7. True Stories Can Be Both Exhilarating and Emotional - Argo
If you tried to combine the elements of Steven Spielberg's Munich with Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11 remake, you come out with Ben Affleck's Argo, which might arguably be better than the aforementioned films it borrows from. Affleck's third go-round as director is his most ambitious work, firing on all cylinders and providing more thrills and laughs than the majority of horror or comedy films being produced this year. Argo is a fly-by-night, fast-talking, pulse-pounding picture with all the right star power to keep it firmly within reach of a Best Picture nomination. It could be that Affleck is just showing off, here. He's not attempting to spin numerous plates within the script, but manages to up the ante with each following scene like a veteran of the camera, using what we already know about the real-life events like a carrot being held by the rider of a horse. It's no secret the film has a happy ending. It's public record, and the movie doesn't shy away from that. But it entraps you from the start with an excruciating break-in scene and leaves you as tense as can be with a climax that seems more and more exhausting in retrospect. Performance-wise, no one's really pushed to any great limit, but every actor on screen delivers. Affleck works as the protagonist, a man haunted by his lack of responsibility within his family life, and Bryan Cranston throws his "pops" and "pows" with confidence and caged intensity to bring a welcoming best friend boss character to Affleck's Tony Mendez. John Goodman and Alan Arkin are at their likable best, with Arkin possibly grabbing the Best Supporting Actor nomination (if the Academy runs out of fuel for the category) as the Dark Horse candidate. And it's always nice to see actors like Clea DuVall, Richard Kind (in a brief, three-minute role that makes him reminiscent of Martin Scorsese), Kyle Chandler, and Victor Garber filling out the rest of the major cast.