 AM

BAFTA honors Affleck with Best Pix and Director

Best Film: "Argo"
Outstanding British Film: "Skyfall," Sam Mendes, Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan
Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: Bart Layton (director), Dimitri Doganis (producer), "The Impostor"
Film Not in the English Language: "Amour"
Documentary: "Searching for Sugar Man"
Animated Film: "Brave," Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman
Director: Ben Affleck, "Argo"
Original Screenplay: "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino
Adapted Screenplay: "Silver Linings Playbook," David O. Russell
Leading Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln:
Leading Actress: Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables"
Original Music: "Skyfall," Thomas Newman
Cinematography: "Life of Pi," Claudio Miranda
Editing: "Argo," William Goldenberg
Production Design: "Les Miserables," Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson
Costume Design: "Anna Karenina," Jacqueline Durran
Make Up & Hair: "Les Miserables," Lisa Westcott
Sound: "Les Miserables," Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Jonathan Allen, Lee Walpole, John Warhurst
Special Visual Effects: "Life of Pi," Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer
Short Animation: "The Making of Longbird," Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson
Short Film: "Swimmer," Lynne Ramsey, Peter Carlton, Diarmid Scrimshaw
EE Rising Star Award: Juno Temple
Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award: Tessa Ross

cinemabon

02-11-2013, 10:46 PM

I just found this review on IMDB and was so impressed by it, I wanted to share it with you. It speaks to me...

Argo - Puzzling Success for a disaster of a film

"I understand it may flatter US patriotism, or recall memories to those who remember the events and I don't even dispute Affleck's directorial and acting skills. However, this is a completely superfluous, empty and desperately predictable movie. The historical inaccuracy has been pointed out by several other reviews: no, things didn't happen that way, the Canadians deserve much more credit in that operation than this portrayal ever shows. Notwithstanding the role of the US in sustaining a puppet dictatorship during the Shah and actively interfering in a sovereign country's domestic politics for decades prior to the events. But this is only a secondary concern: historical accuracy is not the most important factor for a fiction, even when it's based on actual events. What I dispute is how incredibly shallow and predictable the storytelling is: cliché anonymous US CIA antihero agent with issues at home goes to a dangerous place, saves innocent lives, takes risks against orders, comes out victorious to reunite with his family. Who on Earth cares, seriously? And no, the fact that it's based on historical events - and therefore you can't argue with history - is not an answer precisely because the script takes so many liberties with the events. I don't care about the liberties taken with history but I care about the ability to portray convincingly the complexity of human emotions and relationships. There is none here. And make no mistake, a fictitious 2 min car chase at an airport is the closest you ll get to see some emotions (ie. anguish at being killed by the revolutionary guards). The characters come out of a cardboard factory, they have zero critical self-reflection about their own role in interfering with a foreign country's domestic affairs, total solidarity with each other and pure love for their partners. This is a Disney version of human psyche, a dishonest and partial historical account and a debauchery of time, energy and money ill spent. Affleck is an able actor and I hope will prove more convincing in his future efforts as a director, but what really baffles me is not the mediocrity of this film, it's the uncritical enthusiasm of so many for it."

szezonmeister from Serbia

Chris Knipp

02-11-2013, 11:44 PM

szezonmeister from Serbia is very harsh, but this is substantially my view and what I said. I remember vividly watching the movie in a Third Avenue NYC cinemplex, and how cheated I felt and disappointed in the raves that had been following the movie since Toronto (though it debutred at Telluride). With those raves came the caveat that it was a very conventional movie. But I hadn't expected it to be so shallow. I'd expected Affleck to project more gravitas. All this just is a lesson to you guys: don't just take the AA so seriously. Don't take any of these awards so seriously. Trust your own assessments. If they correspond to the statuette distributions, fine. But don't convince yourself God has spoken. See more movies and remember how many are good and how few are great.

oscar jubis

02-12-2013, 01:45 AM

I get it alright: Argo doesn't deserve best picture honors. It has been overrated in some quarters. However, I detect a reactionary critical posture that overreacts by failing to acknowledge the qualities that inspire the overpraise. Argo tells an involving, interesting story, new to the movies but does so in a conventional way. I've spent a decade pushing originality in these forums and championing many unique (eccentric?) films but the fact that a film adheres to genre conventions and notions of editing, camera placement and movement that defined Hollywood filmmaking does not make it bad. I think that Argo's storytelling style and quality craftsmanship are a tribute to the classical virtues of American filmmaking. These films are rare nowadays. Clint Eastwood's films give me a similar feeling.

