Ben Affleck
Argo

I remember my mother's half-open mouth. Eight?, she asks incredulously as she flips through and touches the test as if it were a 500 € banknote. I see her turn into a fish at the market lying on a bed of ice and lifting her chin, TAP, I reply by spelling the letters with exaggerated emphasis: e-i-g-h-t. I still get goosebumps thinking back to that day on the skis. In the air and without any control, I felt like a puppet; that damn jump had shot me so high that before hitting the track, I managed to say goodbye to the ligaments in my knees; how they remained intact and I got away with only a significant number of leopard-like bruises is a mystery: I'm sure if Giacobbo had seen the video, he would have made at least 10 episodes of Voyager from it! I close my eyes, open my hand, and I feel like I can still feel that great pair of breasts that, for one night, thanks Jagermeister, were mine. Then I think back to 2001-2002 and to that free-kick goal into the top corner born from Gresko's or whatever his name was's hoof. At the presentation, they called him the new Brehme!
A life, in the end, is nothing more than an almost infinite sequence of memories, personal or of others, memorable precisely because they are unique and not replicable. Strokes of luck or Murphy's law misfortunes!

The previous "The Town", (I recommend it to you by throwing 3 and a half balls in your face), I liked quite a lot: a good dramatic action movie with an easy and predictable plot well told in less than 2 hours. A work capable of accelerating and braking at will, wisely mixing tension and drama for a mature direction. But "Argo" is just 2 years apart and this further and decisive step forward by Affleck cannot be the result of mere luck because it is great cinema and one of the best movies seen in 2012. Perhaps the best when compared to the expectations with which I entered the theater.

Between the windows of the car made of dirty plastic scrap, the music of Bob Dylan echoes; the snow makes the hilly roads pure soap because a provincial law to mend the budget hole decreed the use of snowplows during the night, (the movie ended at midnight) only with significant amounts of white covering. In short, without dragging it out too long, the car's rear moves exactly in time with the verses of "Hurricane" and I burst out laughing. I always have a blast driving in the snow when the roads are deserted, and I find myself singing off-key and smiling like a complete idiot while thinking back to the movie and telling myself: "do you want to see if the big-jawed, one-faced Pearl Harbor will become the new Clint Eastwood?"
This nonsense I need to write on Debaser...

1979. It's a big mess in Iran: since the second post-war period, the United States had steered the country's politics for obvious reasons, but now the revolution has broken out, and the Shah is forced into exile.

Technically speaking, the frame of the first scene is on American soil, although located in the heart of the Iranian capital, and they should be safe behind that bulletproof window from which diplomats look with amazement/terror at that irate mob that doesn't quite appreciate the waving of the star-spangled banner. But in Tehran in 1979, international law was not the most popular subject. The crowd doesn't care about the gates and barbed wire: there are many, they are angry. With frenzy, they try to burn what can be burned before being taken hostage. All? Obviously not. 6 little mice are unaccounted for and it is here that the CIA, with the help of Hollywood, through an absurd plan, manages to bring back home the diplomats imprisoned in the city. Incredibly, the story is true; certainly embellished and adjusted, but still true.

I consider it a great film because it reminds me of the image of that big angry viper (probably its eggs had just hatched) encountered this summer on a path: spirals in continuous movement, impossible to predict like those direction changes of Derrick Rose in penetration: those he used to make before the knee cruciate injury. By the way, I miss you.
In a similar way, "Argo" starts as a dry, straightforward war film with little tension and bare realism laid out; then it crosses the ocean to change clothes and become a funny Hollywood comedy and finally, on the return to Persia, it takes on the characteristics of a dramatic thriller capable of making me squeeze the armrests of the chair until my knuckles turn white. Affleck is aware of his acting limitations and assigns himself an easy role, only quantitatively important, which he knows he can tame with the few facial expressions at his disposal. The cast is heterogeneous with pieces of granite mixed with not very consistent cardboard cutouts, but the actor choices have been meticulously tailored to the character's complexity and in this way, he managed to limit the work's cost without affecting the quality of the product.

"Argo" is a work that raises the bar in attention to detail (historical reconstruction/costumes) and technique (photography and editing); all elements that make the film pleasant even from a purely visual point of view. I believe Affleck did not just want to tell us, in a romanticized way, a particularly cinematic true story but attempted to remind the American audience that anti-American sentiment has much deeper and more complex roots than the propaganda has lately wanted to make believe.

Combining history, drama, genuine laughter, and tension in such a fluid way is a titanic feat. 5 stars are definitely too much, but I am also convinced that 4 are too few. So I exaggerate because I am convinced that this bearded big-jawed man could become the new Clint in the near future: mediocre actor, great director!