Possibly the best movie of the year: Argo

Let me join the chorus in praise of "Argo," surely one of the best if not the best movie of the year, a totally and improbably captivating story. I must have underestimated Ben Affleck - this movie shows he has great directorial talent, so more power to him and keep 'em coming. Argo is improbable because you'd think it would be completely impossible to combine a razor's edge tension story about the taking American hostages in Iran with a Hollywood satire, but Affleck brings off both elements and weaves the strands together perfectly. In short (spoilers here), the story involves an effort by the CIA to free a group of 6 Americans who escaped from the U.S. embassy and found temporary sanctuary in the Canadian embassy - if the Iranians knew that the Canadians were sheltering the 6, all would be executed, including some of the Canadians. Many absolutely exciting and well-placed scenes build up this drama, including the action of the taking of the embassy, largely seen from inside the walls, as well as the incredible tension of the six Americans living in relative comfort in the Canadian embassy while constantly fearing for their lives. The CIA considers several ridiculous plans for extirpating the Americans and then settle on one that seems at first the most ridiculous of all: they set up a fake film production company and send an undercover agent who claims to be scouting locations for a sci-fi film (called Argo); they get some fake papers and pretend the 6 Americans are part of the crew. This fake company leads to some terrific comic scenes in LA, with John Goodman and Alan Arkin buying a crap screenplay and pretending to greenlight the project - obvious echos of The Producers, but all this against the real-life tension of the hostages in fear of their lives. Affleck is the undercover agent, pretending to be an associate producer. Probably the best scene in the whole movie, of many great ones, is the fake location-scouting excursion, when Affleck takes them to the Tehran bazaar, and they get assaulted by an enraged shopkeeper. The final scenes at the Tehran airport, as authorities question the authenticity of the documents and as they use their fake storyboards to persuade the revolutionary guard thugs that they're truly making a movie is excellent - there's no reason any sane person would make a movie in Iran at that time, but the guards are so enamored with the very idea of a movie that they buy it. So do we - and final fillip is that the the story, as wild and improbable as it is, is based on true events, probably pretty closely. The facts were kept secret until I think 1997; the closing credits show us images of the real hostages, all of whom returned to work in the foreign service.