Chris Knipp

02-12-2013, 01:56 AM

You have made these claims and been called on them before in our discussion of ARGO, Oscar.

Argo tells an involving, interesting story, new to the movies but does so in a conventional way.

What's "new to movies"? This particular incident? But as the chap from Serbia points out, what's so significant about it? Not much. And it's told falsely, about the Canadians and about the escape to the airport, which in fact went smooth as silk.

I think that Argo's storytelling style and quality craftsmanship are a tribute to the classical virtues of American filmmaking.

Cinemabon took that to be a howler. Have you proven him wrong? No, you're just re-asserting the claim you made before.

cinemabon

02-12-2013, 10:58 AM

Some of the conventional modus operandi include: building a false sense of dramatic tension by having an official look over a passport with skepticism before eventually handing it back and cutting to worried looks on people's faces (and how many times have we seen that in a movie). Another involved putting in a car chase scene in which the threat of the characters loosing their lives was the end result (another very conventional device that becomes redundant after a while). The market scene (not even based on actual events because it never happened) to draw out dramatic tension when we know the airport scene has yet to unfold. What was it's point? These are valid objections to the basic aspect of filmmaking that competes against other efforts with more originality this year. Does a conventional film that appeals to widespread patriotism at the cost of manipulating history for dramatic effect make a film flawless or even great? I don't need to answer that question because I am not defending any stance I've taken that "Argo" is a classic film.

If this were an obscure historical event in which audiences knew nothing of the eventual outcome, I can see putting in elements to help tell the story. But when you reduce the entire episode, hardly removed by a generation, to a cartoonish representation of one dimensional enemies and a series of false premises then I find it puzzling (as do others) why so much should be made of such a conventional offering by an actor who wants to be a director (and he's no Charles Chaplin/Orson Welles/Woody Allen/Rob Reiner/Ron Howard by a long shot).

Johann

02-12-2013, 11:58 AM

Nobody wants to celebrate Affleck's jump to directing and winning awards?
Such sourpusses.
Does ARGO deserve all this criticism? The worst complaint is that it's conventional?
Send Affleck to Attica!
YOU make a movie and win a DGA award if it's so easy.
Onwards and Upwards Benny!

Chris Knipp

02-12-2013, 03:11 PM

My and cinemabon's criticisms are not based on any kind of "sourpuss" jealousy about Affleck's success. Nothing could be further from the case. We simply have criticisms of the movie. And in view of its garnering a long string of awards when better, more distinctive movies by far were released by some of the best living American directors last year, when Affleck's status as a director still remains uncertain, we are forced to reiterate our stand. That's all. Affleck's success is in getting a movie made (shot mostly in LA apparently) and doing good box office and getting surprisingly adulatory reviews. Does he also need to be showered with awards? We don't think so and truth to tell he doesn't either. I remain disappointed that Affleck didn't stick to his Boston area roots focus (he comes form an old Massachusetts family, I believe) and turned instead to something more mainstream and generic, which he had had support for his first two films. Cinemabon has backed me up every step of the way and then some; I've never felt so vindicated. There is nothing sourpuss about critiquing the Oscars or other awards. It's a time-honored American sport. You, Johann, are the one who are being authoritarian, hinting that we must be silenced for daring to challenge the will of these professional bodies. This is hardly your style.

Johann

02-12-2013, 03:33 PM

Authoritarian is not my style, you're right.
Criticism is cool, it's what we do, but I think it's a little much for this movie.
Ben is getting his legs, and being awarded for it. How bad is that?

