Cover Story

Photo:  Details Magazine 2012

It seems rare these days to go to a movie and walk away inspired.  Inspired to create. to revolutionize. to discover.

One benefit of being in the TV/film union SAG-AFTRA is receiving invitations to screenings for the top award contenders during Oscar season.  The director and cast often attend so this week a friend and I went to hear Ben Affleck and the cast talk about making Argo. 

Argo is based on true events from the 1970's Iranian hostage crisis. Affleck directs and plays the lead role, a CIA agent trying to get six Americans out of Iran by creating a cover story that they're Canadian filmmakers scouting exotic locales for a sci-fi flick.

I thought the movie would be graphic and disturbing with torture and execution scenes but it wasn't.  In fact, what emerges is a story that inspires.



"Argo" screening

Maybe it has to do with excellence. Even though the sci-fi film they're making within the real film is phony, the creative minds behind it still set superior standards.  

"If I'm making a fake movie," says the fake producer (Alan Arkin), "it's going to be a fake hit."

Or maybe it's because it reminds us that in a flash any one of our lives can move the world.  

They weren't making a movie. They were making history.  

p.s. No one connected to the film paid me to write this post. Unfortunately.

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