Argo

Look at this year the Oscar Nominess -

"Amour",  "Argo", "Beasts of the Southern Wild", "Django Unchained", "Les Misérables",
"Life of Pi", "Lincoln", "Silver Linings Playbook", "Zero Dark Thirty"

When I look close into it this year's Oscar seems to be about revolution, politic and a little bit of the people who are forgotten by the society, the young, the old and the mental ill.

When Lincoin fighting for the 13th Amendment "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction", we have Django to revenge, when Argo is to save the Americans out of Iran, we have the American hunting for al-Qaeda terrorist leader in Zero Dark Thirty, while the French is preparing their June revolution, we have Life of Pi to question about religion, what will you choose to believe and beast of the southern Wild  about childhood and innocence, Sliver Linings Playbook about bi-polar and Amour is about test of love ...
Seems to be cover everything I guess?! but so far I think Argo is the best movie among them all.

The reason is simple, because this film has built up the tension a thriller should have, there is no blood or action but you can see it in your mind, something "bad" is happening or going to happen. This is one of the movies like the old fashion thriller, you have to watch it from the start, you have to understand the story and the reason the tension is built upon the information the director has given us. There is no real bad guy, just the situation, the opening was great, in a short 15 minutes, it tells the audience that the US the CIA and MI6 helped organized the overthrow of the elected government to install their puppet the Shah to Control the oil. The Iranians are angry, the Americans are nervous, you know there's something bad is going to happen, you edge of your seat, biting your nails, and wiggling your feet.

It has been long time I have not seen such "exciting" movie. Unlike any James Bond movies or action flick such as Taken, Die Hard, they are using "action" and visual to create the excitment but Argo is using their story and the situation to involve and engage the emotion of the audience. The difficult part to make a political thriller is to tell the truth, Movie like All the president's men, Munich and Hotel Rwanda, they did their best to stick with the truth and try to make it as exciting as possible, Argo is the same, you might complain about a few things, such as the director seems to forget the time zone issue between America and Iran, and why the solider can not stop the plane from leaving just calling the control tower? we know this is only for the "thriller effect" and it's far from the actual event. Many people said Argo make Iranians all "bad guys", which I don't agree, I can see the director and the writer is trying to be as neutral as possible. You can see they are pointing their finger to the CIA more than anyone else, after all they are the one to decided to drop the hostages, and they are trying to tell us why the Iranians were so angry, do they have their reason?

Maybe Argo is not as fun as Django unchained, or as meaningful as The Life of Pi, but Ben Affleck brilliant directing proves of his talent as a director.  And I do like his 70's look in this movie, I think he is now very mature and a better actor because he stoped acting.