I've REALLY gotta see this fucking movie. You guys are driving me batty.

Chris Knipp

02-12-2013, 03:52 PM

It's bad because it's a corruption of cinematic values and celebrating something lesser when SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, MOORRISE KINDDOM, THE MASTER, fucking DJANNGO UNCHAINED, even LIFE OF PI, are works of more originality and beauty. I'd rather LINCOLN won. Ben Affleck has no need of further stroking. He's had plenty. Let somebody else win the Oscar. Somebody maybe who's been making great movies -- for some time.

Johann

02-13-2013, 08:33 AM

OK, enjoy your rant.
:)

Chris Knipp

02-13-2013, 10:15 AM

I guess I was ranting; sorry. I've gotten sucked into the intensity of our debates here. It's nice that our small membership is so active lately in contributing. I usually like to maintain an aloof attitude toward the Oscars, except when I love a movie and am crushed and enraged by its getting shortchanged, as happened when CRASH beat out BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. But that was eight years ago, just when I started covering film festivals for this site. It still hurts. CRASH was PC nonsense, barely even coherent. Since then?

2006: THE DEPARTED. Maybe I liked THE QUEEN better. Not a passionate issue though.
2007: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I like, but THERE WILL BE BLOOD was a competitor of at least equal merit and more originality.
2008: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. I could live with that. BENJAMIN BUTTON and THE READER weak competitors, FROST/NIXON and MILK not masterpieces.

After that there started being nine or ten nominations and it gets more complicated. This new system leaves open the possibility that some of the nominations are getting to be more adventurous, obviously; or at least that possibility now exists. But with that possibility comes more potential frustration for us.

2009:THE HURT LOCKER actually beat INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. In retrospect one should scream in protest. And there was AVATAR and (one that is great, but would have never won) A SERIOUS MAN.
2010: THE KING'S SPEECH beat THE SOCIAL NETWORK. No, that's not okay, but it also beat INCEPTION and BLACK SWAN. But in the new system, an offbeat indie film, WINTER'S BONE, got nominated -- a good thing.

2011: THE ARTIST beat THE DESCENDANTS, MONEYBALL, TREE OF LIFE. The blander, easier choice, but still an unusual one for the Academy since it was a French film in black and white and without dialogue.

So it goes. They call it "mainstream values." You can call it easy choices, crowd pleasers, propaganda, pap. But rarely crap. They're not dumb, by any means. The conclusion is that the Academy often nominates some very good movies, but they very often also do not pick out the best of them for the little gold man. When one patently inferior (in some ways) threatens to win, one's tempted to rant a bit. Everybody must have their years when they most felt robbed. Mine in the past decade is 2005.

Johann

02-13-2013, 10:27 AM

Great summary there.
That is my main complaint with the Oscars- the "excellence" part is missing. Academy members seem to award the flavor of the month nowadays.
That "little gold dude" should be something that can never be cheapened. It should be the Ultimate in Excellence.
The winners shouldn't be "whims" of a group who vote however the feel like.
The "excellence" part of the vote seems to get lost somewhere..
Cannes really awards excellence, and if it seems like they don't, you can blame a Jury. You know their NAMES.

Steven Spielberg said the only time he's ever felt out of control of his career was at the Oscars.
Nominees should know whose film outclassed them with Excellence. Nowadays any film can steal the spotlight if it's the flavor of the month.
(The Artist, anyone?)
Pretty sad when even the technical awards are head-scratchers...

Johann

02-13-2013, 10:38 AM

I'm also happy everybody's posting more here. Speaking for myself, I will be on this site A LOT this year.
Next tuesday I'll be seeing Raoul Walsh's Pursued at the Bell Lightbox, and March is chock-full of great stuff:
both Tod Browning's and Francis Coppola's Dracula will screen- that should be awesome. There's also some Mizoguchi and Seijun Suzuki films, March 8th I'll be there for Kubrick's 2001 in 70mm, and probably Hitch's Vertigo, also in 70mm!

