Argo

[GoodSoldier333]

Just got out of the theater.

WOW.

POWERFUL. Movie of the year. Maybe someone else can put it into words.

[onthewall2983]

I said it elsewhere, but it's worth stating here. Ben's 3 for 3 now.

[Leman Russ]

I really want to see this movie....glad to see that it is getting good word of mouth reviews here and from others I know

[darktemplar007]

I saw it a few days ago, and was blown away by how good it was. Really captured the 70's movie vibe too. Good mix of humor and moments of pure tension. Definitely worth seeing.

[caca]

I saw it yesterday and thought it was excellent. Great story, great script, nail-biting, and surprisingly funny.

[GoodSoldier333]

That's was did it for me. The movie was great, but the humor really made it something special. Especially given how serious and NAIL-BITING the tone was.

[Morad]

I have such a big problem with this film: I enjoyed it a lot and my heart beat during the tense scenes and I laughed during the light-hearted scenes and I headbanged and sang along (to myself, very quietly in the theatre... I swear, I swear it was quiet) when Led Zeppelin began playing... but, as an Iranian, it was all very hard to digest too. All of it happened, granted, but god, this film was just really underhanded with a lot of its portrayal of Iran and Iranians.

I can't believe this but Alexandre Desplat's score disgusted me. It was so offensive and so wrong. He basically used every terrifying kind of "Middle Eastern music" that had nothing to do with Iran, just to get you thrilled and worried and, well, frightened.

And did you see any other kind of Iranian in the film that wasn't shouting or spewing hate? Sure, these kinds of people were there during the Hostage Crisis and after the Revolution, but my god, there were others too. My parents were in Iran during that time, and guess what they were doing? Drinking and listening to Led Zeppelin, and many, many, many, many other Iranians were too.

The film basically felt like an anti-Soviet film from the Cold War days. Poor, stranded Americans having to face-off against a band of absolute savages... and only savages.

That's my problem with it. I was both offended by it, and thrilled too, because it was a fun movie.

My friend was really funny when we watched it. When the hostages got away and they were in the airplane and when they popped open a bottle of champagne, he bellowed loudly: "A TASTE OF FREEDOM!" and it was just so well-timed and perfectly done that I couldn't help but have a total laugh.

I write about things that I feel really passionate about, so I'm really sorry for sending around links to other things all the time. I seem to be doing it all the time now, but it's only because I've been writing a lot, and thankfully, finding platforms to be writing for. I wrote a huge, long, "professional-sounding" rant about Argo for a really nice (and kind) film website just a while ago, and if you're interested in reading about the film from an Iranian point of view, well, here's the link (http://www.unsungfilms.com/8038/ben-afflecks-argo/).

[Kodiak33]

The housekeeper I thought was depicted well, and I thought the soldiers that were chasing them were just doing their job. I can see where you're coming from with the mobs, but the other people I don't see that at all.

[Morad]

The housekeeper I thought was depicted well, and I thought the soldiers that were chasing them were just doing their job. I can see where you're coming from with the mobs, but the other people I don't see that at all.

The house keeper was the one person that was quiet. She didn't say or do much, she was just quiet.

The rest of the Iranians were vicious and ugly and screaming: the scene in the van when they are trying to escape, that unbelievably overdramatic scene in the bazaar. People didn't hate Americans then. Certain people did, and it seems all the movie focused on for dramatic effect was to focus on the flag-burning, Carter-hating, death-to-America screaming few (and relative to the population, they were few).

[Bluegirl]

The house keeper was the one person that was quiet. She didn't say or do much, she was just quiet.

The rest of the Iranians were vicious and ugly and screaming: the scene in the van when they are trying to escape, that unbelievably overdramatic scene in the bazaar. People didn't hate Americans then. Certain people did, and it seems all the movie focused on for dramatic effect was to focus on the flag-burning, Carter-hating, death-to-America screaming few (and relative to the population, they were few).
So I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. However, the movie was not about Iran, it was about the americans hiding and the CIA guy. It probably would be nice to see the other Iranians and what they were doing, but they would have had nothing to do with the americans or the hostages or the CIA. So they are not part of THIS story. If it was a movie about Iran in general at that particular point in history and just showed angry Iranians hating america I could see there being an issue. And the scene in the Bazzar, they were just fine until that one guy started trouble. That is the way the scene seemed to me. One guy inciting trouble. In fact in the airport they were just fine. In a movie about people trying to escape a country, the people minding there own business are not going to get screen time.
In fact I think the beginning did a good job of showing how the US government messed everything up and kind of deserved to be hated. They were real assholes.

[cahernandez]

So I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. However, the movie was not about Iran, it was about the americans hiding and the CIA guy. It probably would be nice to see the other Iranians and what they were doing, but they would have had nothing to do with the americans or the hostages or the CIA. So they are not part of THIS story. If it was a movie about Iran in general at that particular point in history and just showed angry Iranians hating america I could see there being an issue. And the scene in the Bazzar, they were just fine until that one guy started trouble. That is the way the scene seemed to me. One guy inciting trouble. In fact in the airport they were just fine. In a movie about people trying to escape a country, the people minding there own business are not going to get screen time.
In fact I think the beginning did a good job of showing how the US government messed everything up and kind of deserved to be hated. They were real assholes.

I have to agree here, I don't think the Iranians were portrayed in a negative/biased way during the movie. The "normal" population is not portrayed here because they would not help develop the plot line, in a movie that is not (mainly) about Iran. Great film.

[Morad]

So I understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. However, the movie was not about Iran, it was about the americans hiding and the CIA guy. It probably would be nice to see the other Iranians and what they were doing, but they would have had nothing to do with the americans or the hostages or the CIA. So they are not part of THIS story. If it was a movie about Iran in general at that particular point in history and just showed angry Iranians hating america I could see there being an issue. And the scene in the Bazzar, they were just fine until that one guy started trouble. That is the way the scene seemed to me. One guy inciting trouble. In fact in the airport they were just fine. In a movie about people trying to escape a country, the people minding there own business are not going to get screen time.
In fact I think the beginning did a good job of showing how the US government messed everything up and kind of deserved to be hated. They were real assholes.

That's the whole point though: spend five minutes passively saying "Sawry!" and then the next hundred and fifteen to basically say, "But, but, look they were mean too!"

The first half was great because it was all about the Hollywood dynamic and Goodman and Arkin were absolute highlights. The second half was a total "man in a foreign land" movie stereotype, I feel, and I just can't get over it, and that's where the timing of all this comes in too. This film was so perfectly well-timed that it's strange. It came out exactly when there is increasing tensions between the two countries, and for the normal viewer, this is Iran after watching this movie. It doesn't matter if this was 1979 or anything; to whoever that's heard about "evil Iran" on their televisions, they think this is it. I don't think the timing is any coincidence to be honest.

I just don't like the prospect of having bombs thrown down on us, and the more movies they make like this, the more hated Iranians get in the face of any average Hollywood audience.

[orestes]

Just got out from seeing it and given the political rhetoric that's been increased over the past few months, the movie's release couldn't have been more timely. I have a friend who's Iranian and she too had some complaints about the people's treatment in the movie. I don't think the movie intentionally portrays Iranians as "the bad guys", but I can see how one would be disappointed given today's climate of Islamo- and xenophobia. Take the newsreel footage of chest-pumping Americans and the one guy who got beat up by demonstrators. Thirty-plus years later Americans are still saying overly simplistic and dumb shit about a region and conflict they don't understand.

I did like all the touches of authenticity to the era throughout the movie, right down to the WB logo at the beginning of the film to the fact it was shot on film.