Movie Crush Monday: CT & Argo

Hello readers! 

Well, we've returned from our set visit to School Spirits, and it was amazing! I know we still owe you all a post about it, but it's taken a bit longer for us to put our thoughts together on that than we thought it would. But it's coming, I promise. 

In the meantime, while Little C and I rejoin our normally scheduled lives, let's talk about movies! Last time Cait talked about the dark and hysterical In Bruges, and while I could have followed half the cast to a Harry Potter movie, I thought we'd go a different direction. Instead, let's follow a truly great character actor named Zeljko Ivanek from In Bruges over to Argo. 

Guys, I heard so much hype about Argo before I went to see it and that normally turns me off of a movie so quickly. I avoid Awards season for many reasons, but mostly because the more someone tells me I "absolutely have to see" a movie, the less likely I am to fork over the cash to see it. I know, I know, it's a personal flaw and I'm working on it. Usually I do wind up seeing those movies, it just happens weeks and weeks later, once everyone has left me alone about them. 

But Argo, oh Argo, was I glad that I gave in and went to this when I did. Our older sister Coco dragged me opening weekend, and I was so glad that I wound up seeing this one with a huge crowd. The theater was packed and it was one of those instances when everyone in an audience felt every second of every scene together. This movie is a masterclass in writing suspense. The story moves so well that I don't think I even breathed for the last 45 minutes of the movie. And (spoilers, if you can spoil an actual even that happened decades ago), when the plane finally escaped the entire audience burst into applause. 

Credit also has to go to Ben Affleck's direction. So many of the film's moments could have been heavy handed, cheesey, or fallen flat. It's a tough story to tell, and there are a lot of characters that your audience has to not only keep straight, but root for. But Affleck handles it with insane amounts of grace and skill. The end result is a movie that takes the audience on an emotional ride that I still think about all the time. 

The best compliment I can think of for this movie is that a few weeks later I went to see it again. This time it had been moved to a smaller theater and the audience was only about half full. But I still enjoyed every second of the movie and once again, as soon as the plane entered free airspace, the entire audience cheered. Weeks later, past all the buzz and excitement, that moment was just as effective as it had been the first time. 

Have a great week, everyone, and happy watching!

CT