So keep your browser right here...:)

Chris Knipp

02-13-2013, 10:45 AM

I think that summary I did can be carried back all the way to the beginnings of the awards and you'll find even greater howlers and causes for rage than CRASH and THE HURT LOCKER (and I'm wising up all the time because at that time I thought HURT LOCKER was a rather sophisticated choice on the Academy's part: but what is it really other than Leni Riefenstahl in GI khaki? [provocation alert]).

Cannes is indeed a much, much more sophisticated atmosphere and a better system. It's Europe. It's an international film festival, the most important one. In its way it's "mainstream" too (except for the sidebars, Un Certain Regard, Directors' Fortnight, the youth award (which went to HOLY MOTORS this year). And if I am not mistaken a long period of other awards and a long period of expensive advertising and other forms of promotion/bribery do not precede the jury's choice of a Goldenn Palm and Grand Prize at Cannes, as happens with, and cheapens and dumbs down and falsifies, the Oscars choices.

And that's a very good point -- essential, really -- about a jury and knowing the names. A vote of hundreds of oldsters living in Pasadena who haven't been near a film shoot for decades and whose identities are kept secret is really not the same thing at all, is it?

Chris Knipp

02-13-2013, 10:56 AM

Don't ever go away. Whenever I see Peter, we talk about you. Everybody admires your passion -- and knowledge. I'm glad you are near thise great Toronto resources, and the 70mm screenings. 2001 in 70mm. must surely close to as good as it gets as you're likely to get, these days.

Stay tuned for my coverage of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema followed by New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center, coming up soon. I'll be in New York for the press screenings of these two excellent series/fests plus some of Film Comment Selects Feb.-March. The 2013 editions are coming. Just waiting to learn the exact screenings schedules.

Johann

02-13-2013, 11:02 AM

That's great. Thanks for the boost. I'm not going anywhere. I just settled into my new 2-bedroom pad. Toronto is the best city for cinema in Canada and I'll be here a long time. Toronto also has a world-class art gallery and many other cultural boons.

Johann

02-13-2013, 11:21 AM

Yeah, that pleading for "consideration" I've heard about is so cringe-inducing.
I don't think the French (or Europe) would stand for such lobbying. It would be a scandal.
Don't cheapen things that are supposed to be pure!
If your film has merit, you don't need to plead your case. Proof is in the CELLULOID.

I always look forward to your New York coverage, whether it's French cinema or the NYFF or what-have-you.
I may not always comment, but I read it all my friend.

Johann

02-13-2013, 12:07 PM

I'm not on the Katherine Bigelow bandwagon.
There is something I can't put my finger on that rubs me the wrong way about her military films.
Something not altogether honest..."jingoistic" is too harsh, but something like jingoism...propaganda?
Your Leni Riefenstahl comparison is controversial, but NOT off the mark....

There is something not right about the message that Bigelow is sending.
I grew up around the military and on bases my whole youth and served as an Infantryman for a brief time.
I can tell there is something NOT RIGHT about Bigelow's portrayals.

tabuno

02-13-2013, 02:44 PM

It's somewhat nice to know that sometimes though not every time Chris Knipp and I might agree on volatile decisions regarding best movies:

Hits:

2006: "THE DEPARTED. Maybe I liked THE QUEEN better. Not a passionate issue though." I felt THE QUEEN was overall more complete and intact as a quality production.

2007: "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I like, but THERE WILL BE BLOOD was a competitor of at least equal merit and more originality." THERE WILL BE BLOOD was so good that I could overlook what I felt were technical flaws, while the same couldn't be said for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

2009: "THE HURT LOCKER actually beat INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. In retrospect one should scream in protest. And there was AVATAR and (one that is great, but would have never won) A SERIOUS MAN." I had big problems with THE HURT LOCKER. While I felt INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS was a top ten movie, I had hoped for one of either FUNNY PEOPLE, UP IN THE AIR, or THE LOVELY BONES.

2010: "THE KING'S SPEECH beat THE SOCIAL NETWORK. No, that's not okay, but it also beat INCEPTION and BLACK SWAN. But in the new system, an offbeat indie film, WINTER'S BONE, got nominated -- a good thing." I preferred INCEPTION and particularly BLACK SWAN that year.

Misses:

I preferred CRASH that beat out BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but I may have admittedly a personal bias going on.

2008: "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. I could live with that. BENJAMIN BUTTON and THE READER weak competitors, FROST/NIXON and MILK not masterpieces." Both BENJAMIN BUTTON and THE READER were emotional captivating for me and I'd prefer those over SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, though I suspect that with time, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE has grown on me.

2011: THE ARTIST beat THE DESCENDANTS, MONEYBALL, TREE OF LIFE. The blander, easier choice, but still an unusual one for the Academy since it was a French film in black and white and without dialogue. I definitely was hoping for MONEYBALL or TREE OF LIFE. But I've enjoyed watching THE ARTIST a number of times since, apparently worthy of attention.

cinemabon

02-13-2013, 06:16 PM

The last decade is full of choices that mark a significant change for the Academy. Many of the older members are dying off and new members have voted for movies that would never be considered for Best Pix (either too controversial or not main stream). They are reflected in the titles that have won I would say since "Silence of the Lambs" the first horror film to win Best Picture.

I haven't seen "Crash" (although it is free) so I've no right to comment on it but even though I debated with Chris over the merits of "Brokeback Mountain" I would have preferred it won. Ang Lee is an incredible director.

Helen Miren was a spot on QEII but The Departed's cast was phenomenal in their delivery and Marty was long overdue for a win (a sentimental favorite)

While I enjoyed Slumdog as a fun film, my fave that year was The Reader as the more dramatic approach. I was grateful Kate won for her well deserved performance.

2007 & 2009 were not good years for me because I was getting my books ready for publication and was sequestered inside a closet, chained to my computer, and whipped daily, living on bread and water with noooooo movies. I was depraved and deprived. I have never seen the titles mentioned and perhaps I should be whipped again for that (am I sounding too masochistic?). I'm probably overdue for a dose of T E Lawrence.

Having seen Inception but not Social Network, I fought for King's Speech (with Chris as adversary) as I felt it was an "artistic rendering" and still feel that way. However, after seeing Inception (which I felt was a brilliant film) I wonder if I went to bat for the wrong movie ("Speech" as Chris said, was the safe choice).

When it came to The Artist versus Hugo I was torn as both relied heavily on sentiment. Both films were also tributes to the history of the movies. I loved Marty's piece, but I felt The Artist was the unique approach that deserved recognition and was glad when it won.

This year, I don't know what to think. Our panel is split in what sounds like three or four different directions and frankly I'm of the Clark Gable opinion that I don't give a damn but will watch anyway with popcorn in one hand and probably my dick in the other.

Chris Knipp

02-13-2013, 07:06 PM

tabuno, we agree on more of these than we disagree. However I will never accept that THE LOVELY BONES and THE READER are as good as you think. THE LOVELY BONES was widely acknowledged to be a flop. Metacritc scores show a critical consensus for both: LOVELY BONES 42, THE READER 58, both well below par for watchability. THE READER got a few good reviews though. People are hoodwinked by that writer's book (I read it) and that director.

Opinions and agreements and disagreements on individual movies aside, my point was that the Academy, however it may be righting wrongs, giving "Marty" an overdo stroking, or whatever, very often does not pick the best movie but the most acceptable, PC, or propagandistic one. Our individual choices won't ever correspond, but where we differ most significantly, cinemabon and I, at this is that you think the Academy has grown wiser and hipper due to retirements and I think that is only in their policy of more Best Picture noms per year, not their final awards. Some voters are always dying off, but that doesn't change that the median age is 61.

Cinemabon, if you were cloistered in those years, maybe you can catch up now? Selectively, of course. They're all available. Not like the old days when if you missed a movie, you might never get a chance to see it unless there was a revival or reissue.